This is a good time to look for work in Austin and other places throughout the U.S. However, it is clear that COVID fears exist. Remote work is increasingly preferred as many do not want to work in an office right now. COVID fears have also translated in early retirements. Others are changing careers wanting higher salaries and benefits, or perhaps reassessing what they really want to do in life.
A closing off of the border also makes for fewer workers. Informally, I hear that the construction industry, particularly in a context of rapid growth in our city and state, can't find enough workers. Note: Here is another read from September 4th out of the Washington Post titled, "Why America has 8.4 million unemployed when there are 10 million job openings."
The ravages of COVID notwithstanding, I hope that the "cosmic pause" of the pandemic is enabling clarity of thought, including a reassessment of our obligations to ourselves as individuals, to our families and communities, and Mother Earth with whom we have been massively and consequentially out of sync.
In a space of epistemic humility that this moment could actually engender, can we not begin to vision a new economy, perhaps one where we share, instead of compete, for resources? Why not create a world where we care for and value one another, as opposed to one of hoarding and selfishness?
Instead of the toxic battleground that many want to make right now of our education system, I ask how can we reinvent education, making it affectionate, creative, and life-giving?
The problem is not at all with the children, but with the adults who fall prey to the ceaseless, fear-mongering and moral panics that become the noise in our heads, manifesting in polarized discourses and policy positions.
It is up to each and everyone of us to bring balance to the chaos. At least for some, finding the right job or vocation is precisely what is happening right now as they realize that the built up world as we have known it is neither of their own, nor of their preferred, fashioning.
I say then, let's re-make the world anew. Let's work collectively to create spaces of happiness and joy. And let these spaces merit the name, "education." Let's live lives full of gratitude and become champions of peace for a deeply troubled world.
My thoughts on a Sunday morning.
Happy Labor Day, everyone!
Peace/ paz,
-Angela Valenzuela
Austin area employers facing stiff competition for workers amid recovering economy
The number of online postings for employment in the region is at a record, the latest manifestation of an extremely tight local labor market that’s providing qualified job seekers with their choice of opportunities — and also fueling intense competition among businesses seeking workers.
About 88,500 jobs in the Austin area were being advertised in July, according to an index of online postings produced by the Conference Board, a private economic research group. The figure is the highest on record for the region and nearly 80% above the estimated 49,500 in the same month of 2019, prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
For Amy Garza, who has been trying to fill nearly three dozen open positions and is finding the task daunting, the trend comes as no surprise.
"It's crazy — just getting someone in the door (for an interview) is difficult," said Garza, human resources director at Austin-based Athena Manufacturing. "People can basically go out and pick their jobs right now."
More:Austin's jobless rate fell to 4.2% in July, lowest since COVID struck
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Athena, a fast-growing contract manufacturer that specializes in precision metalworking and mechanical assembly, has raised its starting pay twice over the past year — to a range of $15 to $17 an hour for trainees with no experience, which is up from $12 to $14 an hour previously, she said. The company is trying other measures to boost employee satisfaction and retention, such as prioritizing career development and catering some workplace meals.
But "it's such a competitive market (for workers), and companies like ours that are kind of in the middle, we don’t have the budget right now” to match big firms on pay and benefits, Garza said. "It's hard right now — it is really, really hard."
Austin businesses aren't alone in that assessment. Nationwide, employers are scrambling to hire enough workers, with recent federal statistics pegging U.S. job openings overall at an all-time high as the economy has continued to recover despite the ongoing pandemic.
The wide gulf between job openings and job seekers — both locally and nationally — is being chalked up to a number of factors.
Economists say some people are simply looking for different kinds of employment than they held before the pandemic. That shift is believed to be hurting the leisure and hospitality sector in particular, where working remotely isn't an option and wages have been relatively low traditionally.
Across industries, however, persistent coronavirus fears, difficulty finding affordable child care, early retirements, the availability of unemployment benefits and reduced rates of immigration are all issues thought to be contributing to the labor shortage.
In Austin, where competition for workers was tight even before the pandemic because of the booming economy, the hiring difficulty appears to be particularly pronounced. Local business activity went into deep freeze during the initial months of the pandemic — along with the economy statewide and nationally — but it has been heating back up relatively quickly, helped by a steady drumbeat of corporate expansions and relocations to the region.
More:Texas manufacturing, service sectors expand in July as COVID-19 worries return
"We can hardly pick up the daily paper without seeing (that another company) is coming to town," said Jon Hockenyos, president of Austin-based economic analysis firm TXP Inc.
"That is part of all the job postings we have now," as companies that are new to the Austin metro area compete with existing employers for workers, Hockenyos said.
But other factors also are playing roles locally, he said, such as "COVID hesitancy" among would-be workers concerned about the ongoing pandemic, as well as an inability among some businesses to pay enough to get them off the sidelines.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the Austin metro area recently hit 4% — its lowest level in the pandemic era and well below the current state and national rates of 6.2% and 5.4%, respectively.
The local unemployment rate routinely came in at or below 3% before the coronavirus sent the economy into a tailspin. But 4% is still considered near the point where most people who want a job have one, particularly given the lingering overhang of the coronavirus and the tremendous disruptions that it wrought.
It also marks a huge improvement from the initial months of the pandemic, when the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the Austin metro area soared to 12.7% and 11.2%, respectively, in April and May of last year, as coronavirus-related fears and shutdowns triggered huge job losses.
With the recovery now gaining steam, however, local employers are having trouble finding enough workers to meet all of the demand for goods and services.
Kwee Lan Teo, an Austin Chamber of Commerce vice president, said
5,700 job openings that were advertised in July offered signing bonuses
for new employees — well over double the 2,100 that offered them in January.
“That tells you a lot," said Teo, who writes a monthly review of the region's
job market. "They are trying to incentivize people to come back” to the
workforce.
Overall, the fierce competition among businesses for job seekers has made
it "hard to hire right now," she said.
Garza, of Athena Manufacturing, knows that firsthand.
If Athena doesn't meet its target of doubling in size over the next five
years — from 270 employees now to 540 — she said it won't be because
demand wouldn't support the growth. Instead, she pegged the most likely
culprit as an inability to find enough new workers.
"I have never seen it this difficult (to hire) before," Garza said.
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