People have also figured out that keeping up with the Jones’s rat race is not as important as it seemed. A good number of service industry jobs were staffed by people who that was their second or even third job part time. All those people have realised work life balance was F’d up. Leisure has value as does family time and travel. Also a good number of people have gone into the “gig” economy and also the grey and black economy. There is also a structural shift in the workforce. People who were waiting tables found out they could for the same money or better answer call center calls at home. Same goes for the person cleaning hotel rooms or scrubbing floors. Even low skilled jobs like data entry or medical coding can be done from home by former retail sales or customer service types. The job paradigm that existed in 2019 is over. Plus a lot of boomers retired early and also reached retirement ages anyway over the last 2 years.
Good points
This feels like attrition. Workers are leaving for better gigs Notice that the jobs they are having trouble filling tender to be manual labor intesive as well as low pay. I have never been a rice harvester in Vietnam but I suspect it not the greatest job in the world
Why spend all day hunched over in a rice patty instead of working in a factory making far more money?
I forget the exact numbers but years ago, as we faced the retirement of the boomers (Delayed by the Great Recession for some) we also faced a birth dearth in the Millennials. The word was that there will not be enough of the latter to replace the former. I have told my son, an early Millennial, that he would grow up to live in a seller’s market for employment.
I did not figure the country would go so completely to crap though.
I am a mid-term boomer and retired going on 5 years ago.
Now that the enhanced unemployment is gone I still don’t understand why poeple won’t work. I think one writer here is correct, they got out of the habit of work and the end of the gravy train of unemployment benefits is not yet sunk in.
I’m the last year of the baby boom and I retired early three years ago. Love it!
Don’t worry! There are thousands coming over the border everyday to save us! The democrats say they are human infrastructure that will be a boon to our economy.
Exactly correct! Yet so many here on FR were convinced it was the unemployment money, it wasn’t. Many like you say were working two or three jobs because they WANTED stuff, not because they needed it. Now our commie infested government has wrecked our need for high productivity because people are living a much more frugal lifestyle. They are no longer spending huge money on entertainment and things they don’t need. They are becoming more independent, not less. Gig jobs are everywhere. Why work at Target when you can work for yourself and set your own rules. Many people have gotten a taste of self employment and they are unlikely to go back even if the don’t earn as much.
I took early retirement.....I could see what was coming and found things had already shifted when they began putting everyone in part time positions. Which my employees began doing in various departments at that time. They offered me part-time or severence....I took the severance, (much to their surprise) after calculating how much better I could do retiring and get a no brainer part time job that would free my time and pleasure. Never looked back.