<p><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;">Remember when candidate Donald Trump promised us &#8216;jobs, jobs, and more jobs?&#8217;</span></p>
<p>This week, the US Labor Department announced a wide gap between the number of available jobs and the number of unemployed Americans looking for work.</p>
<p>At the end of April, there were roughy 7.5 million unfilled positions and 5.8 million people looking for work.</p>
<p><span class="s1"><b>This is the largest margin between jobs and unemployment we’ve seen since 2000.</b></span></p>
<p>The unemployment rate for May was 3.6% <span class="s1">(the lowest in 50 years). Compare this to Obama’s 5% unemployment rate, which in reality was closer to 7% because he didn’t count the people who had given up trying to find a job.</span></p>
<p>Federal data also suggests a small uptick in the civilian labor force participation rate &#8211; which means more<span class="s1"> able-bodied Americans are working.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">As the number of available workers continues to decline, so does the rate of hiring. On average, US employers added 164,000 jobs each month this year (compare to 223,000 in 2018). </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">“The Number 1 issue our franchises are having right now is they cannot find enough qualified labor to meet the demands,” says Jeff Wall, who owns a home improvement company in Cincinnati. “Everybody’s fighting for the same labor pool at this point, whether it’s new housing starts or remodelers or people in the trades.”</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Like other businesses looking for workers, Mr. Wall’s company decided to raise wages and expand benefits to attract labor.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>This is great news for employees. </b></span></p>