Deloitte: Public Companies Continuing to Face Finance Talent Shortage

As the tight labor market persists, Deloitte recently shared new data showing that 82.4% of hiring managers for finance and accounting positions at public companies reported struggling to attract and retain talent, relative to 68.9% of hiring managers at private companies. Further, the overwhelming majority of hiring managers at both public and private companies reported that they expect to have to work hard in the next year to attract and retain employees. The firm’s findings are based on a survey of more than 1,200 hiring managers within public and private companies in the U.S.

“We found it very interesting as well as that these public company hiring managers seem to be having a tougher time than their counterparts in the private companies,” said Matthew Hurley, a Senior Manager at Deloitte Advisory, in a statement to Fortune. “I don’t know that we’ve got a great line of sight on what is causing that gap. It could be any number of things, [such as] the size of the company, team sizes, complexity of work, work-life balance stability, or even location. I think there’s just so many subjective and personal matters that play into it.”

While private companies are reporting struggles with the same issues, they are experiencing them to a lesser extent. However, hiring managers across the board reported fairly consistently on the top three drivers of hiring in the next 12 months: the need for more headcount in existing areas where workloads are increasing (34.3% public; 38.6% private), obtaining talent with tech skills (23.4% public; 20.5% private), and attrition caused by the “Great Resignation” (21.9% public; 17.5% private).

The majority of hiring managers polled by Deloitte reported employees are leaving for higher pay (57.9% public; 46.2% private) and better titles (18.7% public, 14.4% private), and a slim minority are departing to change industries (5.8% public; 8.3% private). Hurley advises that companies will need to think carefully about what is important to their people and continue to build pipelines to keep younger talent interested in educations in finance and accounting that provide the right skill sets.