Where are all the workers?

[CPTCUFFS]

Thank you all for your responses. So many reasons from so many parts of the country. From here it does not look like a simple fix will take care of this problem.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Can’t speak to the numbers, but suppressing immigration for/by any reason/method, tightens the labor supply.

[MUSTANG]

Can’t speak to the numbers, but suppressing immigration for/by any reason/method, tightens the labor supply.

So you are advocating the "Importation" of Labor while Facilitating US Citizens to remain Idle on the Public Dole?

[Silvercreek Farmer]

So you are advocating the "Importation" of Labor while Facilitating US Citizens to remain Idle on the Public Dole?

Nope, just pointing out the effects of supply and demand. Just like any issue, there are usually several factors at play.

Boomers are also retiring at a rapid pace, further reducing labor supply.

Lots of opportunity out there for those that want it right now, much better than when I entered the labor force.

[blue32]

I've been in LE for 15 years and have been applying to every private sector job that's remotely appealing for the last 6 months.

[Soundguy]

I am wondering where all the workers have gone. Restaurants are short handed, same with retail. Cops are quitting or retiring and the prisons are hurting for CO's. Are people just staying home? Are there more jobs available than people?

Around here some restaurants are closed two days a week because they can't get people in whenever you call for service from pest control companies and the phone companies they're 2 weeks out because they don't have enough staff I'm tired of all these people sitting around and collecting a check people need to go to work

[beechbum444]

As I put on my tin foil hat... this is all part of "the plan" to create a society entirely dependent on big government for everything.. medical guidance and control, minimum wage (transitional) jobs, normally the realm of the high school/collage students are now forced into paying "living wage". endless loans forgiven in the name of "higher education", endless unemployment benefits with no ROI, minimalizing criminal activity and a government leadership bent on creating fear and distrust with each other in the population while eroding rights and civil liberties and doing about everything but doing the simple business of governing the nation for the common good and ensuring the nation thrives and is self sufficient.

Luckily there are enough remaining that remember what "right looks like" from all parties to make a difference in the next election cycle, but the numbers grow fewer each year.

Where are the workers? Sitting at home playing video games or with their face stuck to a phone waiting for the next handout/bailout gifted to them by the administration and paid for by those who have not missed a day of work for the last 10~20 (40+ for some of us) years.

just curious about this endless loan forgiveness, Im an ICU nurse and no one has offered to forgive me loans......Im game

[abunaitoo]

welfare is great here.
You can get it as soon as you land and apply.
With many families, it's a way of life.
Generation after generation.
As soon as they have a baby, sometimes as young as 14, it's welfare train.
They even throw a big party for the babies first birthday.
$750 a month for each child, up to five.
Plus money for food, free cell phone, free school lunch and after school program, free car insurance, and for some, money for rent in the housing, free medical.
Some take home close to $5000 a month.
What a great deal.
Getting that kind of free money, why even think of working.
If they do work, what they make is deducted from the free money.

[Les Staley]

welfare is great here.
You can get it as soon as you land and apply.
With many families, it's a way of life.
Generation after generation.
As soon as they have a baby, sometimes as young as 14, it's welfare train.
They even throw a big party for the babies first birthday.
$750 a month for each child, up to five.
Plus money for food, free cell phone, free school lunch and after school program, free car insurance, and for some, money for rent in the housing, free medical.
Some take home close to $5000 a month.
What a great deal.
Getting that kind of free money, why even think of working.
If they do work, what they make is deducted from the free money.

That’s the rub..it punishes them for working!!

[Winger Ed.]

That’s the rub..it punishes them for working!!

Very true.
If you farm and harvest all the welfare benefits, it pays better than a $12-15. an hour job.

You don't have to worry about child care, putting a car on the road, work clothes, setting an alarm clock-
And you can't best the hours.

[Shawlerbrook]

Hard work used to be something you had to do to survive and could be proud of. These days sitting home living off others is acceptable rather than frowned upon.

[Bmi48219]

As I put on my tin foil hat... this is all part of "the plan" to create a society entirely dependent on big government for everything.

It’s called enslavement. Propagated by the wealthy elite who control banking and big business and doled out by self-serving politicians who want us to believe they’re on our side. And all it costs the population is their freedom.

