Shadowing Practice: If Companies Are Desperate For Workers... Why Can Nobody Find A Job? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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There are 9.6 million job openings in America right now.
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And businesses are desperate to fill roles that have now been empty for months.
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But, at the same time, you are reading endless articles about people who have applied to thousands of jobs
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and haven't heard anything back from companies that were supposed to be desperate for workers.
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So, if there are so many job opportunities, then why can't anybody get a job?
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But now a new report shows
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that some employers are spending millions just to tell people we're hiring stores are offering incentives to get people hired
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because they are forced to close.
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We've featured is desperate to hire.
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There's just not enough workers to meet all the jobs here.
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According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are currently 9.6 million job openings in America and only 6.5 million unemployed people.
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So why not just take the openings that desperately need workers and give them to the people that desperately need jobs?
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it's not that simple.
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And there are two reasons why companies are struggling to fill roles even when so many people are looking for a job,
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and two equally important reasons why people can't find a job even when so many companies are looking for workers.
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The first reason why people can't find jobs even when companies have
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so many open positions is because it's easier for a company to look desperate than it is for a human to.
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According to the Congressional Research Service, the number of job openings is calculated using a survey of
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20,000 business establishments on the last day of the month to assess if a job opening exists.
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According to the informational guidelines, a job opening only has to meet three criteria to be counted.
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First, a specific position exists and there is work available for that position.
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Second, the job could start within 30 days.
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And third, the establishment is actively recruiting outside workers.
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There are companies that are constantly advertising job openings for positions that are hard to fill or are subject to high turnover.
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Last year Engadget, a technology newspaper, received a leaked internal report from Amazon which revealed that the company had a staff turnover rate of 150%.
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That means Amazon, which has 1.6 million employees, was hiring 2.4 million people every year just to maintain its workforce.
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In the same year, only one-third of Amazon's new hires stayed with the company for longer than 90 days before quitting, getting fired, or getting laid off.
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With that much turnover, the company doesn't bother to remove job listings once someone gets hired to fill a role.
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Warehouse staff are continuously being onboarded and offboarded at almost the same rate, so hundreds of thousands of positions stay open across the country.
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Amazon's turnover figures were bad, but other large employers like big box retailers, delivery companies, and warehouses used the same job advertising process.
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These posts are mainly for low-skilled positions with equally low pay, but even if you are someone looking for a position with higher prerequisites, these numbers can still be deceiving.
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Amazon's hiring practices for some of their best paid
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and most attractive job opportunities also showed how easy it was for job opening numbers to paint the wrong picture.
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Another Amazon internal document reviewed by Business Insider revealed
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that the company's web services utility computing team posted 25,000 job openings in 2022
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but only 7,800 of these positions were actually approved to be filled.
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This also happened in a year that Amazon was laying off more staff than they were hiring.
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The strategy that these companies and hiring managers are using is to constantly have positions open to attract top talent.
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If anybody that is not overqualified for these positions applies to them, they just get rejected.
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Amazon is not the only company that does this.
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Most of the top tech, finance, and consulting companies do exactly the same thing.
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Amazon is just not as good as keeping internal documents from the press.
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As private companies, they are not doing anything illegal.
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And they only do it because it does work.
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But it makes the number of job openings you hear companies complaining about in the media very inaccurate.
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Affectionately known as JOLTS, number 9,610,000,
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that best estimates and it is the best level going back to May when it was slightly higher at 9,616,000.
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Compare that to the number of people looking for work.
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Job openings outnumbered unemployed people.
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But the gap is shrinking, and it's much easier to count a job opening than count as unemployed.
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The 6.5 million people unemployed only get counted if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior four weeks, and are currently available for work.
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According to data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are an additional 5.4 million people who want a job
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but are not counted as unemployed because they don't meet these technical requirements.
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So even though you might think it's the best time ever to get a job, the numbers are misleading.
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And that's just the first reason.
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There are much bigger problems than just the numbers.
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So it's time to learn how money works to find out why, with so many job openings, people still can't find a job.
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If you have been lucky enough to secure it full-time, working from home will have radically reshaped your career in more ways than you realize.
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Full-time working from home means that you can find lucrative job opportunities anywhere
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and companies that want to keep up in the job market need to play catch-up.
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One strategy that has become common is to post the same job in every major city
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so there is more chances for applicants across the country to see it, which lets the company be more selective with who they hire since they don't need to come into the office anyway.
