candidate shortage --a major threat to companies in today's marketplace

Executives identify that the greatest threat to the continued success of their companies in this century is the job candidate shortage according to a recent survey conducted by Management Recruiters International, Inc (MRI).0 c7 M4 e( }1 c% P! }2 C8 B
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More than 4,000 executives were surveyed by MRI, Inc. and nearly 50% said that a shortage of candidates was their biggest concern today while 18.5% considered keeping up with technology as the greatest threat to their company, 16.2% said the economy, while 15.5% said global competition.$ p. F0 g9 w; g2 m4 v' _% x7 P( {

2 O3 M# q# {' a+ ["It's a powerful statement when half of those polled in our survey consider the shortage of qualified job candidates to be the greatest threat to ongoing economic success," said Allen Salikof, president and CEO at MRI, Inc. "Still, this comes as no surprise based on our daily experience in fulfilling the staffing needs of corporate America. What's particularly compelling, though, is the fact that the candidate shortage was the overwhelming response of those polled, since technology, the economy and global competition have to be considered important issues as well."
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) ]$ N6 P6 V6 t" ~4 M( R  ^; J"Competition will remain particularly fierce in the professional-managerial fields as the level of hiring activity remains high and demographics for the next century clearly indicate a shrinking workforce," continued Salikof. "Finding college-educated individuals with technical, sales or management experience will be a great challenge. What companies are up against, though, is the fact that in this workforce-which accounts for about 1/4 or 38 million, of all employed Americans--unemployment is less than 2% and will stay that way in the foreseeable future."
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2 B- M$ }0 ?$ {5 aMRI is the world's largest search and recruitment organization and has system-wide billings of over $600 million. MRI, Inc. places 40,000 people in jobs annually. MRI is a subsidiary of Philadelphia-based CDI Corp. CDI Corp is one of the world's largest staffing and outsourcing service providers. CDI generated $1.54 billion in revenue in 1998.
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( Y3 ]# k5 D$ Z- V3 o+ cSource: Management Recruiters International