Why is there suddenly an extremely severe shortage of workers all over the world?

its not "the companies fault" necessarily.
I have been in the trades since i was a teenager in the mid 80s. Im a career carpenter. I work for a small custom home builder and we have always regularly hired hs kids from our local trade schools to give them some relevant experience. As for that, i can tell you it is very hard to find someone under 30 with a good work ethic, thats trainable and trustworthy, and can stay off their phone until breaks.
Having said that...
3 months ago i hired my neice to help me in the cabinet shop. She is 27, has been a teacher for the last 5 years, and recently gotten her masters degree.
She is so smart, hardworking and a natural at this. She is one of the best helpers/apprentices ive ever worked with. we would hire a dozen more just like her with that attitude and aptitude. It aint so simple as just being the companies fault.
reply to: PassiveSeeker

a reply to: lostatsea

The unemployment rate and labor participation rate in the United States is approaching historic lows, everyone who wants a job has a job and it requires those looking for help to increase salary which is not always occurring. We are shorthanded by around 30% on our service side and these are easy $100K+ STEM positions.

originally posted by: nerbot

originally posted by: PassiveSeeker
Blame the companies and not wanting to train and pay decently.

No, blame the lazy good for nothings who live by mobile phones and tech who thought they could make a fortune wearing a badge from school or college without ever actually working hard to invest in themselves beyond their aspirations.

You get out what you put in and starting salaries are often seen as bad because many people feel they deserve more without the investment of their own time and energy, especially if it means getting their hands dirty.

Big tech, bad education systems and bad parenting predominantly did this I think. No wonder there is a cull going on.

Nobody is born special in common reality.

You should take a look around. There are so many companies these days offering minimum wage for things that used to command at leat 50 percent more a few years back. Graduates in good subjects are being offered less than people without high-school diploma used to get.

They're paying day rates for night shifts or want you to do overtime on Sundays for standard rates.

Zero chance of promotion, because there are 200 underlings for every supervisor, and even then he's only getting 50 cents an hour more than the janator.

Around were I am even illegal immigrants think the money is bad, companies want cheap disposable labor and then get upset when you tell them that you can't afford to sign up with them because the bus fare would be half of your take home pay, and what is left over won't pay the rent.

A company round here decided that it would do mandatory security checks on staff after they clocked out, so they had to stay behind up to an hour per day without pay most days of the week.

a reply to: PassiveSeeker

The company is work for is willing to train for it's office setting with $18-25/hr starting. Willing to train with no experience required. Not all companies are as you say. We're still having difficulty finding good people to interview. The ones so far have been people with the most entitled attitude. A year and a half ago, we had multiple good candidates.

a reply to: AaarghZombies


Good Lord, where do you live?, and what kind of company is that?

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: PassiveSeeker

Immaculate driving record. I don’t know a single person with one.

Never had 1 ticket, my dad either, we are like unicorns.

Thats pretty good, I have 3 in 30 years, last one was 16 years ago.

a reply to: SeriouslyDeep


Some things I’ve noticed.

Health insurance is a problem. You are either overpaying for #ty coverage, or you’re on the state plan that doesn’t cost as much but has caps on salary to be eligible. Throw in expensive gas prices voila you’ve got NO incentives.

Nobody wants to work nights, weekends it seems.

By the time the younger generation pays for their gas and car insurance they have nothing left, might as well stay on the parents health plan.

Many people now believe SSI won’t be sustainable in the future so why pay into it? I hear this a lot.

Cost of childcare is more than most salaries, especially if you are a single parent.

Cost of college skyrocketing. Military needs to increase their tv ads 😁, not that anybody wants to join with the current clown administration 🤡.

I really wish more trade was offered in middle schools, instead of brainwashing kids that they have to go to college to make it in this world.

Many have already given up!


On a side note: I guess less traffic is good for the new stupid green deal that NO other country seems to care about, but it is politically correct so cheers for us.

