From 'Great Resignation' to 'Great Stay': Laid-off Target employees to enter frozen job market

Eight hundred Target employees who worked at the company’s headquarters in Minneapolis and Brooklyn Park are in search of new jobs after the Twin Cities-based retailer announced layoffs Tuesday. On Wednesday, Cargill announced it is laying off 80 employees from its headquarters in Wayzata. The company cut 5 percent of its global workforce at the end of last year.

Laid-off workers will now enter a job market that’s frozen, and employers are hiring more cautiously amidst nationwide economic uncertainty.

To learn more about the state of the job market in Minnesota and what it means for newly unemployed workers, MPR News host Nina Moini talked with Beth Glassman. Glassman is a senior employment counselor with Hired, a nonprofit that provides workforce development and employment services in the Twin Cities.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

When people are first laid off, where do you tell them to begin?

I would start with applying for unemployment. Minnesota Unemployment is a good resource. They have career force centers throughout Minnesota. Oftentimes, they will tell the client to join Hired.org or a dislocated worker program similar to ours. Once they're connected to the dislocated worker program, there's many options for them: one-on-one coaching, resume help, salary negotiations, personal branding workshops, all kinds of things.

Volunteer, network across all communities that you know of, take care of yourself. Make sure that you are connected to resources that the state of Minnesota provides.

What types of difficulties do you think mid-career workers face after layoffs?

It may take them longer to land. It may take them a couple of rounds of interviews that they don't land a job, when previously they had interviewed and gotten every job on the first round. It is just taking longer, unfortunately.

It’s tough for everyone, regardless of age, but the young folks with new degrees and the folks 55-plus are also struggling to land jobs. It seems like employers are being very picky about who they're hiring right now. It's definitely an employer's market, not an employee market.

Things have really turned around in the last five years from the “Great Resignation” to now what we're calling the “Great Stay.” People really aren't leaving jobs. The quit rate is very low, lower than pre-pandemic rates. A lot of that's driven by the uncertainty in the marketplace.

How did that shift happen?

I think that since there were a lot of people that did resign — for child care reasons fueled by the pandemic, some safety concerns for frontline workers — employers were offering higher wages at the time to keep people. And now those higher wages aren't sustainable for the employers. We're seeing people take jobs for less. Health care costs have gone up. Interest rates are higher and hiring rates are lower. Baby boomers aren't retiring as fast. People who are in jobs are staying in those jobs. It just creates a marketplace that is less easy to break into, especially if you've lost your job.

Are people concerned about keeping up with technology, or AI replacing parts of their job?

AI is, in my opinion, here to stay. Everyone should know how to use it, know how to prompt it. We are sending a lot of folks through AI training right now. I don't believe that AI is taking jobs, maybe in some cases, in some industries. But I don't believe, for the majority of people, that AI is going to take their job. I believe that you need to know how to use AI in order to keep your job.

What do you say to people who have been looking for jobs for a long time now?

On my caseload, I would say the average [time to land a job] is close to a year at this point. Some people are lucky and landing in six months. And some people are taking a year and more.

A lot of people are going to fractional employment, where they're starting their own business, doing some consulting, doing a few gigs here and there, so they can stay in the marketplace. I think it's a great idea. They're networking, they're building their skills, they're keeping up with technology. And you never know. An employer might say, “Oh, hey, I have this project for you. Would you consider staying on for another project?” So I would say to newly laid-off folks, “Be open.” I know a lot of them want full-time employment with benefits. Of course, everyone wants that, but fractional and consulting is another way around that, and even volunteering. Sometimes that can turn into something that you you would never have thought.

Are there any industries where there’s a great job market, if people need to make a pivot?

I would say education seems to be easier to get into at this moment. It seems to be a stable marketplace. I used to say healthcare, but healthcare has been a little bit volatile lately.

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