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Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

• plibither8 5y ago
  It's funny how this post is juxtapositioned on the frontpage with the article[1] stating that 1 in every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28009868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28009868
• bserge 5y ago
  I literally can't find a job in any kind of engineering. Applied for dozens of cleaning and production positions and couldn't get a job. You know what the media has become? A cesspool of bullshit unworthy of any trust. No wonder so many people mistrust actual experts, it's hard to even tell who they are.
  • ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    Hey, try being over 50. I just gave up, and retired early. Best decision I ever made. I'm working for free, with NPOs, and it's been a joy. The worst part, for me, has been the naked contempt and disrespect. I don't expect to be worshipped, but raw insults are beyond the pale. It's -literally- like a hazing ritual. With all the news about "frat boy culture," I think I see where it comes from. I don't think it's just us older folks. It seems as if the entire industry has gone down the bog. My guess is that younger folks are getting similar treatment, but are more willing to shrug it off, and power through.
    • oblio 5y ago
      It will stop, at some point. IT is still growing but we're reaching the point where IT workers are a decent percentage of all workers, so they are starting to become representative of the population at large. Larger and larger cohorts of IT workers are aging and recent graduates will stop being enough even for the top companies. Also, salaries are lower in general but I get the impression Europe is better in this regard. I see older people in IT, at least in Western Europe (in Eastern Europe the field is too new).
      • ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
        I could probably go to the Web sites of at least a dozen successful IT companies, and go to the "Meet the Team" page. They are invariably a large group of smiling -young- faces. There may be one or two greyhairs in the picture, but a quick shufti of the "Leadership" page often shows them to be C-suite or Board. Yeah, I'm a cynic.
        • cbushko 5y ago
          When you are old, everyone looks young. =) I see 35 year olds and think "that guy is just a kid"!
          • bumby 5y ago
            This made me chuckle as it reminded me of an older employee referring to another employee as “one of the good interns”. Except the guy he was talking about was in his late 30s and had been with the company for over 5 years :-)
        • detaro 5y ago
          I wonder if there's a corelation in the sense that the young-biased "startup-y" companies are more likely to even have something like a "meet the team" page. (I.e. you kind of need to be below a certain size, and even then plenty places don't have them)
          • robertlagrant 5y ago
            There's a fairly common ideal of what a team photo should look like, and so the people that contribute to that ideal will be in the photo.
        • pydry 5y ago
          This is certainly the case for newer VC funded companies. That isnt all of tech though.
      • ahartmetz 5y ago
    • paganel 5y ago
      > The worst part, for me, has been the naked contempt and disrespect. If you don’t mind and if it’s not sensitive do you mind to share some examples? I’ve just gone past the 40 year threshold myself and I think I’m starting to see/notice some of the same things you noticed, i.e. less “camaraderie” (for lack of a better word) and more “getting on top of the other”, a feeling I didn’t have when I entered this industry 15 years ago. Just yesterday I happened to sit in a coffee shop close to a table where an IT lead (or something like that) was interviewing (I think it was an interview) a younger potential hire (it was a woman, if it counts), and I found his tone and remarks and general demeanor quite off-putting, I was one step way of telling the guy “why the heck are you spewing such bullshit?”, but then again I didn’t want to ruin said young lady’s job interview.
      • peakaboo 5y ago
        I think tech attracts a certain type of person... People with high iq but very low scores in compassion and care.
        • royallineage 5y ago
          No, Chris Marshall NY is just nuts. Please dig more and look at this person's experience. Some day he and mz will have a kid and HN will cower in fear.
        • FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
          I dunno. I get the same vibe from medicine. MDs in particular. Less so the further down the food chain you go. (Part of that is culture. The bottom is composed of immigrants who still act like normal human beings.) I think it's something that's more broadly acculturated among the highly educated and high-achieving. Or just selected for whenever competition is fierce. I also did not get this feeling from other technology industries that weren't "Tech". Places full of PhDs, but disconnected from the SV culture. And frankly, less motivated by money and more by lifestyle. Maybe it all boils down to money. There's too much money in Tech. It attracts the worst, and brings out the worst.
          • 5y ago
    • bottled_poe 5y ago
      That doesn’t sound liveable. How do you pay for rent?
      • ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
        I worked for over 30 years, lived frugally, avoided debt, and saved a significant chunk of my salary. As a result, I reached the point, where I don't need to work, if I don't want to. I want to work. I love what I do. I don't need to make money at it. I also like to help people, so I found people that want to help people, and can't afford much. It really is a shame. I have a fairly significant set of skills and experience. Pretty much what a startup would need, to make a new product a reality. I know how to make very high-quality software that ships. I did it for my entire career. I also do quite well on teams, and have been a problem-solver, all my life. The folks I'm working with now, pinch themselves, every day.
        • DantesKite 5y ago
          Have you thought about building small projects that could earn you a little bit of income on the side? Doesn't necessarily have to be an overwhelming product, but just a way of practicing and exploring work.
          • ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
            I prefer doing them for free. Most of the work I do, is self-education. I love to learn, and I have been maintaining my competency in shipping work for decades (Which often means that I am not right at the "bleeding edge." Shipping is usually a couple of steps back from that). If you check out my SO Story[0], you'll see a whole boatload of published modules. They are -each and every one- totally "ship-ready." I produce them as if they are to be commercial-grade products, with the appearance of a major-league brand -even the experimental projects. There are also complete source code bases for a number of published (and many, since, deprecated) apps on the Apple App Store. I've been shipping apps continuously, since 2012. I've provided full source code for all of them. I don't promote them at all. I don't really care. I have no idea if anyone uses them. I have a few stars, and a couple of forks, but I've not seen my stuff appear anywhere (It's MIT, so I assume I'd be noted in the README -HAH!). Many of these are 1-source-file development utilities, with dozens of files of testing code, wrapped around them. I like Quality. I'm my own best customer. I tend to be pretty skeptical of most of the available dependencies, out there, so I like to write my own. The project I'm working on now, is non-trivial. It's the kind of thing that normally takes a team of at least five engineers, running 24/7 on Red Bull, to do. I do well at these kinds of things. It's coming along nicely, and will be ready in a few months. I also wrote two of the servers I use. It is not (currently) open-source, but I may, sometimes, spin an open-source module out of it. I just did one, a couple of weeks ago (LGV_Cleantime). [0] https://stackoverflow.com/story/chrismarshall https://stackoverflow.com/story/chrismarshall
    • hncurious 5y ago
      Tech was once not that respected, & mostly full of nerds who were just way into tech. But then tech rose in status & income, & was invaded by top school kids seeking such things, who took over the top slots. These new kids didn’t much respect older tech folks from wrong schools. https://twitter.com/robinhanson/status/1421212798881722368 https://twitter.com/robinhanson/status/1421212798881722368
      • FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
        The reduced standing (and compensation) of Finance post-2008 has something to do with it.
    • bserge 5y ago
      I've observed this and it's just appalling. It doesn't matter that 50 year olds can do the same work just as well, no, management seems to want freaking Energizer bunnies on their team. Nevermind that they don't actually get more work done (and more importantly, better), it's just about being "passionate" about doing the same shit every day. Wtf.
      • ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
        It's not just better. It's shipping. I've done that, since I was 24 years old. I literally have the manual that I wrote, accompanying the first professional engineering project that I did, after my first promotion to a salaried engineer, from a bench tech. When I read it, I am impressed, and it was done in 1987. It was an internal tool, that was used to test defense tech. I treated the project as if it was being delivered to the field, and lives depended on it. It was that much of an Honor for me to have the chance to do that work. I am a high school dropout. I got a GED, and had to fight for everything I got. That means that I valued everything, and never treated it as "my due." Every job that I have ever had, has been a Signal Honor. It has been a privilege, and a chance to learn more, and push my boundaries. Every team that I ever joined, was composed of people that were better than me, and had something to teach me. It was always an Honor to be admitted to their ranks. I understood, from my very first assignment, that I needed to ship. Shipping is what makes money. Shipping is what builds brands. Shipping is what the customer wants and needs. Everything else is just a low SNR. That's why I have always treated every single one of my projects as if it were a gift, given to me, and one that needs to be treated with Respect, Honor and Dignity. It needs to be done well, and it needs to be finished. I consider myself to be a craftsman, as well as an engineer. I won't design garbage, and I don’t want my work to be treated as garbage[0] (if I have any say in it -which has not always been the case). I know that attitude sounds over-dramatic, ridiculous, and anachronistic, but it's the one I have. I'm not looking for work. I don't really have an investment in what people think about that, anymore. The people that matter, know me, and they know my work. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rsZfcz3h1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rsZfcz3h1s
    • foobiekr 5y ago
      How do you find NPOs that aren’t ego-driven sweatshops? I’ve been pondering doing this for a few years but the reality of many nonprofits is that they are quite exploitative of their employees and volunteers. I’d happily do net and server admin for a low overhead background task but not for a ceo ego org.
      • ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
        I've not encountered them. If I'm not getting paid, I can vote with my feet. If I take a job, and take money, then I am bound by Integrity and Personal Honor, to do all in my power to complete the contracted tasks; and to do so, well. If I am working on a volunteer basis, then, if they become douches, I pack my bags and leave. I don't give a rat's ass about prestige and todger-measuring contests. I do the work, because I find it personally fulfilling. I don't act like a prima donna, but I also don't brook nonsense. They figure that out, fairly quickly. But that hasn't happened. The sheer value of the Quality of the work I do -I am not exaggerating- is something most Fortune 500 companies don't get. I think that this gets past the egos. I've found that I'm actually treated with Respect, and I don't have to arm-wrestle insecure managers for every damn thing. Also, I have been working with NPOs for 40 years. It's only been the last 4, that it has been full-time.
  • ianai 5y ago
    I think the shortage is in positions companies don’t want to pay much. At least anecdotally, I’ve seen and heard a lot about restaurants having cook shortages. This doesn’t negate your point. I’d say it just bolsters your point.
    • randomdata 5y ago
      Someone who isn’t willing to pay enough does not qualify as demand, thus is not considered a participant in the market, and therefore would not impact a shortage situation. A shortage occurs when an external mechanism prevents price from rising. Choosing to not pay more is internal.
  • benou 5y ago
    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 general and not precise enough, but your particular experience does not necessarily match the experience elsewhere
    • pydry 5y ago
      The BBC has for a long long time been more sensitive to the concerns of employers and investors rather than employees or the unemployed. This has mostly been as a result of aping the trends followed by the rest of the private media in the UK since the 1970s. They already had a business section and even rolled out a new capital section a few years ago. No word yet on when theyll get a section dedicated to worker news.
      • loopz 5y ago
        Why wouldn't they? Workers are generally not allowed to talk about specifics of work to media.
        • switch007 5y ago
          I think that’s a really poor excuse. People can discuss anonymously and about recent prior jobs (being slightly less bound by contractual gagging, or under less threat of being sued) Journalists can apply for jobs and do an exposé too.
          • loopz 5y ago
            The sources will be criticized for being anonymous or ousted. Some journalists cover workplace too. However, corporate tactics optimize away most of what is possible in that regard. All for a public who can't give a damn (gimme the cheapest).
