PITTSBURGH — Whether more people started seeking jobs when extra federal unemployment benefits ended Sept. 4, or they exhausted their state jobless benefits or they feel safer getting back to work because more people are getting the covid vaccine, staffing agencies and employers in the region say they are seeing more people who want a job.
“We have seen an increase over 50% of people seeking positions over the past month,” said Paula Schmitt, owner of Express Employment Professionals, a Penn Township staffing agency for light industrial, skilled labor and office positions.
“I think it started after the federal benefits ended,” Schmitt said, referring to the extra $300 in weekly benefits that ended Sept. 4. Unemployment compensation for freelance and gig workers also ended then.
At Nesco Resource’s staffing office in Hempfield, market manager Bryan Reiter said they are seeing more job seekers but not as many as he might expect. It could be, Reiter said, that it may take a few months for more workers to return to the labor force, according to our news partners at TribLive.
At Diehl Automotive Group, collision center director Matthew Whittenberg said jobless workers aren’t rushing back to work.
“I think the government made it too easy to stay home,” Whittenberg said recently at a job fair at Rosedale Technical College in Kennedy Township, Allegheny County. “I think it will be 12 to 24 months” before it returns to pre-pandemic levels, he added.
The extra federal unemployment benefits not only impacted some workers’ desire to return to jobs, but the pandemic changed the lifestyles of families when one wage earner had to remain home to take care of a child.
“I think people are learning to live on a single income rather than a dual income,” Whittenberg said.
At OnCall Medical Staffing Inc. in Tarentum, operations director Marvin Taliaferro said his office has seen a lot of employees who got hired through the staffing agencies for nursing home and skilled care home jobs are slowly returning to employment after leaving during the pandemic.
“There’s been an uptick in workers coming back,” Taliaferro said.
And the jobs the registered nurses, licensed practiced nurses and certified nursing assistants are coming back to are paying more than in the pre-pandemic days, Taliaferro said. “That is an incentive for people coming back to work.”
Wages can range from $18 an hour for CNAs to $45 an hour for registered nurses, he said.
With so many companies seeking workers, PGT Trucking Inc. — an interstate trucking firm based in Hopewell with terminals in Indiana County’s Burrell Township and Midland — has increased its wages to remain competitive, said Dan Gaebel, a PGT management department trainer who was looking for technicians at the Rosedale Technical College job fair.
Express Employment is not only seeing more interest from people who want to get off the unemployment rolls, but it also is experiencing a resurgence in clients who want to hire workers.
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