A Record Number of Workers Are Quitting Their Jobs, Empowered by New Leverage (washingtonpost.com) 368
The number of people quitting their jobs has surged to record highs, pushed by a combination of factors that include Americans sensing ample opportunity and better pay elsewhere. From a report: Some 4.3 million people quit jobs in August, according to the monthly survey -- about 2.9 percent of the workforce, according to new data released Tuesday from the Department of Labor. Those numbers are up from the previous records set in April and nearly matched in July, of about 4 million people quitting. The phenomenon is being driven in part by workers who are less willing to endure inconvenient hours and poor compensation, quitting at this stage in the pandemic to find better opportunities elsewhere. According to the report, there were 10.4 million job openings in the country at the end of August -- down slightly from July's record high, which was adjusted up to 11.1 million, but still a tremendously high number.
The "quits" numbers include about 892,000 workers in restaurants, bars and hotels, as well as 721,000 workers in retail. An additional 706,000 employees in professional business services and 534,000 workers in health care and social assistance also left jobs. Nick Bunker, economist at the jobs site Indeed, said the numbers were a reflection of the leverage workers have in the current economic market, with job openings outnumbering unemployed workers. The high level of people quitting their jobs was likely due in large part to people leaving jobs to take other positions, although the data doesn't specify why people are quitting and where they are ending up.
The "quits" numbers include about 892,000 workers in restaurants, bars and hotels, as well as 721,000 workers in retail. An additional 706,000 employees in professional business services and 534,000 workers in health care and social assistance also left jobs. Nick Bunker, economist at the jobs site Indeed, said the numbers were a reflection of the leverage workers have in the current economic market, with job openings outnumbering unemployed workers. The high level of people quitting their jobs was likely due in large part to people leaving jobs to take other positions, although the data doesn't specify why people are quitting and where they are ending up.
Burnout. (Score:4, Insightful)
Healthcare could be burnout [youtu.be] as well as vaccine mandates.
Re:Burnout. (Score:5, Informative)
Healthcare could be burnout [youtu.be] as well as vaccine mandates.
My wife is a nurse. There is a huge shortage because nurses are just quitting nursing period. A large percentage are female and young enough to have small children at home. They're quitting to protect their families. My wife gets multiple offers a week to travel to areas that are really short at insane rates (think $170+/hr, plus travel and living expenses for 3-6 month contracts), and they STILL can't hire people.
A side effect of the above is that the nurses doing that can afford to work for 3-6 months, then take the next 6-12 months off, at which point there's one less nurse again.
Re: Burnout. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Burnout. (Score:5, Informative)
Nurses still get shit on. They make them work 12hr shifts; sometimes work a double if there is no relief. And when these overworked nurses make a mistake, the hospitals that fucked them over with long hours throw them under the bus. I watched a nurse have to defend herself in a wrongful death case because she gave the wrong medicine after being made to work a double shift by the hospital. The hospital threw her under the bus, failed to take responsibility for overworking their staff, and fired her to avoid a lawsuit from the deceased family. Had it been a precious, incapable of error, doctor, you would have seen an entirely different approach. In hospitals you are either an MD, or some slave needing a flogging. They have zero respect.
My wife prefers to work 3 or 4 12s (she actually prefers 3 16s, but stopped when we got together) because she gets more days off. She still sometimes picks up shifts on her days off if we don't have plans, because it's all overtime pay at that point.
Maybe brand new nurses or incompetent ones have trouble, but the ones I know can pretty much walk whenever they want if they don't like something, and literally have people begging for them by name the next day. Shitting on the nurses never ends well for the people relieving themselves. :) That said, there have been times recently when circumstances made life difficult - ask my wife about her time in a Covid unit pre-vaccine - but that's not anyone purposely trying to screw them.
Re: Burnout. (Score:4, Interesting)
A friend of mine is a retired surgeon. When I asked him about the ridiculously long shifts, he told me that it was to reduce the number of 'hand-offs' that happen. He claimed that most medical mistakes happen when patients are transferred from one person to another.
You're right about asshole MDs. I have no idea why they're so damned arrogant. You'd think someone who's job requires them to regularly interact with other peoples bodily fluids would show a little more humility!
(Yes, my surgeon friend has the same problem, particularly when you don't immediately accept his opinion as revelation.)
