Ever since post-2020 COVID times, small and large businesses alike have shared one common problem: staffing.

From catering to engineering firms, “We Are Hiring” signs and online posts seem to be a commonplace occurrence, especially in the Rocket City. This led to what Forbes dubbed as an “employee driven labor market” back in 2022, alluding to the fact that prospective job seekers have more leeway when it comes to picking jobs they want to work. This has led to increased and competitive salaries, higher benefits, and more vacation time, with very little room for employers to bargain.

And, while the job market certainly has shifted more towards the “norm” towards the end of 2023, many companies find themselves still plagued with staffing issues.

One career field that is reaping the benefits is engineering, and Huntsville-based engineers are taking full advantage.

With job offers pouring in from all directions, Huntsville engineers are in high demand as Huntsville has more open positions than candidates to fill them. While that proves an obstacle for hirers, it puts engineers in an excellent position.

According to the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), engineering is one of the highest growing industries in the nation for career development. Occupations projected to grow over the next ten years include computer and information scientists, chemical engineers, industrial engineers, and biomedical engineers.

According to SWE, full-time aerospace engineers totaled around 58,800 nationwide. With the current rate of job openings, SWE projected that an additional 3,391 openings would become available over the next few years, which projects an 6.3% increase in job growth.

More impressive are chemical engineers, which totaled around 26,900 positions back in 2021. The chemical engineering field is expected to add an additional 4,267 professional positions over the next few years, which represents an astounding 13.9% increase.

From these numbers, it does not look like the hiring trends of the past few years are coming to an end anytime soon, which will continue to put employers in a tough, competitive position to higher top-rate talent.

The Huntsville Business Journal sat down with Brittany Able, Practice Lead of Actalent Huntsville, to discuss some of these employment trends.

Able explained that engineering staffing issues rose with mass retirement during the COVID-19 pandemic, a trend that has continued despite the end of the pandemic. Able explained that with their choice of jobs, engineers are in a great position to get exactly what they want out of a job: higher salaries, remote work, and better benefits. As of right now, the average tenure of an engineer is only 18 months, including those who have stayed with a company for decades.

While there’s no getting around the competitive nature of hiring and retaining talent, Able noted several factors that more successful companies have been using to stay competitive for talent acquisition.

Able noted that on average, Huntsville hirers take a total of 30 days between initially engaging a candidate and extending an offer, while the companies that win-out have much shorter hiring processes.

“You think that’s quick, and you think this is really good, but in actuality, you’re so far behind, and for some companies they can’t help it. They just have these internal processes that are so long,” Able said.

She asserted that ideally, it should only take 4 days between initial engagement with a candidate and extending an offer.

Able offered a recent example of how this was effective for one of Actalent’s recent clients. The client had a two-step interview process with a phone screening and an on-site interview. In the week and a half between the phone screening and on-site interview, the candidate first spoke with Lockheed Martin, had a phone interview the next day, immediately followed by an offer. The candidate was hired by a competitor before the client executed the second step of the interview process.

“If you’re gonna drag out your process really anything over four days, you will probably risk your candidates getting multiple job offers. And so it’s just more competition for you,” said Able.

Companies struggling to attain talent also often fail to offer salaries based on timely data. Able said she worked with a company offering $20K below what they should because company policies based on outdated data restrict hirers’ abilities to pay competitive wages.

“If you’re not going back and looking at real time data, not data from 2020 and even from 2022, you are really hurting your chances. If you’re not going back and looking at the last 12 months of data and looking at the trends for cost of living, inflation, for salaries and expectations, you’re really going to hurt yourself,” said Able.

Able emphasized the importance of investing in quick, accurate data collection, whether that’s done internally or through a third party.

“Even if you’re trying to keep up with it, if you’re not constantly pulling new data, it’s changing so fast. They had invested a lot of money last year to do these salary reports, and they’re no longer good,” Able remarked.

In terms of retaining employees, Able mentioned the importance of prioritizing what employees want: flexibility, open communication, remote work opportunities, and sufficient cost of living adjustments.

“With the speed at which inflation is rising, a job that you took a year ago may have been able to meet your financial needs…but now that you’re in this situation, you’ve got to look for something else,” said Able.

For the foreseeable future, the burden is on employers for alleviating issues with hiring and retention. As of late 2023, engineers in Huntsville are in a great position to receive competitive salaries and benefits from multiple offers, and companies struggling with staffing have to rework hiring practices to keep up with their employee and prospective employee expectations.