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This can be a win-win for the employer and the employee, but for someone looking for a job it can make it
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look like there are a lot more opportunities than there really are.
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And that's the second reason why nobody can find a job even when companies are apparently desperate to hire anybody.
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People are chasing ghost jobs.
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The job market is in a really weird place right now.
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People are unwilling to accept lousy salaries after being spoiled for the last three years, companies are not willing to pay as much as they were because they can't.
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Major companies overhired during the pandemic
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and are now getting pressure from their investors to cut headcount and only focus on revenue revenue-generating projects.
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According to a study conducted by the Harvard Business Review, this turmoil has increased the number of ghost jobs, which are jobs that are advertised that companies have no intention of ever filling.
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Companies do this for three reasons.
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The first is to just build up a database of talent.
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In the information age, having lots of data about thousands of workers in your industry is worth millions of dollars.
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If you are a hiring manager and a position in your company ever does really need to be filled, you can just go to your database of people
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that have previously applied for a job and start calling the most promising applicants.
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You might have to poach people from their current job if they did end up finding work, but that can still be cheaper than starting a search from scratch after the company realizes it needs a position filled.
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It's also useful business intelligence that is close to free to collect.
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By slowly sponging up thousands of applicants to do jobs that don't exist, the company can get insights on how many staff their competitors have, how much they are paying them, how many of them are leaving,
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and what skills they have and do not have.
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For the price of a job post on LinkedIn, and indeed, it's a lot of information.
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According to a survey of 1,000 hiring managers conducted by Clarify Capital, more than 60% of job postings have been active for more
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than two months despite 96% of employees claiming they're actively trying to fill an open role quickly in the job advertisement.
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Posting ghost jobs is also It's also used by managers who don't want to pay more for employees
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but want to keep their existing overworked employees happy with the promise
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that new team members will be starting as soon as they find the right person.
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Posting ghost jobs also looks good to investors and customers because it looks like the business is growing even when it's not.
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It's a super effective management strategy for business, but it means job hunters can spend hundreds of hours applying for jobs and attending interviews for roles that never really existed.
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Now, it's much harder to feel sorry for them, but companies have become a victim of its new career paradigm as well.
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The first reason
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that companies can no longer find workers even though millions of Americans are looking for a job is
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because they have made it pointless to hire the right people.
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Businesses have embraced new technologies that have made it easier than ever to train people for a new role.
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A job like a pharmacist or bank manager used to be highly respected positions
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that required decades of experience and paid as well as doctors and lawyers.
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A pharmacist needed to know compounding formulas for prescriptions
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and a bank manager needed to make discretionary decisions about who to lend money to.
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These were big jobs that could cost lots of money or worse if not done right.
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Once a company found people that were good at the jobs, it was very important to keep them for as long as possible.
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So it wasn't unusual for people to spend their entire career with just one company and be rewarded handsomely for it.
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Today, pharmacists are just there for compliance and to pull pre-made scripts the computer tells them to.
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Bank managers use credit scores and computer algorithms to approve
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or deny loans they personally have no say in whether you get a home loan or not.
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This made their jobs easier, but it also made them easier to replace, so companies stopped valuing company loyalty, and they stopped rewarding it.
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Now it's people that don't switch jobs that are being left behind.
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People that switch jobs every two years
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or more on average earn 50% more than their peers that stay loyal to a company.
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The result is that people have learned to switch jobs more often.
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But now, companies do not want to invest any money into training new employees
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because they know they are not likely to stay around for very long.
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If companies don't want to pay for training, they need to hire people that are already skilled enough to do the role they are hiring for, but that can be hard to find.
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A lot of employees today are being forced to take it upon themselves to seek out skills
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and qualifications to remain employable through things like Excel courses, coding bootcamps, sales trainings, and now AI seminars.
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This is on top of a growing number of jobs
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that now require advanced college degrees like an MBA for an entry-level analyst role.
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If companies can keep their standards high and still fill the roles they need, then they will win by not having to pay for staff training.
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If they can't, then they still win
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because they get to complain about how it's too hard to find workers with the right skills.
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Some companies can use this to justify outsourcing or hire skilled H-1B visa workers, which depend on their employer to stay in America.
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If people working in America on an H-1B visa lose their job, they only have 60 days to find a new job at another company
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that is willing to sponsor their visa before they get deported.
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So companies have an incentive to make it look like they can't find anybody with the right skills, so they can hire workers which are much more dependent on their job.