    • 5y ago
  • release-object 5y ago
    Really sorry to hear that. My personal experience, of hiring software engineers in London, aligns with this article. We have seen a drop in supply this year. If you are looking in the South of England I would recommend finding a specialist tech recruitment agency.
    • mattlondon 5y ago
      As a counter point in London, I've found supply to be pretty good. Multiple actually good and talented candidates to basically pick the best from, and not just dregs with "this person will do I guess - 50% is better than nothing" type sentiment.
    • dbetteridge 5y ago
      Supply in London is fine, companies just need to raise their salaries tbh. I personally moved companies during covid and got a more flexible role and a 90% increase. Recruiters are going nuts on LinkedIn atm for anyone with skills and the salaries are rising from there.
    • rossmohax 5y ago
      With IR35 reform in full swing, I'd expect quality supply to incease as contractors start to seek full time positions.
    • gifnamething 5y ago
      I've turned down job offers in London because I can get the same salary with a 33% reduction in cost of living elsewhere or work in London for 200% of the salary doing software engineering for finance.
  • WJW 5y ago
    > any kind of engineering > Applied for dozens of cleaning (...) positions Is this a common thing to do when applying for engineering jobs? What kind of qualifications do you even get where you 1. Are not specialized in a specific type of engineering (chemical, electrical, software, etc)? All these fields needs massive amounts of technical knowledge and I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be hired as a chemical engineer even though I know a lot about electronics design and software. 2. Want to get in as a cleaner rather than (say) a junior engineer? How much extra on-the-job experience that would be relevant to engineering do you hope to get from a position as a cleaner?
    • atrettel 5y ago
      I'm a mechanical engineer and I believe I can answer your first question. My take is that many engineering employers value the ability of entry-level employees to learn new things rather than what they know (their expertise). They want blank slates many times, to be honest, to be molded into the kind of employee that they need at the moment. As long as you have the most basic relevant engineering knowledge and a degree you are good enough. For example, my first engineering job was actually in chemical engineering largely (chemical kinetics), and I got it despite knowing very little about chemical engineering. This is both good and bad for the employees in my view. It is good in the sense that you could (potentially) change subject matter easily, but it is bad in the sense that you are very much replaceable. That said, many employers do want and need specialized knowledge and experience even for entry-level engineering positions (not just for experienced positions), and any entry-level candidates with that specialized knowledge and experience will do better in the hiring process (as far as I know!). That said, my recent experience in the job market actually matches bserge's experience. There are far too few open positions in my observations, and I too had to apply to way too many jobs, and it took far too long to hear back [1]. That is of course just another anecdote but it has been my experience as an engineer. I'm gonna be fine and will start a new position soon, but I think the narrative that there is an employee shortage only applies to low wage and unskilled workers and not to engineering professionals. [1] I recently started collecting data on this from my own job applications. For example, the median number of days to a final decision for me was 55 days. The mean was 112 days. This appears to follow an exponential distribution. I only started looking into this data recently when I questioned why it took 4 months for an employer to request an interview with me.
  • mercy_dude 5y ago
    > You know what the media has become? A cesspool of bullshit unworthy of any trust. I wouldn’t label all media outlets under the same but mainstream media (think of what we grew up watching - CNN, NYT, BBC etc) is increasingly becoming what you described, opinion driven activism fueled journalism rather than reporting facts. It’s a sad state of affairs but across the world it is the same norm, journalists have turned into crowd pleasing (many have their own tweeter world where they are not shy to be an ideologue) click rate seeking media professional rather. My sense is that this type of journalism and their wide coverage under libel protection for example in US only polarizes further the people and as you mentioned make people mistrust _all_ experts. Which is not a good place to be for a society. Good news is more and more independent journalism (ones not behind under mainstream umbrella or with brands of their own) are doing works in real journalism. People such as Glenn Greenwald are using platforms such as substack which is far better imo than any news you read these days to cover and report a nuanced topic.
    • bserge 5y ago
      Sorry, I'm pretty emotional these days on account of not getting any help from a healthcare system I'm paying into. My medication is right there on the shelves, alas there are no doctors available to prescribe it. Even though I am literally forced to pay for it. Would anyone be interested in me documenting this, btw? It just seems like there's a whole lot of people that are ignored or shafted by universal healthcare and yet everyone seems to be singing praises about it.
  • stevewodil 5y ago
    In having a similarly hard time finding something. It seems like every job I apply to has 50-100 other candidates that also applied. I'm not sure how many of them are actually qualified, but based on how many times I've been passed up, some of them clearly are. This is also compounded by the fact that a lot of the jobs are remote now, so anyone across the country can apply. My friend who is a recruiter says it's a talent driven market right now. So, I'm not sure what to make of any of it. It certainly depends on the specific type of work you're looking for.
  • White_Wolf 5y ago
    "Any kind of engineering" is a bit broad. Loation matters a lot with available jobs. Take a look at London and a 30 mile radius around it(or so). You can't find enough skilled (not talking about diplomas here) electricians, PLC/automation controller programmers, Security system engineers, Maintenance engineers and I could go on with the list. I would suggest going straight to companies(managers and such) with your CV. Most(if not all) recruitment agencies have staff that are not exactly qualified to assess skill sets. If it's not a 1:1 match on at least 50-75% of the requirements for the role they won't put you forward.
