By Jim Geraghty
Monday, May 10,
2021
Boy, some Washington Post copy
editor must’ve enjoyed writing this headline: “GOP governors
slash jobless aid to try to force more Americans to return to work.”
The most updated information we have on
job openings nationwide from the Federal Reserve is for February, and that
month, the country had 7.36 million job openings. We bottomed out in
pandemic-driven closings in April 2020, with just 4.6 million job openings. In
March, the National Federation of Independent Business survey found 42 percent of
owners reported job openings that could not be filled, a record-high reading.
Democrats and their fans in the media keep
insisting that the expanded unemployment benefits passed during the pandemic
to help people get through have nothing to do with last Friday’s abysmal
jobs numbers.
The problem is that employers keep saying
otherwise.
Consider this
story out of Indiana:
For Todd
Hein, president of Terre Haute-based Labor Link, the current shortage is
simple — “There’s too much free money sitting out there to stay home,” he
said.
Hein
specifically addressed unemployment benefits, with Hoosiers typically getting
about $298 a week, plus an additional $300 in pandemic-related funds. “That is
hard to compete with and it seems equivalent to about $15 an hour,” he said.
As an
example, Hein said his company “had an employee who called in and wanted a
pay stub to continue his unemployment when the job that he was laid off from
would like to have him back and is hiring,” Hein said. “The government is my
main competitor right now,” he said.
“I have
never seen anything like this,” he said.
Some
companies are giving $1-an-hour incentives and $2 for night shifts, raising
their $14 hourly rate to $15 for days and $16 for evenings, Hein said.
“We have
had other clients raise their pay from $11 to $14,” Hein said. In addition,
Labor Link is giving workers a $40 per week bonus if workers complete their
full work schedule, “which is the equivalent of a dollar an hour bonus,” Hein
said.
However,
getting people to accept employment remains a challenge.
“We did a
four-hour job fair (on April 27) and had zero people show up,” Hein said of a
recent event at a manufacturing facility. “It was set up at their site, it was
advertised and was on TV, and nobody showed up.”
Notice this similar-sounding comment from
Huntington, W.Va., restaurant manager Jason Webb: “I feel like I
am competing against the enhanced unemployment benefits and the stimulus. It is making it hard to find workers when they can make so much
not working.”
And this
comment from New York City:
Philippe
Massoud, CEO of the Lebanese eatery Ilili, in Manhattan’s Flatiron District,
said he’s “left no stone unturned” in an effort to fill 15 positions — but it’s
tough to compete with the hefty unemployment checks.
“If I was
working a back-breaking job and making $600 a week and I had had the option of
making $600 and not breaking my back — the choice is obvious,” he said.
And this from New Jersey: “I think we’re
all having trouble, a lot of restaurants, all kinds of businesses, really,” said Dimitri Koniarelis, the owner of the Bridgewater Diner and two
other restaurants in the state. “I think, from the feedback I get, a lot of
people are collecting unemployment and they would rather stay home.”
Over the weekend, the Washington
Post profiled Miami restaurants desperate for staff: “Beltran said
that for every 10 résumés he gets, maybe one person shows up for an interview.” A Chattanooga restaurant features the sign, “We are short
staffed. Please be patient with the staff that did show up. No one wants to
work anymore.”
And it’s not
just restaurants, as seen in western New York:
Sumitomo
Rubber USA’s tire-making plant in the Town of Tonawanda is trying to fill about
40 jobs, said Paola Palm, talent acquisition recruiter.
“Our most
challenging positions are for general production,” Palm said. “It appears the
largest obstacle is the motivation people have, or don’t have, to get back to
work.”
“If employers can’t find enough workers,
they should just pay more!” Well, a bunch of employers are;
certainly not all, and maybe not enough, but as seen above, employers are
offering all kinds of pay hikes and signing bonuses and still not seeing
applicants walking through the door. The problem isn’t that these employers are
competing with each other; they’re
competing with the government offering $14 to $25 per hour for not working.
The government is offering
depth-of-pandemic-era unemployment benefits in an emerging-from-the-pandemic
economy.
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