Retirements fueling U.S. worker shortage: "We're fighting an uphill battle"

The U.S. labor market has a people problem: There simply aren't enough workers available to take the jobs employers want to fill. That's partly due to a trend hastened by the pandemic that is continuing apace even as the economy returns to normal: Americans are retiring in droves.

Retiring workers made up the biggest share of Americans who dropped out of the labor force in March, according to a new analysis from Morning Consult. That pickup comes after several months during which retirement rates eased somewhat, with some older workers returning to the labor force. 

But the recent uptick in retirements may signal that some older workers are questioning whether they want to cope with changes like the widespread shift to hybrid-work environments, with more companies asking workers to come to the office a few days a week, noted John Leer, chief economist at Morning Consult. And as the pandemic enters its third year, some may simply be aging into retirement as part of the long-standing demographic shift of America's aging baby boomer generation.