Businesses are Struggling to Find New Employees and are Forced to Pay High Salaries

By Yehudit Garmaise

Business owners are struggling to find employees and are forced to pay new hires higher salaries, even when new employees do not have previous experience, one Boro Park insider reporter.

One Boro Park business owner had to sell her previously thriving real estate management business after her star employee left and could not be replaced.

Another owner of an accounting firm lost her best employee who was offered higher pay more by another accounting firm.

“The employee didn’t even give her boss one day to think about whether she would match the higher salary offered by her new employer,” a Boro Parker reported. 

“The employee said she needed her boss’s decision ‘right away,’ and when she didn’t get it, she left immediately.

“Bosses need to pay high salaries and treat their employees very well to keep them right now,” one New Yorker said.

But for employees, the best time to look for a new job could be right now.

Pay raises for job hoppers are the biggest they have been in more than 20 years, reported the Wall Street Journal. 

While wages nationwide are rising, workers who recently left old jobs for new ones may be benefiting the most as companies face both labor shortages and inflation.

Nearly 4.2 million, American workers, who are likely struggling to pay for groceries, rent, and other essentials, left their jobs in July, Labor Department data show.

The American employees who left their jobs in July for new positions are earning on average 8.5% more than they previously did: which shows continued growth from earlier in the summer and the largest median pay increase reported in decades by people who took on new jobs.

Employees who quit in June reported that they started earning 7.9% more, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. 

At 5.9% in July, the average increase in the pay of workers who have stayed at their current jobs lags behind those looking for greener pastures.

Many businesses that are struggling to find experienced employers, are willing to shell out higher salaries for new hires, recruiters and economists said.

After leaving her job at a research laboratory, 38-year-old Erikah Weir, increased her income by 30% when she took on a new job as an executive assistant at a consulting firm in August. 

“[The raise] makes me want to work as hard as I can to live up to the money that they’re paying me,” said Weir.

Sounds great, but risks, of course, are always part of any change.

If the job market weakens in the coming months, as it might after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell continues to raise interest rates to control inflation, employees who jump ship to new jobs should remember that they will likely be among the first to be let go if their new employers have to cut staff, some economists say. 

Other workers rush to new positions for higher pay, only to find that their new roles are not good fits and likely include the same frustrations as their previous jobs did. 

In fact, nearly three-quarters of workers who quit to take new jobs said they felt surprise or regret after leaving, according to a survey of 2,500 U.S. adults conducted earlier this year by The Muse, a job-search and career-coaching company.

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