A desperate, dejected man sitting by himself with his head in his hands

American Businesses are having a horrible time trying to fill job openings, according to survey results reported by Small Business Trends.

Conducted by The Conference Board, the new survey says that small businesses are especially struggling to fill vacancies. In fact, a whopping 80 percent of businesses trying to find qualified candidates for mostly industry and manual services say they're having a "hard time." A quarter of those same respondents say it's "very difficult" to find workers, and 55 percent say it is "somewhat difficult." For context, just four percent of those same types of businesses said they found it difficult to find qualified workers before the pandemic.

Not only is it hard to hire people for industry and manual services right now, but it's also difficult to get the people in these positions to stay. In April, 41 percent of those surveyed said it was difficult to retain their workers, compared to 27 percent who had the same response before the pandemic.

For more on the survey results, click here.