EU struggles with employment crisis

Graphic by- Abbey Mark

According to the Department of Labor, there are 5.5 million more job openings than there are workers, causing employers to be short staffed and unable to fill positions. 

One of the many factors why employees don’t want to return to work is the flexibility of working from home due to COVID-19. For people who have children or need to take care of a family member, it is easier for them to work remotely rather than commute to the office everyday. 

Workers and students over the last couple of years have grown accustomed to working remotely and now that the pandemic has lessened in severity, employers are reverting back to requiring workers to work in the office. 

Martin Gahbauer, executive director of the Russell G. Weigand Center for Professional Excellence, noticed the change in the marketplace when the WCPE was hiring  and noticed the drastic difference in applicants compared to prior years. 

“Specific to our department, we did recently complete a hiring process for a position, Senior Coordinator. Interestingly, we had the position posted for over 8 weeks. In that time, we had a total of 6 applicants,” said Gahbauer. 

He continued, “To put that in perspective, just a year and a half ago, we had a similar position posted and had over 50 applicants in just 3 weeks.  That’s an almost ten-fold decrease in just over a year.” 

“So, the marketplace has definitely changed,” Gahbauer continued. “Luckily for us, we were able to hire what we feel is a highly qualified person for the role and we look forward to having her join our team.” 

With more young people now starting to enter the workforce, there is hope that these positions can get filled and employers can have the help they need.