8 ms·

Unemployment Is High. Why Are Businesses Struggling to Hire?

42 points by burlesona 6y ago

varispeed 6y ago
Without reading the article (paywall) I can tell that at least here the problem is that companies don't pay well and there is not much difference between having a low paid job and living on benefits, so people often choose the latter. edit: I don't write this as a negative. Majority of people agree with such system and there is nothing wrong with that.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  People are downvoting you for something the article says in the first few words.
  - tootie 6y ago
    The article says it's a contributing factor, but not the complete explanation. Access to vaccines, fear of public safety, and the need to be home with kids who can't attend school are still huge factors. Also, there is a ton of hiring going on. Unrate is dropping and competition is high. A lot of motivated workers just can't apply fast enough or have the option of being choosy.
  - mistrial9 6y ago
    People are quick to blame others for failings for real-world situation while projecting attributes in their own minds
  - klyrs 6y ago
    The article looks at several studies covering different motivations with a lot more data than "didn't read the article but here's my opinion"
    - mitchdoogle 6y ago
      It seems like they tried to read it but hit a paywall. The same thing happened to me. But I still wanted to see the comments and participate in discussion. I don't know why hacker news still allows articles with paywalls.
- kgantchev 6y ago
  I don't know if companies don't "pay well," but the government certainly pays well enough for people not to need a job. Is that good? :) It is certainly a goal that some people strive for and we certainly have realized this goal now. Is society satisfied with this result?
  - 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
    > It is certainly a goal that some people strive for and we certainly have realized this goal now I'm not so sure we can compare the impact of temporary changes to the goals that proponents of UBI have set out. I suspect there's going to be significant pressure to wind back expansions and allow temporary programs to sunset. And it'll be hard to argue to keep them once vaccine access is high, schools are open, and things can "return to normal." Not working at a time when you have access to significantly increased unemployment funds and in the middle of a pandemic is an extremely rational decision, but I suspect it is not how the long-term would look.
  - mitchdoogle 6y ago
    If a company can't hire anyone at a specified pay rate, either they aren't advertising the position well enough or it doesn't pay well enough. If you've already tried more advertising, it leaves one thing.. It is a great thing when government forces businesses to pay living wages. We can hope and wish for them to do it themselves, but it just doesn't happen otherwise.
    - kgantchev 6y ago
      Sure, but is it good for the person to not work? I get that you don't care what happens to the business, but the question isn't about the business - it's about the person. We get that this is the best economic decision for them, but are they happier? Do they feel fulfillment? Is society better-off?
      - varispeed 6y ago
        Some people are just like that. They consume and then they die. Not everyone has to achieve something and for me and you this may be unthinkable, but some people just don't feel the need. They are perfectly happy with spending their life watching TV or similar.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  Try disabling javascript, then you should be able to read it. There are browser extensions to make disabling js a button you can toggle.
fridif 6y ago
Nobody wants to do hard labor for $15 an hour in a costly place to live when they could be paid to stay at home while doing nothing, with an optional side hustle as well.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Especially when bennies plus side hustle gives you approximately the same overall income and more freedom than a McJob.
soccerdave 6y ago
Didn’t read the article, but why would you go work at a lower end job when you can make 80-90% of what you would make by just collecting unemployment benefits? I personally know at least 2 people that admitted this and said they would wait until unemployment benefits expire to seek work.
- blacktriangle 6y ago
  And yet people still think UBI will work.
  - freedomben 6y ago
    Unemployment isn't UBI. If you work you lose the unemployment money you would have got for free, hence the disincentive. UBI (most proposals) would supplement work not replace it.
    - sltkr 6y ago
      With UBI, if you take an additional job, you would lose a large share of your income to taxes used to pay for the UBI. Yes, you can restructure income tax levels so that people get to keep most of their additional income, and then you'd have to tax the remaining people more heavily to compensate. But if that's the solution, why don't we do that today? This argument shows that UBI doesn't solve the incentive problem. It can only be solved by keeping welfare benefits significantly lower than minimum wages, which means lowering one or raising the other. This isn't logically impossible, but it's matter of political feasibility. That's true of UBI also.
      - freedomben 6y ago
        I don't necessarily disagree. I think UBI is an important thing to study and consider as we increasingly displace workers with the ever-moving capability of tech, but it will undoubtedly have some unintended consequences. I do think it's important to point out though that you lose unemployment if you work, so there's direct incentive there.