    • wildrhythms 5y ago
      I work at a massive, well-known tech company, nearly 5 year tenure, and I apply to jobs on LinkedIn, directly through the company website, to government jobs (via USAJOBS), about 5 per week. I live in a major U.S. city. I'm willing to relocate anywhere, or work remote. Full-stack developer. I never get contacted back. Am I just not good enough? I know the discourse is around London, but I think this is an issue happening in many places, and seeing the "where are the workers?" articles is really troubling for me.
      • dehrmann 5y ago
        There's something weird about this. You should be getting recruiters on Linkedin reaching out. What's your job title at the well-known tech company? I assume it's more like FAANG than a consulting firm? How many years of experience do you have? Have you reached out to people you've worked with in the past to see if their current employer is hiring? Are you in a major tech city or a major city with no tech presence?
      • White_Wolf 5y ago
        Maybe you need to rework your CV/profile a bit. It's about keywords these days and only after keyworks comes the real deal. As a side-note: My current boss told me straight up he hired me because my cv was shit but he looked at my hobbies. THat is what made him give me a call to get a feel for the "dumb ass" that is that bad at selling himself.
  • golergka 5y ago
    I have just been on remote job hunt this past month, and have ended up with a lot of offers and maybe-offers (refused before getting the final letter, but things have been going this way) from US and Europe. And I'm not a native speaker, live in Eastern Europe and don't even have a degree, just work experience. Engineering labour market is extremely skewed towards the job seeker right now.
    • bserge 5y ago
      Yeah, I should probably move back there.
  • DethNinja 5y ago
    Mechanical Engineering is a very saturated field and it is very hard to open your own company. If you want to become self employed in that field then you need good connections more than talent. I would recommend switching to software engineering. Not that software engineering is much better but at least self employment will be a bit easier.
    • lightning19 5y ago
      Agreed, I'm a mech engineer by education. Saw the writing on the wall half way through my degree and learnt how to code in my spare time. I'm an SWE now, it has literally changed the course of my life, had I stuck with engineering my household would not have an income worthy enough to pay for basic needs + internet. Some of my friends from university are still unemployed, it's so bad that I know someone with a MSc in Engineering working in a mall as a salesman.
  • yhoneycomb 5y ago
    The worst is when they say "experts say" and then just say whatever their own opinion was. Sure, you can find "experts" to say anything. I'm more interested in who exactly you're talking about, or what data you're referring to. "Experts say" is just such a lazy and often misleading statement. I've seen way too more articles that claimed "experts said" something which was NOT at all the consensus opinion.
• calltrak 5y ago
  I am an unemployed programmer. I am 50 years old. I have 15 years of C#, 15 years of sql server, two years of golang, two years of node.js, vue.js, svelte, css, html, postgress, rabbitmq, etc etc etc.... My skills list is about 10 times this short list I just threw up. They tell me there is a skills and labor shortage in tech. That's complete bullshit I am UNEMPLOYED for a year. I don't believe one dam word the government or the media says anymore. Not one word. Not about the cough. Not about the labor shortage. They will tell you the economy is booming meanwhile they are boarding up New York City and there is homeless everywhere. It's the same thing right across america. We are being lied to at an awesome level.
  • the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
    As a programmer if you’re not working for a year it’s safe to say you’re not actively looking and thus by definition excluded from unemployment statistics.
  • hattmall 5y ago
    Are you looking for remote work? Where do you live? In the south, everywhere is hiring.
  • arcturus17 5y ago
    Have you tried remote-only positions? I’d assume they tend to care less about age, if that’s the problem. I employ freelancers and pay competitive fees by European standards. I would hire someone with your experience without thinking too much about it (provided you had a modicum of people skills) since I only care about people being courteous and getting the job done, and not about “culture”…
    • ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      As noted elsewhere, it seems Europe may be a better place for older folks. I know that some nations have some fairly strict laws about discrimination. In the US, we have the same laws. It's flat-out illegal to discriminate by age, as it is by race, religion, gender, pregnancy, marital status, etc. Out of that list, if a company tries anything other than age discrimination, they are pilloried and investigated. However, in the IT industry, age discrimination is actively encouraged. Companies write job ads that basically say "Bros only." The story I hear, is that older folks are "just waiting for retirement, and won't be loyal." That's rich, in an industry that has been completely formed around the idea that engineers will stay at a company for no more than two years. In my case, I had my retirement set, years ago, and would have been willing to work for half of what a lot of younger folks would demand, if the work was motivating, and the work environment was good. I have an enormous portfolio of exemplary work. My skills are "five minutes old." I'm not some old duffer, sitting on COBOL skills (which, I understand, would actually have made me more attractive). It's been my experience that no one ever bothers to look at the portfolio. They've already made up their mind, and the only reason they are talking to me, is to tick off an EEOC checkbox.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• amelius 5y ago
  Meanwhile: > Tech CEO Says Workers Get Too Much Pay and Benefits https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28010718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28010718
  • fishmaster 5y ago
    "Sla- I mean, workers get too much pay and benefits, they should be happy to work. Why can't I find any workers?!"
• dsgnr 5y ago
  We all went remote to good companies with higher salaries. Stop trying to control our lives so much and pay better, it is that simple.
• jesusthatsgreat 5y ago
  The harsh reality is that there's not enough incentive to work for a lot of people through a combination of state supported welfare, lack of job security (i.e. short term contracts / zero hour contracts) and the financial and mental health cost involved in working (transport to and from work, paying for childcare etc.. it's a financial cost but also impacts work / life balance i.e. a lot of people realise they have none if they work). Remove all forms of welfare and you can bet people would be queuing up for jobs to keep a roof over their heads and buy food. The problem is, if you were to do that, the situation would be taken advantage of by the super wealthy - as has been the case time and time again in any sort of recession.
