Are the recruitment difficulties anticipated by the organizations explained by measurable factors?

Download the overview “Are Organizations’ Expected Recruitment Difficulties Explained by Measurable Factors?”

Download the working paper “How do companies explain the recruitment difficulties they expect?”

The observable variables qualifying the organization and the type of job to be filled explain only 14% of the total variance in perceived difficulties. This relatively weak explanatory power suggests that most of the difficulties revealed are related to factors specific to each organization, which are not directly measurable (regardless of size, sector, location or qualifications).

Among the observable characteristics, sought occupations constitute the dominant explanatory factor. They contribute three-quarters of the variance explained by the model, but only 10.5% of the total variance. Firm characteristics (size, turnover, sector, etc.) help explain about 10% of the explained variance, i.e. 1.4% of the total variance. The geographical characteristics of the firm and the surrounding economic conditions – population density in the employment zone, size of the urban area, existence of attractive zone, unemployment rate of the zone to which it belongs – explain about 15% of the variance, i.e. 2.1% of the total variance. In particular, the expected difficulties decrease as the size of the company and the population density in the employment zone increase; On the other hand, these difficulties increase with salary and the level of diploma required.

In conclusion, unobserved factors related to the company’s internal operations seem to play an important role in explaining the revealed recruitment difficulties. As a result, the response to anticipated recruitment difficulties must be thought of, above all, in terms of actions aimed at companies that anticipate these difficulties. This includes understanding the reasons for this perception, while companies of the same size, location and sector may not exhibit the same difficulties. In addition to company-specific issues such as human resource management, management quality and employer reputation, support for the company should be based on activities specific to industries where recruitment appears to be more complex.

It is worth recalling the limitations of the analysis conducted here, beyond those related to expected difficulties, which were not addressed in the previous post. The size of the disaggregation of explanatory variables was arguably insufficient to capture the diversity of recruitment difficulties (82 job families; 10 sectors of activity; 8 levels of employment zone density). Finally, this study focuses on the pre-Covid crisis situation.

The views expressed in these documents are those of their authors.
Not intended to reflect the position of the Government.