Three years after the start of the COVID pandemic, employee shortages persist at businesses across the country--especially those in the service industry. According to a survey conducted by the American Hotel and Lodging Association, 82 percent of hotels are experiencing staffing shortages.
All of this is happening despite the economy's continuing recovery. So why are those businesses having a hard time finding workers?
"Well, it's probably a little bit of a lot of things," LSU economist Jim Richardson said. "People did start making adjustments in their lifestyles. They decided staying home was better--with the children or with the family. "Others looked for alternative jobs and they found them, because if you look at the unemployment rate nationally, it's below four percent. Even in Louisiana, the unemployment rate is lower than it usually is."
Dr. Richardson also pointed to worker migration as a reason for employee shortages.
Also, I think, you see people moving and looking at different areas of the country and different job opportunities," Dr. Richardson said. "I think they decided there are better alternatives, and I think that affects particularly the tourism industry relies on a large number of people (who are paid) certain wages that are not as high as other fields."
Those low wages, Dr. Richardson suggests, will continue to be a barrier to attracting workers to service industry jobs.
"They're going to have to up their wages to get people to come back to those jobs and not only up it for a day or two, but up it for the permanency type of thing, or they're going to have to say, 'We're going to find different ways of doing things,'" Dr. Richardson said. "If you go to a hotel, they will say we will clean your rooms only so many times," Dr. Richardson said. "We will have some type of automatic food services that we can do. They are looking at alternatives, which is what they should be doing."
