A bright green sign has been in place for weeks in front of Mouser Cabinetry along North Dixie Avenue, promoting employment opportunities just feet away.
Still, Mouser Human Resources Manager Terry Meade said the company is down about 10 percent of its workforce needed to meet an increased work demand.
Like many businesses – whether restaurants, factories, construction or retail – Mouser is facing a never-seen-before challenge: Finding people who want to work.
“It’s very challenging right now and the economy is just booming,” he said. “… We’re raising our wages, doing a lot of things to recruit employees. We have the sign out front and we’re taking advantage of multiple ways to advertise, more than we’ve ever done.
“… There’s just not a lot of people looking,” he added. “I think there is a labor shortage.”
That’s something that Barry Saylor, who owns Subway restaurants in Radcliff and Brandenburg, said he thinks about daily.
“I thought the pandemic shutdown and revenue loss was the most difficult thing I would face,” he said. “I was wrong. Every business desperately trying to grab the only seven people looking for work has been tougher.”
In a four-business stretch on West Dixie Avenue in Elizabethtown, three of the businesses – all fast-food restaurants – are attempting to land a deeper workforce. One is…
