2 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

... no one wants to hire (fulltime) a 57 year old in my profession (software engineering).

I can empathize with that Rob. At 73 no one would be willing to hire me to put out a small fire, not even if I were standing there with a fire extinguisher in hand... 🤥

1 hour ago, Luke said:

In my state, unemployment insurance maxes out at $356 a week, for 26 weeks. I'd love to hear how you pay for rent, utilities, transportation and food at around $800/month, never mind flight sim and other hobbies. I've found that most people who think social benefits are overly generous have never actually tried living on a similar amount. (As a similar exercise, try eating for a month spending only as much as you'd get for EBT. It won't be porterhouses.)

Could you live on $800/month, assuming you didn't have Medicare and a paid-for house?

Cheers!

 

What is the explanation for a lack of workers then?  All I know is they aren't coming in.  As to "why" I do not know.

2 hours ago, Luke said:

Could you live on $800/month, assuming you didn't have Medicare and a paid-for house?

That depends on where I would live Luke.  Here in Roswell yes I could.

On the $1460/MO you quote (@$365/WK) very easily with some left over.

Noel

24 minutes ago, birdguy said:

That depends on where I would live Luke.  Here in Roswell yes I could. On the $1460/MO you quote (@$365/WK) very easily with some left over.

As my teachers in school were so fond of saying, show your work. I'm curious to how that money would get divided up, especially when it comes to shelter, food, health insurance and taxes. In my state you only get 84% of the amount - the other 16% gets withheld for taxes and Georgia has very low personal exemptions so you are unlikely to get their share back.

Don't forget that $1460/month is the absolute maximum, and is not typical of what most people receive. That's why I assumed $800/month as a more appropriate measure.

Cheers!

1 hour ago, Mace said:

What is the explanation for a lack of workers then?  All I know is they aren't coming in.  As to "why" I do not know.

Given that it extends to industries and job roles that pay far more than minimum wage, I would start looking for systemic reasons that extend beyond mere money. I hear plenty of stories of people with six figure salaries whose patience for poor working conditions evaporates and just walk away. I was just chatting with an old friend and mentor who is doing this right now. I did so in March.

In the lower end roles, a lot of people in food service took advantage of the money and the lockdown to completely switch industries. Given that the working hours are abysmal, employers can legally pay below minimum wage and the clientele feels they can treat you like dirt, I'm not surprised that people ran, not walked away from these roles and aren't coming back.

It's like how farmers moan that Americans don't want to bend over and pick vegetables in 90 degree heat for four bucks an hour. Lazy, I say!

Cheers!

The one time I was on unemployment (after being 'laid off' for having a seizure), I think I remember that they provided 50% of whatever your salary was up to some maximum.  I had been making $8 an hour.

  They had a requirement that you have provable job interviews/contacts.  I dont remember how many per day were required but it wasnt all that easy to come up with as many as they wanted -- at least not for me.  I even used the place that fired me as one of those contacts one time.

I was on foodstamps for a while.  They provided $108 per month.  I had been used to spending $100 per week at the grocery store.

 

18 hours ago, psolk said:

And just wait until the evictions and foreclosures begin on the back end of all of this.  It's not going to be pretty.  

That’s what I’m waiting for. I was planning on buying a house earlier this year but declined after seeing what was going on. In the mean time I’m sitting in cash just waiting for the market to blow up so I can come in and take advantage. Also the possibility to start shorting some sectors when all this comes to a head.

8 hours ago, Mace said:

What is the explanation for a lack of workers then?  All I know is they aren't coming in.  As to "why" I do not know.

There seems to be a labour shortage through out the "developed" world.

My guess would be that Covid has given many people the time to pause for thought and that they are reviewing their quality
of life and deciding not to do work that does nothing to improve that.

