Hi, I'm Dampromack, and welcome to Axios Recap, where we dig into one big story.

Today's Friday, May 14th.

Gas prices are up, indoor mask mandates are down, and we're focused on America's sudden worker shortage.

One of the most confounding parts of last week's abysmal jobs report was the disconnect

between the slight rise in unemployment and those help-wanted signs all of us keep seeing

on the windows of restaurants and retail stores and really everywhere.

Now, to some, this is a big, bad government story. So long as extended unemployment

benefits keep flowing, many potential workers will remain on the sidelines. To others, it's a

wages story, with lots of people who reevaluated their lives during the pandemic and realized

they no longer wanted to put in 40-hour weeks for employers that didn't pay them a living wage,

particularly if child care remains hard to find and the virus continues to make certain jobs more

dangerous. To everyone, it's a problem that needs fixing. So today we want to speak with someone

who employs tens of thousands of Americans and who's seeking to add a lot more. Brian Nicol,

CEO of Restaurant Chain Chipotle.

We'll discuss starting wages, why he thinks it's so hard to find workers, and what he plans to do about the CDC's new guidance on fully vaccinated people no longer needing

to wear masks indoors.

That conversation in 15 seconds.

We're joined now by Brian Nicol, chairman and CEO of Chipotle.

So, Brian, your company recently announced plans to increase the average wage for workers to $15 per hour.

Why?

Well, look, what we saw is the market is just becoming more and more competitive for the skills that we needed in our restaurant.

It made a lot of sense for us to probably be one of the ones that leads on this.

...