"Supply chain disruptions and labor shortages will continue to limit the ability of many small firms to meet the demand for their products and services, while less severe than last year’s experience."
Employers have still been hiring, and the NFIB’s May survey showed that 44% of owners “reported job openings that were hard to fill, down one point from April and remaining historically very high.”
Are they actually trying to hire and failing, or just refusing to pay the going rate for labor and are all out of ideas?
The labor force participation rate is still hovering around 62.5% - nearly at pre-COVID levels - and the unemployment rate is also down to pre-COVID levels at ~2.5%.
Who is even in the labor force, any way?
Persons who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force. This category includes retired persons, students, those taking care of children or other family members, and others who are neither working nor seeking work.
It sure looks like nearly everyone in the market has a job - have employers tried paying enough to entice those not participating? Or, perhaps, somehow representing a better value proposition than education, care for one's family, and/or retiring?
No? Weird, that.