Why is there so much job vacancy rate now?

90s guy wrote:

Film Rep wrote:

It had a lot to do with covid shutdowns and a lot to do with schools going remote and a lot to do with free money (rental assistance and welfare and extra covid programs) allowing people to survive and not work. 🤷‍♂️

How much free money are we talking about? I received a few thousand dollars total in “covid money.” However how does one survive on just a few thousand dollars a year? Do these people “not working because of free money” not have cars, cell phones, tv…? They live in rent free apartments and stare at the wall all day? Something just doesn’t add up?

1) Get on a rental assistance program or Section 8. Then rent out a room.

2) Get on food stamps

3) Get utility assistance

4) Netflix and chill

A hamster that runs tends to continue to run.

Pandemic stopped us.

The great resignation seems to say what I used to do does not pay enough. I want more (quality of life).

A massive recalibration of wages and higher standard of life is taking place.

USA was known to be a 'service' economy. We have an unemployment of 6M. Service sector needs 11M. The government over help during Covid is going the wrong way. People don't have enough incentive to work - they can do crypto now, gig now, nft now, alternatives that are stay at home. Covid made more digital opportunities.

Care crisis. An example would be a preschool caregiver. Makes $20 an hour. That's a hard line says the owners. Well, alternative jobs pay more than that and don't have exposure to Covid. Have benefits etc. so, we have lost the ability to have affordable childcare.

Supply chain crisis. Truck drivers need want more than 100k to be away from their families weeks at a time.

The structure of the economy has changed. The wage of the in person needs to go up to accommodate for other opportunity cost. Wage inflation will happen.

sthr wrote:

Most of the posts on this thread seem to be nothing but speculation.

Anyone have actual hard data? I'll accept "lazy people living off government $$" if there are reliable data to back that up; but won't accept it based solely on assertions and "I think."

Here is your data. In FY 2020, the US Government spent 6.5 Trillion dollars. That money went somewhere. Roughly 1/3 of the US Economy was government spending. Inflation is a biotch. It can screw with labor markets and supply chains and demand. 🤔

Some people are used to not having any money, and they only work a job to pay for their minimum stuff.

Let's say someone is in a situation that they either have free rent (living with a family member) and just work a job for some side things. Or maybe they live in a cheap part of the country where rent is only $500 a month for them, or $6k per year. During Covid people with minimum wage jobs were literally making more money from unemployment than they used to from working, this lasted months. The unemployment in general would last more than 6 months. Then add in a few thousand dollars of stimulus checks. So they made more than a years worth of money without even working. They do not have many costs, they still have a little bit left over and don't need a job yet.

Case two, imagine someone who had never gone on unemployment before, Covid happens and they go on unemployment for the first time. They realize how easy it is to not work and still get a check. Unemployment runs out, they get a new job just long enough that they can leave it again and get unemployment again. Like a drug addict, except it's an unemployment addict, just doing enough work to stop again and get the free money.

Case three, someone who once worked part time at a restaurant or whatever. They only worked that job because they wanted to make $5k-$10k in a year to help pay with something while they either go to school or supplement retirement, or whatever. But Covid unemployment increases and stimulus checks gave them more than that amount of money without even needing to work, so why work if they already got the money?

As a result, there's a shortage of people working. Less is getting done. Some prices increase because they are expected to make the same amount of money as a company, but they have less output due to fewer workers.

Similar thing is happening in China, they made that rule that they could only have one or two kids. Well now they have a ton of old people who are retired and not working, and the working age people are too low in numbers to get enough stuff done and care for the old people. A society needs people to work, there are things that need to get done. You can't consume services and goods if no one is working to provide them.

There are millions of Haitians, Afghanis, and Mexicans who want to come here. With 11 million open jobs and seemingly no one to fill them, perhaps it's time to open the flood gates. I fear our economy will completely stagnate if we can't get those jobs filled.

Big business LOVES these vacancy numbers. Puts the final nail in the coffins of mom and pop shops so that eventually there will be zero competition. Oh, so you played video games in your parents basement for the last 5 years? Come work at Amazon where thou shalt have no God before Bezos. And then post on letsrun about how your mom's basement internship was, like, so much more helpful.

It's still a bit of a mystery to economists. The phenomenon is occurring in states with generous COVID benefits, and states with significantly less generous benefits or states that cut the benefits much earlier.

Part of it may be explained by folks simply leaving the workforce. A lot of retirees that worked for "something to do" have no interest in going back to work during a pandemic.

Some don't want their children going back to school during COVID, so they're simply living off the dole and homeschooling their kids. Some evidence suggests that the barriers to welfare assistance across the board are a bit lower right now.

A limited number of folks that don't have to pay a dime in rent/mortgage while COVID mandates are in place are just hanging out until they're effectively forced back into the workforce.

Some folks fairly recently went out of work due to vaccine mandates, and intent to live off of savings until the pandemic is over.

I have family in the restaurant business in the PNW. When they were finally able to resume in person dining, they called up the waitstaff and cooks to rehire them. They were not able to find anyone who was willing or able to come back. First, there were a bunch of people who either had comorbidities or had family with comorbidities and they did not want to risk it. Then, there were a bunch of people who lives were upended by the pandemic and they had either moved away or had to move in with parents/family to reduce housing costs and to stay home with kids or elderly parents. They were not able to go back to work because they had adjusted their lives to be full time caregivers and it was easier to just stay the course than to go back to work and find day care/home health aids, etc. and go back to that balancing act.