Re: (Score:3)
Right now nurses have some powe
Re:Burnout. (Score:4, Informative)
Surprised they're not bringing in Filipino [youtu.be] nurses.
We are. But not enough. Much of the blame is on Trump's idiotic anti-immigration policies that Biden hasn't yet mustered the political courage to change.
The immigrant Filipina nurses went straight to the front lines of the pandemic: 5% of nurses in America are immigrants from the Philippines, but 30% of nurses who have died from Covid in America were Filipinas.
Re: (Score:3)
I would have thought menial tasks like that would be relegated to less educated / less expensive staff like CNAs, freeing the better educated / more expensive, nurses to do more important things.
Perhaps someone who actually knows something about nursing could help clue the rest of us in. What does the nursing hierarchy look like? Are we short-staffed everywhere, or just the upper tiers? Are facilities increasing nursing salaries across the board, or are they being more selective?
Re:To be fair being a travel nurse is brutal (Score:4, Informative)
Even in the best of times. The real issue though is that colleges and schools have about half as many openings as they have qualified applicants. We defunded the schools in the late 90s and early 2000s so the companies could rely on cheap foreign labor. Not just because the labor is cheaper but because you don't have to pay to educate them, so you can cut funding the schools and pocket that money on the back end in the form of tax cuts.
Uh...foreign labor for medicine isn't cheap. Not one bit. I don't know what communist blog told you all of this, but anybody who actually works in health care will tell you just how full of shit you are.
Also if you're not a travel nurse pay for nurses has been steadily going down outside of a few specialties. That's because Bain Capital style venture Capital firms have been purchasing up all the healthcare providers and hospitals and when there is only one employer in town they can set the wages whether you have a union or not.
And where, pray tell, is this actually happening? Everywhere I've seen, most providers work for independent clinics, often times working for themselves. The particular health care company I work for spans 5 states, and the vast majority of the providers who care for patients at our hospitals don't even work for us, and they bill at their own rates that we don't control (we charge the patients a facility fee and for things like imaging, labs, etc, and the provider or the provider's clinic sends them a separate bill.)
The real solution is to either open the floodgates to unlimited immigration (and tank wages in the process) or to expand the schools and their funding so that we can make up the shortfall. Right now the nurses Union and the doctors unions are just barely powerful enough to keep the floodgates closed
Actually it's really easy for foreign providers to immigrate here, and it doesn't really do anything to wages. I honestly don't even see what possible use a provider could have for a labor union. Many of them practically set their own rules, and so long as they don't break any laws or commit any ethics violations, they usually get their way, especially if they're a surgeon. The providers we do employ get special privileges that regular employees don't, like free food at the cafeterias. Not that I wish to imply that their jobs are easy, they can be quite stressful.
Re:Burnout. (Score:5, Interesting)
The healthcare industry is just better off without any anti-vaxxers in it. Every few years they should have a mandatory placebo vaccination campaign just to weed them out. Make it public knowledge that it's a saline shot with a brand name but then intentionally spread rumors that it has microchips or alien DNA in it for the tinfoil hatters to pick up on.
Re:Burnout. (Score:5, Interesting)
both unethical, and unnecessary.
Many early studies are showing that the covid 19 virus(es) can cause severe harm to human reproductive tissues, especially in men.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]
This is something that researchers were worried about very early on, due to the high expression of ACE2 receptors in human testicular tissue-- see for instance, this communication:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
That is not to say it does not also affect women-- Many early papers on that front indicate that covid infection can cause early female hormonal insufficiency, and can cause damage to Fallopian tubes, others have been indicating that it can seriously complicate pregnancies, etc.
There is no need to add additional vaccinations to this one, then release dangerous pathogens that have been mostly eliminated in modern industrial nations.
This virus appears more than capable of pulling a Darwinian purge all on its own.
Re: (Score:3)
Healthcare could be burnout [youtu.be] as well as vaccine mandates.
We are better off without anyone who works as a nurse and is too stupid to get vaccinated. I have always said stupidity should hurt. Looks like this time it will.
Re:Burnout. (Score:5, Insightful)
Only tested on just under half of all living humans so far! You know, on top of the testing done before it was made available to the public. But keep on living in fear of medically nonsensical super-delayed side-effects or Bill Gates' microchips getting into your brain or whatever. All the more likely you'll collect the Herman Cain award you richly deserve and finally stop spreading disinformation to others. Every person who had the opportunity to be vaccinated and wasn't but died of COVID19 practically died of stupidity, or perhaps was brainwashed to death at best.
