Excerpt from the article:
Charlie Braun can’t find enough workers for his factory in Ohio and he’s not sure how to keep the ones he has.
His problem is a growing one for companies around the world: There just aren’t enough skilled or available workers.
At the same time, most people aren’t getting a big pay raise — what you would expect to see when jobs are plentiful.
U.S. wage growth is a sluggish 2.6% this year, beating subdued inflation but still way below the Federal Reserve’s target of 3.5%. It hasn’t hit that level in nearly nine years.
Braun knows the predicament all too well. He raised wages to retain staff and recruit others, but that hasn’t helped. He doubts another pay raise will make a big difference, and in any case his firm is finding it harder to justify raising prices for their products.
“Everyone has just gotten used to no inflation,” says Braun, president of Custom Rubber Corp. With those expectations, “it’s more challenging for me to go to my customers and say ‘hey I’ve got rising health care costs and I’ve got to give my workers a raise.’ That’s a more difficult sell.”
CNN Article