There are 10 million job openings, yet more than 8.4 million unemployed are still actively looking for work. There’s a big mismatch at the moment between the jobs available and what workers want. https://t.co/9rdIjHaq5A
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 4, 2021
Mysteriously, it turns out that human workers are not interchangeable widgets, little biological lego bricks:
… The job market looks, in some ways, like a boom-time situation. Business owners complain they can’t find enough workers, pay is rising rapidly, and customers are greeted with “please be patient, we’re short-staffed” signs at many stores and restaurants.
But the nation remains in the midst of a deadly pandemic with covid-19 hospitalizations back at their highest rates since January. The surge is weighing on the labor market again, with a mere 235,000 jobs added in August. There are still 5 million fewer jobs compared to before the pandemic, reflecting ongoing problems, including child care as some schools and day cares shut down again from outbreaks…
At heart, there is a massive reallocation underway in the economy that’s triggering a “Great Reassessment” of work in America from both the employer and employee perspectives. Workers are shifting where they want to work — and how. For some, this is a personal choice. The pandemic and all of the anxieties, lockdowns and time at home have changed people. Some want to work remotely forever. Others want to spend more time with family. And others want a more flexible or more meaningful career path. It’s the “you only live once” mentality on steroids. Meanwhile, companies are beefing up automation and redoing entire supply chains and office setups.
The reassessment is playing out in all facets of the labor market this year, as people make very different decisions about work than they did pre-pandemic. Resignations are the highest on record — up 13 percent over pre-pandemic levels. There are 4.9 million more people who aren’t working or looking for work than there were before the pandemic. There’s a surge in retirements with 3.6 million people retiring during the pandemic, or more than 2 million more than expected. And there’s been a boost in entrepreneurship that has caused the biggest jump in years in new business applications…
There is a fundamental mismatch between what industries have the most job openings now and how many unemployed people used to work in that industry pre-pandemic. For example, there are 1.8 million job openings in professional and business services and fewer than 925,000 people whose most recent job was in that sector. Leisure and hospitality, as well as retail and wholesale trade, also have more openings than prior workers, and many workers who lost jobs in those industries have indicated they don’t want to return.
There’s a similar mismatch in education and health services, where there are 1.7 million job openings and only 1.1 million people whose last job was in that sector…
Nationwide, most industries have more job openings than people with prior experience in that sector, Labor Department data show. That’s a very different situation than after the Great Recession, when the number of unemployed far outstripped jobs available in every sector for years. To find enough workers, companies may need to train workers and entice people to switch careers, a process which generally takes longer, especially in fields that require special licenses…
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This thread (read the whole thing!) is… illuminating. And terrifying:
A brief thread on this, using my own place of employment (a restaurant in a fancy hotel, part of a multi-billion dollar hotel group) as a case study.
Currently we’re only open 4 days a week because we’re short-staffed. Why are we short-staffed? Well… https://t.co/oNrK1NrVX4— Hemry, Local Bartender (@BartenderHemry) September 4, 2021
But the policy is good, in theory. In practice, they've chosen to implement it by…forcing the few people who do still live here after a year and a half to *reapply for their jobs and pass a full background check.* Which takes weeks, during which time many people find a new job!
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@BartenderHemry) September 4, 2021
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I hate to push two paywalled articles in one post, but Maahdy is a good interview:
“We have this unique opportunity to make some major changes in the workforce and come back STRONGER.” ?
Read this great @WashingtonPost discussion with @SecMartyWalsh on the state of American labor and what the future may hold.https://t.co/kARWKKeQTS
— The Building Trades (@NABTU) September 1, 2021
… You’re leading the Department of Labor at a major inflection point for the country, with people getting back to work after so many lost jobs during the pandemic — and with the way we work potentially reshaped by the experience. What do you see as the opportunities or as your central mandate in this moment?
This is such a huge opportunity to do things right this time. Whatever the number on the infrastructure plan, it can be transformative for working people. So I view it as an opportunity for us to tackle the toughest issues that, quite honestly, maybe we haven’t tackled directly head-on as an administration. To tackle inequity in the workplace. To tackle wage disparity between women and men. To tackle racial inequities in the workplace and create better pathways.
I’m still kind of figuring out: How much I can push and where I can push and how much we can move forward? The beauty is that I have a president and a vice president who really believe in the mission of the Department of Labor. We have this unique opportunity in front of us to make some major changes in the workforce and to come back stronger. I think you get that opportunity once in a political career or once in a generation. And this is the time.