  • peakaboo 5y ago
    Hmm. That argument seems to be that instead of making tech fun to work in, we should make sure there are no other options so people have to work there.
  • simonh 5y ago
    I don't think there's a good argument the social security system in the UK is excessively generous. Our long term unemployment is only around 360,000 people. That's people unemployed for more than 12 months. The vast majority of our 1.7m unemployed, roughly 4/5 of them, are simply between jobs. I have no problem supporting these people through the transition.
    • ithinkso 5y ago
      And even those that are planning to live off of welfare... what else can you do. Welfare isn't that great and a vast majority (by a huge margin) has aspiration to have a better life so you only need to support those who can't work and those who will not work no matter what. You can force the latter by starvation but if they have such low needs anyway they will find the easiest way to sustain themselves and will be a bigger problem to others one way or another. Welfare is a cheap price to pay It's a strange way of thinking that I don't fully understand. Why would one choose to live with homelessness problem rather than pay to solve it and get them off the streets? Only because those paid 'don't deserve it' so now both parties live non-optimally. Some weird twist on a prisoner's dilemma
• throw_m239339 5y ago
  There is no "employee shortage". I don't know the reason why the main stream press started to roll with that narrative but this is a blatant lie. However unlike before the pandemic, some candidates might refuse a job that only offers a pittance, especially given the high inflation in most of the west.
  • lucb1e 5y ago
    > unlike before the pandemic, some candidates might refuse a job I don't understand this one, wouldn't a pandemic (entire industries had to cut back on costs) cause more people to be looking for work and thus tip the supply and demand balance towards people being less picky?
    • freeone3000 5y ago
      The US instituted an unemployment benefit actually large enough to pay the expenses of the unemployed. This cut poverty by half, with a corresponding decrease in demand for minimum wage jobs.
    • jessaustin 5y ago
      The idea is that the disruption has shown workers they have a wider range of options than they considered before. Maybe they have changed to a different field, maybe they have started their own business, maybe they have moved. In any case, they aren't looking to get rehired at their old position and compensation.
    • michaelbrave 5y ago
      "Essential workers" weren't treated well during the pandemic, even now with arguments about masks it's pretty much awful. Consider also how many were laid off initially (showing how their job sees them as disposable on top of that) and combine that with how they were barely scraping by before but now inflation of essentials like food have gone up to the point that it wouldn't scrape by as easily anymore and most aren't willing to put up with it for a pittance anymore. I actually think the bigger picture is that with schools/daycare/camps closed there is no affordable way for kids to be watched while at work which has caused multi income families to go back to single income families and in many cases this causes them to have more money than they would have with daycare, especially if they are utilizing unemployment benefits in place of one of those multi incomes. I'm not sure how this is working with single parents but my guess would be that a lot of them moved back with parents when they got laid off at first, thus also causing an imbalance. It's also worth mentioning that a lot of people died from covid and if you look at it outside of political leanings a lot of those who didn't get vaccinated are the less educated and less wealthy, so I'm sure that's at least a part of what's going on.
• peakaboo 5y ago
  Couldn't it be that people don't want to commute to places anymore for hours every day? So they don't take those jobs where they have to suffer anymore. I read several article about how people realized during covid that they don't want a job they don't like anymore. Specially tech, since its very demanding.
  • fundad 5y ago
    Housing costs spiked pretty much everywhere too. There has been talk of a restaurant bubble for years and not enough was done about affordable housing. The other thing is during the restaurant bubble, it cost owners little to be open during slow times because it came at the cost of the workers' tips. That was good for convenience-obsessed customers who could easily get a table but it obviously wasn't sustainable.
• incone123 5y ago
  The talk about ageism reminded me of picking up Filipino in-laws at Heathrow airport a few years ago. My brother in law commented it was nice to see the airport employing some older people. In Philippines it used to be pretty normal to get rid of service sector workers at 30. The country has changed the law recently to mitigate this.
• xwdv 5y ago
  Don’t know about UK but in the US former employees are sitting at home collecting juiced up unemployment benefits thanks to COVID and not paying rents. But the free ride is finally coming to an end and the evictions are starting soon. These people will be living on the street for the foreseeable future. Many companies do not hire homeless.
  • bruce343434 5y ago
    This massive destabilization/bubble you are describing is not a good thing by the way.
    • xwdv 5y ago
      Don’t care, I’m sick and tired of kicking this can down the road. Let the bodies pile up in the streets, in the end they’ll beg us to save them.
      • jessaustin 5y ago
        You must be pretty sure you're in the "us" camp and not the "them" camp... one hopes it works out for you.
      • fundad 5y ago
        That also means housed workers will be in more demand, command higher wages and increase cost of living for everyone. So I agree it's good for worker power if that's the point you're trying to make.
      • commandlinefan 5y ago
        They won’t beg. They’ll vote.
        • jessaustin 5y ago
          Some might hope they will limit their actions to voting.
    • 5y ago
• golergka 5y ago
  Sound exactly like what brexit campaigners said would happen: borders close, supply of labour goes down, local wages go up.
  • fundad 5y ago
    This the painful in-between time when citizens realize they have to take those jobs
• m0llusk 5y ago
  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 recently spent roughly a year and a half telling desperate workers they have nothing for them. Now that there are openings it should be no surprise that workers have moved on and have little interest in transitioning back. 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.
  • lumost 5y ago
    It’s funny, I hear a ton about worker productivity and similar worker centric views of production, labor, and wages. But, as any Walmart, warehouse, or even pizza shop worker will tell you - their ability to negotiate wages, change production practices, or make any difference in the workplace amounts to a suggestion box and a 25 cent raise.