My answer: there isn't!

I didn't really think about it until this past weekend, but yeah- we keep hearing about how nobody wants to work and how companies are short staffed... and then we hear about how all these people keep applying for jobs and not getting any.

But then it hit me.
In 2017, people were complaining they couldn't get jobs, yet you couldn't drive to the nearest store without seeing three help wanted signs along the way.
It was the same in 2014.
These are specific years I remember because the argument came up in my home- all of us being employed at the time, working for companies that were short staffed and hiring... with no applicants... hearing other people complain they can't find work.

The only difference is that when the dumb dumbs shut down the world, a whole lot of near-retirement age people said screw it and took their retirement, sold their homes for top dollar and rode off into the sunset. They were replaced by promote-from-within, shifting the internal workforce upwards... leaving even more entry level jobs open that the "can't find a job" people simply can't or won't do.

originally posted by: KTemplar
a reply to: AaarghZombies


Good Lord, where do you live?, and what kind of company is that?

Pretty much every big company that has a storefront from the big grocery chains to hardware stores and coffee shops. The difference between a shelf stacker and a shift supervisor is maybe a dollar an hour, and all you really do that's different is check the time cards once you've finished stacking the shelves with everyone else.

A relative of mine is a highly skilled optometrist but all of the independent stores closed down or moved away leaving only the ones inside of places like our version of Walmart. They can't get a living wage and they have to do mandatory weekends at a mid week rate. Overtime is a joke, and training... We'll they might be able to get pronoun training.

Being an optometrist used to be a middle class occupation. Now it's seen as service industry.

a reply to: lordcomac

They were replaced by promote-from-within, shifting the internal workforce upwards

Round here it was the people at the bottom who packed it in. Because they were doing 2 shifts and barely having anything left after paying for child care and gas.

Things that used to get you a middle class salary now barley offer a living wage, and promotions are a joke. shift managers get less than a dollar an hour more than the people they supervise and still have to stack shelves or run the registers like everyone else.

Those who could afford to leave did, couples with two incomes mostly.

a reply to: AaarghZombies

Oh I'm sure a lot of places saw the lower income folks take off- why work when you can get paid more to stay home?
The income-as-a-service was a joke.

Where I work, starting pay is ~60k a year, which is a little over twice what the "going rate" is for entry level work... four times minimum wage. Of course, you have to have a good head on your shoulders, and a little industry-specific knowledge to get in. It used to be people would learn this stuff for fun, but not anymore.

originally posted by: lordcomac
a reply to: AaarghZombies

Oh I'm sure a lot of places saw the lower income folks take off- why work when you can get paid more to stay home?
The income-as-a-service was a joke.

Where I work, starting pay is ~60k a year, which is a little over twice what the "going rate" is for entry level work... four times minimum wage. Of course, you have to have a good head on your shoulders, and a little industry-specific knowledge to get in. It used to be people would learn this stuff for fun, but not anymore.

Not around here, 10 years experience gets you an entry level position on minimum wage, but with manager or supervisor in your title. People are seen as being disposable and being on welfare won't cover the rent unless you've got 8 kids and a bad back.

Pre-COVID, I would search the job boards and I couldn't really use any search parameters other than location and distance because the job post returns were so low in every area. I could be totally qualified and experienced for jobs I'd apply for, but would rarely get any follow up more than an occasional rejection email.

After a year of the pandemic, job postings increased massively and I was getting phone calls on my applications I had to turn down because I got hired immediately. It was a buyer's market and employers were practically begging for hires. I have a seasonal job and just last night I was checking the job boards for a summer gig. It's back to pre-COVID conditions again and it looks like it's going to be a challenge finding something I want and getting into it.

