- by New Deal democrat
The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) put out its monthly confidence and hiring reports over the past few days.
The confidence report soared to new high, so the economy is Teh Awesome and happy days are here again! Right?
And look! It's confirmed by the hiring report, which also shows record high plans to hire new workers:
So how have those record hiring plans been working out? Ummm, not so well ....
When it come to, you know, actual hires, small businesses have not added any more workers than they have since 2013. With a big *actual decline* in the month of record desires to hire.
Leading to record numbers of unfilled openings:
Oh.
So what could possibly be behind this market failure, where employers can't seem to be able to find workers to fill those record openings?
Well, do you see anything in the below chart that sticks out like a sore thumb? You know, the only things with a dash or red arrow:
Yeah. *Lowering* compensation plans, and *zero* actual changes to compensation. That will do the trick.
Forget "monopsony" employers. The Taboo against raising wages is very much alive and thriving in small business.
