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What Labor Shortage?

By
Rich Tompkins
October 1, 2019
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You've likely seen the headlines.... "Lots of help wanted", "Warehouse hiring surges", "A tight labor market holding small business back", etc. 

sign on door reading please be patient we are very understaffed due to labor shortages in us manufacturing

A New Paradigm

All of these headlines are true if you're still trying to find labor like it's 1960 instead 2019. The reason it's true is because businesses stuck in the past are still thinking about available labor in terms of full-time headcount. And if you're just thinking about full-time headcount, you're missing out on the 100k+ operators who are choosing to work through Veryable and not go the traditional direct hire route.

But first, let's talk more about the "labor shortage" and why businesses are feeling the pinch.

Articles like the ones aforementioned narrowly define available labor capacity in terms of individuals interested in being hired on full-time. In doing so, it alienates a significant portion of the underemployed workforce who want to work additional hours and shifts, but who don't have access to flexible work opportunities in the manufacturing and distribution space (until Veryable). This definition of labor capacity also doesn't count those individuals who don't want to be direct hired into a full-time role, but instead want to maintain a more flexible work schedule and have a diversity of experiences at different businesses rather than commit to one in perpetuity.  

So, the articles are not wrong that it's a tight labor market and that businesses have to get creative with attracting and retaining workers. But, the reality is that businesses don't need to do that if they stop thinking about staffing at their average labor needs. Instead, they need to embrace a new labor strategy that enables businesses to flex up and down with Veryable operators to match their demand cycles. In doing so, businesses don't have to go through the hiring and firing/layoff cycle that they've had to do previously to try to balance labor supply and business demand.

The Veryable Solution

With Veryable, businesses are injecting operators into their operations just-in-time to address demand upticks and just as quickly scaling down as demand drops. As a result, they are more agile, flexible, and customer focused. And, they are preserving profit margins, eliminating overtime, and maintaining lead time and on-time delivery commitments as a byproduct. 

So, for the 6200+ business who have embraced Veryable's model... they aren't experiencing a tight labor market at all. In fact, these businesses typically have dozens of performance rated operators (workers) to choose from to address their operational bottlenecks and needs in a matter of hours. These businesses have built labor pools of operators and are deploying them in real-time to match their daily and weekly demand forecasts. This reality is one we see every single day with Veryable's on-demand labor marketplace. Instead of filling headcount, businesses should think about addressing incremental and variable demand with labor that is just as flexible.

So, in a market that is more dynamic and changing than ever, why continue using an antiquated strategy for your labor? Instead, reach out to learn more about a new labor strategy that is just as agile and flexible as your business requires.

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Rich Tompkins

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