Randstad on “HR Trends 2024”: gaping gap between salary demand and planned salary increase

• 45% of the survey participants (+4% compared to last year) expect their company’s net sales to increase, but almost two-thirds of those who think positively envision only a 4-10% increase.
• The proportion of companies that expect a decrease in their sales due to the gloomy business conditions increased to 12% (+9% compared to 2022). Furthermore, more than a third of the responding companies expect stagnant sales in 2024.
  this year, the proportion of companies planning to increase staff decreased further to 30%. In addition, 17% of the survey participants do not plan to change the number of employees, but those who quit will not be replaced.
• unrealistic salary expectations are the biggest problem during the recruitment process, but the candidates’ lack of relevant work experience or lack of work experience, as well as inadequate language skills, also make it significantly more difficult to find suitable employees. In addition, candidates are becoming more and more aware: definite expectations regarding work-life balance are becoming more and more of a problem.
• Managing expectations related to compensation and benefit packages in retaining the workforce is the biggest HR challenge of the companies participating in the research. Experts clearly see the solution to HR challenges in raising salaries.

In the following, we present the more important findings of the research, which shed light on the wage increase plans of the companies participating in the survey; we can find out if the home office will stay with us; and it becomes clear whether the salary still makes the companies attractive.