National worker shortage hits home

MISSOULA COUNTY - Signs that read "Please be patient - We are short staffed," "Now hiring" and "Closed due to short staff" have become common for customers to see when entering local businesses this summer. The fluctuating spread of COVID-19 has upended countless aspects of daily life, especially in the business world. Over the season, employers around the U.S. experienced a widespread workforce shortage resulting in delayed material shipments, restricted operating hours and longer wait times. 

Local businesses have not been immune to this nationwide trend. While some are struggling to keep their doors open, potential solutions have begun forming in Missoula and nationwide. 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of job openings in the U.S. increased to a high of 10.1 million on the last business day of June.

The Montana Department of Labor and Industry reported in 2021 that the state's workforce is 10,000 people smaller than it was pre-pandemic. There are 14,000 statewide positions available at MontanaWorks.Gov with only three positions listed for Seeley Lake and no positions in Condon. Unemployment insurance reported more than 35,000 claims at its peak in April 2020, with more than 41,000 less jobs than there were in February 2020. The state currently has 2,134 less jobs available than pre-pandemic numbers.

Local Workforce Landscape

Rovero's Manager Kyle Marx said that they were already short staffed going into the summer and were receiving very few applications throughout the season's duration. They currently have around 20 employees and are in need of four more.

He said the store has experienced its highest sales in the past year while being short on employees. This has made it taxing for some of the workers.

"It's tough on the employees that are left here because they're ... working overtime every weekend," he said. "It definitely [puts] a lot of stress and pressure on the employees that are here just trying to keep up with all the business and all the things that need to be done as far as stocking."

The national worker shortage has also affected their fuel supply. Due to a lack of delivery drivers, Rovero's has run out of fuel multiple times. Marx said in an eight day period the store ran out of unleaded fuel four times because their supplier did not have enough drivers.

Despite the constricted service capabilities, Marx said that customers have been understanding.

"I think they probably see it everywhere, where they're realizing that the service is slower at different places because everybody is understaffed," he said.

Swan Valley's Mission Mountains Mercantile Co-owner Grace Siloti said they usually have a minimum of 13 workers, but they currently have five including herself. She is the only employee on Sundays and has had a total of five days off since March.

"It's just happened all of a sudden this past spring, summer," she said. "It's like an absolute nightmare."

She said the lack of employees has led to restrictions on what her store can accomplish. To adapt, Siloti said she began closing the in-store deli on Tuesdays to preserve worker hours. She also shortened the Mercantile's hours going from 8 a.m. - 7 p.m. to 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. She said if the shortage continues creating a burden for her other employees, then she will restrict the store's hours even further. Supplier shortages have also led to shipment delays.

"You can't have everything as nice as you like it for your customers," she said. "You don't have the time to do everything you used to do because you don't have the manpower. So we have cases of really cool stuff sitting in the back room. I can't get it out because I have to price it all."

Pop's Place Co-owner Tim Clark said he is short two cooks out of his eight employees. Overall he has three less employees than previous years. 

He said the past couple of years have been noticeably worse for hiring employees. It has been difficult for him and his wife Connie to take a day off. He added that this employee shortage has slowed down the customer experience although they try to serve customers as fast as possible.

Where are the workers?

According to a July Forbes article titled, "What Does A Worker Want? What The Labor Shortage Really Tells Us," Montana is one of three states where the combined state and federal unemployment benefits exceed average wages. North Dakota and Wyoming were the other two.

Marx said when Montana ended its expansion of unemployment benefits - including a $300 weekly aid increase - he began seeing more applications trickling in.

"So the difficulty was to try and compete with the federal government to entice people to take a job instead of getting paid more money to stay on unemployment," he said.

To entice new employees, Marx said they have upped their starting pay twice in the past year and have offered a "good standing incentive" where efficient employees receive an additional dollar an hour as part of their wages. This was also the first year the store had to explicitly advertise that they were hiring.

Siloti said some applicants have only come up to her so they could preserve their Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, which is how Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits are distributed to families and individuals.

"They're just using us to stay in the system," she said. "For the government to be paying people to sit home and for the government to be paying people trying to get them to go back to work. It's all unbelievable."

She said the average age of her workforce is around 50. Having to pick up extra hours has added additional pressure to their regular workload.

"They just can't handle the stress," she said.

Marx said the average employee at Rovero's is between 35-40 years old but it ranges from high schoolers to people in their 60s. Those under 18 can only work in the restaurant portion of Rovero's because they have to be old enough to sell alcohol and tobacco in the convenience store.

Marx pointed out that Montana has one of the highest retiree populations in the country. According to the Population Reference Bureau, in 2018 Montana had the sixth highest population percentage aged 65 or older at 18.7%. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that Montana is the oldest state west of the Mississippi River based on median age statistics. With half of the state's population being 40 or older, Montana is the ninth oldest in the nation.

"So you have more population that require services but less population that is joining the workforce," he said.

Another major factor has been affordable housing in the area.