blakesterz 6y ago
I think their ideas make sense. There's not A REASON, there's probably a bunch. They list: For some, unemployment benefits too generous. For some, they are worried about getting sick. For some, they're still needed at home For some, the pay too low to want to work. And for some, they're just reconsidering career decisions. Add up all the "For Some" people, and that's probably a pretty big number.
adamsiem 6y ago
Beer Garden Anecdotes (Few Hiring Candidates, Increased Competition for Wages due to PPP2) - We have seen approximately 1/10th the amount of applicants as compared to our hiring prior to Covid. - We have reached out to 50+ people via the hiring platforms i.e. Indeed recommended candidates, with a very limited response rate. - Of the 6 people who a) applied for our job AND b) responded to our requests for interviews, only one has shown up for their scheduled interview. He was immediately hired. - The single hire we made, for $14/hr as a dishwasher, did not return on day 4 as he was offered a position at a larger restaurant for $18/hr. That is not a sustainable market rate we can offer. I assume they are increasing their hourly rate due to 1) lack of talent seeking jobs or 2) large influx of cash from PPP2. - I had three scheduled interviews, and all three were no shows, sending messages of cancellation either 10 minutes before, or not at all. - I reached out to all three of those after their missed interview times, and two have rescheduled their interviews for. Typically, we would not entertain a no-show like that, as dependability is critical on a small team, but we are not in a position to be picky. (I'm curious if it is possible to use these scheduled interviews in fraudulent claims of seeking but not finding work. We literally hired the one person who came in.) - We have had job postings on Indeed.com, Craigslist.org, and Facebook for the past 3 weeks - as well as leveraging our website and social media posts. - Our current team of 6 other people are all hires from before Covid.
- offtop5 6y ago
  Would it make more sense to have hyper flexible hours. Say you pay 25$ an hour, but it's only 8 hours a week during peak ? I think with the gig economy young people are used to only working when they want.
  - adamsiem 6y ago
    That’s not a market rate. How would you handle the remaining team’s wages? What do you do with that elevated rate if/when the job market returns?
    - izend 6y ago
      Increase prices? And if you are having a problem hiring how can you be sure you are offering market rate? The market rate has increased due to PPP1/2.
JPKab 6y ago
At what point do we simply admit that maybe just maybe common sense still applies even if it goes against a cultural zeitgeist? If you increase the amount of money provided to people who aren't working then you change the cost benefit analysis of working a wage job. The end game is higher prices at service businesses to allow them to pay people a higher wage to attract them. A positive side effect I've noticed is that high school kids are getting hired in droves at local restaurants here.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  The article lists a number of common sense explanations. Why would this one be special? Your first sentence applies very well to your own comment. Personally, what rings most true is the quote in the article about the virus being the first order issue. It seems much more common sense that the hiring challenges at the (hopefully) end of the pandemic are related to the fact that it’s still a pandemic.
  - JPKab 6y ago
    People at that age group aren't afraid of the virus, they just prefer to get paid for doing nothing rather than a job they hate.
- xwolfi 6y ago
  That was obvious to everyone from the start. In Hong Kong the gov tries horribly hard to stay away from cash incentive for the working population (usually only for retirees) and they try to offer more consumption-oriented staggered offers (during peak touristic period, in cashless cash coupons, for a limited time, for limited purposes). Giving so much cash with no other consequence than the "rich" taxpayers footing the bill one day maybe, is not gonna motivate the restauration workers who usually worked by necessity, not passion.
JackPoach 6y ago
If you lost you job in the hospitality industry due to Covid-19, you'll think twice about working in the industry. And that's smart
- myself248 6y ago
  Even if you didn't lose such a job in the first place, you'd be thinking twice about taking one in this climate. Anything customer-facing that requires physical presence is gonna struggle to find victi^H^H^H^H^H candidates right now. And that's as it should be, I concur. Nobody should be customer-facing right now, we should all be locked down, these people should not be considered unemployed.
  - JackPoach 6y ago
    Yep. You'll probably think "work remotely from home from anywhere" as the only smart way to proceed with your career.
voidfunc 6y ago
Unemployment benefits are too generous and need yo be reigned in.
klyrs 6y ago
https://pastebin.com/Bs1u7m5h https://pastebin.com/Bs1u7m5h
MattGaiser 6y ago
One thing I did not see mentioned was whether these businesses that were hiring offered full time hours. $25 an hour is great for a lot of people, but if they only pay you for 10 hours a week that isn't great after all.
- tootie 6y ago
  The $25/hr quote from a business owner in Idaho. The unrate in Idaho is currently 3.2%. There is probably just no slack in the labor market.
