The 2017 Job Market was so Strong Employers had Trouble Finding Workers
The numbers are in, The country has added jobs for 86 consecutive months — the longest streak on record — according to the Labor Department. (Its numbers date back to 1939.) The unemployment rate has ticked down to 4.1%, the lowest level since 2000. Experts say that the current low rate shows it won’t get much better than this.
In fact, unemployment is so low that an increasing number of employers are reporting they can’t find skilled workers with the wages they’re willing to pay.
Some say wages, not job skills, are the culprit. But the future looks bright overall.
Some economists say that training is great, but that low wages are the real reason why employers can’t find workers. They argue that bosses need to raise salaries or lower application requirements if they’re truly desperate to find good employees.
Still, these are relatively bearable problems. During the height of the recession, there were only 2.2 million job openings, which was entirely bad news for workers. America has 6.6 million unemployed workers today actively looking for jobs. Eight years ago there were more than 15 million people out of work.
