DECATUR, Ala. — On Monday, North Alabama welcomed our Labor Secretary for an update on the job market.
Alabama Department of Labor Secretary, Fitzgerald Washington, spoke to Rotary Club members in Decatur.
Washington said Morgan County is at a 2.3% unemployment rate which is lower than the state's average.
Alabama's unemployment rate comes in at 3.1%. Washington says these numbers are almost as low as it was before the pandemic.
However, so many job positions still remain unfilled. Right now he says for every two jobs, one person is unemployed.
"There's no real silver bullet answer to that. There are a lot of people that are afraid to get back to the workforce because they’re afraid of COVID. There’s a lot of retirement because of transportation issues. Again. We want to encourage people to reach out to our career centers and find out what those opportunities are,” said Washington.
Business leaders say this has a huge impact on small businesses.
The Decatur-Morgan E-Center has some ideas on why this might be the case.
"Two theories that we've heard, first of all, there are people who've saved some of their benefits or stimulus, and they're waiting to go back into the job market," said Decatur-Morgan E-Center Executive Director John Joseph. "Secondly, you have people who are reassessing where they want to be.”
E-Center Director of Operations Donna Whitten says they've seen their fair share of clients struggling to hire employees.
"I have a lot of our handyman that we help with their business, they're having staffing shortages," said Whitten. "They can't get people to show up and call off or don't call in and, you know, these people have jobs quoted in these homes and everything and they can't fulfill them because they can't find the employees to do that."
Washington said the leisure, hospitality, and restaurant industries are where workers are needed.