June 24, 2011

Feeling upbeat, workers looking to move on to other jobs

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(Andy Zapata / Special to NWjobs)

By Dee Depass
Minneapolis Star Tribune

Three months ago, a surprise offer persuaded Rachel Swan of Minneapolis to ignore the economic downturn and follow her heart.

She left her steady administrative job at Capella University to become the manager at the new Pizzeria Lola in Minneapolis.

“That truly was a leap from the gut,” says Swan, a restaurant lover who admits she moved to “what some consder a high-risk business. But I think there is a payoff. I really love my new job.”

For the first time in three years, several national employment firms and search agencies are reporting that a rising number of employees, like Swan, are voluntarily bolting for the doors to test their fate with new employers who promise less stress, higher wages or at least a fresh start and a little fun.

After a long hibernation, employee turnover is creeping back.

“People are burned out. So they are apt to listen to new job opportunities,” says Jennifer Carlson, a division director who hires contractors for clients of staffing firm Robert Half International. “We have seen quite a bit of turnover lately where employers are losing their good people.”

Workers stayed in jobs during the worst recession in 70 years, not trusting the stability of new job offers. The potential threat of being “last hired, first fired” was real.

But slowly, more accountants, managers, secretaries, software pros and financial analysts feel confident enough in the recovery to take a voluntary leap.

Many people laid off early during the recession quickly snapped up any replacement job that paid the bills.

“People took jobs that they were not thinking of as a career,” says Kathy Carney, who manages the Minneapolis Workforce Center, a state-run service for job seekers. “They took it just to start working again, to feel better about themselves and to get money.”
Now, more people are looking for careers — often with a new employer.

“We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people willing to look outside their company for jobs,” says Sean Keating, founder of Oggi Professional Search. The firm finds accounting, finance and administrative workers for 3M, Starkey Labs, Pentair Co. and other companies.

Each week, Keating approaches an estimated 125 people about changing jobs. A year ago, two out of three were unreceptive. “They were just in a hunker-down mentality,” he says. Today, two of three will consider a job change, and employed professionals are now calling him.

Finance and accounting workers are more receptive to phone calls about job opportunities, says Steve Kenney, who oversees permanent placements for Robert Half. Before, turnover was frozen by workers’ concerns about “the devil you know versus the devil you don’t.”

One survey of 1,400 workers by Right Management Inc., a recruiter based in Philadelphia, found that 84 percent planned to look for jobs in 2011, up from 60 percent last year. In a look at the reasons why workers apply for jobs elsewhere, a Robert Half survey last year found that four out of 10 workers said it was because of pay or benefit cuts.

Competition for workers is heating up. Of the 18,000 U.S. employers surveyed by Manpower Inc., 16 percent planned to add staff in the second quarter of 2011. Some 6 percent expect layoffs.

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Resumes and Job Hunt, featured, market trends

1 Comments

Nunya on June 25, 2011 10:01 AM | Reply

Greedy employers will begin to reap what they have sown. The severe cuts in pay while simultaneously increasing work loads to inhuman levels has burned out their best and brightest.

I look forward to watching the short-sighted thinking blow up in their faces.

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