Ken Weiss
Robert ReichCan we please settle this debate already? There is no labor shortage. There is a living wage shortage, a hazard pay shortage, a child care shortage, a paid sick leave shortage, and a health care shortage.
troi@rbreich it's all about supply and demand unless you supply the labor.
Jon Torrez 
@rbreich
Check, check, and check...
Check, check, and check...
Denn Mann โ๏ธ@rbreich I'm finding that folks are refusing to "pay to work". There is your labor shortage.
antipode77Can anybody explain why it would be to anyone's advantage to 'pay to work'. ๐ก
People have it right, when they won't pay to work.
Their employer should pay >them< to work. When employers are not willing to do so, a pox on them.
It is a triple whammy on people.
. The work takes time out of your life.
. The work requires you to commute.
. The work may not provide
a living wage and requires community assistance.
Gasch@rbreich I'm a very good software engineer looking for work to keep the house I never thought I'd be able to buy and send my kids to school. 1.5 months and dozens of apps later I have but 1 interview.
I want to work. I'm not asking a lot. I just want to make things that are useful and have a comfortable life.
Brian DeViteri
The Duality of Xan@rbreich Thereโs a shortage of how willing we are to put up with this nonsense anymore!
Phiend
Stargeezer Smith@rbreich
Plus a responsible media shortage.
Plus a responsible media shortage.
Lassielmr@stargazersmith @rbreich ๐๐๐
@rbreich And COVID is keeping people out of the workforce. The pandemic is not over.
Pixel Bandits 
@rbreich There's also a huge amount of affordable housing. There's just no affordable mortgage deposits.
Oli@rbreich completely agree
There is no shortage of workers, they are just poorly deployed by the market
In the UK we had dozens of gas and electricity companies "competing" to sell exactly the same gas at exactly the same price
Thousands of hard working, talented people deployed in sales, marketing, billing departments, back-office - all delivering absolutely nothing of value except to the shareholders
The sectors that complain about staff shortages, especially agriculture and hospitality are notoriously insecure, often unpleasant and poorly paid
@OliverNoble @rbreich there is definitely shortage of workers in some of the industries.
@corewill @rbreich there is a shortage in *some* industries
1) some of those are poorly paid, insecure and often unpleasant - they need to treat workers better to attract them from:
2) Jobs that pay better, with better conditions but are often socially useless or harmful
There are also people on zero hour contracts and in the gig economy who want more hours
Its a misallocation of resources
Southern Leftist@rbreich
Corps: Work.
People: No, you are greedy, inferior upper-class-snob.
That's the situation, no one wants to put up with corporatist bullsh**tery, and I wholeheartedly support this major, protesting movement.
Sandyclaus@rbreich thatโs about the size of it
@rbreich And most unions are able to strike, except rail workers, thanks to the last Congress.
rood@rbreich and training or retraining. Most well paid jobs are highly exclusionary. Low paid jobs will take anyone.
marca56@rbreich exactly-- instead of coming up with dopey stuff like allowing child labor in the meat packing industry (queue pictures and music Oliver Twist and poor houses), pay workers more or create guest worker visas for immigrants and asylum seekers.
Stevens R MillerThis whole thing gives the lie to the so-called "free" market. The bosses love the free market. Until it costs them more than they want to pay.
Labor is available for a price, just like everything else in their beloved, perfect, oh-so-fair free market.
@rbreich
There are a whole lot of people who died from COVID or who were disabled by it. How much of a dent did that make in the working age population?
There are a whole lot of people who died from COVID or who were disabled by it. How much of a dent did that make in the working age population?
GreenDotGuy@gigglefit about 1/3rd as many who dropped out of the workforce because the asset bubble/housing shortage let them hit their magic retirement number.
Also, most Covid fatalities were from demographics not in the labor pool.
Covid's direct impact on the labor markets was a lot less than we thought it would be. I know this sounds like conservative wingnuttery, but I've poured over the BLS and CDC stats and I'm... definitely no conservative.
Cheetahmarie@rbreich if I may, I would like to add intelligence shortage to your list as well.
EVHaste@rbreich Yeah, Iโve been applying to hundreds of places that do not bother to respond. Iโm not unwilling to do labor, theyโre just unwilling to pay me for it.
Wayne@rbreich And a paper ceiling.
Paul Stone@rbreich We need UBI and a 4 day work week.
Annietime@rbreich So are we solving the labor shortage and child care issue in one fell swoop by loosening child labor laws so those lazy children can be put to work?
