By Richard Eib, Jersey Hired
There is a tendency in recruitment to treat hiring problems as if they exist in isolation. Employers say they cannot find candidates, candidates say salaries are not keeping pace with the cost of living, businesses complain about the cost of operating, and policymakers talk about economic development as though each of these issues belongs in a separate conversation. In reality, they are increasingly intertwined. If New Jersey wants to remain competitive as a place to build a business, create jobs and develop a career, then we need to look much more closely at the relationship between housing, wages, transportation, business costs and the ability of employers to recruit.
I have spent decades working in recruitment, and one of the most common frustrations I hear from employers is some variation of, “We just cannot find anyone.” Sometimes that is true in the most literal sense. Certain industries are dealing with genuine skills shortages, demographic pressures or highly competitive labor markets. But in many cases, the problem is not that suitable people do not exist. The problem is that the economics of the role no longer make sense for the person the employer is trying to hire.
An employer may believe that a salary of $55,000 or $65,000 is competitive because it aligns with a salary survey or because other companies appear to be paying something similar. The candidate, however, is looking at the offer very differently. They are thinking about rent or a mortgage, transportation, insurance, childcare, utilities, groceries, student loans and all of the other costs that come with living and working in New Jersey. The question they are asking is not whether the salary is technically competitive. They are asking whether accepting the job will leave them financially better off.
That distinction matters.
For businesses, particularly those that have historically relied on local labor, the cost of living is becoming a recruitment issue whether they want it to be or not. A role can look perfectly reasonable on paper and still be unattractive if the person taking it has to travel too far, pay too much to live nearby or absorb a level of commuting cost that wipes out much of the financial benefit of the position. When that happens, employers often respond by increasing advertising spend, engaging recruiters or broadening their search geographically, when the real issue may be closer to home.
New Jersey makes this especially complicated because there is no single statewide labor market. The employment dynamics of Bergen County are not the same as those of Camden County. Newark and Atlantic City operate in different economic environments. Mercer County, Monmouth County and Middlesex County all have their own mix of industries, commuting patterns and wage expectations. Employers in North Jersey are competing not just with other New Jersey companies but with businesses in New York City, while employers in South Jersey often compete with companies across the Delaware River in Philadelphia. On top of that, remote and hybrid work have expanded the competitive field even further.
A New Jersey business may now be competing for a candidate with a company headquartered hundreds or thousands of miles away. That employer may offer a similar salary but remove the need for a daily commute. When viewed from the employee’s perspective, that can be a significant financial and lifestyle advantage.
This is why commuting has become a much more important part of the compensation conversation. Employers often think about salary, healthcare, paid time off and perhaps a retirement contribution when they consider the value of a compensation package. Employees are increasingly calculating something broader. They are asking how much the job will cost them in time and money.
A one-hour commute each way is not simply an inconvenience. Over the course of a typical working year, it can amount to hundreds of hours spent travelling. Add tolls, parking, fuel, train fares, vehicle maintenance and the general wear and tear of commuting, and the value of the salary starts to look different. A job paying slightly more may actually leave the employee worse off than a lower-paying position closer to home or one offering meaningful flexibility.
That does not mean every role can or should be remote. Many jobs simply cannot be performed that way. Healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, construction, retail, logistics and countless other industries depend on people physically being in the workplace. But where flexibility is possible, businesses should understand that it now carries economic value for employees. It is not just a perk. It can materially change whether a job is viable.
The difficulty is that employers, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, are under pressure too. It is easy to tell a company that the solution is simply to pay more, but anyone who has actually run a business understands that compensation does not exist independently of every other expense. Businesses are dealing with their own rising costs, including property, insurance, utilities, financing, technology, taxes and benefits. At some point, increasing payroll becomes difficult without raising prices, reducing margins or cutting investment elsewhere.
This is where the discussion becomes more complicated than either side of the political spectrum sometimes wants to admit. Employees need wages that allow them to live, but businesses also need an economic environment in which employing people remains financially sustainable. If either side of that equation becomes unworkable, job creation suffers.
That should matter to policymakers because economic development is about far more than attracting a large corporation and announcing that it may create hundreds of jobs. The health of New Jersey’s economy also depends on thousands of existing businesses having enough confidence to create one additional role, open another location, invest in new equipment or expand their services. The cumulative effect of those decisions is enormous.
