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A McDonald’s in Tampa, Florida is offering $ 50 just to show up for a job interview.
During this time, Delta Air Lines had to cancel a hundred flights for lack of personnel.
Vacancies are rife in many parts of the United States, but something strange is happening.
After the initial shock of the coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions it forced to impose sent unemployment to historic levels, now that the situation has improved and vaccination is advancing, many companies are facing a problem. unexpected: they cannot find candidates to fill their vacancies.
According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, 40% of employers polled in February said they had not found workers to fill new jobs.
Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist of this trade association, said that “Finding skilled workers has become a critical issue for small businesses across the country.”.
Carlos Gazitua, president of the Sergio restaurant chain in Florida, is one of those who say he suffers from the problem.
“Currently all of my employees work 6/7 days a week because we are understaffed,” he told BBC Mundo. “Things have gotten to a point where, when an application comes in, managers jump for joy, but it turns out applicants don’t show up for the interview.”
He says he needs to fill his current workforce of 400 with 80 employees and that the understaffing has forced him to occasionally close some of his restaurants or leave them. only for home delivery.
“We stopped earning 20 or 25% of what we could earn because there is a demand that we cannot meet.”
What is pasando
Since the problem arose, professional associations have identified a culprit.
In the aftermath of the COVID crisis, the government of Joe Biden expanded his assistance to the unemployed and those who qualify are entitled to receive US $ 300 per week, in addition to the benefits already in force in each state.
Dunkelberg believes that “the increase in unemployment benefits prevents some workers from working”.
Katharine G. Abraham, professor of economics at the University of Maryland and commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the United States government between 1993 and 2001, believes instead that aid “played a minor role, because everyone knows it won’t last forever. ”
“People are not going to turn down a job now and may not find another one later.”
Restaurants are struggling to find staff.
Saru Jayaraman, founder of “Un Sueldo Justo”, an organization that calls for better wages for lower paid workers, assures us that they “have been warning the hotel industry for years that workers will leave if they do not increase their wages. wages”.
“It is ridiculous to say that the problem is in the benefits. Last year we spoke to 240,000 workers who could not benefit from it because in many states they were telling them that their wages of $ 2 to $ 4 an hour were too low to qualify for the benefit ”, Jayaraman explains in a conversation with BBC Mundo.
He is among the voices calling for an increase in the minimum wage in the United States, a measure Biden has included in his new economic stimulus package he is trying to push through Congress.
Biden’s goal is to reach a federal minimum wage of $ 15 an hour by 2025, and several states are already revising those in force in their territory upwards.
The problem of understaffing negatively affects the lives of workers, both those who are active and those who are not.
Mary Miranda continues to work. The manager of a clothing store in Sunrise, Florida, regrets that when the business was able to reopen after restrictions due to the pandemic, many of her subordinates were unwilling to join her.
“Those of us who are left now have to do all the chores, even the most physical ones. I am always tired and lately I have started to suffer with a grimace.”
Carissa Shade is one of those who does not work. A resident of Fletcher, North Carolina, he lost his job in March due to restrictions. “Since then everything has been a nightmare“, he rocks.
In June, they got up, but she had to take sick leave to give birth and when she wanted to come home, she found that the company had decided to do without her. Since then, her family has supported herself with her partner’s salary and public assistance to feed her four children.
At 18, she started working as a waitress and this is not the first time that she has felt vulnerable due to her status as a woman. “In this business, you depend on tips and I have often had to learn to deal with situations of over-trust or harassment from customers.”
Carissa Shade is fed up with low-paying jobs and won’t take one that pays her less than it costs her to have someone to look after her children.
“If they offered me a decent job, I would take it, but the last one, they paid me less than $ 4 an hour. I won’t work for less than it costs me to pay someone to take care of my children while I was gone. ”
Finance is not the only factor that makes Carissa Shade prefer not to join the job market.
“In the hospitality industry, you are always exposed to a lot of viruses,” he says, alluding to a fear that can be shared by many who are currently rejecting jobs in public.
Many people who lost their jobs are now receiving unemployment benefits and other government assistance.
I hope this situation will last
Economist Abraham is “skeptical” of complaints from employers who say they cannot find employees.
“We’ve seen in previous recessions where when things start to get better, there is always a period when companies say they are having difficulty hiring.”
“They are probably going to have to agree to raise wages or hire workers with a different profile than what they wanted.”
Restaurant owners at the Miami Beach resort are complaining that they cannot fill their vacancies.
Gazitua says she already does. He says the dishwashers he manages to hire for the kitchens in his restaurants are paid US $ 19 an hour, whereas before the pandemic, employees in this function typically received no more than US $ 12. .
But many businessmen say the solution will come only when government aid is moderated or eliminated.
“The government must encourage people to return to work”says Gazitua, who believes that “the problem is not only a question of money, but also of whether people want to serve their community or not”.
This businessman appreciates that the difficult months of the pandemic have changed the scale of priorities. “After this period, many people, especially young people, realized that they preferred a job that allowed them to spend time with their family rather than a job in which they made a lot of money but required many hours. .
“There are already restaurants that use robots instead of waiters and I think about it.”
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