Desperate For Employees, US Businesses Struggle To Hire

To keep the taps at his recently opened beer tasting room flowing, Peter Chekijian had no choice but to ask his main employees to come in seven days per-week.

The staffing shortage has also kept Chekijian from realizing his goal of brewing beer on site, since he can’t find contractors to finish installing tanks he requires.

“That’s been a big issue of getting people to actually finish up the job,” said Chekijian, who co-founded the small Twin Fork Beer Company in New York state.

Even as millions of Americans who lost their jobs to the Covid-19 pandemic have returned to work, companies nationwide report they’re still struggling to hire employees in recent months.

More than 10 million jobs were unfilled as of the end of August, according to government data. The labor force participation rate, which measures the US economy’s active workforce, was 61.6 percent in September, compared to 63.3 percent before the pandemic.

The causes of the short staffing are myriad, from continued fears of contracting Covid-19, particularly among people who live with elderly family or children, to early retirements and objections over work-life balance and low wages.

And while the government throughout the pandemic offered generous unemployment benefits to keep people who lost their job financially sound, their expiration last month hasn’t yet caused hiring to increase.

Read more at NEWSMAX. 

{Matzav.com}