According to a July Helena Independent Record article titled, "Housing costs emerge as key to Montana's labor shortage," a commission assigned to distribute part of Montana's $900 million in federal coronavirus relief named affordable housing as one of four categories it will consider for funding proposals.

The article also states that parts of the state have seen housing values increase by over 20% in the past year. According to a 2021 Housing Report from the Missoula Organization of Realtors, the median price for a home in Missoula rose from $350,000 in 2020 to $420,000 in the first quarter of 2021.

"There's no such thing as affordable housing in Seeley Lake," Marx said. "Without a sewer system, there's really no way to build multiple unit places that can be affordable. ... The real estate prices have gone through the roof and it's compounded the problem."

Clark also said this has affected their ability to find new employees.

"Locally, it affects us because there's no real place for anybody to live to work here," he said. "You don't want your help sleeping in a tent. Most people aren't going to want to do that anyway."

Siloti said she knows of available rentals in Condon but that landlords are afraid of leasing out rooms to bad tenants who use the eviction moratorium to not pay rent.

Despite the current conditions, Siloti is trying to be optimistic about the situation.

"I'm very blessed ... [though, because] what we have left for crew are very strong women who are willing to work together and problem solve," she said. "I'm always a very avid believer in organization. If you are organized, you can conquer anything."

Potential Shortage Solutions

While local employers are struggling to find solutions, other businesses around the country have seen sturdy retainment through a modified business model called a worker cooperative.

According to a document called, "Worker Co-ops: Weathering the Storm of COVID-19 and Beyond," a survey of 142 co-ops across the U.S., found that the majority of co-ops were able to keep their workforce during the pandemic. The rate of companies that laid off employees were roughly the same as ones that hired or re-hired workers. Reductions in hours and furloughs were also more frequent than permanent layoffs.

The Real News Network's YouTube video, "Worker cooperatives prove your job doesn't have to be hell," interviews several worker-owners from multiple co-ops where they talk about the benefits, downsides and limitations of this business model. In the video, worker-owned and run cooperatives show resilience at maintaining employees during the pandemic in primarily the food and service sectors.

Pam Armstrong is a home health aide who is a worker-owner for Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) in the Bronx, New York. In the video, she said working in a more democratically organized work environment gave her more control of her working conditions.

"Working outside of a cooperative, I had no control," she said. "I didn't have no power of when I went to work, how much I made, what money I put in, what money I could take out, but now I can, so it's totally different. ... Working with a cooperative [has] opened my eyes and I'm happy. I'm not just putting on a uniform or putting on an outfit, going into work, doing a nine to five or a nine to one and [being] miserable." 

One downside multiple employees featured in the video brought up is that having a democratic vote on every action can be a tedious process. When Cooperatives Laundry in Cleveland, Ohio decided to expand, they transferred some of the day-to-day decisions to management teams to avoid long arguments over menial decisions.

Another challenge identified was worker-owner cooperatives often receive little support from government agencies and are reliant on grants. They also sometimes struggle to secure large contracts that can help them expand.

Vinny Green, a worker-owner for Taharka Bros. Ice Cream out of Baltimore, Maryland, said although the structure does not come with immediate wealth, it still makes the workers want to improve their work.

"Everyone always thinks it makes everyone rich. That's not the case," he said in the video. "[The] employees can actually feel ownership to know their hard work does not go unnoticed."

In Missoula, business owner Denis Keast proposed another kind of cooperative.

Keast has co-owned The Catalyst Cafe with his husband in Missoula for 11 years. He said they are about 150% busier than normal while operating with 60% of their staff. Generally they have had around 25 employees, but they currently have 17 including themselves.

"Day to day operations are very stressful, just because we are so busy," he said. "And we're trying to maintain the same level of service and quality with fewer people. By and large, our customers have been great but people are also very stressed."

To adapt to this shortage, they have restricted seating, cut back days and advertised positions on Craigslist and Facebook. On top of this, Keast also recently proposed the idea of a "Staff Co-op" to workers and employers on the cafe's Facebook page.

The concept is that employees working in other food service establishments can pick up extra hours at the cafe should their employer have to reduce hours or temporarily close. There would be no long-term commitment and it would only be done with the other establishment's "blessing." Keast said has not seen this concept proposed anywhere else.

In the post, he wrote that his intention is not to "poach" employees from other restaurants.

"My goal is to ease our staffing issues temporarily while hopefully helping other establishments maintain their staff by offering temporary, dependable income to momentarily displaced workers," he wrote.

He has not yet received any "tangible" responses but he is still curious about the results.

"I don't really know if anybody's going to respond to it," he said. "I mean people have responded to the post, but thus far I have not gotten any calls about actual people looking for work. You never know what's going to happen when you put something on social media. I really just wanted to create a conversation."

While he is unsure if a collective employee program could alleviate financial pressure on business owners, it would offer employees a potential continuation of revenue while having the comfort of knowing that they will still be able to return to their old position.

He hopes that this concept could cut out some of the issues that come with interviewing, hiring and training.

"There are ... a lot of restaurants that could just use a body for six hours," he said. "I'm not looking for any long term solution, just trying to put people who need to work with people who need workers."