Sasha Yablonovsky, CareerBuilder President joins the Yahoo Finance panel to share data on their latest job trend survey.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Let's bring in our first guest for the hour. We've got Sasha Yablonovsky who is the president of CareerBuilder. Sasha, it's good to talk to you. Brian breaking down those numbers for us that we got from this morning, what stood out to you?

SASHA YABLONOVSKY: Yeah. I mean, look. The pace of the games has slowed as well noticed. It's pointing towards a really proactive period of fragile recovery. The good news is if we want to focus on the good, and I tend to, is that unemployment is lowered and it's down to 6.7% in November. The notable gains did occur in transportation, warehousing, those increased by 145,000. Professional and business services increased by 60,000. And healthcare added 46,000 jobs in November. Most of that is in home healthcare services and other healthcare practitioner offices as well.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah. I appreciate focusing on the positives here. It's Friday. I want to point those out too. But when we look at some of the negatives, there are still concerns that the rate of job add it's just not anywhere near what you'd want to see when you're still 10 million jobs, or about 10 million jobs in the hole here.

So what are you going to need to see in terms of jobs gains in 2021? Is it going to be finally returning fully to what we were seeing in hospitality and leisure jobs? Or is something else going to need to happen considering how many Americans are still permanently now unemployed?

SASHA YABLONOVSKY: Yeah. Look, retail jobs have been down since April. But we are seeing a steady return to growth there. With the shopping season upon us, people are still more willing to go into stores and shop. So we're definitely seeing that. The biggest thing going into 2021 for those seeking employment is really to be flexible and to focus on roles in industries that might be outside of their current roles and jobs.

What we're seeing is that we conducted a survey. And most of the people, 70% compared to last year, are looking for remote positions, work from home positions. We're seeing that 35% of those that are looking for jobs wouldn't even consider a job going into 2021 that doesn't offer work from home options.

And for hiring managers and companies that are seeking employees, it's great to focus on skills versus previous experience, especially after the year we had. But really looking into the future, that's really where the focus needs to lie. People that have traditionally worked in retail, or restaurant, or hospitality industries, they have fantastic skills when it comes to customer service and call centers. And those roles are on the rise right now. So it's really focusing on a skills based searching.

AKIKO FUJITA: And Sasha, when you talk about some of these remote work postings that you're seeing, what does that suggest in terms of how long this is likely to last? A number of guests saying, look. This is a permanent shift that we're seeing. But have you seen a shift over the last few months? And also, how region specific are they?

SASHA YABLONOVSKY: More and more towards e-commerce. It's across the nation. So more and more roles for call centers like I said. Customer service representatives. More and more companies are building out their ecomm offerings and we do not see that slowing down at all.

ZACK GUZMAN: On the front of that though, it seems like a big boost for trucking. We were talking about that a few months ago, even before we got here. Some people saying that you're going to have to see about a 20% boost in trucker pay to meet that demand. And you're pointing out kind of the data in terms of trucking right now. I mean where is that shortage looked like here in the US? And since it's not an industry that even seemed to have enough skilled workers to fill those roles?

SASHA YABLONOVSKY: No. But I think, again, this goes back to the skill set. So if you haven't typically worked in trucking, whether it's light trucking or delivery services before, there's great opportunities there now. And that's why we're really advising our corporations that we work with and hiring managers to really focus on the skills, not the previous.

So right now, yes. There's a shortage of the candidates. But it's also because those jobs are in such high demand. So again, just focusing on skill based approach.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah. I've heard you reference that a few times now when you talk about the need for flexibility, for workers who are currently looking for work, and also the need to adapt to the skills that are in demand right now. What are the skills specifically in demand? And more importantly, how are you advising some of those who are on CareerBuilder, some of those who are looking for jobs right now to up skill at a time when they still can't find a job?

SASHA YABLONOVSKY: Yeah. So interestingly enough, we conducted a survey, and 75% of job seekers have reported taking courses, volunteering throughout this time, online volunteering, and where appropriate in-person volunteering, to pick up extra skills. So that's really promising. On our website, we do skills based match search. So it really looks at your skills versus previous work and prepares you and gives you matching to jobs that are within that skill set.

I would continue for job seekers to focus on increasing your skill sets, diversifying, looking at different courses online, and seeing what you can pick up there. And I'm really encouraging hiring managers and companies that are seeking employees to think beyond the traditional. Really focus on diversifying the skill set of your organization so you don't continue to perpetuate what we've seen in the past, which is hiring the same person for the same job over and over again.

Also, going into 2021, the fact that companies are not tethered to geographic locations anymore because more and more are willing to hire remotely for work from home positions, it's a great opportunity to tap into different types of people. Continue to grow your diverse pool of candidates and really focus on strengthening that.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yes. Certainly some important takeaways there. Sasha Yablonovsky, president at CareerBuilder. Good to talk to you today.

SASHA YABLONOVSKY: You too. Thank you.