We’re also at a point where income inequity is at its highest. But during the pandemic, there was a huge reliance on essential workers. Do you think that has changed public opinion, making the ground fertile for revaluing labor?
I hope it does. But I don’t think it’s going to happen unless we stay focused on it. People have short attention spans. Throughout the last year, grocery store workers have been essential workers and almost first responders, if you will, in keeping the shelves stocked and the food there. And then you hear stories of some of these larger chain companies around the country subbing out now and getting independent contractors to deliver the food and deliver the service. Like, how do you do that to a group of employees that kept your doors open through the most difficult time, maybe since the beginning of your store? So I think we have to keep a real focus on our workers. I think we should always raise up our essential workers because, at the end of the day, whether it’s a global pandemic or a blizzard or nor’easter or a hurricane, they’re there. They’re there the day before the hurricane, and they’re there the day after hurricane. They’re always there…
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‘Employers’ have promised / threatened us with AUTOMATIC ROBOT WORKERS since, well, about the time the word was introduced to English speakers…
During the pandemic, labor shortages pushed some employers to try out robots in service jobs once considered impossible to automate. They should create more jobs, but could also leave low-skilled workers behind, by @mattoyeah and @paulwisemanAP https://t.co/QG3uXLn1j3
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 5, 2021
Another Scott
I just heard part of Marketplace Special – The Uncertain Hour – Congratulations! You’re an entrepreneur now!. Excellent.
It’s about people who bought a “franchise” yet were obviously misclassified employees. And how so many large companies are trying to evade their responsibilities using such arrangements.
Well worth a listen.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
“Workers who lost jobs”? I suspect many of these were the employer saying “Sorry, we just don’t have enough business, you have until noon to clear out your locker.”
But it brings a smile to imagine what the former employees now get to say, as the employer tries to get them back.
brendancalling
I’m in education—I’ll be certified by January—but TBH I make more money as a per diem substitute ($130 for a full day, ie anything more than 4.5 hours) than I would as a paraeducator or individual aide. My school has offered me some PT hours but I’m honestly not interested because the pay is so much less.
these folks gotta get with the times.
Alex
You know what Sec Walsh could do to help workers this Labor Day? Issue the enforceable OSHA standard for covid safety they promised we would have in March.
Roger Moore
It seems to me that this is tacitly assuming that being low-skilled is a permanent condition. What it will really do is push a lot of people who were working in low-skilled jobs into either getting those skills or, in the case of people who have been overqualified for their current jobs, into taking advantage of the skills they already have. That second category is a big one. We’ve all heard about young people who leave college with a mound of student debt, only to find they can’t get a job that uses their degree. Now maybe they’ll be able to.
The fundamental problem is that the job has radically changed in the past 18 months. For decades, basically since the dotcom crash, we’ve been working in a world of massive un- and under-employment. There’s an entire generation of HR people who have never learned to deal with having more openings than qualified applicants. Their entire careers have been spent dealing with the opposite problem of trying to filter a massive onslaught of qualified applicants down to a manageable number.
stinger
The WaPo excerpt on the “surge in retirement” doesn’t seem to note the fact that Baby Boomers are in or near retirement anyway. Not dead, but also not working. The size of this cohort means that, for example, the leisure and medical fields must be supported in greater numbers by the smaller generational cohorts who are still working. The pandemic has only exacerbated the shift across industries.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
In the Valley management really pushes recommendations from their staff as an end run around HR. The other part the article doesn’t mention in the program they use only looks at top the 1/3 of the resume too.
Ohio Mom
For some reason, I am thinking about all those gas-bags who go on about how nobody has to be poor, they could all go to college and train for good jobs.
Our system can’t work without poor people. I’m not saying that is admirable but it is the truth. Now we don’t have to treat poor people as badly as we do — raise the minimum wage mightily, make sure everyone has health care and strengthen the safety net all around.
But I find a certain irony in that the people who are taking the most umbrage that there appears to be a shortage of compliant peons are getting a taste of the world they imagine when all those at the bottom finally get the gumption to properly pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
It’s an unworkable system, always has been.
Brachiator
The NPR program Marketplace noted that there were zero net jobs created in the leisure and hospitality sector, according to the most recent jobs report. Within this sector, food service and drinking establishments have seen a decline of 41,000 cooks and wait staff. Most of the decline was due to layoffs.
In the leisure sector, the category called “amusements, gambling and recreation” picked up 31,000 jobs.
There are also reports of rude customers at some restaurants. And in places with outdoor dining, reports of some customers skipping out without paying for their meals. So, overall a less pleasant working environment, even with wage increases in some cities. Along with the continuing threat from Covid variants, recovery here may continue to be slow.
