Workers Make Truthful Signs About Why Employers Are Facing Staff Shortages

The US Labor Department reports that job openings rose to a two-year high in February, while in March employers added nearly 1M new jobs. In this new reality of the post-pandemic world when more and more businesses are reopening their doors, job openings are accelerating faster than people can send job applications.

Unsurprisingly, many business owners are frustrated with this whole situation as they complain over how nobody wants to work these days. But things are not that easy. A growing body of workers are now stepping up to voice their eye-opening reasons on why making frappuccinos and defrosting pies would not be the smartest idea right now. And these are way more complex than just “wanting” or “not wanting” to work.

So in order to be heard, workers are now making their own posters to defend themselves from being continually blamed for staffing shortages across the country. Read on below to see what people had to say about it all.

The recent A.U.S. Census survey conducted in March found that about 4.2 million adults aren’t looking for jobs, not because they’re scarce, but because of worries about catching the coronavirus, states The Wall Street Journey.

Another reason is that while businesses are reopening, many adult employees with children have no one to leave their kids with. Caregiving responsibilities have particularly affected potential female employees as in late March, more than half of schools were still in remote learning or combination classes. Many women feel torn at this point, realizing that they can’t do both—be a good stay-at-home mom and an exemplary employee.

Unemployment benefits have been the last resource for many unemployed people to support the economy with weekly expansions of $600. University of Chicago researchers have found that “benefit expansions during the pandemic were a more effective policy than predicted by standard structural models.” Their figures showed that “overall spending was 2.0-2.6 percent higher and employment only 0.2-0.4 percent lower as a result of the benefit expansions.”

But these expansions are already set to finish in early September and economists are watching to see what that means for business owners and low-wage workers. The low-wage workers are the most affected by the pandemic quirks in the economy and they are likely to recover much slower than higher-wage workers.