The latest edition of the Nareit REIT Report podcast looked at employment trends in the commercial real estate industry with Marc Torrey, vice president and global sales director at SelectLeaders, a career resources platform for real estate professionals.
Torrey explained that the landscape for commercial real estate hiring heading into the coronavirus crisis reflected a typical trend seen in an election year: a slow down on the transaction hiring side and a pick-up on the operations and asset management side. “We were already seeing that, and it went into overdrive with the start of the coronavirus,” he said.
While commercial real estate hiring slowed down considerably in April, it picked back up in May, according to Torrey, especially for full-service real estate firms. “We have seen it coming back in May and I think we’re going to see a lot of hiring happening over the course of the next few months and even (for) years to come as a result of everything that’s transpired,” he said.
Torrey said the hiring trend is likely to be seen across all sectors, albeit with sectors such as retail and mixed-use slower to recover. He noted that the anticipated pick-up in employment has already been dubbed the ‘Great Rehiring.’
Other trends that Torrey is watching include the office re-entry process. “Everyone’s had a taste of working from home, it will be interesting to see how that plays out,” he said.
Compensation and succession planning will be other interesting areas to watch, Torrey added.