WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Job growth gains are slowing down month to month nationwide.
Workforce analysts call it a cool down, but Florida often marches to the beat of a different drum.
Job growth remains strong, especially in Palm Beach County where there are more available jobs than people looking for work.
At many businesses, there are more customers walking through the door each day. However, there is less help behind the counter.
"My husband and I are pulling like 17- to 18-hour days just to kind of make it happen until we get to the point where we can find the right team members to groom and join our team," Melanie Hackman, the owner of Aioli West Palm Beach.
She said they still have less staff than in the days before the COVID-19 pandemic.
"People that have worked for us in the past, who might have gone on to other things, are starting to come back, but it's still very tricky," Hackman said.
Restaurants aren't alone in this problem.
In Palm Beach County, the hospitality and leisure industry leads in job growth year over year.
But Roger Amidon, the general manager of the Palm Beach Marriott Singer Island Beach Resort and Spa, explained that finding the workforce to fill those jobs is an ongoing challenge.
"We're hitting high schools. We're hitting colleges [in search of employees]," Amidon said.
Amidon said the resort is down 17% of its workforce since the pandemic began, but they are seeing 100% occupancy week over week so far this spring.
In the tri-county area of Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties, there's steady growth in education and health care services. But even though there's been a boom in population, it doesn’t mean it has expanded the workforce.
"I would say [in the] tri-county there definitely is a challenge," Dawn Riccardi of CareerSource Research Coast. "There is a shortage of workers, in addition to a shortage of talented workers."
Employers are having to get creative in an effort to attract and retain skilled workers.
