By Stephen Moore | April 17, 2019 at 1:12 am If you want one number that encapsulates the enormity of the economic turnaround under President Trump, it is this: In America, as of the end of February, there were 7.1 million unfilled jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This number is larger than the entire population of the state of Indiana. That is how powerful and relentless the hiring spree has been under Trump policies. Today, there are just over 6 million Americans who are “unemployed.” This means that even if every person in America looking for a job took a job (and had the skills to fill them), we would still have more than 1 million jobs that would not be filled. That’s the University of Michigan football stadium filled 10 times. That’s a lot of jobs. Add to that the latest Labor Department data reflecting the number of people signing up for unemployment benefits and it totals a glorious and irrefutable reality. This is the best labor … [Read more...] about America has best labor market in 50 years
Competitive labor market
Restaurant boom threatened by skilled labor shortage
Mark Kurlyandchik Detroit Free Press Published 6:42 AM EST Nov 15, 2018 Halloween may be over but many of metro Detroit’s restaurants continue to be haunted by ghosts of a different type. “We’ve had people with relatively easy, mellow prep jobs walk off in the middle of a shift. We’ve had people that seem phenomenal on paper just not show up for work and disappear,” said Axle Brewing Company owner Dan Riley, whose Livernois Tap beer hall and restaurant in Ferndale has struggled to attract and retain line cooks. Riley’s account has become painfully common among local restaurants feeling the effects of a nationwide skilled labor shortage that's particularly challenging emerging culinary markets like metro Detroit. “I had five interviews scheduled last week for a line cook,” said Samy Eid of his family’s upscale Lebanese restaurant Phoenicia in Birmingham. “None of them showed up and only one of … [Read more...] about Restaurant boom threatened by skilled labor shortage
A skilled labor shortage is changing metro Detroit restaurants
Mark Kurlyandchik Detroit Free Press Published 6:00 AM EST Nov 15, 2018 Halloween may be over but many of metro Detroit’s restaurants continue to be haunted by ghosts of a different type. “We’ve had people with relatively easy, mellow prep jobs walk off in the middle of a shift. We’ve had people that seem phenomenal on paper just not show up for work and disappear,” said Axle Brewing Company owner Dan Riley, whose Livernois Tap beer hall and restaurant in Ferndale has struggled to attract and retain line cooks. Riley’s account has become painfully common among local restaurants feeling the effects of a nationwide skilled labor shortage that's particularly challenging emerging culinary markets like metro Detroit. “I had five interviews scheduled last week for a line cook,” said Samy Eid of his family’s upscale Lebanese restaurant Phoenicia in Birmingham. “None of them showed up and only one of … [Read more...] about A skilled labor shortage is changing metro Detroit restaurants
Giant Food ranks first in supermarket sales in Baltimore market
Grocery chains Giant Food and Safeway dominate food retailing in the Baltimore region, but nontraditional food sellers — convenience stores, drugstores and mass merchants — are grabbing bigger chunks of the market, a supermarket analysis shows.Little changed in Baltimore's grocery landscape in the past year as a crowded field of retailers meant only a handful of new stores opened and no major players entered the market, according to Columbia-based trade journal Food World, which recently released its annual market study."The market is still overstored," said Jeff Metzger, Food World's publisher. "There are a lot of different options in terms of the actual retailers themselves and the style of retailing. … Baltimore is a very competitive, overstored, diverse marketplace, and it's been that way for about a decade now."It has created a lot of diversity, which is wonderful for consumers and not so wonderful for the actual retailers," he said.Giant, the Landover-based unit … [Read more...] about Giant Food ranks first in supermarket sales in Baltimore market
Mars Super Markets will close all stores July 31
Mars Super Markets, a family-owned fixture in Baltimore's grocery landscape since the 1940s, will close its stores this summer, laying off hundreds of employees amid declining sales and intense competition.While Weis Markets agreed this week to buy five of the chain's 13 stores, the eight remaining stores will close July 31, Rosedale-based Mars said Wednesday."As you all know, the company has been struggling with declining sales for several years," Chris D'Anna, Mars chairman and CEO, wrote in a memo to employees obtained Wednesday by The Baltimore Sun. "We have tried cutting costs everywhere we can while preserving jobs and benefits, but it has not been enough."Competition is cutthroat in the razor-thin margin world of grocery sales, and analysts say Mars struggled to keep up with emerging trends."The industry has changed so much since 1943," said Jeremy Diamond, director of food brokerage company the Diamond Marketing Group. "The grocers that don't evolve and don't change with the … [Read more...] about Mars Super Markets will close all stores July 31