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It's a broken system that's bad for American workers and bad for visa holders, but it's great for companies that want loyal workers while everybody is shopping around for better deals.
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One thing that you have to remember about this whole situation
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is that companies do not want to admit that they can't find enough staff unless there is something in it for them.
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Signaling to investors that growth or operations could be hurt by personnel challenges will hurt a company's stock price.
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So a CEO has a fiduciary duty to keep
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that sort of information discreet unless it can be used to
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benefit the company some other way the second reason why companies can't get anybody to work for them even
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when everybody wants a job is
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because more skilled people than ever are choosing to work for
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themselves over 5 million businesses were created in america last year
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up from just 3.5 million before the pandemic there are more
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opportunities than ever to work for yourself thanks to platforms like etsy amazon ebay uber fiber
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and youtube these businesses are risky
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but more people than ever are willing to take that risk
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if it means they don't have to sit through 10 job interviews for a position that didn't exist in the first place.
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But there was one online marketplace that started this all.
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One that despite a bad reputation, bad design, and bad users has remained relevant through the entire history of the internet. So go
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and watch my latest video over on how history works to find out why Craigslist will outlive every modern tech company.
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And don't forget if you want more hard-hitting reports
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that can't be made into youtube videos
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that are written by some of the best finance creators out
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there subscribe to my totally free email newsletter compounded daily in the video description to keep on learning how money works
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “If Companies Are Desperate For Workers... Why Can Nobody Find A Job?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: companies, position, opening, workers, role. This video has 144 sentences and 2342 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:34. The speaker talks fast, about 203 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| unemployed adjective | /ˌʌnɪmˈplɔɪd/ | Having no job despite being able and willing to work. |
| turnover noun | /ˈtɝnoʊvɚ/ | The amount of money taken as sales transacted in a given period. |
| visa noun | /ˈviːzə/ | A permit to enter and leave a country, normally issued by the authorities of the country to be visited. |
| pharmacist noun | /ˈfɑɹməsɪst/ | A health professional who controls, formulates, preserves, and dispenses medications and provides medical advice and counseling on how medicines should be used… |
| applicant noun | /ˈæp.lə.kɪnt/ | One who applies for something; one who makes a request; a petitioner. |
| investor noun | /ɪnˈvɛs.tə(ɹ)/ | A person who invests money in order to make a profit. |
| incentive noun | /ɪnˈsɛntɪv/ | Something that motivates, rouses, or encourages. |
| desperately adverb | /ˈdɛs.p(ə.)ɹət.li/ | In a desperate manner; without regard to danger or safety; recklessly. |
| warehouse noun | /ˈwɛə(ɹ)haʊs/ | A facility for storing large amounts of merchandise or products. |
| approve verb | /əˈpɹuːv/ | To officially sanction; to ratify; to confirm; to set as satisfactory. |
| compound noun | /ˈkɑmpaʊnd/ | Anything made by combining several things. |
| loyal adjective | /ˈlɔɪəl/ | Having or demonstrating undivided and constant support for someone or something. |
| affectionately adverb | /əˈfɛkʃənətli/ | In an affectionate manner. |
| compute verb | /kəmˈpjuːt/ | To reckon, calculate. |
| criterion noun | /kɹaɪˈtɪɹ.i.ən/ | A standard, test, or requirement by which individual things or people may be compared and judged; a gauge. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
| lay off verb | (of an employer) To dismiss (workers) from employment, e.g. at a time of low business volume or through no fault of the worker, often with a severance package. |
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. |
| catch up verb | To pick up suddenly. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
| leave behind verb | To abandon. |
| sit through verb | To unwillingly stay seated until the end of an event. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have now been · have applied · haven't heard |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are forced · is calculated · be counted |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who have · Amazon, which has · people who want |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 25 contractions and reduced forms, such as can't, don't, didn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: affectionately /əˈfɛkʃənətli/, discretionary /dɪsˈkɹɛʃəˌnɛɹi/, fiduciary /fəˈduːʃ.i.eɹ.i/, informational /ˌɪnfəˈmeɪʃənəl/, reshape /ɹiːˈʃeɪ̯p/
- Long words — get the stress right: desperately /ˈdɛs.p(ə.)ɹət.li/, affectionately /əˈfɛkʃənətli/, criterion /kɹaɪˈtɪɹ.i.ən/, discretionary /dɪsˈkɹɛʃəˌnɛɹi/, fiduciary /fəˈduːʃ.i.eɹ.i/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like unemployed, turnover, visa.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.