‘We’re actually having a hard time hiring people’ amid coronavirus

With more than 22 million Americans now having filed for first-time jobless benefits since the COVID-19 crisis shut down much of the U.S. economy, you’d think many would be happy to land any work they can get. 

Not so, says Stew Leonard, Jr., CEO of the supermarket chain Stew Leonard’s.

“I think the unemployment option is too attractive,” Leonard told Yahoo Finance. “We’re actually having a hard time hiring people right now at Stew Leonard’s. You’d think with all the restaurant workers available, we’d have a flood of people to help us in our kitchens, but that’s not happening.”

Leonard’s stores are located in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, three states that have seen spikes in new unemployment claims in recent weeks. Both New York and New Jersey have begun paying the unemployed an extra $600 a week under the CARES Act, the federal law meant to stimulate the economy amid the coronavirus. In New York, for example, that could mean taking home $1,104 a week. Connecticut is aiming to get its expanded benefits up and running by next week.

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Several Republican Senators had objected to the expanded benefits, fearing that it would incentivize workers to stay on unemployment by paying them more than they made in their regular jobs. 

“Our state-based unemployment systems are being overrun by the volume of claims and the structure of the benefits under the CARES Act is actually incentivizing people to leave the workforce, compounding problems,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a statement on April 11. “The CARES Act created a system that can provide many hourly employees a 50% or more increase in wages if they choose unemployment instead of staying on payrolls.” 

Leonard says he’s doing all he can to get workers into the stores, including boosting pay and offering sign-up bonuses. But he worries this issue may extend further down the supply chain. One rancher he frequently purchases beef from told him there’s a bigger problem.

“He said I can get the beef. But now there’s not enough people in the packing plants to cut it and to package it for me,” Leonard told Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi. “I think the meat companies probably have to give more incentives to their people to try to work.”

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