CoBank said the United States economy is heading into a labour shortage which will become acute as early as this fall.
There are several reasons, including lower immigration numbers, lower births, retirements and 2.5 million able-bodied people are not working.
Workers have also been hit with a 60 per cent increase in home ownership prices in the last four years, it said.
“With the labor supply about to get tighter, businesses and industries operating in rural America should be increasing their focus on technology to overcome labor availability challenges.
“Barring an unforeseen change in labor force participation rates or immigration policies, the pool of available workers is set to shrink precipitously in the next few years,” said Rob Fox, director of CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange.
“The problem will be even more acute in states with lower population growth in the Upper Midwest, Corn Belt and the Central Plains.
Increased adoption of technology, namely AI and robotics, will likely be at the core of any strategy to address the oncoming labor squeeze,” Fox said.
