Can someone explain why businesses can't find employees?

Vanity | June 22, 2022 | Bort (vanity)

[bort]

The "help-wanted" sections of newspapers and job sites are overloaded with small businesses begging for employees. Every fast-food restaurant you enter has help-wanted signs. There is an obvious employee shortage going on all around the country. Serious question: What is causing this issue? Gas prices and inflation are through the roof, which would suggest that even dead-beats would be forced to get jobs. Is there some sort of secret COVID payments still going out? I'm at a loss.

[newnhdad]

Simply put, most small business can’t or don’t want to pay. Both my previous and current employer don’t want to lose whatever competitive advantage they had and raise prices, which will drive business elsewhere. They need to figure out how to rightfully compensate their employees or lose them. Which has happened in both places.

[Alvin Diogenes]

I was talking to the branch manager at a local bank, and she said they’ve been unable to hire any new tellers for a year now. She didn’t know why, or how people were making ends meet.

And we had to wait 4 months to get a new dishwasher installed, because there aren’t enough installers.

I don’t think businesses have enough money to raise wages to the point where they get (qualified) applicants. But I really don’t know why the supply of labor is so low.

[gattaca]

They pay $17 an hour plus benefits.

[SaveFerris]

(the type that think there are “jobs Americans won’t do”)

Oh... George W. Bush...

[CodeToad]

A significant portion of lost labor is the younger generations living with mommy. They try to claim they will not “sell out” to big corporations, but that fact is they are simply too scared to try to make it in the world. They use this social justice crap to excuse their fear to become adults and make their way into the world. They graduate college then fail to launch their own lives, living with mommy forever.

I know countless of these adult aged, college-graduated, children.

[deport]

Not sure why but I see a heck of a lot of younger folks on
the golf course during the week...

******

They be smart. Don’t have to put with the crowded tee times
and less congestion except for the workers and retirees.

[PMAS]

And friends of mine said they can’t even find people to care for their kids while they work

[SaveFerris]

(Companies that treat their employees like crap are losing people left and right..

Companies that value their employees have a waiting list...)

Yep

[Alberta's Child]

The more likely scenario is that we go back to the 1970s when dining out was a luxury. I could easily see a day when most of the middle-tier restaurant chains in the U.S. are bankrupt.

[joe fonebone]

I like reading about bad employers on reddit..
One guy had a job in a factory assembling widgets....
He had to assemble X number of widgets per shift...
He broke his foot, and had to sit on a chair while he assembled his widgets..
He out produced everyone on his shift...
Management chewed his ass because he was sitting in a chair..

This is the mentality and management style that chases good employees away

[Trumplican]

How much should wages be? Just asking because FL construction wages min $22 per hour, plus overtime. How much should they be? How much you able to pay for a roof?

Labor shortages in construction for years, well before Covid.

Hard work, pampered American born kids don’t want to work that hard for money, with or without marketable skills or an education.

[PapaBear3625]

And no one wants to work because people no longer have a work ethic? That doesn’t really make sense. People may not want to work, or may not want to work for paltry wages — but you need money to survive. Millions of people are (apparently) surviving without working. How do they manage that?

Part of it is from men not being interested in marriage under the new rules.

Single guys can be satisfied with a small apartment and a game box.

[Fiji Hill]

Those “Help Wanted” signs at small businesses in strip malls will soon be vanishing, to be replaced by “For Sale” signs.

[VTenigma]

Some tradies and especially owners make good money but not everyone has the physical and mental fortitude to effectively work in trades. If everyone did, those jobs would pay nothing too.

---

Don’t forget the trades in many areas are populated with illegals and the wage suppression that goes with it. 5 million over the border since the head case took office. We’re set up for the perfect storm.

[meyer]

2 things - the government pays people way too much to sit at home and do nothing, and people in my age and older have decided, after the covid debacle, that maybe its time to retire instead of putting up with insane, unjustified requirements.

I came very close to retiring last November when they tried to push the mandate down our throats (executive order, federal agency). There was a pretty large group of us, including some key positions, that more or less said that we would not take the poisonous jab and would leave first. Including many that were not close to retirement age yet.

Now, with hyperinflation, the price of employment is going up (which will in turn push up prices even more, and force more jobs out of the US to lower-cost countries).

[Ezekiel]

Many employers are too specific in their requirements to fill a position. Unless you have the specific skill set for the opening, they will not consider you. And Employers seem very unwilling to train people to fill a position.

As is often the subject of lament, HR departments lack the basic critical thinking skills to discern who are truly the most qualified applicants -- those who should be placed into the "call in for an interview" stack. That's not even allowed. 1001 reasons to reject, however.

It's like HR (human religion) in search of the Messiah. Highly specific requirements without anyone able or willing to think outside of the lockstep, established parameters. That would be downright heresy in the HR world.

Train him? He supposed to know everything already! No wonder everyone keeps waiting and watching, yet he's "nowhere" to be found. And thanks to the insurmountable HR laundry lists, he'd never even think to apply for the job -- would never suspect that he would be the perfect candidate.

Now why would business-as-usual do such a thing... difficult question. /s

David, out in the field... the simple shepherd tending to his sheep. He would have had to leave them unattended to go in for the interview.

Samuel... connected the dots. Not complicated.

[central_va]

We are entering a post baby boom period where before, the employer always had an advantage over the pool of labor and could “set” wages. Now there is more of a balance between labor and employer and the employers have not adjusted their mind set. This balancing of labor vs employer is good thing IMO. The USA was rapidly becoming a 3rd world worker’s hell. Soon some will realize the situation and raise wages and drive those that can’t adjust out of business buy scooping up all the labor.

[deport]

Single guys can be satisfied with a small apartment and a game box.

*********

And a female every once in a while......

[Harpotoo]

My retirement date is Aug 1 this year and only being 65 I’m going Galt! F Dem/RINOs all!

[bantam]

My kid was hired almost sight unseen @ a local fast food restaurant, and given a gas card to travel to his training site, as well as, (we suspect), $12-15/hr.
UNBELIEVEABLE!

Where did all the workers go????