{"id":68273,"date":"2021-08-23T15:50:55","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T15:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=68273"},"modified":"2021-08-23T15:51:51","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T15:51:51","slug":"small-businesses-in-memphis-having-difficulty-staffing-back-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=68273","title":{"rendered":"Small Businesses in Memphis Having Difficulty Staffing Back Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/nation\/interactive\/2021\/labor-shortage-memphis\/\" target=\"_blank\">WaPo<\/a>: &#8220;\u201cPeople left the labor market in droves during the pandemic and they\u2019re not coming back,\u201d said economist Marianne Wanamaker, a University of Tennessee professor, noting that the country\u2019s labor force participation rate has been stagnant at 61 percent. \u201cWe are way behind the predicted employment recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One muggy day on Main Street in Memphis, the recovery pains were evident: In a corner coffee shop, the owner struggled to find workers to cover shifts and has lost thousands of dollars in work for his other business \u2014 a limousine service \u2014 because he can\u2019t afford to hire additional drivers and a dispatcher. The owner of the deli has pressed family members into helping keep the place open. And a sign hanging in the window of a darkened Subway sandwich shop read: \u201cDue to a shortage of employees, we are temporarily closed for a week. Sorry for the inconvenience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019m begging, honestly,\u201d said Farhat Othmani, the coffee shop owner, about his search for employees. He\u2019s even tried to persuade some of his regular customers to take a spin as a barista, promising \u201cCash tips daily!\u201d and \u201cSet Weekly Schedule!\u201d on a sign outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the start of the pandemic in February last year, Tennessee had an estimated 3.2 million workers in non-farm jobs. That number plummeted drastically during the first few months of the pandemic, with 380,000 fewer people working. By this June, 64,000 workers still hadn\u2019t returned to a job, according to the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WaPo: &#8220;\u201cPeople left the labor market in droves during the pandemic and they\u2019re not coming back,\u201d said economist Marianne Wanamaker, a University of Tennessee professor, noting that the country\u2019s labor force participation rate has been stagnant at 61 percent. \u201cWe are way behind the predicted employment recovery.\u201d One muggy day on Main Street in Memphis,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68274,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68273\/revisions\/68274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}