Housing policy therefore cannot be separated from employment policy. If people working in essential and middle-income occupations cannot afford to live reasonably close to the communities that need them, the labor market eventually begins to strain. Nurses, teachers, technicians, tradespeople, administrative workers, hospitality employees and many others still need to live somewhere within practical reach of their jobs.
That does not mean the answer is simply to build more housing without considering infrastructure, transportation or local services. Nor does it mean businesses can absolve themselves of responsibility and place the entire problem at the feet of government. It does mean we need a more joined-up conversation about what makes a local economy function.
Housing needs to exist where people actually need it. Transportation needs to connect people with employment centers. Economic development needs to be spread more effectively across the state rather than concentrated into areas where living costs become increasingly difficult for working households. At the same time, businesses need to remain realistic about whether the jobs they are offering are genuinely competitive in the real world rather than merely competitive on a spreadsheet.
Employers also need to take a harder look at themselves when recruitment becomes difficult. I have seen plenty of job descriptions that ask for significant experience, specialist skills, qualifications, flexibility and a long list of responsibilities while offering compensation that simply does not reflect what is being requested. When those roles go unfilled, the conclusion is sometimes that candidates have unrealistic expectations or that “nobody wants to work anymore.”
I do not think that explanation stands up particularly well.
Most people want to work. They also want the work to make sense. If accepting a role means taking on a costly commute, paying considerably more for childcare, losing flexibility and receiving only a marginal increase in income, then declining the opportunity can be entirely rational.
That is why one of the most useful questions an employer can ask when struggling to hire is also one of the simplest: if I were the candidate, would I take this job?
That means looking beyond salary alone. Consider the location, schedule, commute, benefits, flexibility, progression, management culture and length of the recruitment process. Consider whether the job description reflects the actual role or has become an unrealistic wish list. Consider what competitors are offering and, crucially, whether the people you are trying to recruit can realistically afford to organize their lives around the opportunity.
This is also where I believe local recruitment becomes increasingly important. For years, recruitment technology has encouraged businesses to think bigger. Post jobs nationally, collect hundreds of applications, use software to filter the results and then try to identify the small number of people who are actually relevant. There are circumstances where that makes perfect sense, but for many New Jersey businesses I think we have overcomplicated the process.
The best candidate may already be living twenty minutes away.
They may already have roots in the community, understand the area and have no desire to relocate. Their family may be here, their partner may work locally and their children may attend local schools. Hiring that person can be far more sustainable than persuading someone from outside the region to accept a role and then discovering six months later that the commute or cost of living does not work for them.
That is one of the reasons I have become increasingly convinced that recruitment needs to become more local again. Technology has given employers access to enormous audiences, but a larger audience is not necessarily a better audience. The objective of recruitment should not be generating the greatest number of applications. It should be connecting with the people most likely to succeed in the role and remain with the business.
New Jersey is actually extremely well positioned in this respect. We have access to two major metropolitan economies, a highly educated population, major industries in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, logistics, technology, manufacturing, financial services and professional services, and infrastructure that connects the state to some of the largest economic markets in the country. There is no shortage of reasons for businesses to want to operate here or for people to want to build careers here.
The challenge is making all of those advantages work together.
Employers need workers. Workers need good jobs. Workers also need to be able to afford somewhere to live. Businesses need customers and communities need employers that are successful enough to invest and grow. Government needs both businesses and workers generating economic activity. None of these groups operate independently of the others.
That, more than anything, is the point of this series.
The State of Hiring in New Jersey should not be another stream of generic recruitment advice. There is already more than enough of that available. What I want to explore is the wider environment that determines whether businesses can actually find the people they need, whether workers can build sustainable careers in the state and whether employers feel confident enough to invest, expand and create jobs.
Sometimes that conversation will be about recruitment. Sometimes it will be about skills and education. Other times it will involve housing, transportation, taxation, regulation, artificial intelligence or politics. All of those things eventually find their way into the employment market.
Hiring does not happen in a vacuum.
If New Jersey wants businesses to grow, it needs an environment in which companies can afford to employ people and those people can afford to live and work here. That balance is becoming harder to maintain, and pretending that the individual pieces are unrelated will not make the problem disappear.
For employers struggling to recruit, the answer may not always be another job board, another recruiter or another increase in advertising spend. Sometimes the more important question is whether the opportunity being offered still works economically for the person being asked to take it.
And that is a question worth asking well before blaming the labor market.