The employment market

 Introduction

The employment or job market is the ultimate source of all new recruits. Human resource managers need to understand the dynamics of this market in order to deal properly with resourcing, set competitive salaries and obtain people with essential skills. They need to understand the expectations of prospective employees and have an insight into issues such as:

* Why do people work?

* What conditions and salaries are they prepared to work for?

* What expectations do they have of employers?

* How does the availability of human capital affect employment levels?

* What effects do the activities of competitors have on employee availability?

* What patterns of work are replacing traditional nine-to-five jobs?

These questions are discussed in detail in chapter 6 of the new edition (chapter 3 in the 1st edition) of Human Resource Management in a Business Context and briefly addressed in this series of web pages

 Why do people work?

The simple answer in most cases is that they have to. (...) but the issue becomes more complex on examination.

 This article on the HRM Guide Canada site gives an indication of attitudes towards working futures among some of the brightest young people: 65% of Ernst & Young interns think they will become millionaires

 (...) As yet there have been few attempts to link economic theories of the employment market with HRM. The task is all the more complicated because economists have provided several different and contradictory theories in this area. They can be divided broadly into two main approaches: competitive and institutional.

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