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Theoretically speaking, labour shortage should affect economy in a way that wages rise to attract more people, right? Why aren't we seeing something like that?

sneak 4y ago
We don't have freedom of movement on Earth.
pjc50 4y ago
Rising wages cause massive panic about inflation. That causes rate rises in order to reduce demand. Also, wage rises can't be as easily negotiated in the public sector, which is why so many parts of the UK are on strike around now.
VLM 4y ago
I believe the second chapter of the linked report went into considerable detail about how covid had primary and secondary effect in a very small range of industries and otherwise had little long term effect in other industries. As a primary effect of covid, the public has been scared the public away from the healthcare field, which was collapsing and is now collapsing even faster. Its a good time to get out of healthcare and a bad time to get into healthcare. If they would just hurry up and collapse the system quickly so as to enter the stable rebuilding phase, then they could get workers. As a secondary effect of covid, massive income instability in hospitality has scared people away from that field. Those jobs are all going to be replaced by apps and service robots or go out of business anyway. Conveniently many ag jobs opened with brexit and that field is doing MUCH better than healthcare or hospitality. Hospitality used to be very low pay, but at least it was extremely reliable. With covid lockdowns that job could go away in a sneeze and they're all being replaced by apps and robots anyway. Hospitality is the new bottom of the barrel job and as such will always have staffing problems going forward until it goes away entirely. A society can function quite well without overpaying someone else to hand you a beer or kebabs to avoid getting it yourself LOL.
nine_zeros 4y ago
> Theoretically speaking, labour shortage should affect economy in a way that wages rise to attract more people, right? Why aren't we seeing something like that? Because attracting more people into the labor market assumes that there are people sitting on the sidelines, waiting for higher wages. The labor force in most western countries is already tapped out, exhausted and cannot do any more work.

sneak 4y ago

We don't have freedom of movement on Earth.

pjc50 4y ago

Rising wages cause massive panic about inflation. That causes rate rises in order to reduce demand. Also, wage rises can't be as easily negotiated in the public sector, which is why so many parts of the UK are on strike around now.

VLM 4y ago

I believe the second chapter of the linked report went into considerable detail about how covid had primary and secondary effect in a very small range of industries and otherwise had little long term effect in other industries. As a primary effect of covid, the public has been scared the public away from the healthcare field, which was collapsing and is now collapsing even faster. Its a good time to get out of healthcare and a bad time to get into healthcare. If they would just hurry up and collapse the system quickly so as to enter the stable rebuilding phase, then they could get workers. As a secondary effect of covid, massive income instability in hospitality has scared people away from that field. Those jobs are all going to be replaced by apps and service robots or go out of business anyway. Conveniently many ag jobs opened with brexit and that field is doing MUCH better than healthcare or hospitality. Hospitality used to be very low pay, but at least it was extremely reliable. With covid lockdowns that job could go away in a sneeze and they're all being replaced by apps and robots anyway. Hospitality is the new bottom of the barrel job and as such will always have staffing problems going forward until it goes away entirely. A society can function quite well without overpaying someone else to hand you a beer or kebabs to avoid getting it yourself LOL.

nine_zeros 4y ago

> Theoretically speaking, labour shortage should affect economy in a way that wages rise to attract more people, right? Why aren't we seeing something like that? Because attracting more people into the labor market assumes that there are people sitting on the sidelines, waiting for higher wages. The labor force in most western countries is already tapped out, exhausted and cannot do any more work.