IPC International Community magazine an association member publication
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16 The number of job openings could misrepre- sent the actual number of open jobs. Perhaps some companies have active job postings, but they are only hiring if they get a really good candidate. Online job boards and AI tools like machine learning have likely made it both less expensive and less time consuming to post jobs and review applications so it is easier for companies to continuously main- tain job openings. But the number of job openings is up nearly 50% from pre-pandemic levels so this would probably only explain a part of the growth in job openings. On top of this, many companies report it is dif- ficult to hire, suggesting many are actively looking for workers. The ability to find and hire workers is likely straining job gains in the electronics industry. According to data from IPC's monthly sentiment reports, less than 10% of industry executives report the ease of recruiting skilled talent is getting easier and almost half of North American executives report it is getting more difficult. The outlook over the com- ing months suggests ease of hiring could improve but there will likely only be marginal improvements. As a result of strong demand for workers in the United States, wage growth has accelerated to lev- els not seen in 40 years. Headed into 2023, wage growth for manufacturing production workers is growing at 5.7% a year. Wages are up roughly 15% from the pre-pandemic levels and all signs point to higher wages in the year ahead. To put that into perspective, wages for production workers grew less than 14% from the start of 2014 to 2020. In other words, production workers have seen wages grow in the last three years roughly to what they saw them grow in the eight years prior to that. Workers Remain Out of Labor Market Despite historically strong wage gains, work- ers have remained out of the labor force; this has put further pressure on wages and hindered com- pany efforts to hire. Labor force participation is down about 2% from pre-pandemic levels. While some of the decline in labor force participation has been ongoing for years, there are post-pandemic dynamics exacerbating the situation. The unemployment rate for prime-age work- ers—workers between the ages of 25 to 54—is about 3%, but only about 82% report any paid work. The remaining 15% are not in the labor force, mean- ing they are neither working nor looking for work. But these stats mask an important dynamic that dif- fers across genders. The percentage of prime-age men in the workforce is higher than women, 88.4% for men compared with 76.3%, though both share similar unemployment rates. This suggests 9% of prime-age men are neither working nor looking for work, while nearly a quarter of prime-age women are neither working nor looking for paid work. These numbers also mean that men "not in the labor force" outnumber the number of unemployed men by three to one. The percent of prime-age men participating in the workforce has slipped nearly 1 percentage point from pre-pandemic levels but this decline is part of a larger shift that has been ongoing for decades—fewer prime-age men are working or looking for work. Conversely, the labor participa- tion rate for prime-age women has steadily been rising. Although it is down about six-tenths of a per- centage point from the start of the pandemic, the participation rate is up half a percentage point from the start of 2019. The labor force participation rate for men is down a percentage point over the same time horizon. There are likely myriad reasons for these declines. According to the PEW Research Center, an estimated 2.1 million fathers were stay-at-home 16 Chart 2: Average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees and durable goods.