For Alan Hirsch, the long-running economic expansion has been a mixed blessing. The owner of Dil-worth Mattress Co., a small mattress maker in Charlotte, N. C, saw his sales jump 13% last year. But with the jobless rate in this Sun Belt boomtown now below 2%, Hirsch finds himself perpetually scrambling to come up with 10 workers to keep his small assembly line running. "People ask, 'Do you require a drug test?' I say 'No,' because I'm afraid that if I did I might not have anybody," Hirsch jokes.
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