Boating Industry

November 2016

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16 | Boating Industry | November 2016 www.BoatingIndustry.com MARKET INTELLIGENCE Service, manufacturing positions toughest to fi ll, survey says As 2016 closes out, one of the biggest challenges facing companies in the industry is a worsening labor crunch. From dealers to boat builders, companies throughout the boating industry are fi nding it increasingly diffi cult to fi nd and keep good employees. That's according to our latest Boating Indus- try survey, conducted via email in October 2016 as we surveyed readers of our print and digital products about their hiring challenges. Two-thirds of companies said it is more dif- fi cult to fi nd and keep good employees than it was a year ago, and 37 percent said it is much more diffi cult. Less than 4 percent said it was easier to fi nd and keep employees than it was a year ago. This represented a signifi cant change from a similar survey in March of 2015. At that time, only 45 percent said it was more diffi cult to fi nd and keep good employees and only 18 percent said it was much more diffi cult. Service, manufacturing positions most challenging One thing that hasn't changed since last year is that service and manufacturing jobs are the most diffi cult to fi ll. Of those respondents that have service de- partments, 66 percent said it is very diffi cult to fi nd and keep good employees in service. An- other 27 percent said it was somewhat diffi cult, while only 7 percent said it wasn't diffi cult at all. That was up from 2015 when 54 percent said it was very diffi cult to fi ll those roles. For those companies with manufacturing op- erations, 55 percent said it was very diffi cult to fi nd and keep manufacturing employees, while another 41 percent said it was somewhat diffi cult. Those positions seem to have become markedly tougher to fi ll, as only 35 percent said it was very diffi cult to fi ll manufacturing jobs in 2015. Respondents reported a much easier time fi lling other jobs (see full chart p. 17), with mar- keting and offi ce/support staff being the easiest. Only 22 percent said it was very diffi cult to fi nd and keep good marketing employees, while 45 percent said it was not diffi cult at all. Seven- teen percent said it was very diffi cult to fi nd and keep offi ce staff, while 32 percent said it wasn't diffi cult at all. Most adding employees Almost two-thirds of companies reported add- ing new employees this year across a variety of fi elds, while 71 percent expect to add employ- ees in 2017. Of those companies with manufacturing op- erations, 66 percent added employees this year and 59 percent expect to hire more in 2017. Among non-manufacturing companies, ser- vice personnel were the most common addi- tions, with 50 percent of companies adding to their service departments in 2016. Fifty-seven percent expect to add more service department employees next year. Those were the only departments where more than half of companies added employees. However, companies look to be staffi ng up in sales for next year. Although 31 percent added sales employees this year, 52 percent expect to add to their sales team in 2017. Many companies also added employees in other categories this year, including offi ce/ support staff (28 percent), customer service (26 percent), marina (22 percent) and marketing (18 percent). As for 2017, companies are planning to add employees in offi ce/support staff (27 percent), marina (22 percent), customer service (15 per- cent) and marketing (8 percent). Companies are using a variety of methods to fi nd those new employees, but the most common (72 percent) remains employee refer- rals. More than half of employers are also using online job sites (63 percent) and social media (52 percent). Investing in training One of the most important parts of keeping good employees is giving employees an opportunity to advance. With that in mind, it appears that employers are opting to invest in training to im- prove skills and the customer experience. Most companies (71 percent) are spending at least $500 a year on employee training, up from 63 percent in 2015. Nearly a third are spending at least $1,000 a year on training per employee. Only 7 percent reported spending less than $100 per employee on training. Finding, keeping employees getting tougher CURRENT CONDITIONS October 66.4 August 55.6 FUTURE EXPECTATIONS October 62.4 August 58.3 We also asked readers about their views on the current health of the market as we do every month. In this regular monthly feature, we track the optimism of Boating Industry readers to help us get a read on the industry. A reading of zero means equal numbers of people are expe- riencing or expect growth as contraction, so any number above zero is a positive. October's results indicated continued year- over-year growth for Boating Industry readers, improving over August. That aligns with other industry reports showing the strong season has continued into the fall, with nice weather in much of the country keeping boaters buying and on the water. BOATING INDUSTRY INDEX

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