Elsewhere, Covid related relief last year let people younger than age 59 and a half take Covid related early pension distributions without having to pay a penalty. It will be interesting to see whether these people continue with early retirement or try to re-enter the job market.
JustRuss
From that AP tweet:
Citation needed. All the article offers is a vague “well, in the past…”. Aside from that the article isn’t bad, but that tweet is some interesting cherry-picking.
NotMax
Also make note of cases where pre-pandemic workers are being told they’re no longer needed. From late July:
This at a time when cleaning ought to be a paramount priority.
Barry
@Roger Moore: ” There’s an entire generation of HR people who have never learned to deal with having more openings than qualified applicants. Their entire careers have been spent dealing with the opposite problem of trying to filter a massive onslaught of qualified applicants down to a manageable number.”
And an entire generation of HR *managers* who have never managed in that situation, and have to adapt, and adapt on a priority schedule, rather than HR’s “f*ck, there are a million applicants” schedule.
MagdaInBlack
@Barry: There is an entire generation upper management in general who have never had to worry about finding employees. They simply don’t know how to handle the workers having choices. My company refuses to even acknowledge anything has changed
My HR did take the big step of putting BIG sandwich boards out front ” HELP WANTED.” So far it has brought in one person, of about the caliber you would expect from that method. We are offering sign on bonus, which isn’t going down to well with the present employees who stuck it thru the lay-offs, and haven’t see a raise in 10 years.
They refuse to see things have changed.
Brachiator
Pluses and minuses in the job market, from Business Insider.
This last anecdote, if accurate, is unfortunate. You can’t deliberately hire bad workers, even out of desperation, and hope to succeed.
Redshift
I particularly enjoyed all the articles about resort restaurants and other seasonal businesses moaning about not being able to find workers, with no mention of the fact that vast numbers of those jobs are usually filled by foreign workers who were unable to come because of COVID. The same business owners vote for candidates who demagogue against immigrants because they’re “taking our jobs.”
laura
@brendancalling: is the school district unionized? If so, you may be earning more on per diem, but if you were employed, would your work contract count in vesting for benefits and pension? You may be undermining your economic well being by only looking at the wage side. Worth checking out I hope.
Ruckus
It is also quite likely that a number of people in my age bracket decided enough is enough, I’m retiring. Just like I did. The work I did was physical and mental and the physical side is saying enough is enough. I’ve known people with more mental than physical jobs and the same applies to them, I’ve worked enough. Add in Covid and that equation gets even more lopsided.
Now let’s look at the segments behind me. People who still have to work and have seen their work change to accommodate Covid. And become in some ways better. Not necessarily better for their employers but quite possibly yes, better. But change is never accepted easily if it is forced change. And it was/is forced change, so back to the past we go. I’d bet there are many for whom this is the last straw. How many on here say they have become more productive and work better at home and how many of those work for some who think that their control is what produces, over the actual product of the work? Companies are likely going to want to go back to what was and workers are much more likely going to want the new (and now tried) ways. And some jobs can not be done at home. The last 8 yrs I was once again a hands on machinist. You can’t get any of the machines through the front door of my apartment and if you did there is no 3 phase 220 power there to run it. Also I don’t want to live in a machine shop. One job I had before that was in professional sports. The next was in outdoor sports/exercise. We haven’t been doing a lot of that lately. Just an example that not all work is office work at a computer.
Add in commuting, which in most places with large office buildings, and many without, sucks and wastes a lot of unpaid time.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
You are 100% correct, but.
You can’t succeed in most businesses without employees. If you can’t hire good/great employees, in most businesses you will fail. And you may or may not be a great employer but failing still means losing a lot of money and a poor employee may be able to improve/be improved and become a reasonable or even good employee. It’s a risk, but the alternative IS failure. Most small business people I’ve known, or even been, see a positive possibility as better than an absolute negative one. Yes it sometimes fails but sometimes is often a smaller number than always. It’s a different attitude that one needs to be a small business owner, rather than an employee and a big business owner. It’s a huge risk and it sometimes fails for reasons beyond the control of the proprietor.
Brachiator
@Redshift:
Good point, and a reminder that the economy cannot fully recover until the entire world defeats Covid. Also, people forget that even a seasonal job with a good wages might not be enough for people who need a year round job.
The same business owners vote for candidates who demagogue against immigrants because they’re “taking our jobs.”
