Centenari, the chief executive of Atlas Container Corp., said we didn't see that a month ago. He said that just six months ago Atlas turned to a social service group that puts ex-convicts into jobs to help fill positions.
Labor is still tight, but it is loosening up a bit. He said something.
It's not clear how much it may be loosening. The unemployment benefits rolls were near their lowest in decades, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
A report from payroll provider UKG suggested the U.S. job market strengthened in the first half of this month - even as the Federal Reserve lifted interest rates and some economists warned of a potential recession.
There are high-profile layoff announcements in technology and housing, but there are signs of softening.
This week, Tesla lost 200 employees working on its Autopilot driver-assistant system. Elon Musk told managers that the electric vehicle maker needed to cut staff by about 10%. JPMorgan Chase Co has layoffs in its mortgage business.
Unsolicited job applicants are a beacon of hope for Atlas Container and other U.S. employers who have struggled to fill jobs over the past two years.
Centenari said that we're always hiring because we're always losing people, and that lack of air conditioning makes it particularly hard to fill jobs during the summer.
He said that our place gets hot in the summer, which is why he was surprised when his hiring manager told him about the recent walk-ins.
Last week, FedEx Corp CEO Raj Subramaniam said he believes that the worst of the company's labor problems are in its rear-view mirror. The global delivery firm spent $1.4 billion during the fiscal year ending May 31 due to employee turnover and costs related to rerouting packages around understaffed facilities.
Subramaniam told analysts that wages are stabilizing even though they are higher than this time last year.
Subramaniam said the company is now focused on retaining staff and using technology to manage labor more effectively.
During the COVID-19 epidemic, staff shortages became a hallmark of the U.S. employment market, with so many workers quitting or changing jobs. It was dubbed the Great Resignation. The current U.S. job market, with nearly two open jobs for every unemployed individual, is sort of unsustainable, according to the Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Jason Andringa, the chief executive of Vermeer Corp., a machinery manufacturer in Pella, Iowa, said he expects the job market to loosen up in the coming months. He said the Fed's aggressive interest rate hikes have already cooled demand in a part of his business, which is tied to the housing and consumer market, such as brush cutters sold to homeowners and their landscape servicers. He said that it feels as though the labor market will not be as frothy as it was just a few weeks ago.