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Plenty of Jobs in American Economy, Supply of Workers not enough

The American economy is causing consternation and whiplash almost as quickly as it is creating Jobs. Only a year after the coronavirus caused the sharpest economic decline and employment losses in history, the recovery has been so quick that many businesses cannot fill Jobs or obtain enough supplies to meet a surge in client demand.

Kirby Mallon, the president of Elmer Schultz Services, a repair and maintenance of Kitchen equipment based in Philadelphia, said, “Things exploded — it was like a light switch. The labor market is just out of control. We literally cannot hire technicians … We ramped up so quickly, the supply chain wasn’t ready for it.” Economic analysts are wondering topics they can’t answer with any certainty, given the lack of historical precedent to guide them through the aftermath of a worldwide pandemic.

The news has been uplifting in many ways: The economy increased at a blistering 6.4 percent annual rate from January to March. This pace is expected to pick up to nearly double digits in the current quarter. However, the whole picture of the US economy is much more nuanced.

Employers added 559,000 Jobs in May, up from 278,000 in April. Those are generally considered to be healthy figures. Despite this, experts had projected substantially more hiring in the face of record-high job opportunities and free-spending consumers. Some experts predicted that the rebound from the pandemic recession would result in monthly job growth of 800,000, 900,000, or even one million Jobs each month.

Job postings are being posted faster than applicants can react. After all, many Americans deal with significant turbulence at home, including COVID-19-related health issues, child-care challenges as schools slowly return, and employment uncertainty following the permanent loss of many Jobs over the past 15 months. And other people are taking their time before looking for another job because they are receiving more from federal and state unemployment benefits than they did while they worked.

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