The owner of a Minnesota job agency said interviews shot up 60% before enhanced unemployment benefits expired

• Interviews through a Minnesota jobs agency shot up in the run up to enhanced unemployment benefits expiring, its owner said.
• He told MPR News that people had become "a little bit more motivated" to start looking for jobs.
• Other businesses say they're still struggling to find staff, even after the benefits have ended.

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The owner of a jobs agency in Minnesota told MPR News that locals had shown a renewed interest in looking for work in the run-up to enhanced unemployment benefits ending.

Enhanced unemployment benefits expired on Labor Day, September 6. In early August, the agency was facilitating "in the mid-20 interviews per week," but more recently it had "averaged roughly 40 interviews per week," Karl Amlie, who owns and manages the Forest Lake, Minnesota, division of Express Employment Professionals, said. 

"So we've really seen numbers uptick here in the last four or five weeks as people are anticipating those unemployment benefits ending. A lot of people started becoming a little bit more motivated to reach out and start looking for a job," he said.

Companies across the US are struggling to find staff, and some business owners have blamed these jobless benefits. The benefits incentivized people to stay at home, they argue.

But workers say that they're holding out for better pay, job benefits, and working conditions.

Rising cases of the Delta variant are putting some off from applying for jobs, too.

Employers are split on whether the end of the benefits has helped hiring.

A restaurant owner in Portland said that job applications were up roughly 50% since benefits ended – but some companies in states that cut off the benefits months early are still struggling to find staff.

Two Chick-fil-A restaurants in Alabama, for example, started shutting early in August "due to extremely short staffing." The state ended enhanced unemployment benefits early in May.

Daniel Zhao, a senior economist at Glassdoor, previously told Insider, "It's entirely possible that the withdrawal of enhanced unemployment benefits led to a small increase in payrolls, but it's just being completely overwhelmed by Delta."