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Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

bbc.co.uk

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

#491

Post by Clubber »

syshum wrote: post #471
eropple wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then shouldn't they be working more personally? Or shouldn't they no longer be in business? (And yeah, I'm well aware how much many small restaurant owners work. See door number two.) People around here talk a lot about unsustainable business models. I don't think it's really any better if it's offloading its unsustainability onto its workforce, which is what's being described here. From where I stand, as somebody wh…

>>>that there isn't actually a need for everyone to work to make the whole thing "go" So what is the proposal? Pay people to stay home forever? Who determines who gets a free ride paid for by productive people, and who has to be the ones that provide that free ride to others. be sure to sign me up for the free ride, but I sure as hell do not want to work 50+ hours a week so other people can play Call of Duty all day.…

Shorter work week, more vacations. Spread the work across more people. Instead of 1 person working 50 hours, have 2 people work 25 hours. Instead of 2 weeks off a year, have 2 months. Oh, and untie healthcare from employment.

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

#492

Post by Clubber »

alisonkisk wrote: post #483
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…

> workers have moved on Moved on to what ? Not other jobs, obviously. Unemployment insurance for income, eviction moratorium (reducing expenses), maybe, but that's all ending. Lower income standard of living? More efficient higher density households? Dropping out of the rat race?

Unemployment rate is at 6%, which isn't perfect, but pretty low all things considered.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

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

#493

Post by Clubber »

beambot wrote: post #335
silexia wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another element is that the government now pays people to stay at home and not work. That is the number one factor. If people did not have money, they would work.

Plus mortgage forbearance and eviction moratoriums... So you have more money in monthly unemployment and a pause on peoples' #1 expenses. Until these programs end, I wouldn't even speculate about the future state of labor markets.

Eviction moratoriums ended yesterday (7/31/2021). Not the smartest thing to just cut off all at once. An obvious tell as to who the government (both parties) considers their constituents.

Also not the smartest thing to do during a pretty large resurgence of COVID. Expect another year of this at least. People without a place to live are a great way to spread a communicable disease. I mean we're talking millions all at once. Expect an uptick in crimes of desperation. We might even read a few articles about dead bodies on the streets in the coming months. It could get that bad.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/30/housing-e...

I dunno what's gonna happen, but it probably won't be good.

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/sta...

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

#494

Post by atq2119 »

secondcoming wrote: post #210
vladvasiliu wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree with you. However, it may not (always) be that simple. The media here in France reports that some industries, in particular restaurants, are having a hard time finding employees, with not enough people applying and even employees who were there before Covid hit leaving. I don't know how actually true this is, but when they (the media) ask people why they won't go back, the main reason doesn't seem to b…

> The media here in France reports that some industries, in particular restaurants, are having a hard time finding employees It's the same in the UK. Farmers cannot harvest some crops because the cheap EU labour is no longer present and locals won't do it.

The cases are different though in that the UK situation is clearly mostly a consequence of Brexit. That doesn't apply to France.

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

#495

Post by vladvasiliu »

Clubber wrote: post #491
syshum wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>that there isn't actually a need for everyone to work to make the whole thing "go" So what is the proposal? Pay people to stay home forever? Who determines who gets a free ride paid for by productive people, and who has to be the ones that provide that free ride to others. be sure to sign me up for the free ride, but I sure as hell do not want to work 50+ hours a week so other people can play Call of Duty all day.…

Shorter work week, more vacations. Spread the work across more people. Instead of 1 person working 50 hours, have 2 people work 25 hours. Instead of 2 weeks off a year, have 2 months. Oh, and untie healthcare from employment.

That was the idea behind the 35 hour work week in France. Didn't work out as expected: unemployment didn't go down.

More recently, they had removed some tax breaks on overtime, but it turned out that that only hurt the people needing to work overtime; still no effect on unemployment. At least some of the breaks are now back.