Some of this is blindness combined with Incredible hypocrisy. The worst business owners often hire foreign workers so that they can pay lower wages and avoid paying overtime, Social Security and other payroll taxes. On the other hand, they only want native born workers if they can pay them as little as possible and exploit them.
You see a variation of this in the UK, where BREXIT supporters wanted strict anti-immigrant policies. So of course you now have a worker shortage and a declining economy.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
I started working at home before the pandemic and absolutely love it. Among other things, the elimination of a long commute has been a gift from the gods.
At my previous company, there were a number of permanent staff who worked at home a few days a week. It seemed to work out fine for everyone.
We should allow for flexibility, where appropriate. I would not work at home if my bosses did not respect work hours or were otherwise jerks.
RE: You can’t deliberately hire bad workers, even out of desperation, and hope to succeed.
Putting up with rude or otherwise bad employees in a restaurant or similar enterprise will quickly put you out of business. You can try to improve a poor employee, but an employee who is rude or belligerent to customers is poison.
There are a couple of local restaurants I go to where the food is just okay, but the service is outstanding. So one of the reasons that I eat there is because I want a pleasant, comfortable experience. But if a server was deliberately rude to me, I would distrust everything about the place, and I would be sure to mention it.
BTW, there is historical precedent for rooting out rudeness.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I wasn’t so much trying to disagree with you, just saying that I’ve been an employer, hiring/firing/hating to see some go/glad to see others gone, signed paychecks and everything. I’ve also hired (and fired) a lot of people to work part time for my job in professional sports. I’ve been on both sides of the aisle and agree that a rude employee makes a food service job far worse. My comment was more of a which is worse, a rude asshole, or no service at all? I can likely get a rude server fired when he dumps food in my lap, I can’t do that if it never gets served. And yes I’ve had a newish server dump a plate of food in my lap, but at least it was out of ineptitude rather than rudeness. And she did offer to clean it up but I declined that offer as I thought it might not go all that well.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
I think that we are mainly on the same page. I would also say that rude service is the same as no service at all. I don’t eat off my lap, and food dumped there by an asshole is not service.
I have complained about rudeness in some places, and have received a refund. If the manager does not commit to improving the issue, they also lose my business.
When I was in one job as a supervisor, I told the staff that they could always come into my office and blow off steam, but they could never be rude or nasty to a customer. Never. At the best companies I worked for, a certain degree of service was, by definition, part of the product.
It was understood that you might not always be able to make a customer happy. But you could never deliberately make a customer unhappy.
This also reflects in how workers should be treated. Once a manager was dressing down an employee in front of me. I told the manager that he was being unnecessarily harsh and also that he should never do this in front of me or another customer because it makes the business look tacky and unprofessional.
I also once asked a server to call the manager over after I finished a meal. The guy was a little nervous, but complied. The manager was a little anxious as well. But I noted that I just wanted to commend the server, who had done an exceptional job (this was a small party with some need for a little more effort), and I wanted to make sure that the manager knew about it. And I left a hefty tip.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Yep, same page, different experiences getting here I think.
Your last two paragraphs are great.
Other than the navy I’ve only worked in one company with more than 9 or 10 employees, so one level of management. That company was a sub of the main one, about 90 employees and we shared office space with them. We had 16 employees. The sub was formed and incorporated from a prior dept of the non profit parent so in some respects many of the current treated us as subordinate. Our second CEO pretty much straightened that out. The big corp also shot it self in the foot by blaming their CEO for a board screw up. He retired and it went downhill from there. I left shortly after that. So in my 60 yrs I got 11 at a medium sized company. And it sounds a lot like any other medium sized company, too big to ignore in it’s field, too small to bother anyone outside of it.
Procopius
@Roger Moore:
I don’t think that’s true for most jobs. I think the problem is that for forty-eight years, since Carter appointed Volcker chairman of the Fed, the Fed has explicitly been limiting the growth of wages, and employers have gotten spoiled. He explicitly started doing it to destroy labor unions under Reagan, but since 1980 the Fed has openly followed the policy of causing a recession any time wages started going up. I remember reading a report from the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee back about 2010 or so. At that meeting they decided not to raise the fed funds rate, but several members expressed worry about “wage inflation.” What I think is going to happen, if Powell stays as Fed chairman, he will fight against raising interest rates, despite moderate inflation (say about 3% over four quarters), until unemployment is down below 4%. They claim to have a policy to maintain inflation around 2%, but it hasn’t reached that level since 2008 and they’ve been keeping Quantitative Easing in effect (which pushes long-term interest rates down) to prop up the stock market. They aren’t going to stop that soon.