More labor market blues

This podcast is supported by Odoo. Some say Odoo business management software is like fertilizer for businesses because the simple efficient software promotes growth. Others say Odoo is like a magic beanstalk because it scales with you and is magically affordable. And some describe Odoo's programs for manufacturing, accounting, and more as building blocks for creating a custom software suite. So Odoo is fertilizer, magic beanstalk building blocks for business. Odoo, exactly what businesses need. Sign up at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. We'll do some labor market. We'll do some bond market, and then we're gonna talk condiments. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. I'm Kai Ruizdahl. It is Tuesday, today, the November 11. Good as always, Stevie along, everybody. If we are lucky, and believe you me, we are as ready as you are not to be talking about private data anymore. But if we're lucky, this this will be the last week or so we're gonna have to do that. Today's installment comes to us in the form of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, Small Business Optimism Index, down just a hair in October, though still more optimistic than not. Dig down a bit though, and there are some cracks. 32% of small business owners say they've got jobs they cannot fill. 27% said labor quality is their single most important problem, the highest that's been since right about now back in 2021. Marketplace's Kristen Schwab gets us going. Of all the things on business owners' to do lists, hiring is not usually anyone's favorite, says Aaron Sojourner at the WE Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Employers, especially small business employers, are perennially upset about their struggles to attract talent. It's partly because the smaller the business, the more intimately the business owner feels the frustrations that come with hiring. Also, the smaller the business, the harder it is to hire, period. You know, they're competing against larger employers who have bigger scale, more benefits. And higher pay. And the kind of security bigger businesses can offer may be more attractive than usual to job seekers now because of all the layoff buzz that's been happening. Holly Wade runs the research center at NFIB. It's a bit of a pretzel because you have two sides of the labor market that are kind of pushing in the same direction. One side is companies, which aren't doing a lot of hiring. The other is prospective workers who know companies aren't doing a lot of hiring. So if they already have a job, they're less likely to be looking for a new one. And all of this makes it harder for businesses to attract strong applicants. Industries that rely on immigrant workers are having a particularly hard time, like construction. We are also seeing some challenges in transportation, some service sector industries, and manufacturing. Sojourner at the Upjohn Institute stresses that this is just one report from one organization with a narrow set of survey respondents. But if you add …