Real estate floors have difficulty recruiting people even though thousands of brokers have lost their jobs.

According to statistics, in the first quarter of 2023, about 50% of real estate trading floors and brokerage companies had to close, with thousands of employees losing their jobs. Compared to the beginning of 2022, the number of employees working at real estate brokerage companies is currently only about 30%.

Notably, among the thousands of employees who lost their jobs in the “wave” of layoffs, the majority belonged to the business department. During the “golden age”, this was the department with the most employees and brought in big profits for companies. But when times got tough, this was the force that was laid off or had to switch to temporary contracts or collaborators.

Especially for small real estate brokerage companies, the number of employees laid off can be up to 70% due to the lack of financial capacity to survive the difficult period.

Many opinions say that the difficulties faced by real estate brokerage companies are no less than those of investors. In early 2023, many employees of brokerage companies even posted articles "exposing" project investors for owing commissions, leading to many people having to proactively quit their jobs or take on extra jobs to wait for the money to come in.

Paradox: Many real estate agents are suspected of working, but real estate companies have difficulty recruiting people. Image 1 — On real estate forums, many people also complain about the difficulty of recruiting real estate agents at the current stage.

This difficult situation and commission debt will last until the end of the second quarter of 2023, causing many businesses to lay off more employees or real estate brokers to quit their jobs because the work is not enough to live on.

However, despite having eliminated a large number of real estate brokers, many real estate brokerage companies that offer attractive benefits are still not recruiting staff to prepare for the market's recovery.

Mr. Ngo Duc Cuong - Director of a real estate brokerage company in Kien Hung (Hanoi) said that during the difficult period, the company had to cut nearly 80% of its staff, reducing from 40 people to less than 10 people. Most of those laid off were young, inexperienced sales staff who had just entered the market in early 2022.

Recently, with the Government's policies and the reduction of bank interest rates, the real estate market has shown signs of recovery. Like other companies, Mr. Tuan has also started posting recruitment ads to prepare to enter the market during the recovery period.

“I plan to recruit 5 more people in the near future, mainly those who have experience in the real estate market and are able to stay long-term. Because the market is still unstable, the company tries to maintain a fixed salary so that employees can cover their living expenses. Although the salary we pay is not high, it is quite suitable for the current period. However, in nearly a month, we have only recruited 1 suitable person. Maybe the company will have to find young people without experience to train later,” said Mr. Tuan.

Paradox: Many real estate agents are suspected of working, but real estate companies have difficulty recruiting people. Image 2 — Many brokers have to go collect debts from investors.

Explaining the paradox of many brokers quitting but companies having difficulty recruiting, many opinions say that it all lies in the loss of faith in the market and in the job. According to Mr. Dinh Tuan Anh, a veteran broker in Ho Chi Minh City, most of his colleagues who were laid off during the difficult period have gone to find other jobs, only a few remain in the market as collaborators of the trading floor or as freelance brokers. However, the number of people staying in the market is extremely small, those are those with an economic foundation or other passive income sources.

“Most people do not believe that the market will recover in the short term. Meanwhile, the commission debt in many projects is still continuing, and some investors are even having difficulty finding the money to pay commissions to the trading floor. Some companies have to assign experienced people to be in charge of collecting debts from investors. Therefore, many people have had to change jobs to maintain their lives,” Tuan Anh shared.

According to him, during the period when the market was booming and real estate was easy to sell, recruiting new employees from outside the industry or young people was relatively easy because the income of real estate agents at that time was very high. But now, with negative information about the market, few people dare to take the risk of changing jobs and participating in the real estate market.

For that reason, recently, although the floors have continuously posted new recruitment posts, they have received very few applications. This situation will certainly continue until the market really improves.

Source