(FEE) – A whopping 40 percent of small business owners were unable to fill job openings last month – a seven-point increase from January.
This finding comes from a new report by the NFIB (a small business advocacy group). The inability to fill jobs comes in spite of the fact that 25 percent of small businesses increased compensation during the same time period, the report finds.
Employers are feeling the crunch, with 24 percent claiming labor quality as their top business problem. Another 51 percent reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they sought to fill, a statistic made all the more troubling as economists predict millions of new jobs by the end of the year.