Re:Burnout. (Score:4, Informative)
I have, have you?
https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/... [osu.edu]
Re:Burnout. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's an extremely rare side-effect that occurs soon after a vaccination shot. It's not super-delayed, and it's far less likely to send you to the hospital than living in a world with COVID19 circulating while unvaccinated (to say nothing of the risk to others).
But you don't become an anti-vaxxer by having the comprehension/reasoning/risk assessment skills to figure that out...
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Burnout. (Score:5, Informative)
After a few months, the odds of any further side-effects revealing themselves are practically zero:
https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/... [osu.edu]
Super-delayed side-effects are a medically nonsensical concept imagined by quacks who want to sell you snake oil or want to sell your eyeballs to advertisers through a disinformation show.
Re:Burnout. (Score:4, Informative)
None of those were pulled off of the market because of any super-delayed side-effects. Zantac was pulled off the market because of storage safety issues and Belviq was pulled off the market due to the same carcinogenicity that caused it to fail FDA approval previously. Great demonstration of the anti-vaxxer intellect again.
Re: Safer alternatives (Score:3)
Re:Burnout. (Score:5, Informative)
For not even a little over a year. Can't wait to find out there are some ramifications due to this vax 5-10yr down the road
In the entire history of vaccinations, there has never been a symptom that took more than a month to appear. Almost all of them appear in a week.
You're spending way too much reading shitty Facebook content instead of science.
There is a reason that drug trials and vax trials go on for years before approval.
Yes. Paperwork and bureaucracy. Study participants are typically followed for 6 months. Maybe a year.
Re:Burnout. (Score:5, Informative)
In the entire history of vaccinations, we were not using a mutagenic medical technology
We still aren't. mRNA is not a mutagen. You can't use it to change DNA without reverse transcriptase, as well as a few enzymes to transport it into the nucleus, and we don't make either. Nor does the vaccine contain one.
Google Moderna Crigler-Najjar
Damn, if only there was some way you could actually provide a link to what you think is valuable information. Because all I see [google.com] is a bunch of press releases about trying to treat a rare genetic disorder.
Lo and behold, the only country actually tracking this shit
No matter how much you don't want it to exist, VERS exists.
You are lying. And literally killing people.
Re: Burnout. (Score:5, Informative)
There is a reason that [...] vax trials go on for years before approval.
Yes, and that reason is not super-long-term effects.
It has to do with the fact thay typical vaccines protect against infections that are dangerous enough, but your're not particularly likely to get. Infecting people on purpose is not ethical, but you need infected people to do statistics. So you have to wait years until enough cases pop up by chance in your trial, respectively control group, to actually make a statistically robust study out of it.
Re:Burnout. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand people like you. You're afraid of the long-term effects of a vaccine that is largely safe, but you are not afraid of the long term effects of a virus that has been proven harmful? What are you thinking?
Re: Burnout. (Score:3)
Re:Burnout. (Score:5, Informative)
mRNA vaccines were developed, and tested, in response to SARS and MERS. Took about a decade.
That's why they could be developed so quickly for COVID. All they had to do was change the mRNA payload.
Re:Burnout. (Score:4, Interesting)
Took about a decade.
Decade? Mate we've been researching these and doing lab test with mRNA vaccines and treatments since the early 90s and doing theoretical research on it for even longer than that.
People just never read popular science magazines and are surprised when products are released as if by magic. And not just vaccines, but any product.
Re: (Score:3)
That's the really cool thing about the tech. Basically, it's programmable.
I read a more technical description of the mRNA load and it seems it is remarkably like submitting a program to an old batch system, complete with JCL cards specifying when and where it should run and where the output should go and a trailer card indicating the submission is complete.
Re: Burnout. (Score:3)
Re:Burnout. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all about me, me, me these days, who cares if someone else gets sick.
Yup. Nothing says you don't give a fuck about anyone else that being unvaccinated and wanting to work in health care. It's really a mind blowing level of douchebaggery.
Well.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Time to raise some wages
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the things I wish folks could see is that one of the main jobs of a C-level (CEO, CIO, etc, etc) is to keep wages low and productivity high. These people are not your friends giving you cool stuff ala Iron Man. They're captains of industry more in the vein of British Sea captains who used to shanghai people and throw them overboard if they didn't work hard enough. With the 20th century equivalent being unemployment ending in homelessness.
