One measure of that is the latest JOLTS ratio, showing that for every job opening in September, there was significantly less than one person actually seeking a job.
The 0.7 job seekers available per job is an all-time low, with the exception of one month — April 2019 — when the stat hit 0.69. That’s according to the government’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover report, released last Friday.
By Dave Allen for Discount Gold & Silver
However you look at it, the tightening labor market seems to be getting tighter.
One measure of that is the latest JOLTS ratio, showing that for every job opening in September, there was significantly less than one person actually seeking a job.
The 0.7 job seekers available per job is an all-time low, with the exception of one month — April 2019 — when the stat hit 0.69. That’s according to the government’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover report, released last Friday.
Kate Marino says mixing that lopsided ratio with a scenario where job seeker skills and geographic locations may be at a mismatch with employer needs at the moment — and it’s a recipe for hiring challenges, if not a disaster.
Job quits — how many workers voluntarily leave their jobs — also hit a new record in September, at 3% of the total workforce, besting several monthly records set earlier this year.
With workers in high demand in any number of industries, they’ve been able to more easily jump to new jobs with higher pay and better benefits and more desirable working conditions.
Teach Your Children Well
Nearly every sector has been dealing with a labor shortage since the country shut down last March. But Erica Pandey reports the problem is especially severe in public education.
And the problem pre-dates the pandemic — stemming mostly from stagnant wages — and has consequences we’re yet to understand about the education and well-being of the next generation.
We know the pandemic triggered a teacher exodus, but Pandey warns the shortage of instructors is still squeezing America's schools — especially as they’ve reopened earlier this fall.
Demand for teachers is drastically outpacing supply. Many teachers are simply retiring or quitting the profession due to stress, and universities aren't turning new ones out fast enough to replace them.
Schools are rapidly trying to navigate the shortage, switching to virtual learning or closing down on certain days entirely, But that’s been a drain on parents looking to reenter the workforce themselves.
Nationally, Pandey reports there were 575,000 fewer local and state education employees in October 2021 than in February 2020, according to the latest government jobs report.
And while health concerns and the stress of darting between virtual and in-person education drove teachers, school support staff and administrators out in 2020, they're not coming back to school even as the pandemic subsides.
A net of 65,000 public education employees left the industry between September and October of 2021 alone, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Economist Susanna Loeb and director of Brown's Annenberg Institute says, “Teacher salaries had fallen in the few years even before the pandemic, reducing the supply of teachers.
"So, the shortage of teachers may actually be greater than the shortage in other areas, which are more pandemic related."
The disparity in wages between teachers and the rest of the comparably educated workforce was about 21% as recently as 2018. That gap, at 6%, was a lot smaller back in 1996, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
And while teacher pay has gone up this year, the group’s wage gains of 0.7% in the 3rd quarter of 2021 were just half the 1.5% average increase for all civilian workers.
All that's pushing existing teachers to pivot to new careers and discouraging new college graduates from becoming teachers.
Superintendent of Lisbon Public Schools in North Dakota Justin Fryer laments, "Our state universities aren’t producing enough teachers for the state."
What’s the Impact?
When teachers take days off or have to be quarantined after getting infected with Covid, school districts can't replace many of them. In fact, Fryer says, "Finding substitutes has been a tremendous problem.”
After all, in many cases, it pays more to work as a drive-thru cashier at McDonald's than to be a substitute teacher.
Experts like Michigan’s state superintendent of public school instruction Michael Rice say that fixing that problem (the broken labor market) — for teachers, anyway — is actually quite simple: more funding.
They say larger pay increases will help recruit a new generation of teachers and retain veteran teachers to boot, and funding for training programs can help school support staff become instructors.
Rice points to these examples of crossover success stories: A bus driver became a teacher in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and a second-shift custodian became a teacher in Clifton, NJ.
Plus, teacher aides and other support staff, with a passion for and experience with working with kids, can make excellent teachers if districts have the funds to send them back to school, he adds.
But with teachers across the country complaining of extreme burnout, school districts are trying out big changes, including longer holiday breaks and shorter days.
Many educators were happy to get back into the classroom this year, after a yearlong challenge of remote learning.
But shortages have forced teachers to take on extra roles and give up their planning periods to fill in where needed.
Even back in the classrooms, teachers in many districts are also tasked with navigating pandemic protocols, ensuring students social distance and keep their masks on (where required).
Nearly one in four teachers said they were likely to leave their jobs at the end of last school year, compared with one in six teachers who said the same before the pandemic (data from this school year aren't yet available).
High levels of teacher turnover and stress can have a negative impact on not only educators, but students as well, according to Elizabeth Steiner of RAND.
Steiner points to emerging research that teachers' mental health is correlated with the quality of a learning environment.
She says, "We know…that students are really struggling...and if they're looking to their teachers for support and their teachers are struggling and unable to provide that, that's problematic.”
The known effects of teacher burnout has some districts looking for strategies to better support teachers.
Two school districts in Virginia recently implemented early departures for students on select Wednesdays as a way to reduce ongoing teacher stress and fatigue.
Experts say that's a good start. But leaders like American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten say officials also need to equip teachers with better resources and address longstanding issues like pay.
On top of that, substitute teachers are often older, retired instructors, who are understandably concerned about entering high-risk areas like classrooms during a pandemic.
Three schools in Ann Arbor, Michigan, have added back remote working days to deal with staffing shortages.
Denver public schools are starting a period of online learning — and kicking off Thanksgiving break a day early to ease the squeeze.
Seattle and Bellevue, Washington, schools gave students Fridays off because of staffing shortages.
In short, Rice believes, "We have to rebuild a profession that has been chipped away at."
We’d be well-advised to remember the adage, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”