ManpowerGroup's annual Talent Shortage Survey, reveals that 32 percent of U.S. employers report difficulties filling job vacancies due to talent shortages. This marks a decrease of 8 percent, falling from 40 percent in 2014. Globally, the percentage of employers experiencing difficulties continued to rise, increasing from 36 percent in 2014 to 38 percent in 2015.

When the U.S. economy emerged from the recession in June 2009, productivity was rising at a fast clip. Companies had spent the downturn cutting jobs and were lean and efficient. Productivity—output per hour worked—jumped 5.5 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier as workers did more with less. But as the recovery has chugged on, productivity growth has stalled, averaging less than 1 percent a year since 2011. Workers were actually less efficient in the first quarter of 2014, producing fewer goods and services per hour than they had during the previous quarter.