Dive Brief:

• More than nine in 10 executives in technology, media and telecom are seeing higher-than-usual attrition in their ranks, according to a PwC survey published Thursday. The firm surveyed 661 business executives in August 2021.  

• Executives in these industry sectors say salaries, career advancement opportunities and improved relationships with managers drive staff departures. The trio of factors are more impactful in tech, media and telecom than in other industries.

• As a response to employee fallout, nearly half of leaders in tech, media and telecom are working to expand career development opportunities and offering flexible schedules, according to the survey. Six in ten leaders are planning leadership mentoring programs catered to women and diverse populations.

Dive Insight

Confronted with rising turnover from their teams, tech executives are eyeing strategies to survive, as market pressures exacerbated the existing scarcity of knowledgeable tech hands.

Prior to the seismic industry and operation changes of 2020, tech talent was already hard to come by, with certain professions nearing 0% unemployment. Now, the rate of unemployed tech workers generally nears all-time lows, well below national figures.

One force driving a premium on tech talent is the rapid growth of tech companies either through their entry to public markets or late-stage venture capital raises, said Vicki Huff Eckert, vice chair PwC US Tech, Media and Telecom (TMT). 

The shift is "creating a tremendous amount of demand for workers, and a tremendous amount of opportunity from a compensation standpoint on the equity side, as well as a raise in the actual cash compensation, because they're well funded companies," said Eckert. 

The uptick in attrition is impacting all industries, and thus all companies reshape recruiting strategies as expansion plans hinge on the ability to source talent.  

Tech leaders are also assessing their company culture, which has morphed in the age of hybrid work. But they're also broadening their geographic positions, targeting new talent in markets not open to them prior to the remote work boom in 2020.

"The reality of virtual is opening up new geographies [and] new operating models to tech," said Eckert. "They're going after that, because there is this tremendous war for talent."