More than one-third of small business owners in the U.S. are having trouble filling job openings. That’s the conclusion from the June jobs report for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).
The agency’s State Director in Louisiana, Leah Long, says Louisiana’s new “One Door” policy will help consolidate public assistance and job training programs. As the Louisiana Radio Network (LRN) reports, “Where your employers are looking for your job and employees are looking for a job in one area in one setting that hope that these people are going to be able to use that to streamline to get people into the workforce and hopefully qualified workforce.”
According to the jobs report, 58% of small business owners reported hiring or trying to hire in June, and 86% of those owners reported few or no qualified applicants for their vacancies. These survey results are based on 382 respondents in a random sample of NFIB’s member firms, surveyed through June 30, 2025.
Overall, the report reveals that the labor market as a whole continues to slow. Case in point: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in May 2025 139,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy, 95,000 fewer jobs than initially reported, while the unemployment rate of 4.1% changed little.
The report states: “Job openings were the highest in the construction, manufacturing, and transportation industries, and the lowest in finance and agriculture. Job openings in construction were up 5 points from last month, and up 2 points from June 2024.”
According to Forbes, “More than 1 million trade jobs remain unfilled in the U.S., driven by an aging and retiring workforce as well as a societal bias toward college degrees.”
The NFIB describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. It is known as a think tank, or policy group source, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.
