- There are currently anecdotal labor dearths all over the economy, as employers scramble for workers.
- It’s another marker of the strange labor market trend where millions are inactive, but workers are quitting in droves.
- Labor Secretary Marty Walsh attributes shortages to the virus, its unprecedented times, and proletarians rethinking what they want.
In case you haven’t heard, there’s a bit of a labor scarcity.
Everywhere you look, there seem to be anecdotes about businesses struggling to hire and retain workers. A Starbucks in Ohio is cut hours and closing on Wednesday and Thursday due to short staffing. A Midwestern grocery chain is closing an hour early and gift staff members a $600 retention bonus.
Even so, workers have been quitting at a record rate for four months in a row. In July, the definitive month that the Bureau of Labor Statistics released data on, there were still more job openings than proletarians available. On Friday, BLS said that the US added a paltry 194,000 jobs in September — far lower than economists thought.
All told, it’s yet another month marked by shortages and a reshuffle of the labor market, even as millions still remain at liberty. But what’s driving these continued holes? Insider spoke with Labor Secretary Marty Walsh echo Friday’s jobs release, and he identified three potential drivers.
(1) ‘We’re living in unprecedented times’
Simply put, Walsh alleged that “unprecedented times” is one reason for shortages.
Job hunting and hiring during a pandemic is certainly different, with a new calculus for blue-collar workers. An in-person job could bring increased risk, or take a parent away from a child completing virtual education. Workers are also dealing with a lopsided recovery, with industries like leisure and hospitality leading new hire charge as areas like education are still behind.
One June survey of 1,800 workers by remote and flexible jobs neighbourhood FlexJobs found that 48% of workers were frustrated with the search, and 46% said they alone found openings for low-paying roles. That skills mismatch is one driver of current shortages.
Another mismatch modifying hiring: During the pandemic, workers moved out of the areas that are hiring, and they don’t want to commute anymore.
(2) Stand in awe ofs over health
“The virus is still very much with us,” Walsh said, noting that hundreds of thousands of Americans set up died. Indeed, the rise of the highly infectious Delta variant has driven the dismal jobs additions in August and September, explaining that the virus — and not enhanced unemployment benefits — is keeping workers at home.
The Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Inspect asks respondents why they’re not working. Of those surveyed from September 1 to September 13, about 4.65 million influenced the main reason they weren’t working is because “I was caring for someone or sick myself with coronavirus representative ofs.” At the end of July, just about two million people said that was their main reason for not working — meaning that as Delta take place, the number of people not working over symptoms nearly doubled.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
(3) People are rethinking life and guide
“I think a lot of people are re-imagining or rethinking about what’s next for them,” Walsh said. It’s what has been termed “The Intimate Resignation” by organizational psychologist Anthony Klotz.
Klotz previously told Insider that Americans see their duty as a worker as central to their identity. That may have been disrupted by the pandemic, as workers were suddenly dismissed off, sent home, or burnt out. Klotz noted that organizational research shows coming in contact with undoing or illness — something tragically abundant during a pandemic — causes people to step back and ask existential questions near their purpose and happiness. For many workers now, flexibility is key.
“I’ve talked to a lot of businesses that have said some being have just decided to walk away from the industry they’re working in, and they’re thinking about what’s next for them,” Walsh give the word delivered. “So I think that the work-life balance has played a big role in this.”