GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Rising prices at the pump, growing costs at the grocery store — you see the impacts of inflation everywhere you look.
Demand is higher, but the supply is scarce.
“Most of our supply chains are global now and we’re seeing the impact of broken supply chains," said Mark Spieles, a CMU professor & director of corporate relations for Logistics Management Program.
The result? A national inflation rate of 7.5%, our highest in 40 years.
Supply chain issues are at the core of the problem, and Spieles said two main factors are to blame — the cost of energy and the labor shortage.
“A lot of our energy policies are constraining the production of oil and the production of natural gas," Spieles told FOX 17. "Especially in the wintertime, that's going to inflate prices for energy.”
He added, "There's still a fair number of people that are just not willing to go back to work. We have a lot of early retires, we have individuals around the sidelines. Somehow they've got to be inspired to come back to work and participate in the labor force.”
As inflation hit record highs, labor participation rates hit record lows. There are 10 million unfilled jobs across the country, the most in more than 20 years, according to Spieles.
That's without a stimulus check since last March, and without federal unemployment benefits since September.
“That’s why I find this to be fascinating, quite honestly," Spieles said. "Just the human behavior...all the work and the work ethic and how that's changing and how that's evolving.”
Spieles said that change is not going to be temporary. Some experts said we might see relief later this year or at the start of 2023, but Spieles said it'll go beyond that.
"The cost is going to be higher in the future to do business just on labor alone," he said. "So we'll feel the impacts as consumers for at least the next year, if not years to come.”
Spieles said companies and manufacturers will make adjustments along the way. You've likely already seen it in some areas, such as restaurants moving into automation, replacing human employees with robots and technology.
