A business owner in Delaware County needs a property maintenance technician.  If these were normal times, he’d get about 20 applications the first day the job was posted. He got two, writes Jeff Blumenthal for Philadelphia Business Journal.

Many workers have decided to lay low this summer until their extended unemployment benefits through President Biden’s American Rescue Plan run out Sept. 6. 

Workers are telling staffing professional Ken Dubin “call me after the summer.”

Dubin is CEO of the Bala-Cynwyd-based Dubin Group, a boutique staffing firm.

“What’s happening on the blue-collar side is that they just don’t want to go back,” Dubin said. “That $300 a week is huge. Why would they go back to work for $13 an hour when they can make $17 an hour sitting [at home]? I don’t blame them either.”

Dubin currently has 65 to 70 blue-collar job openings to fill for clients. He has 25 to 30 white-collar openings, double what’s usually available.

There are other factors causing the shortage as well, including lack of child care and fear of catching COVID-19.

Amazon is also siphoning off thousands of local employees from mom-and-pop businesses for its $18 an hour fulfillment and distribution facility jobs.

Read more at Philadelphia Business Journal about the worker shortage.