Where are all the workers and how are they supporting themselves?

[Cairo94507]

Then when they actually get a job, they do nothing. They believe their job is just going to work and standing around doing nothing.

China took the USA off the map without firing a shot thanks to COVID. They have ruined an entire generation of kids who will be ignorant and unable to support themselves.

[cstreit]

THis is really an interesting question and I've wondered the same.

...by now unemployment has run out, I'm sure they aren't all on welfare, so what are they doing for money? A few theories I've hears:

1. With the raise in min wage across the board ($15 is norm right now) they are working less hours. (though with inflation I wonder if this makes sense)

2. reduction in immigration numbers means we can't support the increase in jobs.

[cockerpunk]

they died, retired, or they went on to do other things.

how is this still a question? and how is 2000 dollars 2 years ago somehow to blame?

[GH85Carrera]

Back during one of the big oil booms in the 1980s in Oklahoma the oil patch was hiring everyone with the ability to breath, at crazy salaries. Long before the internet we would put adds on the want ad section of the newspaper. The only responses we got, and I do the only, were from prisoners the would start with "I be presently incarcerated, but I be getting out soon and I needs a job" and we always declined. We were never that desperate.

The oil boom went bust, and suddenly we had people walking in looking for any job at all.

[Paul T]

Originally Posted by dw1

No mystery. The lack of medical benefits, the lack of job security, the lack of a predictable steady income, and most of all COVID caused a lot of people in the hospitality industry to realize the downside of that industry and get into other fields.

I personally know of three folks who used to work in restaurants pre-covid and never will again. One is now a bookkeeper and working toward being an accountant, another went to a local county college program during covid and is now a radiology tech, and the other is working on a business degree while working part-time in a warehouse job.

People are moving up the ladder, or just plain pushing themselves - working harder and getting a good education - so they can get better jobs (and filling the job voids left by all the retiring boomers).

^^This. People are still working, they are just doing different things. I think COVID caused a lot of people to reevaluate their career choice or take a chance and try other things.

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by Gogar

Sounds like a great deal where an employee would get to share a percentage of profits and not have to share the risk of failure

Then they could be just like corporations.

Originally Posted by dan88911

Don't worry soon the illegal immigrants will fill these jobs.

Don't be ridiculous Dan


They brought all these illegal aliens to do the jobs that Americans won't do(such a thing does not exist, BTW)

They forgot one thing.

The illegal aliens get such excellent benefits, they do not have to work.

[epbrown]

Originally Posted by Paul T

^^This. People are still working, they are just doing different things. I think COVID caused a lot of people to reevaluate their career choice or take a chance and try other things.

Yep. A lot of people in the sort of low pay, dead-end jobs looking to be filled now tended to stay there due to inertia - they just didn't change jobs. The pandemic forced them to look for something else and, lo and behold, they discovered they could do better than minimum wage.

What's weird is that this is somehow a problem now. Whenever there's talk of making the minimum wage something people could actually live on, people come out of the woodwork saying how those jobs aren't supposed to be held by people trying to make a living. You get some white-haired senator explaining that minimum wage is for high school kids serving milkshakes and burgers to Richie and the Fonz down at Arnolds to save up for college, like they did after WW2.

Well, here we are. The system works!

[dan88911]

You maybe correct tobra
sooner or later all these non working young Americans are going to learn a tough lesson
Being old and poor is not a pleasant life

[cockerpunk]

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

So all the people with limited skills that worked fast food, labor places, etc moved on to desk jobs?
Really?
The labor force we are talking about is gone.
The restaurants and labor places CANT find employees.
I personally have not ever seen help wanted signs in great numbers in every state that I have been on in the last couple of years.
This is a very new thing.
Way back in the early 80s I did see a few in TX every time I visited it.
This was odd, now they are everywhere.
This is the point-these workers have disappeared.

what is surprising about service sector people getting **** on for decades and through a pandemic, and being told to get better jobs if they dont want to be **** on ... and then they do?

[Tobra]

Maybe?

[cstreit]

Originally Posted by cockerpunk

they died, retired, or they went on to do other things.

how is this still a question? and how is 2000 dollars 2 years ago somehow to blame?

I really don’t think so. Look at the demographic of most service workers…

Mid 20’s so they didn’t die or retire. They didn’t en masse become qualified for office work…. I haven’t seen any data to suggest this happened because this was my first supposition as well.

[Arizona_928]

Originally Posted by epbrown

Yep. A lot of people in the sort of low pay, dead-end jobs looking to be filled now tended to stay there due to inertia - they just didn't change jobs. The pandemic forced them to look for something else and, lo and behold, they discovered they could do better than minimum wage.

What's weird is that this is somehow a problem now. Whenever there's talk of making the minimum wage something people could actually live on, people come out of the woodwork saying how those jobs aren't supposed to be held by people trying to make a living. You get some white-haired senator explaining that minimum wage is for high school kids serving milkshakes and burgers to Richie and the Fonz down at Arnolds to save up for college, like they did after WW2.

Well, here we are. The system works!

yeah until early teenage influencers that are millionaires and that YouTube child that just open presents for millions a year...

[epbrown]

Originally Posted by Arizona_928

yeah until early teenage influencers that are millionaires and that YouTube child that just open presents for millions a year...

That's a tiny percentage of the demographic. I'll admit that damn near every teen I know is attempting that with Youtube, Instagram, and Tik-tok, but they're working regular jobs until it happens.

[cockerpunk]

Originally Posted by cstreit

They didn’t en masse become qualified for office work

thats exactly what happened.

[gsxrken]

I’ve always thought that the restaurant and small store owners had huge balls, dealing with all a business entails and busting their ass for a modest return. They represented nice options and choices for the rest of us… we were lucky they bothered. They’re disappearing and it’s hard to blame them.

[fintstone]

Originally Posted by cockerpunk

thats exactly what happened.

Hardly. We are rapidly approaching the numbers of the era preceding women/wives leaving the home to work.

[Sooner or later]

More recent data

[nvr2mny]

Originally Posted by 3rd_gear_Ted

All any business has to do is to offer a "piece of the pie" instead of fixed wages and you would have workers in a heart beat. People aren't stupid anymore, they know your margins and want a piece of it, but you won't share. Thank yourself and your narrow minded entrenched approach to employees and their worth.

Ted, you’re a special kind of stupid and know NOTHING of what I do or how I think, other than despising democrats. Are you a producer, or a taker? I am assuming the latter.

[tadd]

Kids today just don’t want things. My youngest who is 30 is a nascar nut. Does the video racing league and goes to races once in a while. Has a older versa he keeps up with, but no desire for something’ special’.

I think it’s a reevaluation of what is wanted in life.

Asked him about a future home and he’s more inline with my smaller 1100 square foot resto home rather than the 2100 foot one he has known all his life.

Don’t want stuff, don’t need nearly as much money.

Million dollar 4000 foot homes have always been nuts.

[3rd_gear_Ted]

The top 10 states with the highest resignation rates include Georgia in first, followed by Kentucky, Tennessee, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Alaska and Louisiana.

The 10 lowest resignation rates came from California in 42nd, followed by Washington, Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and New York.