The state department tasked with helping Kentuckians find jobs is having a hard time hiring new employees.
Kentucky's unemployment office had around 90 job openings but very few people are applying. Most of these positions have been posted multiple times in an attempt to find anyone that may be interested.
The problem isn't the lack of qualified workers, but the jobs themselves.
“Employees aren't willing to take a position that has a likely one-year existence. So that that has been a real challenge. And I think we're seeing that in the private sector as well -- people going back to work and the difficulty that employers are having," Jamie Link, Kentucky's Labor Cabinet secretary, told lawmakers during a hearing on Tuesday, per WRDB.
The state legislature only provided the unemployment office with temporary funding for these new positions. People are also passing on these positions because most require six months of training.
“Essentially, they'll only have six months to work before their job disappears. That, along with a very stressful line of work, is not very attractive to people,” Morgan Eaves, director of Legislative Affairs at the Kentucky Labor Cabinet, told WHAS11.
Like other states, Kentucky was overwhelmed by a wave of unemployment claims at the start of the pandemic. The state is now looking to upgrade Kentucky's unemployment system so that it'll be more secure and can more efficiently process claims. However, it will likely be two to three years before the system is replaced, WCPO reported.