[thxmrgarand]

I think it may have been 1947 when Milton Friedman said that if you pay people to not work you're going to have a lot of people not working. We've begun an inflationary cycle which may persist for some time. Borrowed government money is being handed out willy nilly. People are going to demand higher and higher wages, and government will pay them to not work until they are offered wages so high they decide to go to work. State government where I live imported lots of nurses because of pandemic shortages, at a cost of $750,000 per year per nurse, and those contracts are now going to be renewed for a second year. Government is able to borrow with no security because it can seize all wages and assets from the private sector if it needs to do so. Government can also raise taxes, and inflation is a kind of tax. In my state government pays for about 90 percent of all health care, and so the price for a particular therapy or surgery is about 70 percent higher than in the nearest large city (which is Seattle). Most people don't care what something costs so long as government is paying. Now government is likely buying one way or another over half of all food sold in the state, and it's easy to predict what will happen to food prices. Take the Kroger ad from the Seattle Times and the Kroger ad from the local paper; the ads are just about identical but the cost of every item is at least 20 percent higher and sometimes as much as 50 percent higher. Government has control. I don't know how this story ends. Comparing the federal payments to my state from the bill Congress did pass with the federal payments from that bill to another state I follow and my state received 6 times per capita what the other state did, and in my state that is inflationary. US taxpayers are paying to drive up prices in my state; it's as simple as that. Even though that is costing you money don't expect me to thank you. Yes, people here are being paid to stay home as they hold out for higher wages. If you're from W. Virginia I want to thank you for your US Senator Joe Manchin for keeping this from being even much worse.

[beechbum444]

thxmrgarand: As a response to your above post, if the next largest city to you is Seattle, where are you located?? If Washington state is paying nurses $750,000 a year, I'm more than happy to move there. AS for the rest of the post.......speechless

[Murphy]

I don't believe we have a shortage of workers. What I do believe, is we have an overage of bums who are going to ride the gravy train until they are basically forced back into the work place.

Murphy

[rondog]

Dang - $3k per month delivering pizzas for Dominos? I'm fixin' to retire next summer, I could go for a gig like that!

[fixit]

I've seen all these reports about the gravy train, and I would be depressed in short order if I allowed myself to belly up to the government teat and become enslaved to the powers that be in such a manner. I've always believed there is no better sleep than that from a hard day's work.

[snowwolfe]

I dont believe we have a shortage of workers. What we have are business owners who will not pay wages the workers want. At $20 an hour a worker would have a really tough time trying to afford a wife and 1 child, small house, car payment and all the rest such as food and utilities. Medical coverage is off the charts expensive.
Right now we are at a stall mate. Workers want more than most employers want to pay so they stay home and collect freebies.

[country gent]

I think that we have a high risk group of new hires out there, They havent done a lot, few or sketchy work references. little to no experience. Yet they want to start out at top pay before being trained and or proving themselves.

They dont want to start at a smaller shop or business and gain experience. But at the top of the pay scale.

I have seen these people come into a shop and inside 2 weeks are telling the bosses owners how to run the business.

I worked a local shop until 1997 then went looking for a new job. I could document 20+ years experience at 35 years old. ( I started in my first job shop at 15 after school and weekends.) then went to the above factory. The "joke" at this place was it was a good place to be from. What Im getting at is I had a skill set and work record that was valuable to would be employers. The owner of the small job shop gave the best reference of all, If I could afford to hire him back I would in an instance.

When I chose the new job I went from $13.00 and change to almost $24.00 an hour, benefits went from 80/20 to 100%.

Until you have the references or journeyman's card you are a risk to employers.

[bedbugbilly]

We live in a time now where in a normal household with two parents, for the most part, both have to work. Single parents? They probably have it worse - I'm talking those with children.

I'm going to try and keep this "above PC" . . . . but . . . .

A parent can't work when they have kids at home long term due to schools being shut . . . and I'm not going to say what I really want to say about "Teacher's Unions" . . . (and my wife is a retired teacher and I also taught school at one time) . . . . but just ask yourself WHY so many schools are closed when they should be open.

OP . . . . where have you been the last two years and maybe you'd better take off the rose colored glasses and take a look at the clowns who are in charge of the circus.

You can't get people back to work if they are making more by staying home due to the government "paying" them . . . and we currently have a government who doesn't have a grasp on reality on the fact that their Socialist agenda . . . . which is funded by the American Taxpayer cannot survive because you get to thepont that there are not enough taxpayers to pay the bill for those who don
t want to work. Add on to that, a whole generation of young people who were raised with "Leave No Child Behind" and where they are all "entitled" and taught that whenever they participated in something . . . everyone was a winner and got a prize and where many were never taught to be responsible for their actions . . . the "instant gratification" gratification generation I call them . . . and granted, not all of them are raised that way . . . but they have the attitude that they should live for "today" and haven't been taught that if you work hard, you can succeed.
So why go back to work if the government is going to pay me to stay home . . . irregardless of the fact that they aren''t smart enough to realize that by doing these things, they are giving up their right as an American Citizen to follow a corrupt and Socialist agenda like a bunch of sheep being lead to slaughter by a Judas goat.

I apologize . . . I may have slipped a little on the PC . . . and if you think so . . . then read the Constitution and pay particular attention to the 1st Amendment