  • encryptluks2 5y ago
    > people reconsidering their lives is pretty much a sideshow of projected narrative that is detached from what is really going on I disagree... COVID-19 made a lot of people reconsider their priorities. If you only had limited time left with a family member, would you really want to spend your time working a crappy job while struggling to pay rent? Pretty soon I imagine the government will start doing something like what they did to people who went on strike.. they'll find ways to start punishing people that don't want to work certain jobs anymore and changing careers will rarely be an option.
    • ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      If only there was a better way to get people to work shitty jobs... like maybe paying them more...
• minikites 5y ago
  >Add Brexit into the equation, and the old assumption that companies can just hire extra people from Eastern Europe to fill any gaps can no longer be taken for granted. Wild idea, but maybe companies should pay higher salaries. I bet they would find plenty of workers. If their business relies on paying people sub-standard wages, maybe their business deserves to fail to make room for someone else who is better at making a budget and paying their employees.
  • fundad 5y ago
    Wasn't this one of the stated motivations for Brexit? Fewer immigrants pressuring owners to raise wages for British citizens. It was the same here in the States with border wall construction, turning away asylum seekers instead of letting them work while their cases were processed, issuing fewer visas and detaining and deporting more people. Strange to see who is carrying water for owners instead of taking credit for what they've done for workers.
    • pessimizer 5y ago
      In the States, net immigration was negative before the border wall was proposed. It was an intentional distraction. It was also an intentional distraction when H. Clinton was lefty-punching over it at the same time the administration was doing NAFTA. No recent administration has earnestly cared about working-class wages. The reason working-class incomes have been rising recently is entirely due to public pressure and the need to pump cash into an economy that was on the verge of returning to a serious recession at a time when the two parties are absolutely even electorally. But since the administration is trying to avoid a big recession followed by endless recovery (i.e. learn from the mistakes of Obama), they're only interested in interventions that pour money into businesses. They're not interested in structural change; they're just taking advantage how absurdly slowly the USD inflates no matter how much of it you print.
    • LatteLazy 5y ago
      It was one of the motivations. BUT the people who voted for brexit were mostly not employed (too old, on various benefits etc). And as consumers they didn't want the immigrants THEY rely on sent away. So their wages remain unchanged and suddenly they have to wait longer in restaurants or the corner shop is shut early...
• unnouinceput 5y ago
  Quote: "...hospitality and catering had gone up 18% ..." Let's spin up the inflation calculator for UK: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/in... and you get that the year is 2013. 100 pounds in 2013 are the same buying power as 117.20 pounds in 2020, which can safely be assumed is around 118 today. So people want to live just a little bit better, something like only 8 years ago and these kind of articles are wondering why employers can't find workers? How about less control and even better payment? Then you'll see there is no "workers shortage" for your business.
• jmrm 5y ago
  In addition to the article and to other comments and in relation to expat workers in UK, AFAIK, Spaniards who worked in UK came here when COVID started to be a big issue, and most of them, won't go again. They won't come mainly due to BREXIT and other difficulties of being an expat working in UK, but also because the price of the GBP dropped since when they started going there more massively, about 2010, and with that they don't earn the same quantity of euros, and because the conditions weren't usually the greatest. Most of who worked on children care even have online groups to keep updated list of "bad families", who did not behave or even threaten or hurt a worker. And working having this in mind isn't healthy at all.
• nikkinana 5y ago
  You can work for yourself. Why work for someone else? They just take a cut and give you scraps, look at china for example. I can't wait to move out of here.
• apeace 5y ago
  Is it worth considering whether increased/extended unemployment benefits are a factor in the employee shortage? The article mentions employees on "furlough" who are "biding their time". I'm not from the UK, but this appears to mean the government is paying much of their wage while they are not working. Anecdotally (in the U.S.) I know several people who have remained on unemployment as long as they possibly can, despite the fact that their job would've hired them back by now. Technically this is breaking the rules of unemployment benefits, but there are several easy ways around it. Not that the increased/extended unemployment benefits have been a bad thing. They were quite necessary, especially early on in the pandemic when there was so much uncertainty. Perhaps they're still necessary. But it seems to me that if you allow people not to work and still have money, many people simply won't work. Mystery solved.
  • thechao 5y ago
    If labor is a market, laborers are at a fundamental disadvantage compared to employers when it comes to clearance: the employer has an asymmetric advantage in its ability to wait to hire someone; laborers are a lot less capable. I don’t know that unemployment is a good solution, but I think it speaks volumes that people might be using it to balance the standard inequity.
    • bottled_poe 5y ago
      Can you explain this further? It sounds like you may be assuming employers are able to simply not hire and bear the opportunity cost. How are you weighing that up against employee urgency?
      • sokoloff 5y ago
        Not GP, but forgoing opportunity does not carry the same urgency as forgoing food, utilities, and housing. Both are important. One is urgent.
    • ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      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 will be more apparent when the benefits stop, poorer employers will close down in the meantime, and when people have to go back to work, there will be fewer workplaces for them available, bringing the wages down.
• okareaman 5y ago
  When these articles are about the US they never mention the brutal policies of ICE (Immigration Control and Enforcement) which discourage seasonal workers from Mexico, who are already hesitant due to the pandemic. I mean, if you're going to deport Mexicans who served honorably in the military it's a big FU to Mexicans. I wouldn't come here either.
  • RustyConsul 5y ago
    When i was in the Air Force, people got citizenship for serving... How are they being deported?
    • skuhn 5y ago
      This NYT article [1] has some quotes from Sen. Duckworth that outlines the problem as she sees it. One in particular: "People don’t even know that we are deporting veterans. I think most Americans assume that when somebody serves, they gain American citizenship. They don’t realize that we are actually deporting people who served honorably." [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/us/politics/veterans-deported-duckworth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/us/politics/veterans-depo...