They're still making money (Score:3)
But if they raise pay enough to attract workers (many who have small children and can't afford child care, given that it's easily $1200+/mo for the stuff and they've still got to have transportation to get to work, many were basically working for free) that's permanent. You can cut pay, but it basically tanks moral and nobody does muc
Re: (Score:3)
Or the employers will have to accept people with no experience and train them. I have recently seen some entry level positions that only require two years experience, down from five years as of last spring, but there was one idiot ad I saw this morning for an entry level job that required 8 (yes, eight) years previous experience.
Management really wants to reset those wages back to the glory days of 2009.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus most Western Democracies have better wages for fast food workers than the US, and the cost of a burger isn't significantly different. McDonald's workers in Denmark make around $22 an hour as a result of heavily unionized de facto minimum wages set in the country, on top of other benefits. Despite this a Danish Big Mac is $5.15 - it's currently on average about $4.80 in the US. (sauce [newsweek.com])
It's almost as if labor costs only make up a small fraction of the cost of goods... hmmm.
It also remind me of Papa John's former CEO throwing a fit over some of the added costs that Obamacare would bring. He complained it'd force them to raise the cost of pizza's by 5 cents -- a WHOLE Five pennies. How would anyone afford pizza's then?! /s
Re: (Score:3)
Most McDonalds are franchises, not some big corporate O&O. Franchise owners set their own labor rates and menu pricing (mostly...some national sales campaigns may tie their hands on some menu items) and have to strike a balance between profit and sales volume. The latter can get them perks from the franchiser so there's an incentive to keep prices where the demand is.
Even so, I know of some franchise operators that are advertising starting wages at $18/hr right now (in So Cal) because they're starving f
Re: (Score:3)
This. It demonstrates that in spite of crying poverty for years, the money has always been there, they just preferred to pay slave wages and put it in their own pockets.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think most of you know how razor thin restaurants' profits are after taking into account food costs, labor and overhead....
Hint: They ain't making a ton of money there.
Just like gas stations only make a penny profit on a full tank of gas.
Meanwhile two of the same convenience stores near me has a 50 cent difference in the price of gasoline.
Re: (Score:3)
> Meanwhile two of the same convenience stores near me has a 50 cent difference in the price of gasoline.
Better than a Kanye West difference.
Re:Well.. (Score:4, Insightful)
At Blue Cross, administrative overhead (AKA Executive compensation) was over 40% of income recently according to their own SEC filings. Compare and contrast that with Medicare, whose administrative overhead is in the single digits. Or with any nationalized health care plan.
Re:Well.. (Score:4, Insightful)
A job is worth what the job market can bear, which is an artificial number pushed down as hard as possible by the employer.
Doesn't much matter what you think something is worth. All that matters is whether people will pay what it is offered at.
Re: (Score:2)
When the whole world changes we can't expect the old ways to keep working. A lot of old wisdom has become fantasy.
Poor pay, poor conditions (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies have been squeezing employees since 2010. In addition to not granting raises as productivity increased, they increased expected hours, reduced benefits, including time off, healthcare (by upping your contributions), pension etc.
People are not happy at work, so they quit.
You want to keep your employees? You have to forget about squeezing them for everything they are worth. If you want them to work like a starving dog chasing a rabbit, you need to treat them like a prize winning Westminster dog.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What you say is true, but I would like to point out that companies have been treating people like this since time began. The only relief was for a brief period during the 50's and 60's in the USA, when UNIONS ensured prosperity, which eventually trickled out to everyone. Globalization is a naked attempt to break them, and convert the US working class into a bunch of indebted serfs.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Poor pay, poor conditions (Score:5, Informative)
Companies have been squeezing employees since 2010. In addition to not granting raises as productivity increased, they increased expected hours, reduced benefits, including time off, healthcare (by upping your contributions), pension etc.
2010? Try 1973. Wage stagnation [epi.org] has been a menace for decades, starting when executive compensation was tied to stock market performance rather than company performance.
Re: (Score:2)
starting when executive compensation was tied to stock market performance rather than company performance.
There's almost no one concerned with the company actually making money. It's almost like the whole thing is a shell game with stocks and the businesses are all fake.
