Bloomberg Businessweek April 12, 2021|Business| “Will Pizzas and Signing Bonuses Woo Workers”. “Despite high unemployment, a record number of small businesses say they can’t fill jobs”. "The Bottom Line. Only a year after the U.S. unemployement rate soared to 14.8%, many employers report that they're having a hard time finding workers to fill job openings."
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Summary
Examples of small companies struggling to hire.
Melissa Anderson-Silver Chest Creations-Burkesville, KY laid off three (Pandemic) and when she tried to rehire one in September and another in January “they refused to come back.”
Sierra Pacific Industries is offering “as much as $1,500” hiring bonus for work making doors, windows and millwork in their California, Washington and Wisconsin factories.
Red Bluff Job Training Center in Northern California “is trying to lure young people with extra-large pizza in the hope that some who stop by can be persuaded to fill out a job application.” Kathy Garcia (Red Bluff) says “We’re trying to get inside their head and help them find employment. Businesses would be so eager to train them … but there are absolutely no job seekers.”
Data support these examples.
According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), as of March “a record-high percentage of small businesses…had jobs they couldn’t fill: 42% vs. an average since 1974 of 22%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a record high opening percentage of 4.5% and the percentage of those quitting jobs is near a historic high as well at 2.3%. Yet the unemployment rate is down from the peak of 14.8% but at 6% it is still “far above the 3.5% rate of February 2020. Economist’s survey by Bloomberg estimate that rate will fall to 4.5% in Q2, 2022.
Why is this happening?
The politically conservative argument is “that generous unemployment benefits discourage people from seeking work.” With COVID, benefits rules have been relaxed essentially allowing benefits to continue despite turning down job offers.
With COVID’s health concerns there may be, more early retirement, more resistance to taking “customer-facing” jobs and more willingness to stay home to care for children still not returning to school.
Another stark reality is competition for entry-level or low-wage jobs by big employers like Amazon. According to NFIB 28% “of small businesses surveyed said they were raising pay” a figure under the 2018 peak of 37% but double last summer.
There a sense too that workers are becoming accustom to the flexibility of working a few gig jobs rather than committing to one traditional fulltime job. Some companies are responding in kind “to lure applicants.”
Workers commenting on Reddit r/antiwork reflect a taxing reality of finding work in recent times before and ongoing with COVID. A typical comment, from what is considered to be a younger set on r/antiwork, is “’You’re telling me I have to enslave myself to all these applications for hours on end, competing with my fellow man and woman, giving up my dignity just for a chance to enslave myself further so I don’t literally die? I’m not having it.”
As it turns out, there are differences in the job market based on where an applicant lives and what role they are seeking. March Unemployment was “15% oil, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction, and 13% in leisure and hospitality” but only 2.7% in government (includes teaching) and 3.4% in finance. Hawaii has the highest unemployment at 9.2% and South Dakota at 2.9% the lowest.
Most of the unfilled jobs are low-paying or harder-to-fill higher paying jobs requiring skills that are in short supply. With the onset of COVID more jobs became automated creating demand for candidates having education and training in information technology and/or engineering. There’s a sense that higher pay and easing qualifications might increase success of recruiting efforts.
Solutions
In response to these challenges some companies are simplifying the application process, raising wages, easing job requirements, partitioning FT jobs into small PT roles that are more flexible and devising ways to make some jobs seem more attractive.