Staff photo / R. Michael Semple Julius Oliver, owner of Kingly Xpress Hand Wash & Wax in Niles, is shown next to a large “help wanted” sign in the front window of his building, the former Sears auto center at the Eastwood Mall. He has had to change his business model from walk-in driven to appointment-only due to a lack of workers, a move that limits his ability to serve customers who represent a large chunk of his customer base.

On a day last week at Kingly Xpress Hand Wash & Wax in Niles, two customers walked out with a service appointment.

Owner Julius Oliver obviously laments the situation. Sitting in one of the waiting area chairs at the luxury car wash, he asks, what’s going to keep them from taking their vehicle to a drive-thru car wash?

“My main source is basically people pulling up, walk-in customers. They just pull up back to back to back,” Oliver said. “Well now it’s to the point I absolutely don’t have the capacity to do my customers.”

His lack of employees caused Oliver, 40, to remake his business model to appointment-only, limiting his ability to oblige immediately his walk-in customers who represent a large chunk of his customer base.

Oliver’s predicament is like the one so many other business owners and managers across the U.S. find themselves in — from retail to restaurant to manufacturing and in factories, they are desperate to find employees to catch up with an economy recovering from the viral outbreak.

“The lack of employment is putting a hurting on not just my business, but a lot of different businesses,” Oliver said.

THE SITUATION

The recovery of America’s job market hiccupped last month with employers, adding just 266,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Labor Department, a number way below estimates by economists and sharply lower than in March.

Nearly at the same time, employers posted a record number of available jobs.

Job openings rose nearly 8 percent to 8.1 million in March, the most on record dating back to December 2000, the government said. Yet overall hiring that month rose less than 4 percent to 6 million. The hiring number is a gross figure, while the government’s jobs report — which said 770,000 jobs were added in March — uses a net total.

A separate survey of small businesses by the National Federation of Independent Business found 44 percent had jobs they couldn’t fill, also a record high.

“As vaccinations increase and the economy opens up, companies are again staffing up to capture the booming demand, but can’t seem to find enough workers, and job seekers are unable to find work they are comfortable with,” Abdi Shaeye, economics professor at Kent State University at Trumbull, said. “There are a few reasons why there is a labor shortage, including concerns about the coronavirus, child care needs and holding out for better opportunities.”

At Kingly Xpress, Oliver has three employees, including himself. He said he wants about 15 employees and has tried to bring on more staff. What has happened is potential employees either don’t show for their interviews or the ones that do and are hired, either don’t show up for work or stop showing after a few days, he said.

“It’s all for nothing because the guy doesn’t show to work again anyway, so you wasted your time, you wasted your money and you still don’t have an adequate labor force,” Oliver said.

Boardman-based Spice Mill Inc. operates 11 Dunkin’ franchises in Mahoning and Trumbull counties that employ close to 250 people now. Its vice president of operations, Caleb Watters, said the goal is to get to 300.

“The competition has gotten tougher as far as wages and the number of people hiring at the current time,” Watters said. “We are facing all of the same headwinds as everyone else.”

The lack of staff, he said, places more pressure on existing employees to work longer and harder to serve customers. He expects his situation to ease into the summer as more high school and college students start to work.

“We’re looking at all of the options available,” Watters said. “Besides running all the different ads and increasing the starting wage as well, we have focused on retention. … It’s much easier to keep 10 people than it is to find five people.”

WHY?

Last month’s hiring slowdown appears to reflect a host of factors. Nearly 3 million people are reluctant to look for work because they fear catching the virus, according to government surveys. More women also dropped out of the workforce last month, likely to care for children, after many had returned in the previous two months.

In addition, construction companies and manufacturers, especially automakers, have been left short of parts because of clogged supply chains and have had to slow production for now. Both sectors pulled back on hiring in April. And some businesses say they believe that a $300-per-week jobless benefit, paid for by the federal government, is discouraging some of the unemployed from taking new jobs.

Still, companies have added jobs for four straight months, according to the labor department, though the government lowered its estimate of job growth for February and March by a combined 78,000.

