Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone? • Hacker News Board

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#271

Post by Closi » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:13 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #146

m0llusk wrote: post #88

It is strange that the top known factors for this are not even mentioned in this or other similar news stories. First, closing of schools caused large numbers of women to leave the workforce in order to care for children. Until schools are fully open and day care is available those women will probably not be going back to work. Second, all markets are cultivated things. Employers in the most troubled sectors have rec…

> All of this stuff about workers disappearing and people reconsidering their lives is pretty much a sideshow of projected narrative that is detached from what is really going on. Well said. We’ve been bombarded with news articles and thought pieces about how COVID has forever changed the workforce, how people are refusing to work jobs they don’t like, how people are quitting en masse because their employers won’t al…

Also, when I hear about people struggling to recruit, it’s often minimum wage jobs on awful conditions.

People don’t want to work for absolute minimum wage on a temporary contract picking fruit? Colour me surprised!

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#272

Post by x0x0 » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #252

tzs wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is strange that the top known factors for this are not even mentioned in this or other similar news stories. First, closing of schools caused large numbers of women to leave the workforce in order to care for children. I'm a bit skeptical of that explanation in the US because schools close for 3 months every summer, without an accompanying large number of women quitting their jobs.

In many families, summers are typically full of "summer camps" that are actually "themed daycare for older kids". Those were mostly closed as well during the pandemic lockdown phase, and some still haven't come back (in the US, anyway).

And even for those that are open, there's now some ugly decisions to be made by parents given you can't vaccinate under 12s yet.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#273

Post by reader_mode » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

hibikir wrote: post #253

peakaboo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salaries may be lower but work/life balance seems much higher in Europe.

This is something that is very difficult to see at a distance: Just like in politics, it's very easy to get an unrepresentative picture of the world online. I am a Spaniard who was fortunate to qualify to a US visa, so I was able to come over. I have many friends who went into CS, but didn't have the chances to come over as I did. As far as Spain goes, what I am able to make in the American Midwest pays for an entire…

People on this forum say EU - but they mean "rich parts of EU". Reality is EU has way more inequality between member states than the US, ironic given the propaganda.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#274

Post by bumby » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

RobertKerans wrote: post #269

bumby wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding your comment, but why does the expectation of growth in a pizza parlor come across as absurd? Dominoes had 13-14% Q1 same store sales growth over 2020 numbers. https://ir.dominos.com/news-releases/news-release-details/do...

sorry, it just seemed a bizarre comment: you said it was less busy when you visited it, at a point in time when everywhere was less busy, nothing to do with overall sales Edit: sorry not OP

I’m not the original poster, but I would expect sales to correlate with “busy-ness”. To your point though, I guess if everyone was doing takeout, sales could still go up and the place could be empty. Where I’m located though, it seems like businesses have been open for dine in for months and people are filling the dining rooms

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#275

Post by jnwatson » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #264

rossdavidh wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many families, summers are typically full of "summer camps" that are actually "themed daycare for older kids". Those were mostly closed as well during the pandemic lockdown phase, and some still haven't come back (in the US, anyway).

What rich bubble do you live in where kids go to summer camp?

Summer camp is even a working class thing. The YMCA runs day camps for way cheaper than day care.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#276

Post by x0x0 » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #134

bko wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a market economy there is no such thing as a "shortage" of workers. You just don't want to meet the market price of the workers with that skill set. You could imagine a widget factory whose economics rely on paying employees X, it doesn't mean there's a "shortage" of workers, but the workers demand a wage that makes your work unprofitable. The fact is a lot of people are paid not to work through generous covid-rel…

> In a market economy there is no such thing as a "shortage" of workers. Certainly there can be a lag effect though. If there is a shortage of doctors that won’t be remedied overnight by simply increasing incentives because of the amount of time to gain the necessary skills, licensing, etc. Unless you are willing to lower quality substantially, there absolutely can be worker shortages in a real pragmatic sense

Except the discussion here is truck drivers (lag: 60 days) and restaurant workers (lag: ~ 0 days).

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#277

Post by x0x0 » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

sundaeofshock wrote: post #117

Retric wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offer people enough money and they will move. Offer even more and they will train specifically to do the job. Jobs that require lots of training can have short term global shortages of skilled workers. But, that quickly self corrects as long as salaries increase.

That does not necessarily follow. It’s very difficult to put food on the table while going to school in hopes of landing a job in a new field. Pay living wages and provide paid, on-the-job training. That will get prospective employees through the door.

If it's that important to employers, they'll pay them during the training period.

This used to be standard practice. It's a modern development (80s on) that businesses demanded workers come pre trained.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#278

Post by josephcsible » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

bjornsing wrote: post #193

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers need employees, and employees need employers. If you have orders to fill, and noone to do the work, you're just as fscked, as if you have bills to pay, and no money to do it. Employers get an added benefit of being able to wait it out a bit, since they generally have more money than workers, and workers have unemployment benefits, which means that they can wait it out (until the benefits stop). The problems…

> Employers need employees, and employees need employers. If you have orders to fill, and noone to do the work, you're just as fscked, as if you have bills to pay, and no money to do it. Na, not really. An employer can just raise their prices until incoming orders and delivery capacity align. That’s a sustainable situation for the employer. There may be some opportunity cost, but they’re doing okay. An employee on th…

> An employer can just raise their prices until incoming orders and delivery capacity align. That’s a sustainable situation for the employer.

In practice, this will reduce incoming orders so much that the total profits from them won't be enough to cover the company's fixed costs anymore.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#279

Post by tolbish » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #264

rossdavidh wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many families, summers are typically full of "summer camps" that are actually "themed daycare for older kids". Those were mostly closed as well during the pandemic lockdown phase, and some still haven't come back (in the US, anyway).

What rich bubble do you live in where kids go to summer camp?

Definitely not just a rich kid thing. The camps are usually run by small-ish organizations like the local church. And considering the point is to bring in children, there are often options for those who need financial assistance.

Besides, rich kids go on overseas vacations during the summer.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#280

Post by RobertKerans » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #268

RobertKerans wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke comment? I'm starting to lose the ability to see sarcasm I think. Why would you have expected them to have been busy in the last six months?

They were busier (for pickup) this winter than this summer. I checked my own order history at our previously favorite pizza place. We ordered about 5x/month from Nov ‘20-Mar ‘21 when large cheeses were $9+tax and there was often a line for pickup. We now order around 1x/month (at $13+tax) and walk directly to the counter. If anything, CV19 is much less a safety concern now than before.

sorry, it just seemed a bizarre thing to comment on: yes the sales may have been higher, and anecdotally you may have seen longer pickup lines (at what times?), but you gotta understand why it reads as a joke, because regardless of above, in-person business is almost universally likely to have been lower, restricted to pickups clustered at specific times