How Innovative Solutions Are Addressing America’s Labor Shortage

 

According to the latest figures, nearly 10 million Americans were unemployed and looking for work in June. That’s just the latest statistic reinforcing the current labor shortage touching many an industry, as skilled professionals become harder and harder to come by for open positions.

On this episode of Skip the Line, a Mashgin podcast, host Hilary Kennedy was joined by Mashgin’s Toby Awalt, Director of Product Marketing, and Darren Schulte, Vice President of Membership for NATSO, to discuss this critical topic.

This is the first conversation in an upcoming series of episodes centering on different industry perspectives on the labor shortage – and what thought leaders and experts are doing to address it.

NATSO “is the only national trade association representing the travel plaza and truck stop industry, [representing] more than 2,000 travel plazas and truck stops nationwide owned by over 220 corporate entities.”

“Our industry has always, like a lot of service industries, been challenged with the labor piece,” Schulte said. “But COVID has certainly pushed that further. … Members that were already innovative have become more innovative.”

Because individual owners often don’t have the capital to simply increase wages, they look elsewhere to entice talent, such as discounts on gas or other benefits.

Recent Episodes

In today’s creator economy, small businesses are being built on platforms as accessible as the smartphones in our pockets. From photographers to filmmakers, entrepreneurs are redefining what it means to “go into business” — often without traditional storefronts or investors, but with creativity, collaboration, and digital tools that make scaling possible. For many, payment…

Detroit is redefining its role in the next era of American innovation. The conversation has shifted from what to build to how to build it in ways that deliver lasting impact. The goal is to do so sustainably, inclusively, and with the community at its core. The state’s growing network of research universities, multi-billion-dollar…

In today’s digital marketplace, the competition for customer attention doesn’t end when a shopper clicks “Add to Cart.” In fact, that’s often where the real challenge begins. For many retailers, the guest checkout process—once designed as a convenience—has become a conversion killer. Endless form fields and repeated data entry drive shoppers away, leading to…