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    I hear this all the time about other fields -- "there is a shortage welders" etc. But these jobs are 30-hours tops, or only for 8 months, or similarly limited, and often located in places like rural Missouri, where there is no overflow housing and nothing to do. For 50/hr -- yeah maybe. I'll be bored as shit and living in a shed, but that's decent money. But for 25/hr? Screw that, I'll pick up a side job here or something.
SamBorick 6y ago
Ah yes, preventing unemployed people from starving is bad, we should pay them less. Here's a radical concept: wages are too low. People aren't applying to your job because you're not offering enough money. Pay people more. You claim to believe in a free market, then complain when nobody wants to work for you for starvation wages.
- logicchains 6y ago
  Money doesn't grow on trees. If there were two shops offering you the exact same breakfast, but one was charging 50% because it paid its employees more, would you patronise it? Even if you would, the majority of people wouldn't, hence why anywhere that charged so much more would go out of business, because people are much more willing to moralise about other people's businesses than put their money where their mouth is and support companies that pay their workers more.
  - BitwiseFool 6y ago
    Indeed, it's very easy for outsiders to just declare "you should pay more" without knowing anything about a business' finances or revenue.
    - JohnWhigham 6y ago
      This back-and-forth has been getting very common regarding American businesses in recent years though. Without a doubt it's because the rest of the developing world are now having their middle class booms, and American purchasing power is being eroded. And given the avarice of corporations and the negligence of our federal government, it won't be getting better.
    - Balgair 6y ago
      Forgive my misunderstandings, but if the business can't make ends meet with their labor and income costs, then it sounds to me like that is not a sustainable business in the market they are in. Granted, if enough of these shops then go under, the supply of jobs will decrease, and then the wages will drop (and many other market effects). Capitalism isn't even close to a perfect system for allocating these resources, but it does seem to be one of the best we have found thus far.
honkycat 6y ago
Why aren't people interested in working themselves to the bone for poverty wages and no benefits? Surely the social safety net is to blame.
howmayiannoyyou 6y ago
You can trace this to public policy decisions: - Stimi checks - Unemployment benefits - Migration from high crime/tax/rent areas - Preference (at present) for remote work/gig jobs - Malinvestment by USGOV/Fed in support of debt/equities/assets, instead of production of goods, infrastructure and critical services. This drives investment & job seekers to speculative industries, at the expense of core industries.
aphextron 6y ago
Theres one single solution here: higher wages. If you can't afford it, then your business probably shouldn't exist. Cry me a river for the people that can't find someone to slave away for $9/hr with no benefits.
xboxnolifes 6y ago
The problem is unemployment programs have hard cutoffs of benefits. Why take a job that costs you 40 hours a week for only an increase of 10-20% of income that you would get from unemployment?
II2II 6y ago
There may also be an element of risk in getting a job. I'm not sure what the situation is in the US, but in Canada it is very difficult to justify putting effort into finding work if you were barely earning enough to get by. Simply put, taking a full time job that earns 50% to 100% of your prior earnings will leave you worse off. That is because you cannot collect employment insurance if you work full time (regardless of your earnings) and the other emergency response program only kicks in if you lost 50% of your income. Now put yourself into the position of someone who is only able to find work that doesn't pay well and is susceptible to emergency measures. Working full time may allow them to put a few dollars aside, but not much. When they find their hours cut back to 60%, there is nothing to protect them. There are a couple of ways to respond to that. One is to put very little effort into applying for desperation jobs. Another is to continue looking for a more secure or better paying job while working. This was a problem in some sectors prior to the pandemic. It has only been made worse because of the pandemic. That being said, I suspect it is worse due to the heightened sense of insecurity rather than government benefits. EDIT: clarification.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  I'm in Canada. My neighbor is in this exact situation. She's an electrician turned electrical engineer -- and then went back to electrician cuz the work was steadier and she got harassed less on a job site, go figure -- but got hurt on a job site right before COVID. It's easier for her to work towards Master Electrician via courses than it is to actually get any random job. Her unemployment + COVID boost + schooling stipend + insurance payout makes enough that she'd probably make less at a shit-tier service job. Why bust your ass for 10% more, when you can focus on skilling up and getting back into EE or waiting for a better job? Plus she works out like an hour a day, practices piano 3+ hours, and has time for schooling. Outside of failing to meet someone else's implied capitalist strivings, I can't see the downside of this approach.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
I’d recommend people read the article before jumping in off of the title alone (it’s a js paywall, so it shouldn’t be a real barrier to discussion). The article has actual data on things people are just speculating on all over the thread.

