The unemployment rate in the U.S. changed little this month, holding at 4.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But some experts are concerned about the future as job openings outpace the workforce and older generations retire.

The latest report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce shows there are 8 million job openings in the U.S. and 6.8 million people unemployed a gap that is expected to increase as older Americans retire in waves described by some as a "silver tsunami."

Lightcast, a company that focuses on providing labor market data to help empower communities, reported in September that U.S. employers will soon face the largest labor shortage the country has ever seen. The latest report, titled The Rising Storm: Building a Future-Ready Workforce to Withstand the Looming Labor Shortage lays out a deficit of six million workers by 2032. According to findings, foreign born workers are helping keep the economy afloat by filling roles in construction, hospitality, and other sectors.

A new labor report released this year by Mercer, a consulting firm, predicts over the next five years the medical work will experience a shortage of more than 100,000 health care workers. The states expected to be hit the hardest include Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, New Jersey and New York.

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This October the National Association of Home Builders also reported that thousands of construction workers will be needed to reduce the nations housing deficit. NAHB is estimating a shortfall of 1.5 million homes.

According to the Home Builders Institute report, immigrant workers now account for 24.7% of the construction workforce, a historic new high. In construction trades, the share of immigrants surpassed 31%.

The data clearly shows that we're very, very dependent on foreign labor to get that work done, Hetrick said. We didn't have children for several decades the younger population overwhelmingly goes to college so that leaves us with, 'well, then who builds homes?' You know, 'who fixes highways?'

Hetrick says Americans need to brace for the silver tsunami of older workers leaving the workforce. According to Lightcast, of the 5 million workers who left the workforce in 2021, 80% were over the age of 55, and with the average retirement age now dropping to 61 its further shrinking the labor market.

This massive group of people, very driven, you know, 2 income households, they have a lot of money and they're all retiring and so they're all going from producers to consumers, Hetrick said.

As older generations retire the demand for goods will increase, adding a strain to a job market struggling to find workers during a time when there is historically low participation in the labor force.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also examined the labor shortage and cited several factors leading to more job openings, including people living on savings or whats left of pandemic aid, low legal migration,and women leaving the workforce to become homemakers.

Hetrick says the solution to the issues at hand is promoting trade specialties, cross-training new generations, incorporating Artificial Intelligence, and employing migrants to help fill positions.

At the end of the day, you need a body in the job, Hetrick said. If you don't get the body and the job, then you provide less service.You are a restaurant that doesn't open all their tables.You're a hospital that doesn't fill all of their beds.You're a construction company that doesn't build all of the homes that you were hoping to build.

In fall of 2022, more than 15 million students were enrolled in college for an undergraduate degree, according to the Education Data Initiative.

Hetrick says the job market is saturated with college graduates with similar degrees and the job openings are for service level jobs like hospitality and construction. He predicts companies will have to increase their wages to lure new employees that could in return lead to consumers paying higher prices.

They're the most dominant terms used to describe more than 65 million people who make up nearly 20% of the U.S. population: Hispanic and Latino.

They're two simple terms with complex roots that are often used interchangeably. But as Stella Rouse explains, the rich history behind the terms Hispanic and Latino isn't simple at all.

"It's not a simple community," she told Scripps News. "It's very diverse, very heterogeneous."

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Hispanic refers to a person with ancestry from a country where the primary language is Spanish.

In the 1970s the federal government adopted the use of the term Hispanic in a move to help allocate federal dollars and resources. But it's a word that's been resisted and a source of debate.

"It's very much a government label that was imposed on the community," Rouse explained. "And of course, you know, often times the relationship of Latinos and the Latino community with the government have not always been great."

Rouse was born in Colombia and is now the director of the Hispanic Research Center at Arizona State University. She says that for some people, Latino simply feels more organic.

"That's a word that's come from, you know, from the societies of people that come from Latin America, who speak Spanish, who have that common origin," said Rouse.

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Latino is short for Latinoamericano. It refers to someone with origins from anywhere Latin America, including Mexico, South America, Central America, and the Caribbean.

To increase inclusiveness in the early 21st century, the term Latinx emerged as a gender-neutral alternative to Hispanic and Latino or Latina.

While the word experienced the spotlight, Mark Hugo Lopez with the race and ethnicity research division at the Pew Research Center says that Latinx failed to connect with Spanish speakers and gain widespread usage.

"You often times will find, for example, that Spanish speakers will say, 'Well that's something that English speakers created. That's not, how do you pronounce x in, we don't use it in Spanish,'" explained Lopez. "And so there was this little bit of a sense that it was also American cultural imperialism."

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According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, awareness for the term Latinx has grown, but just 4% of Latino adults say they have used the word to describe themselves. As a replacement, Latine surfaced.

"So, Latine is from Latin America," explained Lopez. "And it's something that you can conjugate in Spanish... and you can pronounce it in Spanish."

Experts say the best way to determine the use of these words is to never assume, and simply ask the person you're speaking to how they identify.

This week marks the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month and Scripps News continues to celebrate by recognizing the contributions and cultural achievements of Hispanic Americans.

Mariachi music has been a staple of Mexican culture for centuries and Scripps News traveled to a school in Arizona where one teacher is putting in the effort to help his students tap into their cultural roots.

For more than a decade, Tolleson Elementary music teacher Efrain Casillas has been unlocking gates and opening doors for children at Desert Oasis Elementary in Maricopa County.