You're close (Score:2)
We didn't notice because we benefited from the
Re: (Score:2)
Companies have been squeezing employees since 2010
2010? You are joking right? Try since 1965. But it really took off in 1980 with the advent of "trickle down" economics and tax cuts for the rich and corporations.
Re: (Score:2)
Companies have been squeezing employees since 2010.
Since 2010? Bah. Check out 2nd graph [epi.org] which shows this started in 1973.
decades (Score:4, Insightful)
Decades of employers forcing employees to perform more and more work for less and less compensation is catching up to them. Gee, now they may even have to pay a living wage for people to do the sh*t jobs. I wonder, where are all those "illegal immigrants" who used to take any crappy gig you had for whatever you wanted to so graciously give them?
A shit job at $15-$20 an hour (Score:3)
is way better than a shit job at whatever minimum wage in that state is for that position.
And since demand seems way up for a lot of white collar jobs, if you hate where you work, your management and/or your co-workers, why not just leave for more money?
Food for thought.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary references 120m people in the work-pool. A quick Google shows the GDP at $21t.
Quick math, subtract some zeros, 21 000 000dollars / 120people = $175 000 dollars/person (yearly). So, the average American produces $175 000 per yer. What's the median wage/salary, again?
Re: (Score:3)
68,000/yr if you count everyone older than 21 and younger than 70.
104,000/yr if you count non felons, collage educated, in risk taking jobs.
168,000/yr for those who run a sole proprietorship and employee other people.
250,000/yr plus for anyone who pust more than 10 million dollars of personal wealth towards investments.
A good 2/3s of all people are doing nothing productive today.
3/4 of those 1/3 of those working are taking very little professional risk. 75 Million
1/3 of those
Re: (Score:2)
A good 2/3s of all people are doing nothing productive today.
Please don't tell my boss.
Re: (Score:2)
You have to use median salary, because executive compensation throws off the mean by too much.
Re: (Score:3)
Mix-and-matching mean average and median is not going to lead you to insight.
Yes it will. It's precisely the right thing to do in this case. The combination of median and mean is the only way to show how many people are getting less than an equal share. You then work from this equal share, and your a priori notion of what would be a just share, to figure out how far we are from fairness.
What is the leverage? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you have a place to live that is paid off, or paid for by someone else. And healthcare insurance is provided, and you can get on SNAP benefits for food expenses, the incentive to put up with BS work is eliminated. The incentive to work and educate yourself is always there .. but being forced to do work in bad conditions sucks. That's why we need robots and their "paychecks" for work performed should be redirected to Universal Basic Income funding. You can't have an advanced society without robots and uni
Re: (Score:3)
I think a lot of people don't realize early that the number 1 priority in life should be a fully paid off house.
Based on what? I mean I agree with you I paid off my house as well, but I don't pretend I wouldn't have been better off taking all of my money throwing it in an indexed fund and instead continuing to pay rent. If I did that I'd be financially far better off than as a home owner.
Hardship has this effect on people (Score:4, Insightful)
For most of those quitters, it's probably the coronavirus and the confinement and all that jazz. I bet they all reflected back on their jobs and their lives and many went "You know what? I only have one life and one chance to enjoy it and I ain't got no time for workplace bullshit."
For me it was the big C. When I got it, I realized all those hours at work are hours I will not have spent with my family, or enjoying myself while I was still young. Since then, I'm not spending one more minute than necessary at work unless I'm adequately compensated (and if I feel like it too).
My employer knows full well I'm only here because I have too, because I disclosed it during my interview. If he's not happy with what I do and how I do it, or if he's getting pushy, he can piss right off. And I told him as much too.
For me that was 20 years ago. For many people, young and old, the epiphany is now after the COVID crisis.
On the other hand... (Score:2)
Sure, if you're working in a below-standards job, and have skills that are more valuable elsewhere, go for it. A lot of people can do that.
For example, you could probably step into a job as a truck driver with minimal effort, and there's a massive shortage of drivers right now. Not the easiest job ever, but the pay's a lot better than fast food drudgery.
However, I know some of the people who have quit "to get a better job" but who have zero skills outside of menial jobs. Not a lot of people, but enough to n
Contracting economy (Score:2)
If this is indication of anything, it's that of economy entering vicious cycle of contraction.