42 points by burlesona 6y ago

Without reading the article (paywall) I can tell that at least here the problem is that companies don't pay well and there is not much difference between having a low paid job and living on benefits, so people often choose the latter. edit: I don't write this as a negative. Majority of people agree with such system and there is nothing wrong with that.

MattGaiser 6y ago
People are downvoting you for something the article says in the first few words.
- tootie 6y ago
  The article says it's a contributing factor, but not the complete explanation. Access to vaccines, fear of public safety, and the need to be home with kids who can't attend school are still huge factors. Also, there is a ton of hiring going on. Unrate is dropping and competition is high. A lot of motivated workers just can't apply fast enough or have the option of being choosy.
- mistrial9 6y ago
  People are quick to blame others for failings for real-world situation while projecting attributes in their own minds
- klyrs 6y ago
  The article looks at several studies covering different motivations with a lot more data than "didn't read the article but here's my opinion"
  - mitchdoogle 6y ago
    It seems like they tried to read it but hit a paywall. The same thing happened to me. But I still wanted to see the comments and participate in discussion. I don't know why hacker news still allows articles with paywalls.
kgantchev 6y ago
I don't know if companies don't "pay well," but the government certainly pays well enough for people not to need a job. Is that good? :) It is certainly a goal that some people strive for and we certainly have realized this goal now. Is society satisfied with this result?
- 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
  > It is certainly a goal that some people strive for and we certainly have realized this goal now I'm not so sure we can compare the impact of temporary changes to the goals that proponents of UBI have set out. I suspect there's going to be significant pressure to wind back expansions and allow temporary programs to sunset. And it'll be hard to argue to keep them once vaccine access is high, schools are open, and things can "return to normal." Not working at a time when you have access to significantly increased unemployment funds and in the middle of a pandemic is an extremely rational decision, but I suspect it is not how the long-term would look.
- mitchdoogle 6y ago
  If a company can't hire anyone at a specified pay rate, either they aren't advertising the position well enough or it doesn't pay well enough. If you've already tried more advertising, it leaves one thing.. It is a great thing when government forces businesses to pay living wages. We can hope and wish for them to do it themselves, but it just doesn't happen otherwise.
  - kgantchev 6y ago
    Sure, but is it good for the person to not work? I get that you don't care what happens to the business, but the question isn't about the business - it's about the person. We get that this is the best economic decision for them, but are they happier? Do they feel fulfillment? Is society better-off?
    - varispeed 6y ago
      Some people are just like that. They consume and then they die. Not everyone has to achieve something and for me and you this may be unthinkable, but some people just don't feel the need. They are perfectly happy with spending their life watching TV or similar.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
Try disabling javascript, then you should be able to read it. There are browser extensions to make disabling js a button you can toggle.

