This might be an opportunity to trigger rethinking of how we handle some of our labor pools. Stress is extreme with the medical sector now, but there are signs

This might be an opportunity to trigger rethinking of how we handle some of our labor pools. Stress is extreme with the medical sector now, but there are signs of similar related stresses in other sectors also. Construction, Education, and Software Engineering all site high labor costs and low labor availability. At the same time the number of adults of prime working age looking for work and not finding it is at record highs as is the number of frustrated working age people that have left the labor pool. If we had more onramps into these generally lauded labor markets then there might be greater flexibility and humanity in responses to stress, especially really serious stresses such as we see now. Make it possible to get limited training for some kind of assistant position and people can gain experience and potentially move up the ladder or simply serve as useful fodder that insulate better trained and more experienced workers from the worst stresses. Instead potential workers are eliminated early on by requirements that are often old and limited in proven relevance. And apart from all that there are cultural limitations. It isn't some weird mistake or detailed physical evaluation that keeps female participation in construction at extreme lows and male participation in education of the young similarly low. There are serious social barriers involved. Up till now we have had the luxury of setting up expensive many years long training gateways and arbitrary cultural barriers with these fields, but this isn't necessarily rational and forces limitations which are contributing to dangerous overload.