Justin Bullock, FISM News
Demand in the labor market continues to significantly outpace supply as the July labor report showed that there are approximately 1 million more job vacancies than there are people currently looking for work. Businesses, particularly in the service and retail industry have been struggling for months now due to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that the pandemic has come to an end for all intents and purposes, those businesses that survived are re-opening and hoping to do business.
The problem is that many businesses cannot find employees as many Americans are content with relying on the substantial unemployment benefits that were created in order to compensate for the pandemic’s economic consequences. Many of these businesses were forced to close during the pandemic months, and as a result most had to let go of most, if not all, of their employees. Now businesses are re-opening but are finding that many of their former employees can earn just as much as they did on unemployment, and do not want to return to work.
In response, businesses are being forced to sweeten their offers to potential employees. This has come in the form of higher wages, signing bonuses, and more flexible work conditions. As more and more of these benefits roll out, the labor market is seeing a gradual increase in new hires. Despite the gap between available jobs and available workers, July’s job report still indicated an increase of approximately 943,000 jobs which is the largest growth since August of 2020.