Re: (Score:2)
One Question (Score:2)
Is there just massive turnover like an employment Ouroboros? [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Roughly 3.4M people "left the labor pool" in the US due to COVID. Some died. Some have long-lasting symptoms and thus are now disabled. Some were providing services like childcare, but mom or dad have to stay home now that Grandma died - daycare costs more than one low-wage paycheck.
For scale, 3.4M is about the number of workers in the entire fast food industry. [bls.gov]
The labor pool before COVID was about 164M [wikipedia.org]. Losing something like 2% of the labor pool means a lot of people "moved up" to better jobs. That's
The pendulum swings (Score:5, Interesting)
For opportunists, this is quite frankly an awesome turn of events. People leave my field, I'm suddenly in higher demand than I was before. The simple and obvious result: I was able to negotiate a much higher pay raise during my last job transition than I ever could have gotten, otherwise... and I didn't even have to try very hard, as I had several potential employers actively courting me. In fact, the final result of the search was, I actually took a job that paid a little less than the competing offer, because it was already enough money for me to be quite content, and I just didn't want to do the much longer commute to that other job. The recruiter for the competing company was actually quite baffled at my decision -- but hey, work/life balance is important, people. If I can be financially comfortable and not have to drive an extra two to three hours each day... ummmm, yeah, I'll take that shorter commute, please. (I know, I know... not everyone sees things the same way I do. I'm okay with that.)
But the pendulum swings. To employers, this is merely a temporary setback, and they're already calculating their next moves; they know as well as we do, that the vast majority of the unplanned employee departures are highly likely to return to the work force, most probably in very similar jobs, within the next year or so. The large number of job openings will dwindle again. And so will the pay rates -- in-so-much as inflation allows.
Which is to say: the negotiating power won't last forever. If you're in a position to (and of a mind to) take advantage of the current situation, act quickly.
Re: (Score:3)
that the vast majority of the unplanned employee departures are highly likely to return to the work force, most probably in very similar jobs
This is unlikely. We are watching a mass social/attitude shift right now, the ones that only occur every 2-3 generations. In the same way, the silent generation became super thrifty (after living and suffering through the Great Depression), people living through this pandemic will change how they see work and start valuing things differently (their lives, for instance.)
Whether that's ultimately good or bad, that's a different question. Employers banking on returning to a "normal" that was dysfunctional ar
There's more to this than what some seem to think (Score:3)
The "mystery" always seems to be that question of; "Why are the people quitting and where are they ending up?"
If so many are quitting because wages are too low for them or their workplace sucks? Well, it shouldn't make the total employment numbers change if they move to a better paying job someplace else. And it shouldn't really cause a situation where people feel like everyone's hiring either -- because all we did is shift WHO someone works for. Someone got to take down the "Help wanted" sign that the other guy has to put up, right?
Yet that's not what we're seeing. The problem is, when COVID struck, you had a lot of older people in the workforce who had the ability to retire but didn't want to. They wanted some supplemental income to their social security or just wanted to stay active by working a basic job in fast food or retail. But many of them decided the threat of the virus was a good reason to go ahead and retire fully. Even the older workers in better paying positions in many industries decided to just give up and do an early retirement. (If you worked in, say, corporate travel or entertainment or assisted with putting on big corporate events/gatherings -- your client-base dropped to basically zero last year. Was it worth losing money left and right for at least a years' time, with no certainty your industry would rebound vs it happening again in waves, or was it better to just "cash out"? Many took the second option.)
We don't have as many younger workers in the workforce as the previous generation had, so this is starting to leave a gap.
The added unemployment pay is indirectly or partially to blame here, IMO. But that's just because it provided a "cushion" that made the transition out of the workforce easier to do. Those that took advantage of it out of laziness (and there were a LOT who did, including some people I know really well) still had to come back to work as soon as those extra funds dried up. Their bills didn't stop just because the extra $600 on each unemployment check did.
Ultimately? We've got a lot of opportunists who want to spin this as being about a need to pay better for jobs X and Y. But many places HAVE upped pay considerably and still aren't getting applicants. Dollars per hour only have relative worth. No matter what you artificially inflate pay to for a given job, things ALWAYS pan out so people's buying power is relative to the worth of the labor they're performing. Make it the new norm for flipping burgers to be worth $20/hr. and you'll find everything else works its way up similarly. The "higher pay" still buys a person no more than they could ever buy from wages doing the burger flipping job. (Only reason people can provide anecdotes to argue the opposite is the fact that this doesn't happen immediately or in a linear fashion. Change the pay overnight for a job, and the "fallout" will take a little while to become obvious.)