fridif 6y ago

Nobody wants to do hard labor for $15 an hour in a costly place to live when they could be paid to stay at home while doing nothing, with an optional side hustle as well.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Especially when bennies plus side hustle gives you approximately the same overall income and more freedom than a McJob.

soccerdave 6y ago

Didn’t read the article, but why would you go work at a lower end job when you can make 80-90% of what you would make by just collecting unemployment benefits? I personally know at least 2 people that admitted this and said they would wait until unemployment benefits expire to seek work.

blacktriangle 6y ago
And yet people still think UBI will work.
- freedomben 6y ago
  Unemployment isn't UBI. If you work you lose the unemployment money you would have got for free, hence the disincentive. UBI (most proposals) would supplement work not replace it.
  - sltkr 6y ago
    With UBI, if you take an additional job, you would lose a large share of your income to taxes used to pay for the UBI. Yes, you can restructure income tax levels so that people get to keep most of their additional income, and then you'd have to tax the remaining people more heavily to compensate. But if that's the solution, why don't we do that today? This argument shows that UBI doesn't solve the incentive problem. It can only be solved by keeping welfare benefits significantly lower than minimum wages, which means lowering one or raising the other. This isn't logically impossible, but it's matter of political feasibility. That's true of UBI also.
    - freedomben 6y ago
      I don't necessarily disagree. I think UBI is an important thing to study and consider as we increasingly displace workers with the ever-moving capability of tech, but it will undoubtedly have some unintended consequences. I do think it's important to point out though that you lose unemployment if you work, so there's direct incentive there.

blakesterz 6y ago

I think their ideas make sense. There's not A REASON, there's probably a bunch. They list: For some, unemployment benefits too generous. For some, they are worried about getting sick. For some, they're still needed at home For some, the pay too low to want to work. And for some, they're just reconsidering career decisions. Add up all the "For Some" people, and that's probably a pretty big number.

adamsiem 6y ago

Beer Garden Anecdotes (Few Hiring Candidates, Increased Competition for Wages due to PPP2) - We have seen approximately 1/10th the amount of applicants as compared to our hiring prior to Covid. - We have reached out to 50+ people via the hiring platforms i.e. Indeed recommended candidates, with a very limited response rate. - Of the 6 people who a) applied for our job AND b) responded to our requests for interviews, only one has shown up for their scheduled interview. He was immediately hired. - The single hire we made, for $14/hr as a dishwasher, did not return on day 4 as he was offered a position at a larger restaurant for $18/hr. That is not a sustainable market rate we can offer. I assume they are increasing their hourly rate due to 1) lack of talent seeking jobs or 2) large influx of cash from PPP2. - I had three scheduled interviews, and all three were no shows, sending messages of cancellation either 10 minutes before, or not at all. - I reached out to all three of those after their missed interview times, and two have rescheduled their interviews for. Typically, we would not entertain a no-show like that, as dependability is critical on a small team, but we are not in a position to be picky. (I'm curious if it is possible to use these scheduled interviews in fraudulent claims of seeking but not finding work. We literally hired the one person who came in.) - We have had job postings on Indeed.com, Craigslist.org, and Facebook for the past 3 weeks - as well as leveraging our website and social media posts. - Our current team of 6 other people are all hires from before Covid.

