DECATUR, Ala. — Jobs are out there, but the positions are not filling up. Business leaders say this has a huge impact on small businesses.
The Decatur-Morgan E-Center has some ideas on why this might be the case.
"Two theories that we've heard, first of all, there are people who've saved some of their benefits or stimulus, and they're waiting to go back into the job market," said Decatur-Morgan E-Center Executive Director John Joseph. "Secondly, you have people who are reassessing where they want to be.”
E-Center Director of Operations Donna Whitten says they've seen their fair share of clients struggling to hire employees.
"I have a lot of our handyman that we help with their business, they're having staffing shortages," said Whitten. "They can't get people to show up and call off or don't call in and, you know, these people have jobs quoted in these homes and everything and they can't fulfill them because they can't find the employees to do that."
According to Career Cloud, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that Alabama ranks No. 11 in labor shortages.
"I think it's really important to understand, you know, and for us to talk about as a country, just the importance of us all getting to work when we can get to work, because that's what sustains our economy," said Joseph.
If you're undecided about returning to the workforce, here's some advice from Joseph:
"We work with the employers who are struggling to make ends meet, and so we understand, you know it's not a question of always do I want to work or a question of can I do the work. Sometimes it's a question of how do I continue in the work that I have. Building a career, one day at a time. And every day that you're not working, you've lost a day to build that career to build your skills to build that network."