What are the top jobs with underemployment in Salt Lake County? Our SLC Economic Development Workforce Development Manager Jake Maxwell shares his experiences from the field. As always, we’d love to hear your feedback.
Businesses continue to feel the workforce shortage and they are doing all they can to keep people applying for jobs and if they apply, ensuring they interview. If folks interview, will they stick through training? If they train, how long will they stick with the company? This process creates so much training cost waste and recruiting cost waste, so how can employers keep their competitive edge in a job seekers market?
Fortunately, Salt Lake City is using data to help businesses get creative. While unemployment is very low, underemployment is relatively high and we can help illuminate the number of people who have transferable skills who are presumably working below their ability as illustrated in the image below. These are just the top 22 jobs with underemployment in Salt Lake County, for a more comprehensive list that includes over 80,000 underemployed individuals, please reach out to us.
This information highlights good and bad news for employers. The good news is that many underemployed folks are looking for better jobs. The bad news is that another employer may offer more than you down the road. The number one success I see from what I read, hear from businesses, and most importantly, hear from job seekers, is that the key to retention is not so much about the pay or the perks, but whether or not a business knows their people and taps into specific talents and strengths. This promotes dedication and satisfaction in the work they do, and without that, a bad job is still a bad job, even if it pays another dollar an hour.
Salt Lake City Department of Economic Development 