NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — If you’ve recently been out to eat, spent time shopping at stores or stayed at a hotel, you might’ve noticed several industries are seeking help, and struggling to find workers.
It’s one of the ripple effects of the global pandemic many economists are concerned about.
The entertainment and hospitality industries have been especially hit hard, and despite trying to rebound as things reopen, hiring is hard.
Despite millions of job listings across the country, and thousands across Tennessee and Kentucky, experts insist COVID-19 caused lots of employees to either retire early, move to a new city, or state, or reconsider their job altogether.
Co-Founder and CEO of “Homebase,” a company that helps over 100,000 small business across the country manage their teams, says this problem has many implications.
“It is absolutely hard for businesses to grow. When they can’t find partners, you know, it’s hard for business, new businesses to open, it’s hard for existing businesses to expand,” said John Waldmann, the CEO of Homebase. “So, we are almost certainly not growing our economy at the rate that we, we would like to be in the way that a lot of hard working, small business owners out there would like to be, because of the labor shortage they’re having a really hard time keeping up with customer demand. And so that’s just another pressure you know it’s been such a hard year for small businesses such a heart year and a half for small businesses and this is just another challenge that they now have to deal with.”
Waldmann suggests small businesses try to be a bit more adaptive, to meet workers in the middle when it comes to their wants and desires in a job. He says the pandemic helped change many employees’ mindsets as to what’s important for them in work — whether it’s workplace safety, higher wages, schedule flexibility or the desire to work from home.
There’s more data regarding the U-S worker shortage courtesy of Waldmann’s company that you can see by clicking here.