Employers now are posting far more jobs than they did before the pandemic, and “help wanted” signs dot many restaurant windows. Other telltale signs of labor shortages have emerged as well: Average hourly pay rose 0.7 percent in April to $30.17, which the government said suggests the fast reopening of the economy “may have put upward pressure on wages.” The average work week also rose, evidence that companies are asking their employees to work more.

Albert J. Sumell is an economics professor at Youngstown State University. He said a good many of the available jobs are primarily low-paying with no benefits and fall into the low-skill category.

“Being unemployed does not mean there is no job that you could find. To be unemployed means there is no job that you find sufficient that you are willing to accept,” Sumell said. “That is the key difference. It doesn’t mean there is no employment at all; it just means the employment that is available does not meet your requisite expectations.

“In truth, there are plenty of jobs available and those jobs, a lot of them are having trouble finding workers, and the reason they are having trouble finding workers is because they are low-paying jobs, the hours are not great, they typically don’t provide health benefits,” he said. “You won’t find many jobs that are available where they are having trouble finding workers when it is a high paying job that offers health benefits and has other potential job amenities that are attractive to employees.”

Also, according to Shaeye, many prospective employees are looking for remote work because of health care or child care concerns, but most available jobs require in-person interaction, contributing to the supply-and-demand gap.

In addition, there is a mismatch between workers’ skills and available job openings, he said.

“Demand remains strong for workers in jobs that got a pandemic boost such as construction, delivery, logistics and warehousing, and vaccine administration, but there aren’t enough trained workers to match demand for these industries,” Shaeye said.

EXPANDED RELIEF

Many economists and business groups said the extra $300 per week in federal unemployment benefits contributed to the contracted job market. The problem, they say, is workers would rather stay at home and collect the expanded benefit than work.

“There is no doubt there is the unintended consequence of it increasing the number of people intentionally remaining unemployed,” Sumell said. “Had it not been for a continued benefit or extended benefit for this period, many of those workers would have decided to go back to the types of jobs that they had before. Even though the vast majority of economists agree it was necessary and that it still, on net, is beneficial to the economy, it does also create a disincentive to re-enter the workforce.

“It’s almost like looking at how attractive being unemployed is relative to how attractive being employed is … if you make it less attractive to be unemployed, so when those unemployment benefits expire, or make it more attractive to be employed, meaning the wages you can expect from employment increase, that is going to motivate unemployed workers to fill those jobs,” Sumell said.

Last week, Gov. Mike Dewine, a Republican, said Ohio would stop accepting the $300 supplemental benefit from the federal government in late June. He contended it discouraged people from re-entering the workforce.

The benefit expires in September.

A TOUCH OF SUGAR

From Amazon to hotel chains to fast food restaurants, employers are trying to entice people back to work by offering signing bonuses, recruitment bonuses and other perks.

Ellwood Aluminum in Hubbard Township aggressively has sought employees since the start of the year, said Patrick Callihan, president. It was in the first two months, he said, the company had maybe six applicants. It needed to fill 30 positions.

“And that is just to get me to where the orders are right now,” Callihan said. “Once I get those 30, then I’ll probably need another 10 to 20 depending on what the business looks like at that point in time.”

Unable to find workers for various reasons, the company about a month ago put into place a sign-on and referral bonus program.

New hires who last through a 90-day probationary period will receive a $2,500 bonus. Existing employees who refer an employee will receive $2,500 if that recruit lasts through his / her probation.

Also, at the end of the period, the person’s wage goes from $16 per hour to $17.50 per hour, and if they work the 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. second shift, they will earn a shift differential of $2 more per hour, Callihan said. Other perks include apprenticeship and tuition reimbursement programs.

The company also signed on with an ad agency to bolster its online presence and partnered with the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition to attract new talent.

Being short staff “destroys the order efficiency” and has caused the business to turn away customers, said Callihan, also president of Ellwood Engineered Castings.

“I have enough order sprobably to cast 6 (million) to 7 million pounds per month. The way I’m staffed right now, I can handle comfortably, 3 (million) to three and a half million pounds, so I’m only shipping about half of what I could potentially ship right now.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.