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Consider This from NPR

Why Are So Many Businesses Struggling To Find Workers?

Consider This from NPR

NPR

Daily News, Society & Culture, News Commentary, News

4.26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2021

⏱️ ? minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Republicans say enhanced pandemic unemployment benefits are what's keeping people out of the workforce. That could be playing a role, but the complete picture is far more complicated.

NPR chief economic correspondent Scott Horsley lays out the evidence for what's really behind the struggle to find workers.

Stacey Vanek Smith, host of NPR's daily economics podcast The Indicator, explains why the problem may be specific to a certain subset of the economy. More from the Indicator on that topic here. Find more episodes on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, before we get to the show, we're trying to make this podcast better.

0:03.6

And we would love some feedback from you about how we can do that.

0:07.0

So to help us out, you can find a short anonymous survey at npr.org slash spring survey.

0:12.8

And that link is in our episode notes.

0:14.6

It only takes a few minutes and it's a big help.

0:17.8

Again, npr.org slash spring survey.

0:21.3

Thanks.

0:22.3

These days at dairy queen in bend Oregon, if an employee calls in sick, there's no plan

0:31.8

B.

0:32.8

So either the managers work in extra shift or I work in extra shift or we just go

0:37.3

short-handed and hope for the best.

0:40.7

Area manager Nikki Johnson is in charge of two dairy queen locations on the north and

0:44.8

south ends of town.

0:46.2

And lately they've been so short on staff they'll sometimes go drive through only and close

0:51.7

the indoor part of the restaurant.

0:53.5

I get text messages from a friend that came to try and get a burger but they can't get

0:57.3

inside the building.

0:58.3

Or if you have friends put a post on Facebook that's a lobby with clothes and what's going

1:03.0

on is like, oh, what's going on is that Johnson, like a lot of hiring managers around the

1:08.2

country does not have enough employees.

1:10.8

It's almost like we have wage wars.

1:13.7

One restaurant up the minimum than everybody else does.

...

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