Small businesses are struggling to hire owing to a shortage of qualified applicants, while also being challenged by inflation, according to reports by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). Forty-three percent of owners had job openings they could not fill in March, on a seasonally adjusted basis, said NFIB’s March 2023 Jobs Report. Meanwhile,…
Shortage of Qualified Workers Pose Hiring Challenges for Small Businesses, Says Report
Shortage of Qualified Workers Poses Hiring Challenges for Small Businesses, Says Report
Small businesses are struggling to hire owing to a shortage of qualified applicants, while also being challenged by inflation, according to reports by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). Forty-three percent of owners had job openings they could not fill in March, on a seasonally adjusted basis, said NFIB’s March 2023 Jobs Report. Meanwhile,…
Biden’s Economic Optimism Threatened By Sticky Inflation, Credit Shocks
The U.S. economy has made a remarkable comeback from COVID-19, growing by 2.1 percent in 2022 and returning to its pre-pandemic growth track. Since President Joe Biden took office, the economy has recovered more than 12.5 million jobs and the unemployment rate has dropped to a 50-year low. The number of applications for new small…
Applications for Jobless Aid Rising but Still at Low Levels
The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid was higher over the past few months than the government had initially reported, reflecting a modest rise in layoffs as the economy has slowed in the face of higher interest rates. The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of applications has been above 200,000 since early February—above…
Job Openings Fall the Most in 2 Years
Commentary With labor participation rates still far below pre-lockdown norms, and with the rising investment we should be seeing, one might suppose job openings would be growing. Trends are going in the opposite direction. Job openings for March fell the most they have in two years. This data, however, needs to be unpacked a bit…
‘Common Prosperity’ Fades as China’s Billionaires and Unemployed Poor Proliferate Simultaneously
News Analysis China is running counter to the goal of “common prosperity” proposed by its communist rulers, as it becomes further polarized between rich and poor, with a rise both in the number of billionaires and in the unemployed or non-earning populations. “Common prosperity” has been among China’s top buzzwords since 2021. The slogan was…
Is There Reason to Fear AI?
Commentary ChatGPT and other aspects of artificial intelligence (AI) have created a lot of fear. Many dread, and have done so for years, that AI will steal millions of jobs and, worse, gain some sentience and take over, as the computer HAL did in the 1970’s film, “2001 Space Odyssey.” Neither the takeover nor mass…
US Weekly Jobless Claims Post Largest Rise in 5 Months; Labor Market Still Tight
WASHINGTON—The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits increased by the most in five months last week, but the underlying trend remained consistent with a tight labor market. Part of the larger-than-expected rise in claims reported by the Labor Department on Thursday reflected a surge in applications in New York state, which some…
High Welfare in NSW Is Encouraging the Labour Shortage: Hospitality Minister
Candidates for the Labor and Greens parties for a regional seat in New South Wales (NSW) both acknowledged they didn’t know how to fix the labour shortage, while the Nationals MP attributed the problem to unmotivated workers who are paid “too much to stay at home” by the state. The comment was made ahead of…
CBO Projects Higher Unemployment, Slow Exit From Inflation
WASHINGTON—The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Wednesday that it expects the U.S. economy to stagnate this year with the unemployment rate jumping to 5.1 percent—a bleak outlook that was paired with a 10-year projection that publicly held U.S. debt would nearly double to $46.4 trillion in 2033. The office’s updated 10-year Budget and Economic Outlook…
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