Is The US Running Out Of Workers?
The latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey has some economists worried the US economy is running out of qualified workers to fill a surplus of job openings.
Job openings soared to 5.8 million in April, up from 5.7 million in March, according to data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet hires fell from 5.3 million to 5.1 million over the same period, Bloomberg reports.
Economists say this suggests firms are having trouble finding qualified employees, but that’s not due to a lack of people looking—the number of Americans working part-time because they can’t find full-time work has exploded from half a million in May to 6.4 million, and nearly 2 million people are job-hunting but have been unemployed for over six months. [Bloomberg]