Then, when they went to hire, they could not find anyone with experience. It is a high end restaurant and they do not want to have to train people from scratch. A few bad yelp reviews can totally kill your business. But eventually, they had to just pick out random people to wait tables and spend tons of time shadowing them to help them learn how to handle a busy dinner service.

The overwhelming message of the pandemic response in the US has been that everyone is just going to have to live with the virus so businesses can get back to making money. The problem is that people have adjusted to being able to live with the virus by learning how to live without the low income jobs that they previously worked before the pandemic. Thus, when benefits were cut off, no one budged.

Then, you also have the problem in the US workforce where no business wants to train anyone and expects applicants to be ready to assume full job duties on day one. Lots of businesses are leaving positions open instead of hiring and training. They are just trying to cram additional work on existing employees instead of inventing in training new hires.

Some old white guy wrote:

jecht wrote:

Back in the '90s and '00s, when life was good, you were considered a loser if you lived with your parents and had debt. It's more accepted nowadays.

It was 1990 when I graduated from college and started my life on my own for real. It was not easy then, but we made our way and are doing well now. It isn't as easy today, but it should be. Covid changed a lot about how people view the world.

Great point. Even during college living with roommates and on cheap food is a good way to motivate people to get better jobs, move up, choose a good major, etc. That way you ride out bad economic times without an issue if you have a job that will keep you at a good standard of living. I don't think people learned that later on (kids who graduated late '90s and early '00s) as much as Xers who graduated in the '80s and '90s ('84 to about '94).

Great post.

Mortgage industry is different though--it's starting to slow down due to the housing bubble about to burst.

Film Rep wrote:

sthr wrote:

Most of the posts on this thread seem to be nothing but speculation.

Anyone have actual hard data? I'll accept "lazy people living off government $$" if there are reliable data to back that up; but won't accept it based solely on assertions and "I think."

Here [are] your data. In FY 2020, the US Government spent 6.5 Trillion dollars. That money went somewhere. Roughly 1/3 of the US Economy was government spending. Inflation is a biotch. It can screw with labor markets and supply chains and demand. 🤔

So nothing that actually addresses the "lazy people living off government $$" thing. Got it.

90s guy wrote:

I hear mostly conservatives say it’s because “young people don’t want to work.” However does it have to do with covid shutting down the service economy for a year? Is it because there’s simply not enough people for all the jobs? It is amazing to see “Now Hiring” signs everywhere I go.

You really have to ask?

The government came out with the pandemic subsidies money, and many people took it.

Now, the money will go away soon, and these lazy SOB's will actually have to go back to work. Boo friggin hoo!!

Go to Europe, and you will see just how lazy the majority of our country really is.

They all ride bikes, take mass transit, walk to/from work to transit stops. Electric bikes are frowned upon for anyone under 70.

In comparison, go in to the average house in America. Here is what you will see:

More TV's than books.

Video game set ups, for the kid(s) to stay in all day playing games, eating junk.

Electric bikes in the garage or yard.

I will be lmao when all the Pakistan and Afghanistan people come here, see the job openings and are happy to work.

Then the lazy people who want to go back to sitting around doing nothing will be complaining.

Can you share specific examples of people? Or do you just make up all this stuff in your head? I really had to ask.

All jobs suck. Hence why its called "work" instead of "fun". After either being out of work or remote working for so long, many people don't want to go back to the regular grind and are holding out in hopes of accommodations like higher payer, better benefits, remote rework, etc. While they do this, it contributes to the supply shortage and rising inflation.

My job was never effected by the pandemic, so I may be biased, but I think people should get back to work. That said, I understand why they aren't for the reasons outlined above.

robert678 wrote:

All jobs suck. Hence why its called "work" instead of "fun". After either being out of work or remote working for so long, many people don't want to go back to the regular grind and are holding out in hopes of accommodations like higher payer, better benefits, remote rework, etc. While they do this, it contributes to the supply shortage and rising inflation.

My job was never effected by the pandemic, so I may be biased, but I think people should get back to work. That said, I understand why they aren't for the reasons outlined above.

All jobs sucking is not true. I’ve had jobs that I actually liked forward to. We’re they still work? Yes but it’s similar to running. Running is hard work but it is also enjoyable. I just don’t buy the “people are lazy” argument. Sure there’s lazy people but the dynamics of this economy due to covid is unique. I’m trying to understand it. However it’s frustrating to constantly here blanket statements with no factual information.

Hear

One thing no one ever mentions is that not everyone at jobs like retail, fast food and childcare NEEDS to work.

My wife was working part-time at a daycare when COVID hit. Our two kids had to go to distance learning, so my wife quit her job and has been home since (though she'll start working again by the end of the year). I make enough to support our family. My wife's $18/hour daycare wage was simply gravy that we put towards our kids college funds and our vacation fund.

Some older people that were working part time quit and have no plans to go back. At the Target by my house, a good 20%+ of employees pre-covid were 60+ boomers or even retired people looking to get out of the house and make some extra spending money for their grand kids. I haven't seen any of them working since March 2020 presumably due to fear of COVID.

Why do you add "lazy" to the mix. The government has been paying people to do nothing for a long time now. You would have to be really dumb or just rich and naively detached from the real world to not know the handouts were keeping people from working. 100 % they were a big contributor. Now, add to that the liberal governments are forcing people to be fired creating new staffing shortages and more "vaxed only" help wanted signs. It is stupidity and bigotry at its finest on display.

The only thing remotely true that you stated was that finding child care is a bit harder now since the child care workers can just make more than 7-12 $/HR staying at home.

But the states that cut handouts months ago haven't seen any improvement over states that didn't? Doesn't that kinda ruin your argument?