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June 18, 2015 at 02:34 PM
The oldest boomers are 69. The youngest are 51. The youngest workers who have ever received any significant amount of coaching from middle managers who had time to coach younger workers (remember them?) is around 60.
India and China have many young workers, but training those workers for America-focused jobs can be a challenge, and those young workers want more money and better working conditions.
The labor market may be firming up even here, in the Land of the Great Recession Lost. The other day, I was talking to a human resources manager who rolled his eyes at the idea that there’s a big pool of qualified, hard-working young job hunters sending out hundreds of résumés and getting no offers.
Of course, some cities have more jobs than others. Some sets of skills are more in demand than others. Some readers of this article have personally sent out hundreds of résumés and gotten no offers, or have children who are struggling to find jobs. But it looks as if employers may be coming back to viewing a solid benefits package as a tool for attracting and retaining workers who know how to do their jobs, not just as an annoying responsibility dumped on them by a dysfunctional society.
Consultants at Accenture have raised that possibility in a report based on a survey of about 2,700 U.S. workers who have health benefits. The consultants asked what the participants might do if their employers dropped the health benefits. Sixty-four percent said they would be dissatisfied with their employers, and 32 percent said they would be less motivated to work harder. About 31 percent said they would quit in 12 months. Fifteen percent said they would leave their jobs immediately.
Accenture is a player in the private health insurance exchange market. The company conducted the survey to sell employers on the idea of using private exchange programs to wean workers off of traditional group health coverage, rather than simply dropping health benefits.
See also: Will health exchange roots break through your wall?
