3 must-have skills to land a job in this super competitive market
If you are looking to find a great job in today's ultra-competitive employment market, it may pay dividends to develop some "soft skills" explains LinkedIn's chief economist.
"The skills we see right now most in demand are three-fold. One, it's going to be what you might call soft skills. So communication, negotiation, leadership, management of all the things that basically a computer cannot do. Having tough conversations. Two, it's going to be digital skills. They can be disruptive digital skills like cloud computing and AI and machine learning, but they can also be very kind of normal digital skills like can you manipulate a computer to use video conference, can you use the chat feature on the computer. Those are skills being sought. Three, they are looking for analytical skills. A lot of analysis and basically data management," said Karin Kimbrough on Yahoo Finance Live.
By the looks of the September employment report out on Friday, employers are still holding out for those workers with the soft skills to support their growth coming out of the pandemic. Meanwhile, an argument could be made that many workers lack these soft skills and are waiting for employers to lower their expectations.
Non-farm payrolls rose by a lackluster 194,000 in September, badly missing estimates (for the second straight month) for an increase of 500,000. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.8% from 5.2% in August.
Payrolls for July and August saw a modest 169,000 total upward revision from previously reported numbers.
"Clearly, there are still significant labor supply issues limiting the pace of the recovery," pointed out Rick Rieder, BlackRock chief investment officer of global fixed income.
Non-farm payrolls were expected to pick up from August's much weaker-than-expected print, when renewed fears over the coronavirus Delta variant deterred more workers from reentering the labor market. Economists envisioned the return to in-person learning this fall and the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits as key drivers of a potentially better than expected jobs report.
But, the hype didn't live up to the reality in the month, where numerous economic indicators weakened.
"What we have seen — and this is pretty consistent since the beginning of the year — is a really strong increase in job postings," said LinkedIn's Kimbrough. "So postings right now are double what they were pre-pandemic. Employers are back, they are ready to go. And yes, they are saying that it's really hard to hire."
Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick contributed to this story.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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