Econintersect: CHICAGO, Jan. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — As 2012 ushers in an 
improving, but still highly competitive job market, more workers may be looking beyond their own backyard for employment options. Forty-four percent of workers said they would be willing to relocate for a career opportunity, according to a nationwide study by CareerBuilder. Of workers who were laid off in the last year and found new jobs, 20 percent relocated to a new city or state, according to a CareerBuilder nationwide study completed in September 2011 of 686 workers who were laid off from full-time jobs. At the same time, from a different and much larger survey, employers struggling to find workers for skilled positions said they are willing to pay to bring talent to their locations. Thirty-two percent reported they would be willing to pay to relocate new employees in 2012. Nineteen percent would be willing to pay a smaller first year salary in order to give a signing bonus to relocate an employee. The national survey was conducted from November 9 to December 5, 2011 among more than 3,000 employers and more than 7,000 workers.
To help workers zero in on markets with the greatest demand for their skills and assess costs of moving to and living in a particular area, CareerBuilder launched CareerRelocate.com. Through this new site, workers can:
- Run a simple keyword or category search and view a map detailing where the most and fewest opportunities are for their line of work.
- View actual relocation opportunities in different cities.
- Learn what they would need to earn in order to maintain their current standard of living in another city.
- Research homes, property values, mortgage quotes, moving and storage costs.
- Tap into articles and advice on relocating and hiring trends.
“One of the key trends we saw coming out of the recession is the movement of labor in and out of markets across the U.S.,” said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder. “Workers have had to expand their job search geographically and employers in need of hard-to-find, skilled talent have had to recruit across state lines. Our new site CareerRelocate.com helps workers identify relocation opportunities and understand related costs, so they have the right information in hand for their next career move.”
While employers will move current staff and new hires for a wide variety of positions, the top areas for which they are most likely to pay to relocate employees are tied to technology and revenue-generation:
- Engineering – 30 percent of employers
- Information Technology – 23 percent
- Business Development – 21 percent
- Sales – 21 percent
- Financial – 16 percent
- Marketing – 13 percent
- Legal – 11 percent
The vast majority of workers who relocated in the last year – 77 percent – reported they were happy with the move and didn’t regret the decision. Workers reported benefitting in the following ways:
- Made a fresh start – 30 percent
- Made new friends – 31 percent
- Had new experiences we wouldn’t have had anywhere else – 29 percent
- Earning at a higher level gave the family more spending options – 27 percent
- Better long-term career opportunities – 22 percent
- Area is nicer and schools are better – 19 percent
Of those workers who relocated in the last year, 41 percent said their family didn’t relocate with them and they have to travel to see them. Top challenges associated with relocating included:
- Cost of living is higher – 26 percent
- More stress on the family unit – 24 percent
- Difficult to make new friends – 18 percent
- Feeling homesick – 16 percent
Notes about the survey and the survey sponsor:
Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive© on behalf of CareerBuilder among 3,023 hiring managers and human resource professionals and 7,780 U.S. workers (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) between November 9 and December 5, 2011 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions). With pure probability samples of 3,023 and 7.780, one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 1.78 and +/-1.11 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.
About CareerBuilder
CareerBuilder is the global leader in human capital solutions, helping companies target and attract their most important asset – their people. Its online career site, CareerBuilder.com®, is the largest in the United States with more than 24 million unique visitors, 1 million jobs and 40 million resumes. CareerBuilder works with the world’s top employers, providing resources for everything from employment branding and talent intelligence to recruitment support. More than 9,000 websites, including 140 newspapers and broadband portals such as MSN and AOL, feature CareerBuilder’s proprietary job search technology on their career sites. Owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), Tribune Company and The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI), CareerBuilder and its subsidiaries operate in the United States, Europe, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit www.careerbuilder.com.
