LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Glaser’s Collision Centers struggled all summer to fill a handful of jobs in its four local auto body shops.

Sales and Marketing Manager Liz DeHart believed the federal government’s pandemic unemployment benefits, which provided unemployed workers an additional $300 a week, was a big part of the problem. “People didn't want to come off of the unemployment benefits and extra money they were making,” she told Spectrum News 1 this week.

Those extra benefits expired Sept. 6, along with programs providing benefits to those traditionally ineligible, but DeHart has seen no increase in interested workers. 

“We kind of felt like we were getting past that,” she said. “We’re not sure why we can't get candidates.” DeHart would not reveal a starting salary at Glaser's Collision Centers, but said it is "competitive."

In the months leading up to the expiration of the additional federal benefits, the program became a target for many business owners, business groups, and politicians who said the extra money incentivized people to stay home.

In June, after more than two dozen states ended their participation in the federal program, Sen. Mitch McConnell said Kentucky Gov. Andy Besehar was making a mistake by not following their lead. “Discontinue the bonus and I think you’ll see significant numbers of people interested in going back to work,” he said.

Beshear held firm, offering an incentive to return to work instead.

Now, three weeks after the federal program expired, Glaser's Collision Centers and other employers are seeing that the federal benefits weren't depressing employment as much as many thought.

“Anecdotally, we haven't seen a big influx of job seekers coming into our career centers since last month,” said Patrick Garvey, spokesperson for KentuckianaWorks' Kentucky Career Center. “Foot traffic has stayed pretty flat.”

At UPS, Louisville’s largest employer, “we still have plenty of positions available,” said spokesperson Jim Mayer. Still, he added, “hiring is going well.” He attributed that to the company's recent wage increase for some workers. 

“We are definitely still in a job seeker market,” said Mark Nightingale, senior vice president at Louisville-based Job News USA, which holds career fairs across the country.

“We ran an event just about a week ago in Louisville and we've got another one coming up on Oct. 5, which is very unusual for us,” he said. “We tend to do six a year in Louisville. The need is so great that we have increased our frequency due to customer demand.”

Nightingale said the Oct. 5 job fair, which will be held at Cardinal Stadium, has nearly sold out on the employer side. Meanwhile, the company is seeing roughly half the number of job seekers as it was pre-pandemic.

Charles Aull, senior policy analyst with the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, said he’s heard some slight optimism from employers since the federal pandemic benefits expired, but cautioned that any number of factors could be playing into that. 

“It's hard to pinpoint changes in public policy, especially in the short term,” he said.

Dustin Pugel at the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy agreed that it’s too early to know the effect of the benefits ending in Kentucky. But evidence from states that ended their participation early suggests no meaningful boost in employment is coming. 

“There is evidence to suggest, however, that the effect of the September cutoff of jobless benefits will be to reduce personal income in Kentucky by $506 million, and reduce spending by $278 million over the course of a year in Kentucky — increasing hardship while the pandemic continues,” Pugel said. 

The notion that ending federal unemployment benefits would send people flooding back into the workforce was always overly simplistic, said Sarah Davasher-Wisdom, president of Greater Louisville Inc, the city’s Chamber of Commerce. 

“The workforce challenges that we're seeing right now are multifaceted and also existed before the pandemic,” she said. 

Davasher-Wisdom said the rising cost and falling availability of child care is a particular concern. Some workers also reconsidered their paths during the pandemic and switched industries, or picked up new skills to advance their careers. She also cited competition for employees that has led businesses to increase pay or offer incentives to workers interested in switching jobs.

DeHart said Glaser's Collision Centers resisted getting pulled into those "bidding wars."

“Maybe it hurt us," she said. "We lost some employees because of it. But we opted not to go that direction.”