Most business owners would agree that it’s difficult to hire the right workers, and even more difficult to keep them. After all, a business is only as good as its people, especially within the skilled trades.

Specifically, today’s plumbing labor landscape is more challenging than ever, as more of the workforce nears retirement and there aren’t enough young people entering the industry to close the gap. Bloomberg estimates that the U.S. will have a shortage of 550,000 plumbers by 2027, meaning this issue is a generational shift that will undoubtedly impact infrastructure throughout the country. And plumbing is just one example — the skilled trades as a whole have been feeling the heat from a labor shortage which was exacerbated by COVID-19. McKinsey cites that the expected churn driven by this shortage will cost skilled trade businesses $5.3 billion every year in talent acquisition and training costs alone.

There is hope on the horizon, however — the proportion of young adults who are choosing to attend trade school is the highest it’s been in the last decade, and the rate is continuing to rise. The inflow of young adults entering the trades will present business owners with a new wave of challenges.

For instance, sourcing, managing and hiring qualified talent will become more competitive and complex. Technology platforms such as end-to-end recruiting software solutions will become table stakes for companies looking to gain a competitive edge and continue growing. For those who adopt industry-specific hiring solutions, the days of manually posting to generic job boards and relying on word-of-mouth referrals to find quality candidates will be gone. Software will connect qualified candidates to employers in real-time, eliminating the time-consuming application process for candidates and the inefficient resume-sorting process for employers. The trades have generally lagged other industries with regards to software adoption, meaning businesses that embrace these solutions will turn hiring into a competitive advantage rather than a bottleneck.

Business owners who are slow to adopt technology to assist with their hiring efforts are likely to face dramatically higher back-office costs and a diminished competitive edge.

When it comes to trade-specific recruiting software, the two most important features are a proprietary candidate database and Applicant Tracking System (ATS). This allows employers to manage their entire hiring process within a centralized platform, from initial outreach to hire. Rather than posting to job boards and waiting for applications to come in, employers can specify the criteria they are looking for in a candidate (ie. qualifications, skills, geography, expected pay, etc.) and instantly view a host of candidates that meet those criteria. Thanks to industry-specific matching algorithms, both employers and candidates will only have to spend time interviewing for relevant opportunities. This will save hiring teams hours of sifting through applications and resumes, and candidates don’t have to manually scan job boards and create one-off applications for each opportunity. Candidates can simply be notified on their smartphone when an employer invites them to an interview.

With companies like TradeRunner entering the market to help solve the aforementioned hiring challenges facing the plumbing industry, it’s easier than ever for companies to utilize the benefits of hiring software. Business owners who are slow to adopt technology to assist with their hiring efforts are likely to face dramatically higher back-office costs and a diminished competitive edge. With demand for plumbing services showing no sign of slowing over the coming decade, companies will be pressed to find quality talent to ensure they have a sufficient labor force to meet customer demand.

One thing is certain — as back-office digital solutions continue making their way into the plumbing industry, the gap between businesses that embrace modern technology and those who don’t will continue to widen.