- Davis Professional Serviceshere in Chesapeake, Virginia

specializes in cleaningcommercial properties

and definitely feels the impact.

The lack of workers hasforced the company's owner

to leave the office and stepin to help take up the slack.

- The labor force is just stagnant.

It's not moving. It's not doing anything.

- [Charlene] For more than 25 years,

Jerry Flug has run his janitorial company.

Then the pandemic hit,

costing him about 25% of the business.

With the company rebounding,he needs more workers.

- It's been a big strugglefor us to fill those positions

and we right now currently have

about 30, 35 positions that are open.

- [Charlene] Across thecountry, as businesses emerge

from the pandemic shutdown,they're facing a labor shortage,

especially in the service industry.

According to the EconomicPolicy Institute,

childcare issues and ongoingfears about the pandemic

are somewhat to blame.

Many also point the finger atenhanced unemployment benefits

for keeping unemploymentrolls at 9.8 million,

about 3.6 million higherthan before the pandemic.

Employers say the federal$300 weekly benefits

are giving people areason to decline work.

- It's a big deal, you know,

and it's hard to competewith free money right now.

- [Charlene] That'swhy more than 20 states

are ending the federalunemployment benefit.

- Just last week, thiswoman came to the door

and was calculating herhours and ended up saying,

"Actually, I'm gonna makemore money off of unemployment

than I would making here."

She went through the whole process,

she even signed the paperwork with us,

and then the next dayshe was out the door.

So, it just happens andwe've just gotten used to it.

- [Charlene] Human resourcesmanager Keri Terray says

with so many job openings,

workers feel they couldweigh their options.

- So I think that it has broughta certain level of audacity

for people to kind of feellike they can wheel and deal.

There's more of a bargaining level there

that they're expecting because they know

that they have so many options.

And we have to do whatwe can to be attractive

to these job seekers.

- [Charlene] That includesre-hiring former employees.

- We have found that to bequite successful for us.

We've gone through.

We've found people who'veworked for us previously.

We reach back out to them, we call them,

and ask, "Would you by any chance,

are you interested in beinga Davis team member again?"

And we actually have people who've said,

"You know what?

I haven't considered that.

I think that might be a good idea."

- [Charlene] Flug has evenrolled up his sleeves to help.

- It's all hands on deck.

We do have kind of an approachof I'm not gonna ask anybody

to do anything I'm notwilling to do myself.

And so, yeah, over the past couple weeks,

we've jumped in thetruck, cleaning carpets,

stripping and waxing floors,whatever needed to be done.

- [Charlene] Meanwhile, Flug is hopeful

that business will soon return to normal.

- In the upcoming weeks

we feel like traction'sgonna start to happen

and people are gonna start going, "Yeah,

I think I need to get back to work

and be able to take care of my family."

- [Charlene] Charlene Aaron, CBN News.