Where have all the workers gone? Alabama economy experts, business leaders analyze the current job market

If you want a job right now, you should have no trouble finding one.

At least that is the general consensus among economic experts in Alabama and local business managers. 

“NOW HIRING” signs displayed in front windows and hanging from awnings across the state back up the claim, and so does the most recent data from the Alabama Department of Labor. 

The numbers from November 2021 show 28,657 more job listings online than unemployed people in the state, meaning that if every unemployed person were to obtain one of the available jobs in the state, nearly 30,000 job openings would remain.

While these numbers will never line up exactly, experts like the University of Alabama's Ahmad Ijaz say this gap will likely expand as the unemployment rate diminishes and the economy continues to grow during 2022.

“If you look at the employment numbers, we are consistently adding jobs in almost all industries,” Ijaz said. “When the economy comes out of recession, there is always a mismatch between the skills and the jobs available. We could be going through that phase now.” 

When it comes to rehabilitating the state's economy back to its pre-pandemic state of record-low unemployment rates and record-high wages, the job opportunities are there, but where is the labor? 

Healthcare hires ghosting hospitals

Few labor shortages compare to those sweeping hospitals. The nurse shortage impacted Alabama for years before it was exacerbated by early retirements, increased national competition for wages and the so-called "Great Resignation" over the last two years. 

“If you've got a nurse who wants a job in Alabama, they will be able to get a job. From the perspective of people going into nursing, this is absolutely the employee market,” said Dr. Don Williamson, president and CEO of the Alabama Hospital Association. “They will be able to find employment in almost any setting that they wish to seek employment.”

Estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that nearly 20% or half a million U.S. healthcare workers have left the field since the start of the pandemic, and Williamson said many of those have been Alabamians. 

“There's an estimate that it will take us until 2025 to get back to our pre-pandemic staffing levels,” he said.

There were just over 3,600 vacant positions for registered nurses in Alabama on Jan. 11, according to popular job board Nurse.com. 

“Our licensed professionals now are tempted by positions in manufacturing,” Huntsville Hospital recruitment manager Shannon Bjornseth said. “There are more job opportunities than there are people available to fill them.”

Huntsville Hospital, which is one of the state’s top employers, has adjusted its wages, improved its childcare services and become more committed to recruiting high schoolers into the medical field to stay competitive for the reduced number of applicants looking for jobs.

One of the oddest changes Bjornseth has seen, though, is a dramatic uptick in applicants ghosting them. 

“That is when they've accepted the position initially, but they'll either resign or just drop off communication,” she said. “We feel like that is because they probably are entertaining multiple offers at the same time.”

It has become such a problem that the hospital tracks its “ghosting rate” — and it’s up 50% since 2021.

Competition runs up hospitality wages

The hospitality industry has struggled almost as much as healthcare throughout the pandemic as people stopped traveling, staying in hotels and dining out regularly. 

Tens of thousands of layoffs happened in the first six months of COVID, and now, the industry can’t get those people to come back to work.

“There's a lot of truth to people who have said they had a rethink of whether or not they want to continue to do this type of work, making the amount of money that they were making,"  HR director of the Renaissance Montgomery Tim Budd said. “ I can tell you that there have been people from our company, who frankly I didn’t think would ever leave this company, who did jump ship for substantially more money with other companies.”

Budd has been in the hotel business for 34 years, and he has never seen his hotel as busy or as understaffed as they are now. 

In management positions alone, the Renaissance has six openings, and the hotel had to hire a third party housekeeping service because not enough people were applying for those in-house positions. 

Even as the hotel restaurants are bringing in more business than ever, Budd said it isn’t necessarily sustainable. 

“I think we’re at about 60 to 70% stable, but only because the folks are making so much money working over there,” he said. “We just don't have enough people as we should to keep up with all that comfortably.”

So where did the hotel workers go? Budd doesn’t know for sure, but he says scheduling and pay are certainly some of the reasons they left. 

When the hotel starts its budgeting process for the next fiscal year, he expects to consider “elevating wages dramatically” to attract the right workers. More flexible schedules and work-from-home positions are also possibilities.

Looking out for poached workers

Restaurants and their owners have become accustomed to change since the start of the pandemic, and many of them have had shifting open and closed times because of a lack of workers. Even with applications open and "HIRING" signs in windows, many are operating on a less-than-full staff.

With the pool of job applicants so small, restaurants in Montgomery have become competitive with one another for the employees they already have. 

“I think with new businesses opening up in the area, something’s happening,” said local property manager Jake Kyser. “They call it poaching, which is basically when you hire good employees away from one business because you need them in your business. We're seeing a little bit of that going on.”

Kyser’s company runs downtown Montgomery’s Central, the Tower Taproom and the lower lounge. When he discovered the “poaching,” Kyser said it made focus more on what his employees are getting paid and what benefits they're taking home every week. 

“We’re trying to just maybe not do business as usual, as far as the way it's been done in the industry in the past,” he said. “It has resulted in the raising of salaries and raising of hourly rates with certain employees as well.”

Now, Keyser has a lot fewer employees on his payroll than he once did. When he wonders where they went after leaving his businesses, he thinks some of them are able to stay home, some are collecting unemployment and a few are in new jobs. 

“I don't know,” he said. “But, you know, hopefully, people still want to go out to dinner, and still want to be taken care of and not have to cook at home. That's what we're betting on anyway.

Hadley Hitson covers the rural South for the Montgomery Advertiser and Report for America. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com.