Rory@rbreich For real... The only shortage, I see, is of well paying labor... PS: Almost anyone can find "slave labor..." And consequently that type of labor is abundantly availableโฆ
Samhain Night@rbreich And well over a million dead from covid, and who knows how many with ling covid or staying home as caregivers because covid killed the former primary caregiver
Catcookies23@rbreich well and also lots of us are now disabled from long covid so there are less people able to do full time jobs the way they worked previously
Una Milutinovich@rbreich I think there is a real labour shortage, though. Millions of people died of covid (especially those working low wage jobs), many times more than that were disabled from it, and others left the workforce to become caregivers.
BigD@rbreich
I'll get blastered
And we have a baby shortage.
We are replacing our own with others.
We aren't the only ones and that partly is the problem
The team of 5 million is not enough if we want to prosper.
We are ageing and filling rest homes instead of birthing units.
GradientU0@rbreich though it will likely get lost in the fray, it needs to be pointed out that child care also needs to be considered from the perspective of someone who is TAKING CARE OF YOUR SPAWN FOR YOU. So many people lament that child care is too expensive. Guess what? That is someone's full time job. How much would you require to be paid to take care of kids who aren't yours?
If you don't want to stay home or pay someone else a living wage, maybe don't have kids in the first place.
OldBrushNewPaper@rbreich I fear the "settling" we desire is beyond reach, until the obstacles to those things have departed this world.
@rbreich and there is a labor shortage.
@rbreich No, we cannot settle it because you are wrong.
Epistatacadam@rbreich at least one of those is a consequence of one or more of the others. The health and social care shortage is due to the rich talking an unfair proportion of the income of the country. We can either limit take home pay, or tax the income of the rich (including all sources of income, such as secured loans) so that in work benefits essentially make income equitable. We also have a teacher shortage, so education is failing, being replaced by training for 30 years ago.
Gwladys Pendlebury@rbreich Most people want this- we have a democracy shortage.
Idwthama
conscientious objector ๐จ๐ญ๐ช๐ค๐๏ธ๐@rbreich in Europe we face labour shortages as the workers are sick. The absences are increasing due to infections.
Source (German Health Insurance)
https://www.aok.de/fk/betriebliche-gesundheit/grundlagen/fehlzeiten/ueberblick-fehlzeiten-report/
Ugly Bag of Mostly Water@rbreich just like with fascism, that debate has long since been settled. The problems are those who act like its not, and those who give that group any oxygen in a room, rather than shutting them down and hitting them on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
Giraffe Slava ๐บ๐ธ๐บ๐ฆ@rbreich a million Americans died of Covid. Thereโs also a labor shortage no?
Richservo 
@rbreich also. Massive layoffs, companies that donโt hire when they claim to be and companies trying to misclassify everyone as freelance 1099 to get out of paying taxes.
@rbreich fucking true
Peter Brown@rbreich apparently for some property-owning middle-class people, it is not worth their๏ฟผ while paying for childcare and going to work; they can make more just from the annual capital appreciation of their houses.
Emeritus Prof Christopher May (@[email protected])
Here's the practicalities of the #Tories #rentier model of #capitalism, summarised in the Guardian: 'A number of middle & higher earner couples told the Guardian that punitive childcare costs & income taxation meant that going part-time & generating income through property ownership was financially more lucrative than full-time employment'! No wonder we have a #productivity problem in the UK! https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/13/full-time-part-time-work-no-longer-pays-uk-economy
๐งโโ๏ธ Julian Invictus โ@rbreich we COULD settle the debate, but the unfortunate thing about a debate is that you cannot have a winner and a loser when one side will not alter their position regardless of how much evidence to the contrary you can provide.
SabreToothTigress/ZenDragoness
Charles Watts@rbreich And a #HumanRightsEducators shortage. And a #ProEmpathyVoters shortage. And a #ProEmpathyRepresentatives shortage.
Tanziers@rbreich hmmmm. Looks like a few ppl on here noe
Robert Wilson, III ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ๐ช๐ธ๐ธ๐ฎ@rbreich And a shortage of good working times (with good everything else) for night owls.
sparseMatrix โ
โ
โ
๐ป...in short, a regular 'fair dinkum' shortage (thanks Ozzies).
A little lighthearted, perhaps, but it's what it boils down to:
The people complaining of labor shortages offer a token compensation for what they want done; it should be no surprise that we're all so completely over the bad deal they're extending.