Small businesses struggle to find workers

Yahoo Finance's Dani Romero discusses the hiring crunch that small businesses are facing when trying to increase staff.

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JARED BLIKRE: Welcome back. As the labor market cools, some companies eased the pace of hiring to cut costs, and others found it easier to hire as more people look to get into the workforce. But small business owners, they're falling behind. Yahoo Finance's Dani Romero has that story. Dani, the details, please.

DANI ROMERO: So small business owners are really struggling to find labor. I spoke with a small business owner here in New York City, and she tells me that she's had to now hire high school students, young as 17 years old. She says that these challenges have really prompted her to come up with creative ways to incentivize these students. She says that she pays them to-- not pays them, excuse me. She feeds them two to three times a day.

JARED BLIKRE: Teenagers eat a lot. I know this. I was one-- I was once a very, very large teenager.

DANI ROMERO: Yeah. Buys groceries for them, buys them footwear, uniform. And not only that, but she's also even thrown in free movie tickets at times. She's also increased her pay about 10% for her staffing. But so she is really doing anything and everything. And she's not the only one. I also spoke with a franchise owner who sells custom made tires. And he tells me that the common question that he's getting from candidates is, can I do this job remotely?

JARED BLIKRE: Hires?

DANI ROMERO: Yes.

JARED BLIKRE: OK, got it.

DANI ROMERO: And he was telling me that it is nearly impossible for him to have a remote-style business model for what he does. And so another stark data point is that from the National Federation of Independent Business found that nearly half of small businesses couldn't hire enough workers in September. And over 23% of available positions went unfilled. That is a 48-year high. So, yes, data does suggest that there is a cool-off in the labor market. But these smaller firms are really feeling the pinch, Jared.

JARED BLIKRE: Higher wages, all these incentives, free food-- there's no free lunch, but the free food, free movie passes. This is expensive. We're experiencing inflation. So how are businesses dealing with these cost increases?

DANI ROMERO: Yes, so inflation still remains a big challenge for these small business owners. Prices have gone up for across the board. And so, for example, eggs are nearly 80% above what they were last year. So some of these business owners are actually had to take on more debt in order to stay afloat. So not a really pretty picture for Main Street right now.