It would be a good idea at this point to try and come up with a home business idea that can get me through the off season of the job I have. There are actually a number of opportunities around here that could work once the pandemic is officially over and there are no more restrictions like before. This is primarily a recreational area that depends on tourism, so another lock down would be bad now that we are rebounding back to business as usual.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: lostatsea

The unemployment rate and labor participation rate in the United States is approaching historic lows, everyone who wants a job has a job and it requires those looking for help to increase salary which is not always occurring. We are shorthanded by around 30% on our service side and these are easy $100K+ STEM positions.

You mentioned something that was completely skipped over by most.

We went through a juncture of history in regards to jobs. People left for many reasons.
They didn’t need a job
They retired early
They went to a one income family
They upgraded their jobs
They are too afraid of Covid
They have long term Covid
Etc. many other reasons.

But you hit the nail on the head for everyone else, when you said some employers refuse to increase salary.
Employers have not been loyal to employees for a long time and now that employees have flipped the switch employers are all mad. I think it is HILARIOUS.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Exactly.

I just found out right now on our leadership call that we lost another 6 people in one of our most critical service lines, we just aren't paying enough. What was once a $100-120K job is now much more than that. Our competitors and clients are poaching our talent by offering increases of sizeable proportions.

McDonald's closed at 10:00 pm. Saturday night due to no night workers.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Our competitors and clients are poaching our talent by offering increases of sizeable proportions.

It’s too easy to job shop, or to be lured away now.

There are still a lot of old fuddie duddies running the show, and they don’t have a clue. Many of these people have offices in NYC and think the little worker bee needs to show up 9-5 in order to be efficient (Even though they have never been in the office very much) Todays workers know that is a lie.
Did the whole Covid lockdown charade awaken the sleeping giant? Of course it did.

All that poaching and salary, bonus and sales increase is not limitless. At some point there won’t be enough meat on the bone. I mean, we aren’t anywhere near that for most businesses. The poorly managed restaurants were the first to go, but in reality many of these places were probably hanging on by a string.

a reply to: SeriouslyDeep

Because people learned nothing is secure...and it can disappear overnight. A lot said..."why go back?" Now better $$ elsewhere, I hated my job anyway...Im moving on.....

I know Police officers who work at Amazon....because they get what's equal to double their police salaries with 100%tuition, profit sharing, med, dental, vision, 401k....seems that choice is simple.

PS wife is Employment Peer Guidance Counselor in Southeast Michigan with ex cons, drug offenders, rehabbers, psychological issues. Jobs are EVERYWHERE.

She...being 10yrs younger has a different approach. So do her clients. Going thru the motions...but never really taking any work assignment. A few..... Excuses...

It's a perfect storm. Most of the reasons have been given already.

• Older people who were close to retirement have left the workforce. Permanently. They are not coming back. Some just got fed up with the hassles and retired early; others (like me) had medical issues that took them out of the workforce.
  
  
• Younger workers are too busy on Tic-Tok or Twitter to look away from their phones long enough to do their job. Their productivity level is abysmal. It can literally take two or three of these new workers to replace one old guy who threw up his hands and retired.
  
  
• Instead of getting into the workforce early, many young adults are now living at home with their parents.
  
  
• Businesses are scared. A lot of those "Help Wanted signs are to build up a reserve that can be called in if needed. Why do they need this? Because since early 2020, their workforce can be cut in half over the swipe of a pen on an Executive Order.
  
  
• A lot of people have gone into private business for themselves, many of those out of necessity. They couldn't find a job during the Great Recession and made their own job. Now we have so many of these small independent businesses there's not enough workers to staff them all.
  
  
• It appears to me that a lot of women (and some men) have gone into porn. The number of "free cam" sites has exploded, and "OnlyFans" is a huge deal right now.
  
  
• Work from home has become an expectation instead of a dream. Companies are starting to see the advantages as well, especially Internet-based companies. No office overhead and no office disruptions over office politics. Kids love it too, although it typically decreases their efficiency.
  
