Posted on 05/03/2019 11:52:05 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Next week is National Small Business Week, but owners aren’t likely to spend it celebrating — they’ll be too busy trying to hire workers or keep the ones they have from defecting to bigger firms.
With a 3.6 percent unemployment rate, the lowest since December 1969, the labor market continues to thrive. “This is a worker’s job market,” said Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi.
But Zandi adds that this is less-than-good news for the small companies that comprise the vast majority of U.S. businesses. “The risk or the concern would be at some point that businesses start to come under financial pressure, particularly smaller ones,” he said.
“Owners are trying to hold on to the employees that they have in a highly competitive labor market,” a March survey from the National Federation of Independent Business said.
They’re not always succeeding. The survey found that although 60 percent of respondents said they were hiring or trying to hire, 54 percent found few to no qualified applicants for those open positions. More than one in five said difficulty in finding workers was the top problem facing their business, and nearly two in five said there were current job openings at their companies they could not fill.
“Small businesses have fewer resources to throw at recruiting and training, so it’s harder for them to get the labor they need,” said Josh Wright, chief economist at iCIMS. Bigger companies also can generally offer more attractive benefits packages, flexible parental and sick leave policies and opportunities for advancement.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
No that’s not the driving force behind it... a factor? Yes, the driving factor? No.
Median household income has flatlined since the 70s while at the same time we went from almost exclusively a single income households to majority dual income.
You can’t spin the general economic decline relatively speaking in the US.
My small business has had to get creative.
There is a State program that will pay 100% of the first 450 hours of a new employee and 75% of the next 700 hours. At the end of the program you can keep them or get new employees. The employees do have to meet financial requirements, but almost everyone we have sent to register has been approved.
We also hire only part time people who want to earn a little extra money in a fun, relaxed environment. Would you rather flip burgers or sit on a nice leather sofa in an air conditioned workshop, listening to music, and detail embroidery jobs (cut loose threads, backing, etc.)? Even printing isn’t hard work. A little tedious, but we play movies on Netflix to cut the boredom.
We can’t offer much in the way of benefits, but it is a good place to work and earn some extra bucks.
use robots
Yeah, I know. It doesn’t make them any less ridiculous. LOL.
Our standard of living, our economic choices have never been more spectacular. We can enjoy so much more out of life. Unfortunately, it takes two incomes to enjoy it.
GDP has grown even as household income has flatlined (or even declined) over the years -- for reasons that are tied to how GDP is defined.
Think of a married couple with a couple of kids. If one parent stays home and raises the children, the child care arrangement contributes almost $0 to the nation's GDP. But if both parents work and they pay a day care center to raise the kids, then suddenly you have "economic activity" that is measured in the GDP.
I've said for a long time that a lot of our GDP growth has been "fake" -- because it doesn't really measure real value. Instead, it simply values the monetization of normal everyday activities that we used to do ourselves instead of paying someone else to do it.
So, here’s the deal on this....
I’m 62 years old, approaching retirement from a career in high-tech. If all these small businesses would start focusing on providing some kind of employment at a wage that is not a pittance, which offers some flexibility in scheduling, *and which includes health insurance benefits* to folks my age, I would think they could tap into an immense pool of ready-to-go talent.
Not only that, but we’re not snowflakes or “handle with kid-gloves” millennials and we know how to work.
Just sayin’
I agree with you. It amazes me that more people don’t get creative that way.
For that matter, it wouldn’t hurt a lot of bigger businesses and organizations to be more creative, too.
Get out of the “this is the way things have always been done” mindset. ASK people what they want. What motivates me might not be what motivates you. (Then give them options). Don’t set up your “bonus” or “incentive” program in such a way that it’s difficult if not impossible to reach the goals. That dis-incentivises me quickly.
Speaking for myself, if I never get another “gift” or “reward” that is something along the lines of a tote bag with the company name on it, it will be too soon. Don’t waste money on that junk; just give me money, if not a gift card!
Employers have been reaping the rewards of an excess of workers for the last 30 years to keep wages suppressed while pocketing the surpluses from the cheap labor. That combined with the constant influx of illegals that will live 10 to a room and work for peanuts meant a shrinking American middle class. Employers over the last 30 years have been able to demand ridiculous experience requirements for low level jobs at paupers wages, no one wanted to take someone and actually train them for the job. Finally we have some balance returning to the labor market and immediately employers start crying about having to pay higher wages. Tough, I have no sympathy. Pay your workers a decent wage or go out of business. Labor is a cost of doing business so either pay it or go away.
Now they need to reduce the value of the "free" sh!+ available to the parasites and add more paperwork and requirements, making it easier just to get one of those min-wage jobs.
I agree in principle. However as a solo physician most of my prices are set by Medicare, Medicaid and government empowered insurance cartels Raising prices requires a free market and in many corners of the economy Trump has plenty more work to do to restore it.
In the area I’m in, a fishing tackle store has a help wanted sign looking for workers at $15.00 an hour. The state has normal minimum wage. McDonalds & Burger King are all shorthanded.
larger firms need employees. It is easier to buy the small firm. Then they have the employees.
The problem is that now that companies don’t contribute a pension or medical benefits, they keep the money. That’s why companies are chase rich. They don’t pay employees and instead keep the cash.
Funny thing tat. I’ll bet McDonalds doesn’t “set” a price for hamburger meat and try to find it at that arbitrary price. Somehow the laws of supply and demand never seem to apply to labor.
Nothing changes when the buyer is buying labor (the employer) and the seller is selling labor (the worker).
Asking an employer to pay for things that have no direct relationship to the business being conducted is idiotic.
Sure they do. McDonalds searches far and wide to get the cheapest beef possible that meets their standards for quality. Australia and New Zealand are major sources of beef for McDonalds ... and it sure isn't because they have a lot of customers in those two countries.
LOL. That doesn't mean that they can set the price of meat. More and more I see you are just a plain economically ignorant..
I can go searching central va for $2.00/pd bacon. I can drive all day go to 30 stores and not find any bacon at that price then I can go on Free Republic and tell everyone that there just is no bacon in central va. There is a bacon shortage. DO YOU SEE HOW STUPID THAT SOUNDS? There is PLENTY of bacon at $4.50/pd!!!!!!!
LABOR MARKETS WORK EXACTLY THE SAME!!!
Trump can’t fix everything.
Case in point: Upstate NY is dying. Because Albany and Cuomo are doing the exact opposite of what Trump is doing.
Trump can’t fix that. And Upstate can’t vote it out. We don’t have the numbers.
But we make an excellent cautionary tale for he rest of the nation: Keep voting for ‘Rats and RINOs and this economic wasteland can be yours, too.
And BTW, some of the folks thinking they know what small biz owners should do might want to talk to some first. Just a gentle suggestion.
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