    • treis 5y ago
      Generally speaking they commit serious crimes before they complete the naturalization process.
      • okareaman 5y ago
        > Under the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act, “aggravated felonies” are a basis for automatic deportation. Struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse put veterans at greater risk of incarceration than the general population. In 2017, nearly 28% of minority veterans – that’s 1,315,989 people – reported a service-connected disability, principally PTSD. I worked with citizen veterans who ended up in jail for crimes committed while distressed from PTSD. The VA treats these veterans. It's inhuman to deport them imho https://theconversation.com/deported-veterans-stranded-far-from-home-after-years-of-military-service-press-biden-to-bring-them-back-154320 https://theconversation.com/deported-veterans-stranded-far-f...
• spiritplumber 5y ago
  "The Last Of The Deliverers" Poul Anderson, "The Last of the Deliverers" IN Door To Anywhere, pp. 408-417. I read this story once before in an anthology a long time ago. An author's note explained that the story shows one of our present conflicts as history because it will become history. A future history is summarized: "'Technology made it possible for a few people and acres to feed the whole country, till millions of acres were lying idle; you could buy them for peanuts.'" (p. 415) A few people, yes, but a few acres? "'Meanwhile the cities were overtaxed, underrepresented, and choked by their own traffic. Along came the cheap sunpower unit and the high-capacity accumulator. Those let a man supply most of his own wants, not work his heart out for someone else to pay the inflated prices demanded by an economy where every single business was subsidized or protected at the taxpayer's expense.'" (ibid.) Living better on less work, people needed to earn so little that they paid nearly zero taxes, consumed little, thus causing a depression, and preferred to live in small country communities, despite rearguard action from both big business and trade unions. Individuals and families use town tractors as and when they need to and most grow garden vegetables. Land cannot be owned because it cannot be pocketed and carried around. "'And when we do work, we'd rather work for ourselves, not for somebody else, whether you call the somebody else a capitalist or the people. Now let's go sit down and take it easy before lunch.'" (p. 414)
• ryanSrich 5y ago
  At least where I live (PNW USA) there’s a growing concern from businesses that another lockdown is coming. They just started requiring masks again this week. If I’m an employee of one of those businesses, or was previously, I’m staying home. Why would I go back when it seems that yet another lockdown is imminent, and I’ll be laid off again. Many of these workers have had wold cried to them for a year and half. The whiplash of non masks, now wear a mask, lockdown, now no lockdown, to lockdown again is more than people can handle.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• shams93 5y ago
  It’s not a worker shortage it’s an affordable housing crisis nobody can afford to live where the jobs are.
• stiray 5y ago
  I think that people started to realize, that they can live much better with lower amount of money. What corona crisis did to me was suddenly figuring out that just, from the pure fact of not leaving home much (or I would rather say, not going into the consumers world any more - I rather went to a forest, hills, rivers, lakes,...), there was an overhead of 500 euros left on my bank account each month. Same life but the unneeded expenses were cut off and interestingly - I didn't miss them at all. This would (in case I wouldn't love software development) mean that I could go for 500 euros lower wage with a fairly decent life and with far more time for myself. As time is the only commodity that you cant buy, this seems like a very reasonable way to change my life for the better. But I am not the one who doesn't like my job. There is probably more than a half of people that don't want to do what they are doing for the wage they get. And with corona, they got out of the system that calls for more money. Surely they would return back but not under the same conditions. Pay them relevantly more and there will no longer be employee shortages but you will earn less. And it is debatable if this is not what needed to happen.
  • gruez 5y ago
    > I think that people started to realize, that they can live much better with lower amount of money. I might be able to buy this argument if the person in question is making 6 figures, but what about the median person making $36k/year? If you can barely make rent, reducing your working hours because "can live much better with lower amount of money" isn't really an option.
    • grecy 5y ago
      I quit my software engineering job to drive from Alaska to Argentina for 2 years and then to drive around Africa for three years. I have not worked at a desk for 6 years now, and I live on about $20k - $25k. I've never been happier. I have so much free time to spend how I please, and I just don't buy crap I don't need. Yes, I've got house mates and I can't afford to live in some expensive city and eat out every night, but those things have never made me happy anyway. I ride my bike, I throw the Frisbee and I snowboarded 97 days this past winter (a luxury, for sure) My dollars per day spent is extremely low.
• neilwilson 5y ago
  There is no employee shortage. There is a decent pay and conditions shortage. There are still 3.45 million without work that want it and 1 million short of work. Yet only 0.8 million vacancies. https://new-wayland.com/blog/uk-employment-stats/ https://new-wayland.com/blog/uk-employment-stats/
• geogra4 5y ago
  Is it controversial to state that many died?
  • wpasc 5y ago
    I don't think it's controversial, but I don't think it's true. The job vacancies in the U.S. compared to the total deaths don't really match up. Even more so if you factor in that the age group with the highest death rate (elderly people) weren't in the workforce pre pandemic.
• paulpauper 5y ago
  It's evident we're transitioning to a post-labor society. The labor force participation rate keeps falling. More and more people are on sort for of welfare, assistance, or are homeless or incarcerated. Tent cities everywhere all across the country, in poor and rich areas alike. Each crisis, from 2008 to Covid, only hastens this transition.