offtop5 6y ago
Would it make more sense to have hyper flexible hours. Say you pay 25$ an hour, but it's only 8 hours a week during peak ? I think with the gig economy young people are used to only working when they want.
- adamsiem 6y ago
  That’s not a market rate. How would you handle the remaining team’s wages? What do you do with that elevated rate if/when the job market returns?
  - izend 6y ago
    Increase prices? And if you are having a problem hiring how can you be sure you are offering market rate? The market rate has increased due to PPP1/2.

JPKab 6y ago

At what point do we simply admit that maybe just maybe common sense still applies even if it goes against a cultural zeitgeist? If you increase the amount of money provided to people who aren't working then you change the cost benefit analysis of working a wage job. The end game is higher prices at service businesses to allow them to pay people a higher wage to attract them. A positive side effect I've noticed is that high school kids are getting hired in droves at local restaurants here.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
The article lists a number of common sense explanations. Why would this one be special? Your first sentence applies very well to your own comment. Personally, what rings most true is the quote in the article about the virus being the first order issue. It seems much more common sense that the hiring challenges at the (hopefully) end of the pandemic are related to the fact that it’s still a pandemic.
- JPKab 6y ago
  People at that age group aren't afraid of the virus, they just prefer to get paid for doing nothing rather than a job they hate.
xwolfi 6y ago
That was obvious to everyone from the start. In Hong Kong the gov tries horribly hard to stay away from cash incentive for the working population (usually only for retirees) and they try to offer more consumption-oriented staggered offers (during peak touristic period, in cashless cash coupons, for a limited time, for limited purposes). Giving so much cash with no other consequence than the "rich" taxpayers footing the bill one day maybe, is not gonna motivate the restauration workers who usually worked by necessity, not passion.

JackPoach 6y ago

If you lost you job in the hospitality industry due to Covid-19, you'll think twice about working in the industry. And that's smart

myself248 6y ago
Even if you didn't lose such a job in the first place, you'd be thinking twice about taking one in this climate. Anything customer-facing that requires physical presence is gonna struggle to find victi^H^H^H^H^H candidates right now. And that's as it should be, I concur. Nobody should be customer-facing right now, we should all be locked down, these people should not be considered unemployed.
- JackPoach 6y ago
  Yep. You'll probably think "work remotely from home from anywhere" as the only smart way to proceed with your career.

voidfunc 6y ago

Unemployment benefits are too generous and need yo be reigned in.

klyrs 6y ago

https://pastebin.com/Bs1u7m5h https://pastebin.com/Bs1u7m5h

MattGaiser 6y ago

One thing I did not see mentioned was whether these businesses that were hiring offered full time hours. $25 an hour is great for a lot of people, but if they only pay you for 10 hours a week that isn't great after all.

tootie 6y ago
The $25/hr quote from a business owner in Idaho. The unrate in Idaho is currently 3.2%. There is probably just no slack in the labor market.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  I hear this all the time about other fields -- "there is a shortage welders" etc. But these jobs are 30-hours tops, or only for 8 months, or similarly limited, and often located in places like rural Missouri, where there is no overflow housing and nothing to do. For 50/hr -- yeah maybe. I'll be bored as shit and living in a shed, but that's decent money. But for 25/hr? Screw that, I'll pick up a side job here or something.

