Job market disconnect raises concerns over the U.S. economy’s

The gulf between the record number of job openings around the U.S. and the number of workers for those roles is forcing Wall Street to reassess the pace of the economic recovery.

Jobs were gutted during the COVID-19 pandemic and employment growth has been a closely watched gauge for investors. Increasing employment eventually results in increased consumer spending, which is the biggest driver of economic growth. Without the former, analysts have said, it will take longer than expected for the economy to operate at some semblance of a pre-pandemic normal.

“That time horizon keeps getting extended,” said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management.

The Labor Department has reported that job openings reached 10.9 million in July, the most on record dating to 2000. Roughly 8.7 million people were considered unemployed during that same month, which is the biggest gap of its kind between available jobs and the unemployed since the Labor Department started keeping track of job openings in 2000. 

And that figure may be an underestimate. Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, recently told CBS MoneyWatch that the government’s official number of unemployed people excludes the millions who are jobless but not actively searching for a job. The true count in July was over 13 million, she said.

The number of open jobs in July exceeded the number of people who are unemployed for the first time during the pandemic. Typically, the gap is much wider the other way, with more people unemployed than there are job openings.

Rising COVID-19 cases are one of the biggest culprits driving the jobs divide. People are hesitant to head back to work because of health concerns as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads, analysts have said. Many are also concerned about childcare as schools open for a new year with a high level of unpredictability because of the virus.

What are these jobs paying?

The divide between job openings and people taking those jobs has also prompted companies to raise wages and offer bonuses. Some economists say businesses just need to raise wages for workers to show up. 

Indeed, many business owners have moved to lift their starting wage above $15 to do just that.

“There is no better way to attract someone to a job than to guarantee them that if they work 40 hours a week they won’t be living in poverty,” Michael Lastoria, co-founder and CEO of &Pizza, told CBS MoneyWatch in July. 

&Pizza, a fast-growing chain with dozens of locations across the Northeast, offers…