YORK, Pa. — For businesses across Pennsylvania, help is increasingly hard to find.
"Gone are the days where you can just simply put a post up and say 'we're hiring,'" said Kevin Schreiber, president, and executive director of York County Economic Alliance.
Schreiber said the record-low unemployment rates come with a tradeoff.
York County's unemployment rate is under 3%, a better tally than before the pandemic, but Schreiber said thousands have left their jobs, leaving positions vacant and fewer workers to fill them.
Employers are getting creative, he said, hoping to attract candidates.
"It is just hyper-competitive in the workforce and employers have demand that they cannot catch up with, due to the limitations of the workforce right now," Schreiber said.
It's a problem all over the state. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows 392,000 jobs were open in November, but just 221,000 Pennsylvanians were unemployed.
It means even if everyone had a job, there would still be 171,000 openings in the state.
"The real question that we're not going to solve today or tomorrow, but is really the next question for the next year and five years and ten years is, where's the next generation of employees coming from?" Schreiber said.
Schreiber said younger people entering the workforce are often willing to relocate for the right job opportunity.
He hopes York County's diverse economy can bring more of them to the region, but he sees this as a transitional period.
"We still have yet to sort of figure out what stability looks like in the economy in general, and certainly here in York County," he said.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers show York County is falling behind the rest of the state when it comes to wage growth in trade, manufacturing, and information jobs, among others.