AMERICAN EMPLOYERS BOOST WAGES AS WORKERS STAY HOME

employers increased hiring in May and raised wages as they competed for workers, with millions of unemployed Americans still at home because of child-care issues, generous unemployment checks and lingering fears over COVID-19.

Average hourly earnings rose 0.5 percent after shooting up 0.7 percent in April. That raised the year-on-year increase in wages to 2 percent from 0.4 percent in April.

Wages in the leisure and hospitality sector jumped 1.3 percent, the third straight month of gains above 1 percent.

Postings on Poachedjobs. com, a national job board for the restaurant/hospitality industry, are showing restaurants offering as much as $30-35 per hour for lead line cooks.

No eagerness to work

“There are still a lot of people unemployed, but there does not seem to be a lot of eagerness to work,” said Chris Low, chief economist at FHN Financial in New York. “There would have been many more hires if employers could find more people.”

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 559,000 jobs last month after rising 278,000 in April. That left employment about 7.6 million jobs below its peak in February 2020. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 650,000 jobs created in May. About 9.3 million people were classified as unemployed last month. There are a record 8.1 million unfilled jobs.

With at least half of the American population fully vaccinated, authorities across the country have lifted virus-related restrictions on businesses, which nearly paralyzed the economy early in the pandemic. But the reopening economy is straining the supply chain.

Still at home

Though women took 56.2 percent of the jobs created last month, they constitute a large share of the millions of workers still at home as most school districts have not moved to fulltime in-person learning. Nearly 1.8 million women have left the labor force since February 2020.

Despite vaccines being widely accessible, some segments of the population are reluctant to get inoculated, discouraging some people from returning to work. Government-funded benefits, including a $300 weekly unemployment subsidy, are also constraining hiring.

Republican governors in 25 states, accounting for more than 40 percent of the workforce, are terminating this benefit and other unemployment programs funded by the federal government starting next Saturday.