Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Small Businesses Have Big Job Openings, But Can’t Fill Them
Investors Business Daily ^ | 5/10/2016 | ED CARSON

Posted on 05/12/2016 4:21:04 AM PDT by expat_panama

Small-business owners were more upbeat in April, with job openings matching a cycle high, but finding qualified applicants remains a major problem, according to the National Federation of Independent Business on Tuesday.

NFIB’s Small Business Optimism Index rose 1 point last month to 93.6. This ends a three-month slide to a two-year low in March. The gauge remains below historically normal levels.

A net 11% of smaller firms plan to add staff, up from March’s 9%,...

...46% of small businesses said they had few or no qualified applications...

,,,24% of NFIB respondents said in April that they planned to increase compensation...

...18% of firms expect the economy to get worse vs. 17% in March. A net 1% see sales rising vs. unchanged before. But actual sales have only been positive in one month in the last four years.

A few more businesses (a net 8%, up 2 points) say it’s a good time to expand, though the share of respondents planning capital spending was steady at 25%.

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: economy; employment; investing
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-78 last
To: central_va
Gee funny how the everyone want the free market to follow the natural laws of supply and demand for everything, every commodity but labor.

That could be viewed as a double edge sword. To the business owner who complains about not being able to find "qualified workers", the solution is to pay above the "market wage".

When I was actively looking for a better job 7+ years ago, I had more than one interview end badly when the interviewer said (after 45 minutes to an hour), "I'm afraid your qualifications are "too strong" for this position."

61 posted on 05/12/2016 6:20:06 AM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Mississippi!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: expat_panama
Small-business owners were more upbeat in April, with job openings matching a cycle high, but finding qualified applicants for jobs paying the recession level crap wages they're still offering remains a major problem

I fixed it for them.

Companies offering competitive salaries have long lines of applicants. There's no shortage outside very specialized and difficult fields, or where you need government licensing.

62 posted on 05/12/2016 6:22:00 AM PDT by MaxFlint
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SoothingDave
Then someone else needs a welder. The supply doesn’t increase when one welder moves from company A to company B.

In the short run. But in the long run when people see that welders are making mad cash they learn to weld.

Unless treasonous globalist scum import third world scabs to do the job for crap wages...

63 posted on 05/12/2016 6:25:18 AM PDT by MaxFlint
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: MaxFlint
treasonous globalist scum

Report yourself to the Dept. of Redundancy Dept.

64 posted on 05/12/2016 6:28:51 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 63 | View Replies]

To: expat_panama

Later


65 posted on 05/12/2016 6:29:42 AM PDT by wjcsux ("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Repeal The 17th
Opening will not accept Applicant because:
Applicant education/training/skills do not meet requirements

If a business really needs to fill the position they'll loosen up the requirements and train the best person they can get unless there's some regulation preventing it. Often the requirements are just wish lists that can be dropped with no impact on employee quality.

Amazing how many companies dropped their excessive demand for degrees and "ten years experience" during the Reagan boom years.

66 posted on 05/12/2016 6:35:04 AM PDT by MaxFlint
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: only1percent

Nailed it!


67 posted on 05/12/2016 6:53:27 AM PDT by Aevery_Freeman (Historians will refer to this administration as "The Half-Black Plague.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: Arm_Bears
What qualifications are these small businesses looking for?

1) Moral character.
2) Work ethic.
3) English language fluency.

We can teach anything else, but finding candidates possessing all three of these basic attributes has become phenomenally difficult.

68 posted on 05/12/2016 7:13:53 AM PDT by Mr. Jeeves ([CTRL]-[GALT]-[DELETE])
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Iscool

That’s not how it works except in theory.


69 posted on 05/12/2016 7:17:18 AM PDT by shelterguy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Mr. Jeeves

Gee, I possess all three of those attributes, plus a reasonably high intellect.

However, I’m a 60-year old, White, Christian, conservative male—I guess those characteristics disqualify me.


70 posted on 05/12/2016 7:37:59 AM PDT by Arm_Bears (Rope. Tree. Politician/Journalist. Some assembly required.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: SoothingDave

Then wages should be raising, but they are not.

Adjusted for inflation wages are down/stagnant over the last 30 years. But productivity is way up.


71 posted on 05/12/2016 7:47:40 AM PDT by crusher2013 (Liberalism is Aristocracy masquerading as equality)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: central_va

Welders—Fence! Fence! Also para-military to provide security for the construction crews from hostiles. Traveling support camp for the workforce.


72 posted on 05/12/2016 8:29:06 AM PDT by Ozark Tom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: Mr. Jeeves

People with moral character, work ethics and communications skills won’t work for peanuts.


73 posted on 05/12/2016 8:56:03 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: crusher2013

As a worker in High tech, it seems to me what I see is the companies have plenty of young men with the degrees required to hire, but they can get H1B visas cheaper.

Further if you hire a young chap, after 2 to 3 years of hard work he wants to earn a decent income, say enough to pay off his school debts and get married, that sort of thing. Well the issue with that is he might jump jobs if you do not give him a raise, whereas the H1B via guy will not for at least 5 years.

