United States: Why can’t companies fill vacancies if unemployment is at 6.1%?

First amendment: 05/08/2021 – 04:26

In January of this year, Alex Washot laid out hiring plans for his two restaurants in western Massachusetts. His initial calculations indicated that he needed to hire 20 new employees by May, including cooks, waiters and cleaners.

Although he said he doubled his wages in some cases, he only managed to employ five. He told Reuters that most of the time the candidates did not show up for their interviews.

As if it were a paradox, of the 22 million jobs ravaged by the epidemic in the United States, there are still eight million jobs to recover. Unemployment was stagnant at 6.1%, after months of advance, after hitting an all-time high of 14.7% just a year ago.

A survey conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business shows that 42% of small businesses still had job vacancies in March.

But why do some employers complain about their inability to fill vacancies? As is often the case in Washington, the answer varies drastically depending on which political party you ask about.

Help is redundant?

Many Republicans say the disappointing employment report indicates that federal and state governments deal generously with unemployment benefits, which discourages people from working.

In a move that could be replicated in other Republican-led states, Arkansas, Montana and South Carolina said they would end federal unemployment benefits paid by President Joe Biden next month, saying they were preventing people from working.

Data released by the Labor Department on Thursday, May 6, showed that more than 16 million people were still receiving some type of unemployment benefit, despite the fact that the pandemic has passed more than a year.

For their part, Democrats say the companies are not offering high enough wages or programs like subsidized childcare to encourage people to return to work.

President Biden said this Friday, “When we approve the bailout, I want to remind everyone: It’s designed to help us over a year, not 60 days, or a year! We never think that after the first 50 or 60 days everything will be fine. “

The truth is that after one year of the pandemic, unemployment still has a long way to go, if it is to return to February 2020 levels, when it was at its lowest rate in five decades: 3.5%.

With Reuters, EFE and AP