A new day, fresh eyes, and I really want to replace "less" with "fewer".

Also, as many of the replies point out, it's not really this simple. War and saber rattling in various places. Lockdown policies. Inflation controls/interest rate rises. The recession "cycle". Brexit. Political divides. It's a complicated milieu.

But I stand by my point that a significant factor in the missing worker puzzle is that so many died and/or have been disabled. And those numbers continue to rise even now.

@djwfyi I just saw a graph that had the Fed pegging the “missing” workers in the US at 3-4 million 🤨😮

Either Bloomberg or WSJ

@djwfyi Now those responsible are more worried about trying to blame it on a potential lab leak rather than using the known mitigation measures to stop it. :D

Feels like how Spain took the blame for America spreading that pandemic everywhere too........

@djwfyi Post hoc ergo propter hoc?

In the USA men were dropping out of the workforce for a variety of reasons before 2019, and the process is likely ongoing. Below is a random pick of articles from 2016. Not hard to find.

My hunch: "permission slip culture" and the cost of professional education is discouraging. Recertification because you want to apply for a job just over the state border? From an European perspective that looks archaic.

https://www.npr.org/2016/09/06/492849471/an-economic-mystery-why-are-men-leaving-the-workforce

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/08/15/men-not-at-work-why-so-many-men-ages-of-25-to-54-are-not-working/

@djwfyi It feels like these deaths probably disproportionately affect front line service type jobs too. I hate digging in with stereotypes, but essentially, low paid, less educated folks who would be less likely to be able to manage treatment (time, cost) or avoidance (cost) of COVID.

Who were also unable to go work remote, who get exposed to more people than average and thus would be more likely to get sick.

@djwfyi

There are indeed fewer (not less) workers due to covid.

The Biden admin didn’t just “let it rip”. This is a mischaracterization.

@djwfyi

The supposed "millions" of missing workers in the USA are not people of working age who died from Covid-19.

However, between the start of 2020 and now, over 10.4 million people died in the USA (of all causes). Only about 108,000 of them were children under 18, and 1.37 million were 55 and up (a category that still includes many working people). So millions of working age people did die.

Source: table given here: https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Sex-and-Age/9bhg-hcku

@djwfyi Too many people* are deliberately and consciously pretending as if the pandemic is over.

*Arseholes

@djwfyi I will throw one other thought out there. When I was a small child I would sometimes ask my dad why some person (usually an older person) who hadn't been suffering from any known disease or condition had died. My dad would respond by saying they had just lost the will to live.

I always suspected there was something to that. The older we get, the harder life gets, but now it looks like we just might be about to go full tilt boogie into really terrible times, between the people who want to turn the USA and the rest of the world into a fascist state, and the insane rulers of nations that seem to be actually considering escalating whatever conflicts are breaking out. Can it be any wonder that some people - hopefully a very small percentage - maybe decide they just don't care if they get sick and die. They may have beliefs against suicide and may not be ready to take that step yet, but feel that if a virus gets them that's their get out of jail free card, so to speak. Of course if they are thinking that way they probably are not considering that they might pss the virus on to friends and loved ones; I doubt that even enters their thought process because they are not actively trying to die, and maybe not even consiouusly hoping to die, but then again they may not have much enthusiasm for trying to continue living.

Don't know how that would fit into your list but to me it's one of the few explanations for why some people refuse to get vaccinated or take any other precautions to avoid getting #COVID.