Rapidly increasing costs, limited supply and competition for scarce resources — reading these words, you would expect an article about product supply chain problems or fuel costs. However, these headlines relate to employment by the space industry.
Pay for employees in the private space sector averages $125,214 — more than double the average annual salary of $62,247 for all U.S. private-sector jobs and 27.3% more than the average salary of $98,340 for STEM occupations. Clearly, these are good times to be an employee in the U.S. space industry and, conversely, space industry employers are faced with a need to make their jobs more attractive to prospective and current employees.
Data points highlighting the need for employers to recruit and retain employees in an increasingly competitive environment include:
- 51% of employees in the U.S. are considering a new job, according to Gallup;
- Turnover can cost U.S. organizations anywhere between 16% and 213% of the lost employee’s salary, according to a report from the Center for American Progress; and
- 87% of U.S. employers said that improving retention is a critical priority for their organization, according to a Future Workplace and Kronos study.
UK facing similar employment challenges
Employers in the U.K. space industry are facing a recruitment challenge similar to those in the U.S.
“Recent growth in the [space] industry has placed stress on skills supply — growth in the number of people with the required skills has not kept pace with growth in demand,” according to a 2021 study published by the U.K. Space Agency.
In the area of recruitment, the U.K. Space Agency report noted that “two-thirds or more of businesses which sought to recruit [are] experiencing difficulty … Further, skill gaps in the current workforce were identified by 51% of businesses, a much higher proportion than that for businesses across all UK sectors.”
The information contained in the preceding reports likely comes as no surprise to space industry hiring managers and recruiters who are facing an increasing challenge in hiring qualified candidates for both technical and non-technical positions.
Retention is ‘most significant concern’
A common challenge for employers is retaining existing staff.
Employee retention research by SHRM and Globoforce found that retaining employees is the most significant concern for almost half of human resources leaders. The tight labor pool is encouraging employers to provide more benefits to existing employees in order to retain them in the face of offers from competitors and others in the space industry.
Training is an employment benefit deemed critical to both recruiting and retaining employees. One global survey by LinkedIn Talent Solutions concluded that companies rated highly on employee training saw 53% lower attrition. Increasingly, online training is seen as preferred — particularly as many more people are working from home following the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital training is accessible for employees, provides a wide range of topics and is cost-effective for employers. According to a 2021 collection of training industry statistics published by Lorman, a provider of compliance-based training courses and resources:
- 89% of employees want training available anywhere and anytime they need to do their jobs;
- 93% of employees want easy-to-complete training; and
- 76% of employees believe their companies should provide more digital skills training although only 44% said their employers currently do so.
While online training in technical subjects for employees in the satellite industry has long been available and utilized by tens of thousands of people, a gap in the industry’s training portfolio has existed for current and would-be space industry employees seeking to gain an understanding of the industry outside of narrow technical topics. This gap was recently addressed by the “Space Business Qualified” courses, developed in partnership by GVF, Space and Satellite Professionals International (SSPI) and SatProf, which provides a tool for recruiting and retaining employees in the highly competitive space industry.
By investing the relatively modest resources needed to provide online training to new and existing staff, space industry employers can respond to the shortage of qualified workers and the increasing compensation and non-compensation demands of space industry employees. Such training will increase retention, assist recruitment, improve employee engagement and help space industry employers address the challenges arising out of an increasing need for a scarce natural resource: employees.
