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Still a labor shortage and low unemployment rate. I am amazed that 20% isn't higher.

by adrr 4y ago

meepmorp 4y ago
Wage shortage, not labor shortage. There's more than enough workers, but not everyone wants to take the jobs on offer for the money they'd be paid for doing them.
- aksss 4y ago
  Talent shortage, not human shortage. There’s been a severe talent shortage for many years. When we post jobs, we don’t have a lack of applicants, just a lack of decently qualified applicants, let alone stand-out ones we’d like to hire. People want the job, but are not qualified for the job. That seems more like a labor shortage in that paying more money is only going to rob talent from company A to Company B, but not somehow magic up more workers with the skills needed at both. I’m not sure I buy the idea that there are immensely qualified people who are choosing to “not work”. If that’s the case - presuming they were paid such inflated numbers that they are basically retiring decades too early, it doesn’t buttress the wage shortage argument either. Now burnout is very real, but I’d argue that what’s driving burnout is lack of talent to spread the load across. People pay good money for talent - I always say that in America, there’s more money than there is talent. If you want that money, it’s there for you. The barriers are extraordinarily low. And granted that’s my view from professional services. In the basic service industry you may be right. Reliable labor is not cheap, and on top of that, we (as consumers) are not terribly interested paying more for it. Not sure what the fix for that is. Many answers I’ve heard seem far too simplistic, or come back to a talent shortage on the top end (pay CEO less).
nostromo 4y ago
Unemployment is a b.s. number. What matters is working-age labor participation rate, and it's been declining since 1999. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  Even if one agrees that that is the most relevant figure of merit (which would imply, among other things, that FIRE, and moving out of the proletariat into the bourgeoisie, petit or haut, more generally, is an adverse social trend—which is not an uncommon position for communists, but rare for anyone else), it seems to have bottomed out, in trend terms, in the mid-2010s (while it did a sudden drop back down with COVID and associated restrictions, it has recovered quickly since that.)
  - nostromo 4y ago
    Retiring because you’re rich enough to not work is a great thing. But don’t fool yourself - that’s not why millions of people permanently left the workforce. Thankfully you’re right and it has seemed to recover a lot of ground since ~2016.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > But don’t fool yourself - that’s not why millions of people permanently left the workforce. If the working age LFPR drop wasn’t a combination of earlier retirement for both men and women who did well in the strong aggregate economy of the the 90s boom and men doing more higher education, why are the big drops of working age LFPR in the period it was dropping: (1) A big drop in men at the youngest age bracket included (25-34), that is not reflected a decade later in the 35-44 group, and (2) A smaller drop in both men and women in the oldest age category of the “working age” group (45-54).
- adrr 4y ago
  More parents are staying home to take care kids than in 1999. Labor participation numbers don't look at the reason people don't work. I've taken two years off to take care of my kids and my wife works part time. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-home-moms-and-dads-account-for-about-one-in-five-u-s-parents/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-hom...

Still a labor shortage and low unemployment rate. I am amazed that 20% isn't higher.

by adrr 4y ago

Still a labor shortage and low unemployment rate. I am amazed that 20% isn't higher.

Wage shortage, not labor shortage. There's more than enough workers, but not everyone wants to take the jobs on offer for the money they'd be paid for doing them.

aksss 4y ago
Talent shortage, not human shortage. There’s been a severe talent shortage for many years. When we post jobs, we don’t have a lack of applicants, just a lack of decently qualified applicants, let alone stand-out ones we’d like to hire. People want the job, but are not qualified for the job. That seems more like a labor shortage in that paying more money is only going to rob talent from company A to Company B, but not somehow magic up more workers with the skills needed at both. I’m not sure I buy the idea that there are immensely qualified people who are choosing to “not work”. If that’s the case - presuming they were paid such inflated numbers that they are basically retiring decades too early, it doesn’t buttress the wage shortage argument either. Now burnout is very real, but I’d argue that what’s driving burnout is lack of talent to spread the load across. People pay good money for talent - I always say that in America, there’s more money than there is talent. If you want that money, it’s there for you. The barriers are extraordinarily low. And granted that’s my view from professional services. In the basic service industry you may be right. Reliable labor is not cheap, and on top of that, we (as consumers) are not terribly interested paying more for it. Not sure what the fix for that is. Many answers I’ve heard seem far too simplistic, or come back to a talent shortage on the top end (pay CEO less).

nostromo 4y ago

Unemployment is a b.s. number. What matters is working-age labor participation rate, and it's been declining since 1999. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060

dragonwriter 4y ago
Even if one agrees that that is the most relevant figure of merit (which would imply, among other things, that FIRE, and moving out of the proletariat into the bourgeoisie, petit or haut, more generally, is an adverse social trend—which is not an uncommon position for communists, but rare for anyone else), it seems to have bottomed out, in trend terms, in the mid-2010s (while it did a sudden drop back down with COVID and associated restrictions, it has recovered quickly since that.)
- nostromo 4y ago
  Retiring because you’re rich enough to not work is a great thing. But don’t fool yourself - that’s not why millions of people permanently left the workforce. Thankfully you’re right and it has seemed to recover a lot of ground since ~2016.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > But don’t fool yourself - that’s not why millions of people permanently left the workforce. If the working age LFPR drop wasn’t a combination of earlier retirement for both men and women who did well in the strong aggregate economy of the the 90s boom and men doing more higher education, why are the big drops of working age LFPR in the period it was dropping: (1) A big drop in men at the youngest age bracket included (25-34), that is not reflected a decade later in the 35-44 group, and (2) A smaller drop in both men and women in the oldest age category of the “working age” group (45-54).
adrr 4y ago
More parents are staying home to take care kids than in 1999. Labor participation numbers don't look at the reason people don't work. I've taken two years off to take care of my kids and my wife works part time. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-home-moms-and-dads-account-for-about-one-in-five-u-s-parents/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-hom...