By Neal Glatt

All summer long, business owners have been criticizing government unemployment as the reason why there’s not enough employees.  Now that the bonus money is gone, are things really any different when it comes to recruiting?  Of course not.  Here’s why, and what to do to find the people you need.

The first reason that most people can’t find employees is that the unemployment rate is relatively low at 5.2% representing 8.4 million people.  While this number is big, the number of available jobs are much higher at 10.9 million people.  This gap continues to increase month over month as the job market stays hot and people continue to return to work.

It’s also critical to understand that there is a limit to how low unemployment can go.  Pre-pandemic, the US was at about 3.5% unemployment.  While the exact number is greatly debated by economists, a “fully employed” country will always have about 3% unemployment as people move homes, change jobs, or companies go out of business.  So we can’t count on more than a few million of these unemployed people to help out the labor gap.

But here’s how to win the talent war: stop competing for the same people.  There are only 61.6% of people currently participating in the labor force in the US which is down almost 10% from just 20 years ago.  Savvy businesses are recruiting those who wouldn’t otherwise work - people who are officially retired, in school, or otherwise not actively looking for work.

When I needed to hire hundreds of snow shovelers, I worked to find churches, addiction recovery programs, companies that laid off employees for the winter, and even homeless shelters where people who wouldn’t otherwise work might find employment.  And it worked.  Year after year, I hired people who did great work but were otherwise passed over by employers because of their appearance, background check, or other previous life situations.

Once you hire someone, the key is to train them.  We’re here to help.  Check out the free courses we have on GrowTheBench.com or consider buying a Monthly All-Access Pass to train your entire team and grow your new hires into dedicated employees.  It’s the only way to win these days.