Labor Shortages

Housecleaners and nannies may be harder to find and more expensive to hire. Building contractors may find themselves overwhelmed with new record-keeping responsibilities. And restaurateurs and others who fear the civil and criminal penalties associated with hiring illegal aliens may decide to stay clear of anyone who looks foreign or speaks with an accent.

A smile flickered across the weathered face of Antonio Torres Suarez as he stood at a counter in the U.S. Embassy here. For more than 20 years, Torres has been jumping the U.S. border to harvest crops on American farms to bring money home to his family in the little town of Jalpan in Central Mexico. But this year Torres won't have to sneak across the border and trek through the murderous deserts of the American Southwest as he has done in the past to avoid capture and deportation by the U.S.

With farmhands in short supply, some Central Valley wine grape growers are turning to a hard-charging alternative work force: mechanical harvesters. Raymond Jacobsen of J&L Vineyards in Fresno is running his two big machines more than in years past. The equipment requires 10 workers, instead of the 75 or 80 typically needed for handpicking. And though the machines tend to need frequent minor repairs, they can work a double shift without running afoul of labor laws.

Asparagus rots in the fields of Imperial County for a lack of farm hands. A hospital in one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods threatens to shut down because it can't find enough skilled nurses. California's high-tech firms warn of a coming crisis as they approach the annual limit on hiring foreign programmers. A severe labor shortage, the likes of which hasn't been seen since the 1960s, is hampering a wide range of sectors across the country.

If you want to know why the nation's central bank is worried about inflation, just take a short jaunt around this bustling manufacturing center. Take a peek in the unemployment office. The lobby, where jobless applicants come to collect unemployment checks, is quiet as a morgue. A bulletin board lists scores of job openings in local factories, shops and offices. Stop by Coachmen Industries and watch a steady stream of hulking recreational vehicles roll off the assembly line.

The U.S. economy was operating at a healthy pace through July, but growth showed signs of slowing as slumping exports to Asia and shortages of employees were felt across the country, the Federal Reserve Bank said Wednesday. "Despite the high level of economic activity in recent weeks, many districts noted that labor shortages, shipping bottlenecks and continued weakness in East Asia were beginning to temper growth in their regions," the Beige Book economic summary said.

The nation's brisk economy generated 284,000 new jobs during October, dropping the unemployment rate to a 24-year low of 4.7%, the Labor Department reported Friday. But the job report, which was stronger than expected, also triggered a sell-off by Wall Street investors, who remain jittery about the prospect of developing labor shortages and potential wage inflation.

Usually when a strike drags on for two or three weeks, employers begin to feel they have the upper hand. Workers begin getting nervous and worrying about next month's mortgage payment. Some begin to trickle back across the picket line. But the nationwide shortage of nurses apparently has wiped out that traditional management advantage in the strike by 900 registered nurses at Kaiser Permanente's Sunset Boulevard medical center in Hollywood.

Javon R. Bea values the older employees at his network of medical facilities in Wisconsin and Illinois. To keep them on the job, he champions a program at his firm called Work to Retire that allows employees over 50 to put in fewer hours, pool jobs or work from home. "I think the mature workers can actually relate to the patients better than our more impatient younger workers," Bea, president of Mercy Health System in Janesville, Wis., said at a U.S. Senate hearing Wednesday.

Rich Rojeski is mulling over his exit strategy. Maybe a second career selling machinery? What about home prices in Arizona? Rojeski isn't the only one at Hibbing Taconite Co. practicing his golf swing and surfing the Internet for real estate in warmer climates. Already this year, four colleagues in the maintenance department have retired and at least two others are poised to follow.