I think we simply have an acceleration of a reduced total labor pool that was going to happen anyway as the older people died off or retired.
Re:Had this conversation with a haircutter yesterd (Score:4, Insightful)
Too bad they can't pay a decent living wage. Last time i checked, nobody is getting rich on the dole. Just getting by. Even less so while working.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Had this conversation with a haircutter yesterd (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's funny when capitalism actually happens to capitalists. They squeal a lot.
If the job you are offering *is* the bottom (and not the dole) then you have a problem. Your business sucks and should go out of business. The working class in the US has been getting their haircut since 1980, it's the upper class' turn.
Business Insider: Since 1970, median worker pay is up 26%, adjusted for inflation. Executive/owner pay is up ~300% using the same inflation metric.
Hence, pay up or shut up.
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I think it's funny when capitalism actually happens to capitalists. They squeal a lot.
If the government increases welfare, then it's not really capitalism happening here. And what I squeal about is the government using my taxes so that more people can avoid work.
Your business sucks and should go out of business.
They will if this goes on, but people refusing to do hair cuts for so little will need to find out another line of work.
Executive/owner pay is up ~300% using the same inflation metric.
I don't think that applies to hair salons, honestly.
Hence, pay up or shut up.
Sure, but if the salary increase is enforced by the government "competing" with low paying jobs, the worker pay *adjusted for inflation* will not increase. It just
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burger flippers, until recently for some reason, were known to be starter jobs for kids.
Shouldn't kids be in school during the lunch rush?
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Minimum acceptable standard of living is not feed a family of four and buy a house. It's have a very tiny(by today's standards) single bedroom/studio apartment and be able to afford enough basic staples to be food secure if cooking for yourself. This means lots of beans and rice and a relatively unchanging diet. It does not mean have enough money to blow a couple hundred on entertainment each month. and buy that big screen tv and have enough money for a phone contract that gets you the latest iPhone.
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the Original Min Wage($.25 in 1937) is roughly worth about 5 dollars in today's dollars.
"Living wage" is a nebulous term, and thus meaningless other than to invoke particular emotions
Likewise, so is "fair share".
Parasites are those at both ends of the income schedule. Those that drain welfare and those that are using corporate welfare. The vast middle class ends up being eaten by both. At some point (which we may be at) the middle class just disappears and what's left are the parasites at each end pointing
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Re:Had this conversation with a haircutter yesterd (Score:5, Informative)
The enhanced benefits ended September 6th. You aren't eligible if you simply quit your job. These people are delusional and just don't understand that they can't hire people for less than a living wage anymore.
You can still hire for less than a living wage (Score:3)
See, if you're a woman with kids daycare is $1200+/mo. Add a car to get to work (nobody'll hire you without one) and factor in taxes and the cost of the occasional meal out when you and the hubby are just too exhausted to cook for the kids and bare minimum you need to gross around $1800/mo to break even on work. That's $11.25/hr if you can get 160 hours/month.
Most of these jobs after raising their pay are pay
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we haven't got any real information yet on what peoples behavior is post enhanced unemployment.
We have some real information. Like every fast food place in town still having a "Now Hiring" sign. They have to actually compete in the labor market for once. And there are better options for a lot of people who had been stuck for a long time. And yes, part of that is thanks to people retiring - they weren't retiring from McDonald's.
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Ok..please, examples of all the better opportunities.
I mean, what other, higher paying job is someone with only a HS education (or less) that was flipping burgers previously going to get?
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You're assuming people with higher education degrees were already finding jobs in their chosen careers. But a lot were waiting on a mass Boomer retirement to move everyone up a rung, which was sped up quite a bit with the pandemic.
But also, trucking. If I was working fast food, I would have jumped on a CDL course ASAP.
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Seems like maybe there are opening throughout the economy, or at least lower tiers of it, so a lot of people are quitting the bottom rung.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/0... [cnbc.com]
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Its not hard for net employment to go up; after months of pandemic induced layoffs; I'll wait for adjusted data (ie corrected) information for the DOL and other sources to come in before I move off my admittedly bias assumptions. You know what, I'd love to be wrong too, should the story prove to be that we created so many new jobs we just cleared out the bottom rung - that would great!
