By Chelsea Babin

According to a recent Dice survey, 17 percent of employers offered increased compensation as a primary motivator in 2015. And, with the IT unemployment rate falling significantly lower than the average at 2.4 percent as of August 2016, it’s estimated that even more employers have used increased salaries to lure top technical talent to their companies this year.

While most employers agree that there is more than one way to draw in excellent IT professionals, 26 percent of those surveyed by Modis thought that salary is the most important tool for drawing in the best tech talent. The one category that beat out salary was benefits like flexible hours and remote working, which 54 percent of employers identified as the best way to bring in top technical talent. As the IT market gets increasingly competitive, many employers are finally realizing that salary and work-life balance are the major driving forces that will either attract technical professionals to their company or repel them away. And, according to Bob Melk, the president of Dice, “high turnover levels and low unemployment rates make for a very tight tech labor market. Thus, we have seen employers focus on critical roles and channel their recruitment efforts in an attempt to attract and land the best tech talent.”

As employers make plans to finish the fourth quarter strong and prepare their IT department plans for the following year, it’s important that they allocate appropriate resources for attracting and retaining top technical talent if they don’t want to face long slowdowns in 2017. The current average job vacancy duration according to the DHI-DFH Mean Vacancy Duration measure is 27.3 working days. In order to avoid an average of a month without the technical talent you need, focusing on retention and offering the most enticing benefits and salary package possible is essential.

Michael Durney, the President and CEO of DHI Group, says, “the unemployment rate in the U.S. is nearing full employment and that means employers everywhere are competing to hire hard-to-find candidates. This struggle is particularly acute in healthcare, technology, and the financial services industries.” Finding the right employee of any kind has proven more difficult in 2016 than in recent years but, as always, that strain is felt more in the IT industry than in many others.

Earlier this year Dice found that 65 percent of tech professionals said they would make a career jump in order to secure higher compensation so, as end-of-the-year raises and bonuses are being determined, that’s something to keep in mind. Employers who want to keep their top technical talent around should consider adding bonuses in the next year, particularly work-life balance improving ones or training benefits, and of course increase salaries to stay competitive. Otherwise they may find their turnover rates escalating to new extremes, as demands for technical professionals stay high through the end of the year and the start of 2017.