The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is capturing the trends on job openings and labor force participation. They report that at the height of the pandemic, more than 120,000 businesses temporarily closed, and more than 30 million U.S. workers were unemployed. Since then, job openings have steadily increased while unemployment has slowly declined. Right now, the latest data shows 8 million job openings in the U.S. but only 6.8 million unemployed workers.
In 2023, employers ended up adding 3.1 million jobs. A strong jobs market is good news, but many of those job openings are going unfilled because the U.S. does not have enough workers to fill them. Even though we have more Americans participating in the workforce today than before the pandemic, the overall share of the population participating in the labor force has dropped according to the U.S. Chamber.
The America Works Initiative aims to address a worker shortage crisis: There are too many open jobs without people to fill them. The result: Too many businesses can’t grow, compete, and thrive. And too many workers can't realize their American dreams.