One thing I have noted in the last 20 yeas is productivity has gone up rather quickly, so you need fewer folks. The ones that remain are well paid, but no new ones are hired unless someone retires. Hard for Young guys to get in or advance under those circumstances.

In the non-degreed positions, what I see is companies want to hire contract labor or labor without benefits through a sourcing company. These companies supply skilled labor by sourcing older tech guys for low wages with no benefits, but that is all the 55 year olds can get. Most of the Engineers I work with do not advocate their sons following them, though in my generation we almost all followed our fathers footsteps in the technical fields.

It really does come down a miss-match between wages and skill set. A person with a skill expects to make enough to have a decent life. In my area they want to hire line techs in the cable industry for under 15 an hour. Skilled labor, 2 year degree, dangerous, out in all sorts of crappy weather and they want to pay a wage insufficient for a single guy who does not room share or depend on family for housing to live.


74 posted on 05/12/2016 11:02:59 AM PDT by Frederick303
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 71 | View Replies]

To: Frederick303

I am also in high tech and I agree with your post.

What we have going on in this country is disconnect between Business and Political leaders and the best interest of the majority of people.

They never face the consequences of their decisions, the pain is paid by other people while they reap the benefits.
In short they are strip mining the country for their own beneft.

Some how we need to bring the incentives back in alignment.

This election should be a wakeup call for them. But so far all I see is more of the same manipulation.


75 posted on 05/12/2016 1:03:35 PM PDT by crusher2013 (Liberalism is Aristocracy masquerading as equality)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies]

To: only1percent
It’s in between that kills him. Support desk to work for that IT director, a secretary for that head of marketing, a shift supervisor for the floor workers who can actually read the day’s manifests and the Excel sheets that plan work flow. What kills him, specifically, is government money. Grossly overpaid pink and blue collar government jobs are impossible to compete with, and SSDI is a huge factor: it’s basically become an early retirement program (as in, mid-40s sometimes) for any blue-collar guy who can follow his lawyer’s script. He also tells me that they end up getting combined — the guys go out on SSDI and their wives are working as secretaries for the school district.


Yup.

Obama fraudulently enrolled a huge number of people directly off of unemployment and onto SSDI after their 99 weeks of extended benifits ran out.

Around seven million able bodied , unemployed workers were fraudulently enrolled in SSDI, more than doubling the number of people on SSDI before Obama took office.

Obama was able to do this under the radar screen because there was a SSDI “Trust Fund” of IOU’s the program wrote to the government in times of surplus and Obama has raided the SSDI Trust Fund Lock Box and treated it like his own little off the book slush fund. He cashed in all the IOU s and blown through the “trust funds” so the SSDI Trust Fund is now bankrupt.

Obama expertly timed the bankrupting of the SSDI fund to coincide with the the exact month he leaves office so there is a looming funding crisis of the 13 million SSDI recipients as the fund runs out the end of 2016

Here's the bad news for the people who choose the disability scam.

They have been out of the workforce for almost 8 years and most of the disabilities justifications were for nebulous and hard to prove “ mental disability” .

The combination of claims of mental disability, the 8 year gap in employment history and the suspicion that that person has committed disability fraud is going to make these 7 million people Obama enrolled in SSDI permanently unemployable.

They are also going to be sen as having been stealing money set aside for the most vulnerable, at risk and legitimately needy members of our society - the profoundly handicapped and disabled members of our society

We are already in seriuos economic trouble and dumping 7 million SSDI recipients on the streets with no way to pay for them is going to a heck of a mess

God help me, but I truly despise the the profoundly destructive people in the Obama Administraion for what they have done to this country but I never cease to be amazed at how they keep their propaganda going and hide their agenda and malfeasance form the American people. .

76 posted on 05/12/2016 1:39:14 PM PDT by rdcbn ("If what has happened here is not treason, it is its first cousin." Zell Milleraere)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: SoothingDave
"Then someone else needs a welder. The supply doesn’t increase when one welder moves from company A to company B."

Sure it does. When welding pays better, more people go to school to become welders. There was a big fluff not too long ago about the lack of petroleum engineers to fill vacancies left by retirements. The industry started paying bigger salaries, and suddenly schools had to start turning students away because there weren't enough seats in the classrooms.
77 posted on 05/12/2016 11:16:58 PM PDT by Eisenhower Republican (Supervillains for Trump: "Because evil pays better!")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: expat_panama

I have to mention that Small Businesses are often guilty as all hell of asking for a ridiculous amount of qualifications for positions - bachelor’s degrees, 2-4 years experience, etc. - that as often as not could be fulfilled by any college grad with an associates.

When I graduated with my IT networking degree I was completely screwed because NOWHERE would even look at someone who didn’t have an expensive certification I couldn’t afford to get after I didn’t pass the first time, couldn’t get hired anywhere to get the 2-6 years experience that I kept seeing listed and couldn’t afford to go back for a better degree.

So yeah, I’m pretty cold to pleas of ‘waaah we can’t FIND anyone’ at this point.


78 posted on 05/12/2016 11:35:06 PM PDT by Laser_Ray (Another nifty idea)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-78 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson