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Editor's note: This is the first part of a two-part series on the worker's shortage in the area.
Calvin Russell was making a joke, but it was bitter: His Hollidaysburg restaurant, The Dream, formerly Dave's Dream, should be called "Calvin's Nightmare" now, because the continuing worker shortage has forced him to remain closed two days a week for lack of line cooks and servers, he said.
"This is the worst I've ever seen the country in my 70 years," Russell said, referring to the last five months, and to the generous and extended unemployment compensation payments that he blames for his inability to fill out his employee roster.
The over-generous payments have "got to stop," Russell said.
Companies earning millions and hundreds of millions of dollars a year may be able to afford to pay $14 and $15 an hour, Russell said. But there are stricter limits for operations like his -- although he's raised some wages as a retention strategy, he said.
Reducing hours
DelGrosso's Park is also reducing hours and raising pay because of trouble filling roster slots.
The park is about 200 short of its typical 600-to 650-employee staff, park spokeswoman Amy Mearkle said. Because of that shortfall, the park will remain closed Tuesdays all season and it will close the ride section of the park at 8 p.m., according to a park news release.
In an attempt to not fall even further behind, the park has raised wages from $9 to $11 an hour for most workers, a news release said.
"It's tough to compete with the government," Mearkle said, when asked what she thought of the current state of unemployment compensation.
But the park's problems are not all because of unemployment compensation, she said.
Hiring was a struggle even in 2019, the last time the park was open before this year, Mearkle said.
Those struggles are reflective of Blair County's aging population, of families having fewer children, of both parents working and thus being unable to provide transportation for their kids and of kids being busy with summer activities, including those connected with high school and college, according to Mearkle.
Such factors are aggravated at the beginning and end of summer, because of staggered closures of schools at the beginning and staggered startups for school-related activities at the end, Mearkle said.
All those factors are still in play today, she said.
Unemployment compensation
The unemployment compensation disincentive to work has been a compounding second blow to businesses like restaurants, following the restrictions imposed on them because of COVID-19, according to Blair County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Joe Hurd.
"These are (not) the times to ask a business to do more financially, when many were put at a huge disadvantage by mandatory closures or cutbacks," Hurd said, comparing the businesses to football players with broken limbs. "At this point, I think it's genuinely unfair to try to treat businesses as you may have treated them before you shut them down and took away their revenue sources for a year."
Many have been forced to raise wages, and that in turn is forcing others to consider raising them, too -- substituting financial pressure on their bank accounts for the pressure imposed by short-staffing, Hurd indicated, based on initial findings from a survey the chamber is conducting.
It's true that minimum wage workers for such businesses are not "enthralled" by the $7.25 an hour they earn, Hurd conceded.
But a large percentage of chamber firms are small, and they're constrained by "the realities of what they're able to pay," he said. It will benefit neither those businesses nor their employees if wage-related pressures force them to fold, Hurd said.
Some people suspect that the Democratic administrations at the state and federal levels are using the pandemic as an opportunity to boost the minimum wage, according to Hurd.
"There might be something to that," he said.
But small business owners "cringe every time there's mention of the possibility of an increase," he said.
Workers receiving unemployment compensation who are called back to jobs from which they were laid off must return by law, as he understands it, Hurd said.
That's essentially correct -- and the law goes even further, according to information provided by state Department of Labor & Industry spokeswoman Sarah DeSantis.
Work search requirements suspended for COVID-19 protection don't go back into effect until the week of July 11, but "individuals are still required to accept offers of suitable work, including recalls to work," DeSantis wrote in an email. "If an individual declines to return to work or an offer of suitable work, the employer can notify L&I and the individual will be found ineligible for benefits."
Local jobs
In April, there were 58,200 jobs in Blair County, according to Gwen Fisher, site administrator for PA CareerLink of Blair and Bedford counties.
There were 600 fewer workers than that in the Blair "labor force" -- those workers who were at least 16 years old and employed -- or else unemployed and both seeking and available for work, Fisher said.
Barriers to employment contributing to the labor force deficit include matters related to health, child care, transportation and criminal backgrounds, Fisher said.
CareerLink lately has been fielding requests from all industries for workers -- although businesses paying the least are the most in need, Fisher said.
Lots of businesses are raising wages or offering sign-on bonuses, even in the fast food industry, Fisher said.
She hasn't seen anything like it in the two years she's worked for CareerLink, Fisher said.
Even before the pandemic, unemployment was low and "there was very stiff competition for workers," Fisher said.
The pandemic aggravated the situation, she said.
Statewide, three were 734,000 workers collecting unemployment compensation for the week ending May 29, according to L&I's DeSantis. There were 110,000 collecting regular benefits; 249,000 collecting extended benefits through a federal program; and 375,000 collecting benefits for the self-employed through a federal program.
Everyone who gets at least $1 from any of those programs also gets a $300 federal supplement until September.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.