The Department of Labor says there are ten million jobs across America in various industries. Employers demand workers, especially workers with lower or incoming wages.
Still, there are still 8.4 million people who want a job and are still looking for work. Why the disparity?
There is no ideologically satisfactory answer that can explain the phenomenon. The only thing that is true is that the pandemic has led to what some labor experts call “The Great Reassessment”: both employers and workers are evaluating their options in a changing workspace that, when all shakes, will alter the concept of occupying a job in America.
If that sounds dramatic, so be it. Distance work will be a big change. There are millions of employees who worked from home during the pandemic and enjoyed the comfort, flexibility and opportunity to be with their families. Many of them fired have decided to look for another job with more flexibility.
The consequences of these changes will affect all aspects of society: social, cultural and structural.
Washington Post:
In essence, there is an ongoing massive reassignment to the economy that is triggering a “great reassessment” of work in the United States from the perspective of the employer and employees. Workers move to where they want to work and how. For some, this is a personal choice. The pandemic and all the anxieties, closures and weather at home have changed people. Some want to work remotely forever. Others want to spend more time with family. And others want a more flexible or more meaningful career path. It’s the “live only once” mentality of steroids. Meanwhile, companies are stepping up automation and redoing entire supply chains and office configurations.
Reassessment is taking place in all facets of the labor market this year, as people make decisions about jobs that are very different from those they did before the pandemic. Waivers are the highest recorded: 13% more than pre-pandemic levels: 4.9 million more people do not work or look for work than before the pandemic. There is an increase in retirements with 3.6 million people retiring during the pandemic, or more than 2 million more than expected. And there has been a boost in entrepreneurship that has led to the biggest leap in years in new business applications.
It doesn’t help that most job offers right now aren’t in the same occupations (or in the same places) where people worked before the pandemic.
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There is also a fundamental mismatch between the current position and the number of people working in these industries. For example, there are 1.8 million jobs in professional and business services, but less than 925,000 people have the most recent job in this sector. This mismatch can be seen across the labor landscape, as industries such as education and health services try to add to payrolls when workers are not interested, at least they are not interested in working for the amount of money they is offered to them.
In recent months, health care workers and educators have left their jobs at the highest rate recorded, dating back to 2002, according to data from the Department of Labor.
“It’s usually the time of year we hire for the next school year, but we literally can’t get enough candidates and we see permanent people leave,” said Cindy Lehnhoff, a 36-year veteran in the child care industry who currently directs the National Child Care Association. “If you get a good candidate, there are ten more people in contact with the same person. It is a crisis. People can’t work without caring for children. ”
It is no longer a matter of throwing money at workers to lure them back. People want more flexibility as well as more pay. The companies that adapt to the new work reality will probably be the most successful.
The fiercest competition for workers for workers with lower wages. As expected, since they have the greatest leverage, they benefit more from the wage increase of the pandemic. Remuneration has increased by 8.8 per cent for non-administrative workers in the restaurant and hospitality sector and by 6.1 per cent for warehouse workers in the last five months. This is an unprecedented increase in an economy that does not suffer from high inflation.
It will be years, perhaps a couple of decades, until “The Great Reassessment” is installed and allows us to look back at what changes have taken place. Like all changes, some will be for the better, others for the worse.
“It’s good to be scary in a new country,” was a saying that my Irish immigrant grandfather learned when he first came to America in the 1880s. It simply means that those who adapt more easily to change, in general. , are better than those who do not.