Good morning.
With the battle for talent still going strong—and apparently impervious to the recession threat—Ellen McGirt and I sat down this week with Chris Hyams, CEO of job listing aggregator Indeed.com, for our podcast, Leadership Next. Here’s what he had to say about the worker shortage:
“Technical recession and 3.5% unemployment tend to not go together historically. But it’s almost become boring to say we are in uncharted territory…There are two open positions for every worker out there that is potentially looking for a job…There are actually more open positions plus filled positions than there are workers in the workforce. And that’s relatively new territory.”
On the change in worker attitudes since the pandemic:
“People spent a whole lot of time while stuck at home thinking about what was most important to them, and being a part of an organization that is going to be there and care for them when things are difficult. This was a trend that was already happening. But I think we got about 10 years of contemplation crammed into two years, and people now are looking for something very different on all sides of the economy.”
On how he got into technology:
“My first job right out of college, I worked in an adolescent psychiatric hospital on the chemical dependency unit with young addicts and alcoholics. I taught special education in public high school in rural Vermont for two years. I then played music professionally for three years. I tried to become a rock star and failed. And then I found myself in an undergraduate program in computer science. The experience of doing all this human and creative work helped me approach technology from a more human perspective.”
You can listen to the entire podcast on Apple or Spotify.
Also this morning, Hello Alice, a platform for small businesses, announced a new partnership with Mastercard and First National Bank of Omaha to offer small businesses that don’t have ready access to credit help in building creditworthiness quickly. Mastercard’s Linda Kirkpatrick called it an example of “doing well by doing good…We are going after a $40 billion opportunity that we see as commercially viable.” Hello Alice cofounder Elizabeth Gore said 840,000 small businesses are now on her platform, and 90% of them identify as minority. Its first partner for the new credit program will be the NAACP. More information here.
News below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
