Sunday, May 16, 2021

“Putting Humpty Dumpty back together again is a monumental task”

"About 8 million fewer people are working in the United States than before the pandemic hit and there are about 8 million job openings. That would seem to align perfectly for a booming and fast-healing labor market as the nation’s reopening accelerates.

It’s proving not nearly that simple.

“We have job fairs. We have ads going on everything from social media to Indeed, to the Globe and the Cape Cod Times. We’re not getting responses,” said DeWitt Davenport, chief executive of the Davenport Companies in South Yarmouth, which has had to scramble to hire housekeepers and other workers for its five Cape resorts. “This is something I’ve never seen in my entire life of 40 plus years of the hospitality industry on Cape Cod.”

COVID hit the economy last year like a category 5 hurricane, blasting away more than 22 million jobs, upending entire industries, and exposing deep inequities in pay and working conditions. The upheaval is dramatically reshaping the jobs market, leading many Americans, especially in the low-wage restaurant sector, to reconsider their careers, while causing government officials to reassess their policies and business owners to redouble their efforts to lure workers as pandemic restrictions disappear."
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