"I asked the students what type of music they like and mariachi was what they liked," Casillas said. "I said 'well, I guess I gotta learn to play mariachi music.'"

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So he tuned up his skills and began helping his students embrace their latino culture, the music and the Spanish language.

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Casillas is credited with creating the school district's first mariachi group. He told Scripps News that he was surprised by how quickly they caught on.

"I didn't know that it was going to be this popular with the students," Casillas said. "...a lot of them told me it's because 'this is the music that I like.' Other ones were telling me 'because my parents like this music, my grandmother likes this music.'"

It's an example of traditional music transcending generations and onto big stages captivating kids of all ages.

"Mariachi is just different because it has everything," one student said. "It has the passion, it has the love, it has the rhythm, it has the dancing, it has everything."

It also has universal notes that can overcome barriers.

"When I first came into this country, I didn't know a word in English," Casillas recalled.

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Despite being tasked with adapting to a new country and learning a new language, this year Casillas still managed to land a coveted spotlight.

"This is when my students went to play for the Easter egg roll at the White House," he said pointing to a photo. "Yeah, this is a very special moment because this is the first mariachi to kids mariachi to make it to the White House."

It was an honor that came after he was named Arizona's teacher of the year.

"Here I am shaking the hand of the president of the United States," Casillas said with a smile.

These are reminders of moments and lessons that inspire former and current students ones that Casillas says he wants his students to share on the biggest stages.

On Saturday, Uvalde city officials released thousands of documents and hours of video and audio recordings including a frantic 911 call from the uncle of the Robb Elementary School gunman who killed 19 students and two teachers.

The trove of material including text messages, emails, bodycam and dashcam video followed a lawsuit filed by Scripps News and several news organizations.

On May 24, 2022, the day of the mass shooting, a man called 911 and identified himself as Armando Ramos, the uncle of the gunman. The man on the phone sounded concerned and nervous as he pleaded to talk to his nephew, and offered to help police talk down his nephew.

Everything I tell him he does listen to me, Ramos said. Maybe he can stand down or do something or turn himself in.

During the call, Ramos said his nephew was with him the night before the shooting and was upset with his grandmother because she was "bugging" him.

The call from Ramos came after authorities confronted and killed the gunman, according to detailed information released.

The school shooter had shot and injured his grandmother the morning of the massacre before heading to Robb Elementary School, according to authorities. A neighbor who lived across the street from the shooter told Scripps News the gunmans grandmother was covered in blood the day off the mass shooting.

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Redacted audio recordings released

Audio recordings released by city officials included redacted 911 calls from students in classrooms 111 and 112. One student can be heard on a call telling the operator the teacher was dead and said there were a lot of dead bodies before getting emotional and revealing to the operation that they did not want to die.

Police body camera footage released

In body cam video, a responding officer inside the school is heard telling another officer to get the shields and another responds, wait, Ill see if I can talk to him. Moments later, an officer is heard saying, we all want to get in there, trust me.

Nearly 400 law enforcement officers waited more than 70 minutes outside the classroom before they confronted the gunman, according to the investigation.

DOJ report

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice released a nearly 600-page report on its Critical Incident Review. The report highlighted what officials called, cascading failures and determined the officers acted with no urgency.

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In June, the former Uvalde Police Chief Pete Arredondo,was indicted for his rolein the slow response to the mass shooting. Former school officer Adrian Gonzales also faces criminal charges for his response. Arredondo and Gonzales have pled not guilty to multiple charges of child abandonment.

Arredondo's legal counsel says he did his best with the information he had at the time.

Scripps News continues to comb through the significant material released.

Four historically Black medical schools received a $600 million gift from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies.

The financial commitment to the endowments of four schools was described by medical university presidents as a historic, and transformational gift. It marked the largest gift by a single donor to historically Black medical schools.

Howard University College of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, and Morehouse School of Medicine will each receive a $175 million endowment, and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science will receive $75 million.

Those four schools alone graduate around half of all black doctors in the United States, which really is an astonishing start, so there is no ways to overstate how important they are to equality in medicine, Bloomberg said during a speech celebrating his commitment to the schools.

Bloomberg also announced an additional $5 million grant for Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine, a new school being developed in New Orleans.

The funding aims to increase financial stability across institutions, help diversify the workforce, help respond to rising tuition costs, bolster staff and innovative research.

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Resources are important to ensure sustainability of those institutions, to make sure that the students that attend those institutions can have the equipment, the technology, the staff, and the opportunity to provide scholarships to students, said Dr. Yolanda Lawson, the president of the National Medical Association.

A $100 million gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2020 to historically Black schools helped reduce student debt for nearly 1,000 future Black doctors. The average cost of medical school is currently $235,827, and can be more expensive when attending a private school, according to the Education Data Initiative.

Black doctors currently make up less than 6% of all U.S. doctors. A study published on the JAMA Network, a medical journal, found that greater representation of Black primary physicians was associated with higher life expectancy and better health measures for Black people.

They can achieve better health outcomes, better preventive care, more adherence to therapy when you have a culturally competent provider, Lawson said.

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Ben Vinson III, the president of Howard University, said the gift will help cultivate the next generation of health professionals.

This is a momentous day for so many who are working to shape a healthier and more equitable future for our country, said Dr. James E.K. Hildreth, the president and CEO of Meharry Medical College.