5 reasons for the continuing worker shortage
You know this from going about your daily life: we have a serious worker shortage.
In North Carolina, even if every unemployed worker was connected with an available job, there would still be nearly 160,000 open positions and no one to fill them. That’s according to figures from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
A year ago, when COVID was still keeping many people at home, 5 On Your Side looked into this issue. Now we’re looking at it again, talking to business owners and experts to find out, where are the workers now?
The owner of the newly-opened BBQ Lab in North Hills says the constant shifting with staff he has to do is like being an NFL quarterback.
"I step up to the line, I look at the defense, I call my audible," Jerry Stephenson joked. "We have workers who still get sick. We have workers who have family matters that come up, you know an infant sick or a family member sick who had to leave."
He says giving employees that time away is a must, but it gets tricky when you’re understaffed. The ‘why’ behind that short staffing has been a bit of a mystery.
"It’s kind of a head scratcher," Stephenson told us.
When he opened the BBQ Lab four months ago, Stephenson says he was blindsided by how hard it was to hire.
"We couldn’t find anybody to train. So, while I’m building this out and completing this restaurant, I’m realizing I’ve got nobody to run this restaurant," Stephenson explained.
That’s meant only being open five days a week. It is not the schedule he expected, but one that’s now etched on the front window. It’s also meant Stephenson has been wearing a lot of hats.
"I am the CEO. I’m also the janitor; I’m the the dishwasher, the electrician, the plumber, the builder and also the accountant for this firm," Stephenson said.
It’s not just restaurants, 5 On Your Side found a Dollar Tree in North Raleigh closed when it should have been open, because they didn’t have enough workers.
A Raleigh day care asked parents three times in January to keep kids home or pick them up early because of staffing issues.
WRAL News has also previously reported about school buses running late because of a lack of drivers and a worsening nursing shortage.
So, what is driving all this?
"I don’t think it’s a straightforward answer," said Patrick Flynn, assistant professor of human resources at North Carolina State University.
Flynn said that a lot of restaurant, retail and other in-person, blue collar workers affected by shutdowns moved on.
"A lot of those employees found ways that they could redeploy those skills in other roles," Flynn explained.
When 5 On Your Side asked this question a year ago, experts pointed to an aging work force. "Not enough babies to fill their place. Not enough new immigrants to fill their place. And younger people going to school rather than entering the labor market," Andrew Berger-Gross, senior economist at the North Carolina Department of Commerce, explained at the time.
People in North Carolina also continue to start new businesses at a near-record pace. The Secretary of State’s office says in 2022 171,300 new businesses were registered. That’s just shy of the all time record set in 2021 of 178,300.
Another factor: "Child care is extremely expensive," Flynn said.
The U.S. Department of Commerce says 3.5 million mothers left their jobs at the start of the pandemic, and a lot of them haven’t gone back, leading to the lowest rates of women in the workforce since the 1970s.
Men’s participation in the workforce has also been declining for decades. The New York Times recently reported hundreds of thousands of men in their late 30s and early 40s stopped working nationwide during the pandemic and haven’t returned, mostly men without college degrees.
And finally: "Burnout. It’s everywhere right now," Flynn said.
After three years of all the extra stress the pandemic created, people are exhausted.
"Is work something that I do or is work who I am? For some people, I think that the onset of the pandemic set off a recalibration to the answer to that question," Flynn said.