I think the broader issue is that most people having to work crazy hours with multiple jobs don't do it because they're workaholics, but because they have to, as in they can't get a single "normal" job that pays well enough for whatever reason. I'm not sure that putting random limits on the number of hours worked will increase the hourly wages.

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

#496

Post by robocat »

monkeycantype wrote: post #453
robocat wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. If the appendix was both useless and deadly (before procreation), there would be a strong evolutionary pressure against it, so it likely is unobviously useful 2. Western diet possibly causes problems with the appendix - "Appendicitis is uncommon in rural Africa and Asia" 3. Anatomy involved with immune function or microbiome is hard to understand function. From links: The peak incidence occurs in the 15- to 24-yea…

Also interesting is the idea that the appendix is a local optimisation. If a smaller appendix was more likely to get appendicitis, it might remain a vestigial organ rather disappearing completely, even it the organ has no function, because there is an evolutionary advantage to having the current rather than the smaller size

Very smart!

One of my favourite pastimes with Hacker News is thinking about how commenters have been trained by playing games to follow incentives and game optimisation (gaming the system).

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

#497

Post by wyclif »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #215
effingwewt wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in California every restaurant/fast food place is hiring. They all list the things they offer (PTO, 401k-no matching what you put in, and that's it). What they don't put on the signs is what they pay (minimum wage every single time), or the hours (always part time, always weekends, mostly if not always nights. But obviously it's just that no one wants to work, it couldn't possibly be because no one wants part-ti…

> I keep hearing owners whine and bemoan their lack of workers. What I have never heard of, not once, is an owner making less profit to pay their workers better to get the loyalty and hard work they want but refuse to pay for. I agree with you, but do those places actually make a lot of profit? Over here they seem to be pretty fragile operations, so I don't think there's that much they can shave off their profit and…

I agree with you, but do those places actually make a lot of profit?

In a lot of cases, they don't make as much as people think they do. Take supermarkets for instance. Many of them are hiring cashiers and shelf stockers right now, and they can't hire anybody because they can't pay enough to make the job attractive. Supermarkets and grocery stories have some of the thinnest profit margins in any business.

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

#498

Post by carom »

bko wrote: post #74
benou wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to hear that but keep in mind the job market is very different from one location to another and from one sector to another. The BBC is talking about truck drivers in the UK and it is hardly a surprise: UK used to rely heavily on eastern Europe workers in that area, and they vote (Brexit) to prevent exactly that. They got what they asked for. If anything, we can complain that the BBC article title is too gen…

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…

Companies can't just pay infinity wages. They sell a product for a price, often times the economics start to break down for them. Prices are going to rise and we will probably see a reallocation of workers.

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

#499

Post by rags2riches »

antoniuschan99 wrote: post #370
kktkti9 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still believe our social evolution is possible. We have to talk about those things and take a break on economics. We’ve seen the value of modern technology. There’s no need to continue to obsessively speculate about the advantages they provide to daily life. Having beers with a grey haired VC yesterday, I couldn’t help but think this guy really just wants to feel relevant. These guys are the real energy vampire; IM…

I just watched the documentary on John Delorean on Netlfix. It’s very interesting and reminds me of this. Check it out if you have a chance!

I just watched the documentary on your recommendation. There's so much more to the story that I had no idea about. Thanks for the tip.

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

#500

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #482
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"High Achievement" is probably in the eye of the beholder. I've written a fairly massive infrastructure system that is used throughout the world, and has, undoubtedly, saved lives. It will probably continue to do so, in some form or another, long after I take my dirt nap. It has formed the nucleus of an entire Service structure; not just one application. Did I do it to be considered a "hero"? Did I do it for financia…

Your screed reminds me of a scene from Justice League Unlimited[1] in which Luthor is questioned about why he continues to strive for great heights (or, in the view of the Justice League, nadirs) despite, on a conventional scale, having already achieved the high status of being rich and powerful and ,on a cosmic scale, being bound by a relatively meager existence that will eventually pass on as a forgotten footnote.…

That was fun. Thanks!

Off to shave my head...

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