Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Don’t Fall for Employers’ Whining About a ‘Skills Gap’

Businesses should stop moaning about labor shortages and raise wages.

May 17, 2018 at 3:07 PM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

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There are about 6.5 million job openings in the U.S., a record high. The number of people looking for work without success is falling as well, and this combination means that the economy now has close to one active job seeker for every open job. The unemployment rate is below 4 percent — another indication that workers who are actively looking for jobs can find them.

Predictably, businesses are expressing concern. The National Federation of Independent Business survey reports that over one-third of small businesses have a job opening they can’t fill. Nearly one-quarter of all small-business owners claim that finding qualified workers is their “single most important business problem," surpassing their objections to tax or regulatory burdens. Reflecting these worries, press reports are popping up about labor shortages.