30,689 Southwest Florida companies fit the description of being a small business, according to the US Census Bureau.  A recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Business Owners found that after inflation, the most critical problem facing these businesses is the inability to recruit and retain quality employees.

Right now, says the Federal Reserve,  unfilled jobs remain near an all-time with 1.7 openings per unemployed person.  As a result, only one person is being hired per every four job openings.  To put this dismal hire-to-opening ratio in perspective, ten years ago, there was one hire per every job opening.

Compounding the recruitment woes of Fort Myers's small business owners is the very stubborn quit rate.  According to the Federal Reserve, for every ten hires made, seven current employees quit. 

Although the labor crunch affects Fort Myers business owners of every size, nearly half of all job vacancies are at companies with fewer than 50 employees.

So what is the best way for local small business owners to attract qualified candidates to fill open jobs?  Most metrics indicate that advertising on Fort Myers radio may be the optimal choice.

According to the US Census Bureau, there are 32,556 businesses in Southwest Florida. Some of these companies are small. Some are large. Some sell machine parts. Some sell software. Some provide legal services. Some provide eyecare.

Regardless of the size of the business or what it sells, all of these local companies have one thing in common: they are struggling to fill open jobs with qualified candidates. This is true in Fort Myers as well as Naples, Cape Coral, Marco Island, Punta Gorda, and every point in between.

Right now, across the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 10.9 million open jobs. This is an all-time record.

To put this mammoth number of open jobs in perspective, the Federal Reserve says there are now five job openings per every four unemployed people.

Attempting to recruit SWFL workers from the ranks of the unemployed has proven fruitless for local companies. This is because many people who lost their jobs during the pandemic have no intention of returning to the workforce anytime soon.

There are several reasons so many Fort Myers area workers are not coming back.

First, older workers have opted to retire earlier than expected. Second, childcare issues are making it necessary for some parents to stay home. Third, other workers cite health safety issues for the reason why they chose not to work. Finally, some of the unemployed are choosing to live off the savings they amassed during the pandemic.

So rather than focusing recruitment efforts among former employees and the ranks of the unemployed, local business owners need to target the 421,026 passive job seekers in SWFL.

The number of job openings in the Fort Myers area has exceeded pre-pandemic levels, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Businesses of all sizes are adding employees in a big way, according to the ADP Research Institute, but still, large numbers of positions remain unfilled.

With the Flordia unemployment rate still at 4.7%, Fort Myers area business owners wonder why they are having difficulty attracting applicants for open positions.

According to a recent article posted in The Economist, there are two major reasons why many sidelined workers aren't anxious to come to work. The first is fear.

In January, Fort Myers-Naples area small business owners were in a panic. The unemployment rate was at a record low 2.8%, and there were not enough workers to fill their open jobs. 

As of today, though, Florida is reporting that at least one-in-six of the state's workforce have lost their jobs for COVID-19 related reasons. Yet, many small business owners are still struggling to find employees.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "For some workers, unemployment benefits are now paying more than their old jobs did. For others, safety concerns or a lack of child care, as most schools and day-care centers remain closed, are making them hesitant to go back."

“That’s going to get in the way of any real recovery,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, told WSJ.

The struggle to hire employees creates an additional threat for those SWFL small business owners who received loans under the SBA's Paycheck Protection Program.  

To qualify for the loan forgiveness provision of the PPP, business owners must restore its workforce to pre-Coronavirus levels. This must be accomplished within eight weeks of receiving the monies.

So, just like in January, local small business owners are under pressure to fill open jobs. Advertising on Fort Myers radio is a potent way to attract and hire the needed employees.

If you were one of the 807,219 adults who tuned-in to a Fort Myers radio station last week, it is likely you heard a commercial for Indeed.  That's because, last week, Indeed, the world's largest online job site was also radio's biggest advertiser.

The reason Indeed invested so heavily in radio advertising is that they have far more job openings posted on their than site than there are job-hunters to fill them. 

This is not unlike the predicament of Southwest Florida small business owners who are also having difficulty finding and hiring qualified candidates.

What Indeed has figured out is that there are not enough unemployed people or disgruntled workers looking for jobs, especially among those in white-collar professions. So, the company is looking to attract what human resource experts call the 'passive job seekers'.

It turns out that advertising on Fort Myers radio is also the best way for any business owner to recruit, hire, and retain those passive, white-collar job seekers.