Why arent more Americans working? Do they plan to get a job soon?
Job openings are at a record high and most companies are trying to hire, but they cant find enough workers even though millions of people are still unemployed. Read: Job openings hit record 9.2 million, but workers arent easy to find  The labor-research firm Indeed Hiring Lab recently polled 5,000 jobseekers as part of the largest U.S. study to date on why people are still hesitant to return to work. We spoke with Nick Bunker, director of research, about the study. The No. 1 answer by far: Fear of the virus. See survey. Many unemployed workers did list an ability to get by on unemployment insurance (UI) payments as a reason they werent searching urgently, but the share wasnt as high as other reasons. Weve also seen that job seeker activity on (job listings website) Indeed hasnt largely or consistently picked up in states that have retracted or announced the retraction of the enhanced benefits. UI seems to be just one of many reasons for a lack of job-search intensity. Read: This is the No. The enhanced benefits are one reason among many for why many job seekers dont feel a sense of urgency right now. Some unemployed people might be looking more urgently for work if they didnt have access to these benefits, but overall job search doesnt seem like it would come roaring back if the benefits were taken away and nothing else changed. Read: Theres plenty of jobs, but not enough people to fill them. MarketWatch: More than 40% of the unemployed who arent looking urgently for work either said they could rely on extra savings or a spouses income to get by for now. Some job seekers seem to be able to be more patient with their job search. These other sources of income mean they dont feel the need to jump right into a job. A whole host of things will have to happen. Demand for workers is very strong right now, but well need to see it stay strong for quite some time for a quick return to pre-pandemic levels of employment. Well also need to see some temporary supply constraints ease with more schools returning to in-person teaching and, hopefully, a continued easing of the pandemic. Read: Fewer and fewer people are working full-time from home  That being said, we might not be able to fully return to pre-pandemic levels due to the aging of the population. But we can recover a very large portion of the decline. The trends in wage growth suggest that many firms are finding increases in pay not only possible, but necessary. Some employers are raising base pay, especially in many of the industries directly hit by the pandemic. Hiring incentives are also increasingly a popular way to attract job seekers, with the share of Indeed job postings advertising them doubling over the past year. Read: Ive set pay policies at big companies  here are 3 secrets to getting a raise  MarketWatch: The economy would likely have about 9 million more jobs right now if there had been no pandemic. Lets assume jobs continue to grow at the average rate of the past three months, which is 567,000 jobs a month. At that rate, wed get back to where we would have been absent the pandemic by the middle of 2023. If payrolls accelerate in the months ahead, we could hit that milestone more quickly. The ingredients for a pickup seem to be there. We just have to wait a few months to see if that comes to fruition.