Shore, with nation, suffers with labor shortage

By Ted Shockley

Bruce Matthews, owner of Matthews Market in Mappsville, said it is hard to find employees on the Eastern Shore right now.

“We’re not the only ones having problems finding people,” he said Thursday while helping customers at one of the Eastern Shore’s well-known, locally owned businesses.

Many in the area and beyond are in search of workers, with much of the blame placed on $300 weekly enhanced federal unemployment benefits, which are given on top of state unemployment benefits.

But university experts on the economy say the issue is bigger than higher unemployment checks.

Jeff Tanner, dean of the Strome College of Business at Old Dominion University, said workers’ wages have stagnated in the past two decades, while corporate earnings have risen.

“The wages just don’t make it worth people doing certain kinds of work,” he said in a telephone interview. “There are a lot of people for whom it makes economic sense not to work for a while.”

In some cases, the costs of child care have parents dropping out of the workforce to raise families, or to provide care for aging parents.

In other cases, companies cut jobs with benefits and turned the work over to independent contractors who offer no benefits for lower-wage jobs.

And then there are skilled labor shortages, which Tanner said are not a function of low wages, but reflect a lack of access to educational opportunities and workforce initiatives that make skills available.

Higher salaries being offered in response to market forces are part of the solution.

“That’s capitalism at work,” he said.

Memo Diriker, director of a business outreach unit at Salisbury University and a well-known Delmarva economist, said wages must catch up with unemployment funding.

He said the higher unemployment funding actually matches what the two- and three-job workers were making before the Covid-19 pandemic.

He also said the pandemic precipitated a voluntary withdrawal from the labor force among many who are saying “there’s more to life than putting a little more money in my bank account.”

There is also a disconnect between potential workers and the jobs available, especially in rural areas. Instead of working full time, they are earning a living in the “gig economy” — flexible, temporary or freelance jobs — because it is better suited to their lifestyles.

Diriker called it a “transition period” in the nation’s economy, but said he was “not minimizing the pain transition causes” for businesses.

Businesses will continue to look at the “economic value” of the jobs they offer, “and it is going to fix itself. Certain businesses are going to look at their business models.”

Whatever the cause, Matthews, the owner at Matthews Market, said the impact is real.

“It’s just hard getting help right now,” he said.

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