SamBorick 6y ago

Ah yes, preventing unemployed people from starving is bad, we should pay them less. Here's a radical concept: wages are too low. People aren't applying to your job because you're not offering enough money. Pay people more. You claim to believe in a free market, then complain when nobody wants to work for you for starvation wages.

logicchains 6y ago
Money doesn't grow on trees. If there were two shops offering you the exact same breakfast, but one was charging 50% because it paid its employees more, would you patronise it? Even if you would, the majority of people wouldn't, hence why anywhere that charged so much more would go out of business, because people are much more willing to moralise about other people's businesses than put their money where their mouth is and support companies that pay their workers more.
- BitwiseFool 6y ago
  Indeed, it's very easy for outsiders to just declare "you should pay more" without knowing anything about a business' finances or revenue.
  - JohnWhigham 6y ago
    This back-and-forth has been getting very common regarding American businesses in recent years though. Without a doubt it's because the rest of the developing world are now having their middle class booms, and American purchasing power is being eroded. And given the avarice of corporations and the negligence of our federal government, it won't be getting better.
  - Balgair 6y ago
    Forgive my misunderstandings, but if the business can't make ends meet with their labor and income costs, then it sounds to me like that is not a sustainable business in the market they are in. Granted, if enough of these shops then go under, the supply of jobs will decrease, and then the wages will drop (and many other market effects). Capitalism isn't even close to a perfect system for allocating these resources, but it does seem to be one of the best we have found thus far.

honkycat 6y ago

Why aren't people interested in working themselves to the bone for poverty wages and no benefits? Surely the social safety net is to blame.

howmayiannoyyou 6y ago

You can trace this to public policy decisions: - Stimi checks - Unemployment benefits - Migration from high crime/tax/rent areas - Preference (at present) for remote work/gig jobs - Malinvestment by USGOV/Fed in support of debt/equities/assets, instead of production of goods, infrastructure and critical services. This drives investment & job seekers to speculative industries, at the expense of core industries.

aphextron 6y ago

Theres one single solution here: higher wages. If you can't afford it, then your business probably shouldn't exist. Cry me a river for the people that can't find someone to slave away for $9/hr with no benefits.

xboxnolifes 6y ago

The problem is unemployment programs have hard cutoffs of benefits. Why take a job that costs you 40 hours a week for only an increase of 10-20% of income that you would get from unemployment?

II2II 6y ago

There may also be an element of risk in getting a job. I'm not sure what the situation is in the US, but in Canada it is very difficult to justify putting effort into finding work if you were barely earning enough to get by. Simply put, taking a full time job that earns 50% to 100% of your prior earnings will leave you worse off. That is because you cannot collect employment insurance if you work full time (regardless of your earnings) and the other emergency response program only kicks in if you lost 50% of your income. Now put yourself into the position of someone who is only able to find work that doesn't pay well and is susceptible to emergency measures. Working full time may allow them to put a few dollars aside, but not much. When they find their hours cut back to 60%, there is nothing to protect them. There are a couple of ways to respond to that. One is to put very little effort into applying for desperation jobs. Another is to continue looking for a more secure or better paying job while working. This was a problem in some sectors prior to the pandemic. It has only been made worse because of the pandemic. That being said, I suspect it is worse due to the heightened sense of insecurity rather than government benefits. EDIT: clarification.

blaser-waffle 6y ago
I'm in Canada. My neighbor is in this exact situation. She's an electrician turned electrical engineer -- and then went back to electrician cuz the work was steadier and she got harassed less on a job site, go figure -- but got hurt on a job site right before COVID. It's easier for her to work towards Master Electrician via courses than it is to actually get any random job. Her unemployment + COVID boost + schooling stipend + insurance payout makes enough that she'd probably make less at a shit-tier service job. Why bust your ass for 10% more, when you can focus on skilling up and getting back into EE or waiting for a better job? Plus she works out like an hour a day, practices piano 3+ hours, and has time for schooling. Outside of failing to meet someone else's implied capitalist strivings, I can't see the downside of this approach.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

I’d recommend people read the article before jumping in off of the title alone (it’s a js paywall, so it shouldn’t be a real barrier to discussion). The article has actual data on things people are just speculating on all over the thread.