U.S. factories desperate for workers, even as ranks of jobless remains high – Reuters

U.S. factories desperate for workers, even as ranks of jobless remains high – Reuters

(Reuters) - Matt Arnold just spent $5,000 to run help-wanted ads for his company's five trailer factories scattered from Pennsylvania to Utah.“We hired two from the ads,” said Arnold, just a fraction of the 125 he needs to get back to full strength of 673 workers. Half the welding jobs at his Texas plant are open, for instance, creating a bottleneck in an operation that builds trailers on metal frames.U.S. manufacturers have long grumbled about labor shortages, but the past year has proven particularly frustrating.As the pandemic pushed millions out of work, most from service industries such as hotels and restaurants, many factories were pushed into overdrive by surging demand for everything from pickup trucks to plastic bags. And yet high jobless rates have not translated into workers flocking to open positions on assembly lines.On Friday, the Labor Department said 916,000 jobs were created last month, the most since last August, including 53,000 manufacturing positions. That was the highest number of new factory jobs in six months.The report's manufacturing diffusion index, a measure of the breadth of hiring across some 75 goods-producing industries, registered one of its highest readings ever.Manufacturing employment suffered a much less severe blow than service sector