GoKawiilCompanies are hiring. Workers are searching. The gap is the problem. This article is written by Tina Hamilton, an Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) member in Philadelphia and the founder and CEO of myHR Partner, a human resources outsourcing firm that manages HR for small and midsize businesses throughout the United States. The company has appeared on the Inc. 5000 list four times and was named to the 2025 Inc. Best Workplaces list. An HR expert, Hamilton shares information about a hidden problem building in the U.S. workforce.
America has millions of open jobs. So why can’t people find work?
Why This Matters
An HR-industry practitioner argues that America's simultaneous glut of job openings and frustrated job seekers isn't a shortage of demand or of willing workers, but a mismatch in how the two sides find each other. For tech companies and consumers alike, it points to a hiring pipeline problem that headline job numbers obscure. It matters because it suggests fixes lie in recruiting and matching processes, not just in the volume of postings.
Key Takeaways
- Open roles and active job seekers coexist, so the bottleneck is the gap between them, not a lack of jobs or applicants.
- The author, an HR outsourcing CEO serving small and midsize businesses, frames this as a hidden and growing problem in the U.S. workforce.
- Headline hiring statistics can mask breakdowns in how employers and candidates actually connect.
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