Even as job seekers fret about artificial intelligence and tech behemoths announce massive layoffs, Matt Walsh is finding it surprisingly hard to help technology companies hire certain kinds of workers, predicting a record shortage of workers across the country.

That’s what Walsh’s recruiting firm, Blue Signal, does. And in specialties including semiconductor production, “the unemployment rate is probably negative 20 percent,” the CEO of the Phoenix-based search company said. “It’s ridiculous. There just aren’t enough people.”

College graduates booed commencement speakers who hyped AI, which has steadily reduced the number of entry-level jobs available, and Meta cited AI when laying off more than 8,000 workers in May.

But economists are sounding alarms that the AI talk is masking a different problem, a record shortage of workers.

It’s not that there won’t be enough jobs, these experts say — it’s that the United States is already facing what’s projected to be the biggest shortage of workers in its history.

Read the full article about the predicted record shortage of workers by Jon Marcus at The Hechinger Report.