WASHINGTON—Restaurant and hotel owners struggling to fill jobs. Supply-chain delays forcing up prices for small businesses. Unemployed Americans unable to find work even with job openings at a record high. Those and other disruptions to the U.S. economy—consequences of the viral pandemic that erupted 18 months ago—appear likely to endure, a group of business owners and nonprofit executives told Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday. The business challenges, described during a “Fed Listens” virtual roundtable, underscore the ways that the COVID-19 outbreak and its delta variant are continuing to transform the U.S. economy. Some participants in the event said their business plans were still evolving. Others complained of sluggish sales and fluctuating fortunes after the pandemic eased this summer and then intensified in the past two months. “We are really living in unique times,” Powell said at the end of the discussion. “I’ve never seen these kinds of supply-chain …