Now hiring: 11 million jobs across the U.S.

The Department Labor reported in January that there were 11.3 million job openings in the United States.

The labor market is flooded with "outstanding opportunities" for jobs across sectors. But workers aren't rushing to fill all of those vacancies.

In 2021, 47 million Americans quit their jobs. From food service to hospitality, retention has been a huge challenge for employers.

But chronicling the worker shortages across industries comes with a host of issues: systemic racism, hazardous or poor working conditions, pay that doesn’t match the cost of living, and a lack of child care options — to name a few.

This moment echoes the economic anxiety felt during the 2008 recession. But in 2008, the conversation was about workers' losses and the competition to find a job.

Now, employers are the ones competing to attract workers.

Trying to understand this moment compared to other historical recessions means accounting for a reshuffling of work — not a shortage of it.

Anneliese Vance-Sherman is a regional labor economist with Washington state’s Employment Security Department. She said she's been sifting through data to understand the perception and reality of worker shortages.

"The demand for labor returned more quickly than the supply of labor," Vance-Sherman said. "We've got fewer job seekers competing for a large number of openings."

In the last year or so, as pandemic restrictions began to tail off, the demand for labor returned more quickly than laborers.

"We have a strong labor market, and that's a very real thing," Sherman said. "But we also have a lot of people missing from that labor market. And that's kind of where one of the big disconnects is."

Anneliese Vance-Sherman spoke with Soundside to give a clearer picture on the general labor market in Washington. She also and honed in specifically on the trucking industry.

Hear the full conversation by clicking the audio above.