  
• College is being used as a way to avoid having to enter the job market. We hand out student loans and Pell grants like they are candy, and for the last two years the student loans have acted more as grants than loans. While this is a good idea by itself, the colleges have stopped training students for actual jobs and are now indoctrinating students in "cultural education" and "alternative studies"... which hold no promise of a future high-paying job.
  
  
• Those colleges which do still offer potentially helpful degrees are seeing a jump in "Business Administration." While this is not a bad choice in and of itself for someone who actually has talent in that area, it has become seen as a "general" degree that students go into because they don't know what they want to do. As a result, the saturated market filled with misplaced business majors has led to a large number of poor managers who make the workplace pure hell for workers.
  
  
• Many of the larger companies have begun a trend over the last few decades to only hire experienced employees instead of training young employees themselves. It turns a bigger profit in the short term, but collapses in the long term. We are just now entering the long term consequences of those decisions.
  
  
• Gasoline prices make travel to and from work so expensive right now many literally cannot afford to work.
  
  
• Full time employees have become tremendously expensive due to government mandates. Many businesses now maintain a larger workforce of part-time employees instead of full-time employees to manage this problem. This exacerbates the high fuel costs because a person has to drive the entire distance to and from work, but only gets half as much pay because they only work half as many hours at a time.
  
  
• The higher wages that the above require in order to attract workers causes inflation. Add in fuel costs and you have high inflation. Add in scarcity of materials and products and you get hyperinflation. Hyperinflation requires higher wages to support employees, which increases prices, which leads to even more hyperinflation.
  
  
• Access to good healthcare has been steadily declining over the last years. The recent "pandemic" didn't help; many who have regular doctor's appointments now never even see a doctor except through a screen. One cannot receive a proper examination electronically! As a result, our workforce is now weaker and more disease prone than ever.
  
  
• The cost of healthcare has been accelerating exponentially since Obamacare (and rapidly for many years before that). When Obamacare forced companies to provide high levels of healthcare, it made employing those who had indications of health issues far too expensive, which prevents full-time employment of a large part of the workforce. No one is going to hire someone whose existence in their mandated healthcare program will raise their costs overall to potentially the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. It's much cheaper to hire young kids fresh out of college, accept their lower productivity, and get lower insurance group rates because all the employees are young and healthy.
  
  
• Manufacturing in developed countries has taken a huge hit. Manufacturing is inherently a dirty process and does not translate well into a "green" economy. Countries such as China and Mexico have used this shortsightedness to attract the bulk of manufacturing jobs, as they have less concerns over being "green."
  
  
• Less manufacturing jobs mean more service jobs. That is an unsustainable model. Service jobs are lower-paying and do not return economic advantage as well as manufacturing, so the client base shrinks as time goes on. On the other hand, service jobs are also the easiest for those with modest means to enter into as a business, so they attract those who have been displaced by hard economic times.

So if anyone is looking for where to put the blame in the US: an over-dependence on college, an failing public education system, a lack of long-term planning by companies, a demand by government to help everyone own a home which caused the Great Recession, constant talk of Global Warming as though it were real, ill-advised government interference in healthcare, a second "hit" to manufacturing when a recovery was cut short, and general overall fear of what the government will do next in the face of "progressivism."

I assume similar conditions are happening in other countries. the US economy is huge and it carries much economic inertia; it takes a lot to bring it to a stop. The smaller the country, the less that is needed to do so.

We are just getting started. The train was up to full speed, but with pieces vibrating loose already from a lack of maintenance. Now we hit the emergency brakes and we're holding on tight. Gonna be one hell of a wreck.

TheRedneck

a reply to: JAGStorm

Jag? In Dearborn...Rams Horn Restaurant has a sign: $20 an hr. Work today. Get paid tomorrow

Now...you need a food handlers card from the County....even 16 yr olds to even work Macs.

So...now? Forget you might have any communicable diseases or infection's....come on in, wait or cook a few tables...I'll cut you a check tonight.

What happened to the food handlers helath requirements n Michigan?????