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You keep assuming there are all these unemployed people. I know a lot of people who have found better jobs in the last year, but none who are still unemployed.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Had this conversation with a haircutter yesterd (Score:4, Insightful)
Treat the people who do the actual work in a country as worthless, and their jobs as worthless,
The other possibility is a lot of this work really was worthless or nearly so. Hair cutting is a perfect example. During the pandemic my wife and I started cutting each others hair. Neither of us are pros by any stretch but after first attempts (thankfully while everyone was ordered to stay at home anyway) and some youtube videos we both can do an acceptable job of it. Might not look as good as walking out the barbers shop but indistinguishable after a weeks growth or so.
Conclusion there was never much value in professional haircut, its only worth it if its dirt cheap, or maybe its a luxuary you get before attending a big infrequent event or something but its not the every couple month routine activity it once was and may never be again.
Same thing with fast-food, a lot places around here STILL have their dining rooms closed, but the drive thru is wrapped around the parking lot. People are obviously content to eat in their cars, at home, in the park etc. Why should the restaurant go back to cleaning tables and rest rooms etc? They can charge as much for the food without having to deal with any of that overhead; which based on the fact the customers are back they did not really value!
Guess what make people hit pause for year habits change. Things get reassessed, people figure out what was and wasn't important. As to why customers are hostile, I am paying for an experience for example when I go out to eat. If you have some bullshit mask policy that makes it unpleasant you bet I am not going to be happy about it. Now I am not into harassing people so I'll probably just politely say "well that's unfortunate you have such a policy I am going to leave, please tell your manager why I am spending my money elsewhere" but it does not surprise me other people choose to get confrontational instead. Of course you charge enough and pay enough that those employees feel covid - is wotth the risk - but than people probably also will just decide its to expensive and not worth while.
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Those "dirt cheap" hair cuts cost as much as the haircutters make in an hour, and they can probably do several in that time. They get pennies, even after you account for overhead.
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Conclusion there was never much value in professional haircut, its only worth it if its dirt cheap, or maybe its a luxury you get before attending a big infrequent event or something but its not the every couple month routine activity it once was and may never be again.
Comparative Advantage ("widely regarded as one of the most powerful yet counter-intuitive insights in economics") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] explains why your analysis is incomplete. Basically, you will be better off -- and the economy as a whole will be better off -- if you spend your time doing what you're most best at. For instance if your job pays higher than a hairdresser, you should spend your hours earning that higher rate of money and delegate the haircutting to someone else.
They can charge as much for the food without having to deal with any of that overhead; which based on the fact the customers are back they did not really value!
No restaurant (sa
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Because I can tell you one which didn't. The USA.
Here ya go [hhs.gov]. Where the US has tracked adverse reactions to vaccines for decades. Including myocarditis.
You are lying, and literally killing people.
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What an old tirade.
If the jobs you offer pay less than unemployment, your business sucks and you deserve bankruptcy. Stop whining about lazy workers.
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She said "They are all staying home and collecting unemployment. Why work when the government will pay you not to? Some are also doing some under the table side jobs".
The federal unemployment program ended Labor Day. [usatoday.com] Some states ended them much earlier. [cnbc.com] They should be breaking down the door looking for jobs by now!
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My wife's parents would ask their hairdresser about this, but he died of COVID. Cutting hair is one of the riskier jobs right now. I don't blame people for looking for different jobs. Blame unemployment because that's the FOX talking point, but it's not true.
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Did you ask your haircutter how much she's offering employees in salaries and benefits?
Or maybe ask her if unemployment is so great, why doesn't she close up shop and just collect benefits herself?
> So these numbers reflect the fact that given the choice between working and getting paid to not work
Or maybe they reflect that people would rather take a chance quitting and trying to find a job that won't work them like slaves for a barely subsistence wage.
=Smidge=
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So these numbers reflect the fact that given the choice between working and getting paid to not work, many people will choose the latter. I'm shocked, just shocked.
Staying home posting on Slashdot while the government pays for it. I'm shocked, just shocked.
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"Empowered" by sit'n on the couch checks and eviction moratoriums.
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Dear Russian troll, In the future remember they're called either barbers or beauticians not haircutters in the United States.
And you are called "asshole" everywhere