Giving Compass' Take:

• In this Effective Altruism Forum post, Jon Behar argues that the EA community must construct a competitive labor market based on supply and demand.

• To what degree should the effective altruism movement, and the nonprofit sector generally, be trying to compete with the for-profit sector for talent?

• To learn about one argument for why nonprofits should be run like a business, click here.

Since 2015, the EA community has increasingly discussed talent constraints. That discussion generally hasn’t taken place in the language often used to discuss labor markets, that of labor economics. I argue that standard frameworks like labor supply and demand models can provide considerable insight into why EA organizations and the broader EA community experience shortages (and surpluses) of various skills and how to resolve these imbalances.

Through an economics lens, organizations that offer non-competitive compensation should generally expect to find it hard to hire the best candidates. It’s well known that the nonprofit sector as a whole pays significantly less than the for-profit sector, but there isn’t much hard data about how compensation at EA organizations compares to what different types of candidates could alternatively earn. I propose surveying EA organizations to get actionable information about their competitiveness, and using that data to guide future decisions.

If we think about the EA labor market in terms of labor supply and demand, we’ll be able to leverage the efforts of many very smart people who have already thought about a lot of the issues we care about. They can help us make informed decisions about crucial questions that will ultimately shape much of the EA labor market: How much should EA organizations compete with the for-profit sector for top talent? How can they fund the talent they need (and other operational expenses)? And if they can’t or won’t become more competitive with for-profit firms, how do EA organizations expect to find the talent they need to achieve their ambitious goals?

Read the full article about the EA Labor Market by Jon Behar at EA Forum