• infogulch 5y ago
  The value exchanged by employment is more than just a paycheck, it's a regular paycheck. It's like an implicit insurance of future pay. Once the government and businesses labeled and straight dumped 'non-essential' workers, they send a message that the 'ensured future pay'-value of employment is empty and meaningless. (Don't @ me with an argument about how it's always been this way without acknowledging that recent developments represent a step change in the employment relationship.) "Just pay more" is not caused by greedy workers demanding more money, it's caused by employers reneging on the important but implicit consideration that is the stability of keeping a job. If you demonstrate your unwillingness (or inability, no difference) to fulfill your contractual considerations (even the implicit ones), don't be surprised if the other party wants to adjust the contract to compensate.
  • jackson1442 5y ago
    The position low wage workers are in extends beyond what they make, too. Most part-time hourly jobs, especially those that pay less than $15, have extremely unpredictable schedules and have to deal with aggressive and rude customers day in and day out, while being treated as “less than” by management. Fortunately, when I worked for near-minimum wage, I was a lifeguard so I had the authority to tell off and kick out bad patrons. I still got treated like shit, with 10-12 hour workdays in 100+deg weather, inconsistent scheduling, and once even being told I had to stay after my shift when I had plans or lose my job (I called their bluff and decided to quit anyways). I have a software job now and it’s better than food service, retail, and lifeguarding by a WIDE margin. I think a lot of people here take for granted the stability and consistency offered by their (typically) office jobs, as well as the significantly better physical and mental conditions.
  • adaml_623 5y ago
    I think you raise a very good point. It's only logical to minimise long term risk
• simonCGN 5y ago
  In contrast to the article, I rather believe that Brexit is more responsible for the shortage than Covid-19
  • tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    We don't know because we don't keep proper statistics on people entering and leaving the country. The figures for net emigration last year are between 300,000 and 1.3 million but they are largely a guess.
• Zerverus 5y ago
  Onlyfans
• lkrubner 5y ago
  Let's set aside, for a moment, the very poorest people, who are just struggling to survive. Let's talk about every family (emphasis on family and not individual) that is above poverty. The people in the family work to achieve a certain standard of living. If they want to afford 2 weeks in Bermuda every summer and 2 weeks at Vale every winter, then maybe they work a little extra to afford those things. Maybe they work longer hours, or pick up an extra job. Indeed, consider that in the USA male wages were stagnant or declining for most of the period 1973-2000 and yet family income rose steadily until 2000. That's because women were entering the work force, and their additional income more than made up for their husband's losses. We just had 18 months where people's standard of living was reduced by government edict. Some people have grown used to the new, lower standard of living. Others plan to raise their standard of living, but plan to be strategic about it. It is well known that the lockdown affected women more than men. But as things get back to something like normal, there will be no repeat of the somewhat casual way that women picked up low-wage work during the period 1973-2000. To the extent that women rejoin the workforce, they are going to be more strategic about it.
• throwtheacctawy 5y ago
  I believe there are more types of jobs, and jobs that allow people to set their own terms. Uber, Lyft, Instacart, Rover, Wag, Onlyfans, YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, TikTok, Etsy, Amazon FLex, drop-shipping with a Shopify storefront - there are countless (new) ways for kids to make money now. And many of these jobs allow people to define when they work and how they approach work. They simply don’t have to work the same type of entry level jobs we all had available to us. Plus the proliferation of jobs involved in the supply chain & warehousing has to be mentioned. What wants to interact with fussy and aggravating customers all day in a hot and smelly fast food restaurant? We can’t forget - population growth is leveling off in many developed economies, while service sector job growth continues. Toss an aging population, reduce immigration, and it is a recipe for the current situation.
• bawana 5y ago
  Handouts and ubi are bad. Raising minimum wage is good. Consider iceland. Most of their lower pay workers were immigrants who returned to their countries when covid hit. And they are still in debt from the 2008 crash. Unlike the US, they cannot print more dollars to bail themselves out. Yet Iceland's minimum wage is $19/hr and healthcare is free. How can they manage to treat their people so much better than we treat ours??
• Havoc 5y ago
  I find it more interesting how the BBC is putting the absolute minimum required mention of brexit in the article. Meanwhile if you actually look at the job seeker numbers...strongly suggests that it's a major if not primary contributor. Non-EU is back to pre-pandemic levels even. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/17/number-of-eu-citizens-seeking-work-in-uk-falls-36-since-brexit-study-shows https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/17/number-of-e...
• epicureanideal 5y ago
  Many companies are becoming increasingly unpleasant to work for, largely because of the increasing political speech at work. I wish more companies would take a Coinbase or Basecamp type stance on avoiding politics at work, and downsize their HR departments so they focus on benefits, compensation, and so on, rather than acting like political commissars and social activists within the workplace.
  • is_d4ng_erect 5y ago
    simmer down there american
• France_is_bacon 5y ago
  I just want to know when I can go back to a $25,000 job with no insurance or benefits, so that the top 5% that own 85% of the wealth of the richest nation in the world, can make even more billions of dollars. Who wouldn't want that? Why is everyone so lazy, why doesn't everyone go back to making the top 10-20% of the elite more money? From the 1940's to 1985, the top tax bracket was 70% to 90%. We need to go back to that again. The wealthiest will stop at nothing to crush the American worker. If you are reading this, are you going to take it? The wealthiest keep saying that they wish that they could pay more taxes. That's what they say. But when San Francisco passed a ONE PERCENT tax on the wealthiest, to help with the homeless problem, the wealthiest went out of their collective minds. All you read about was how they were going to leave San Francisco and take jobs with them. Well, adios, motherf-ckers, to you and the horse you rode in on, and go move to Switzerland. Adios. But, back to reality, it's too late. The wealthiest are already bribing all our government "leaders". The only option is not to go back to work.