2024’s top 10 global talent trends-thrive or survive?

2024 talent trends report – thrive or survive? employers urgently embracing AI to address talent scarcity and enhance operational efficiency.

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New Randstad Enterprise report unveils top 10 talent trends for 2024, including the growing use of AI to bridge the skills gap and increasing investment in DEI despite recent pushback

Around AI in particular, a clear theme emerged, with data indicating a significant shift towards embracing AI across the talent life cycle to address talent scarcity and enhance operational efficiency. Nearly all (97%) of C-suite and talent leaders agree that adopting technology has enhanced talent attraction, engagement, and retention — an eight-point increase since 2023 and the highest reported value for this response in Talent Trends history.

Among all the technologies organizations are investing in, AI search and match has grown the most year-over-year. Two-thirds (66%) of talent leaders report making such investments — an increase of 14% since 2023. Employers clearly now recognize the critical role of AI in reshaping human intelligence and its productivity across every aspect of the talent life cycle, from talent acquisition, where generating job descriptions with AI is commonplace, to advancing internal talent mobility and skills matching for talent already within the business.

But beyond technology, the two top challenges talent leaders expect to face moving forward are skills-based: increased competition for hard-to-find skills (34%) and growing scarcity of specialty skills (32%). This supports the increasing desire by the majority of organizations (80%) to move to a skills-based hiring approach. This sees employers focus on pinpointing the essential skills needed for a position and selecting candidates based on their demonstrated competencies without prioritizing formal educational qualifications.