Jobs plentiful, workers not so much
U.S. Labor Secretary Alex Acosta and counselor to President Trump Kellyanne Conway on the state of the U.S. job market and the Supreme Court's union dues ruling.
The latest reading on private-sector employment came in slightly below expectations, and the lower reading might not be because employers don’t want to hire. They may not be able to find people to hire.
The private sector added 177,000 jobs in June, according to ADP, below the 190,000 that analysts’ were expecting. The ADP data is seen as a preview to the Labor Department’s report which will be released Friday. The government report combines both private sector and government jobs.
Ahead of Friday’s government report, Mark Hamrick, Bankrate.com senior economic analyst, said it is likely that hiring should get closer to 180,000 jobs. But, he noted that, “worker shortages have been reported in some areas of the country in certain sectors, including for truck driving, construction, information technology, sales, carpentry, painting and electrical work.”
Employers have been bemoaning the lack of available workers for some time, voicing concerns that business growth could be tempered by the inability of companies to find people to do the jobs necessary for companies to grow.
The lack of skilled labor is “very concerning,” for large multinationals, Sandy Cockrell, the global leader of the CFO Program for Deloitte, told FOX Business.
Cockrell made the comments in June in an interview discussing Deloitte’s latest quarterly CFO Signals survey. When it comes to what concerns business leaders regarding the execution of their growth initiatives, finding talent ranked high on the list.
“The need for skilled labor across all industries is absolutely critical,” according to Cockrell.
Commenting on the Thursday’s ADP report, Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute said, “The labor market continues to march towards full employment."
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, said, “Business' number one problem is finding qualified workers. At the current pace of job growth, if sustained, this problem is set to get much worse. These labor shortages will only intensify across all industries and company sizes."
The U.S. jobs market is in an interesting position, with the number of job postings increasing to the point that they outnumbered job seekers in April.