In the UK, we have several headline professions that are struggling to recruit workers.
My daughter is in one of them, she is a newly qualified nurse.
To achieve this she had to do a three year course that has cost her around £64,000 in student debt
and during the couse, she had to complete I think around 2500 hours of unpaid work.
Not everyone would find that to be an attactive proposition.

Lorry (truck) drivers are in short supply but typically, the hours are long, the wages are modest and there
are countless rules and regulations that can cost the driver in fines.
Transport companies cannot recruit because either the candidate does not want to work in these conditions
or is not willing to fork out at least £3000 to gain the necessary licence in return for £10 to £12 per hour and
all the unsocial hours that can be worked.
One can earn more than that stacking shelves in a supermarket, an easy job, when there are no lorries to bring the goods.🙂

We also have one more contributory factor, it is no longer easy for Eastern European workers to come to the UK and do the
jobs that UK workers do not want. Many of them went home and have now found that conditions at home have improved enough
for them to have no need to come back. Entirely understandable, entirely predictable and yet apparently no one saw that coming.

 

Edited September 23, 20214 yr by Reader

Now we have a situation where there are more jobs going begging than workers to fill them. Probably we are only talking about maybe 10% of the people who are not working, not trying to fill these jobs? In the great depression decade of the '30s it was what, maybe 20% unemployed? Surely things are not that bad as that right now.

I am in sales for a large manufacturer.  We are having huge issues getting workers to fill all of the factory shifts....this is with increased wages, benefits and bonuses.  Workers are just part of the issue, getting raw materials, packaging supplies and transport is very challenging.  All of this while demand and prices are up and our lead times are the longest they have ever been.  Hopefully some level of stability returns in 2022....although I suspect it will be more like 2023 before that happens.

If people are not going back to work because of poor working conditions they have to be having some sort of income to live on.  Extended unemployment compensation and the moratorium on paying rent plus food stamps make it possible for them to say no to poor labor conditions and for some who have the skills and knowledge to work where wages and conditions are pretty good to take extended vacations.

When all of that ends I think many jobs now wanting will be filled.

Personal story.

Many years ago I worked for Air Research i\on a linear induction motor test vehicle at the DOT Test Track in Pueblo Colorado.  It was a government contract and one spring they cancelled it.  Over half of us were laid off.

I could probably have gotten a job at one of the other contractors on the base but I decided to take unemployment and food stamps since my wife was working and we could maintain a less comfortable life style for a while while I spent my days finishing the basement of our new house and putting in a front lawn and finishing the back yard.  Oh, yes!  I went fly fishing two or three days a week during that period.  I was on the dole for 6 or 7 weeks.  When I decided to look for a job I got one rather quickly.  During the time I was unemployed I lied about looking for a job.  No proof was required.  You might say I took advantage of the system.

I would imagine that if you could accept  a lifestyle a little less comfortable then not going back to work is an option for you.

Noel

2 hours ago, birdguy said:

If people are not going back to work because of poor working conditions they have to be having some sort of income to live on.  Extended unemployment compensation and the moratorium on paying rent plus food stamps make it possible for them to say no to poor labor conditions and for some who have the skills and knowledge to work where wages and conditions are pretty good to take extended vacations.

When all of that ends I think many jobs now wanting will be filled.

Personal story.

Many years ago I worked for Air Research i\on a linear induction motor test vehicle at the DOT Test Track in Pueblo Colorado.  It was a government contract and one spring they cancelled it.  Over half of us were laid off.

I could probably have gotten a job at one of the other contractors on the base but I decided to take unemployment and food stamps since my wife was working and we could maintain a less comfortable life style for a while while I spent my days finishing the basement of our new house and putting in a front lawn and finishing the back yard.  Oh, yes!  I went fly fishing two or three days a week during that period.  I was on the dole for 6 or 7 weeks.  When I decided to look for a job I got one rather quickly.  During the time I was unemployed I lied about looking for a job.  No proof was required.  You might say I took advantage of the system.

I would imagine that if you could accept  a lifestyle a little less comfortable then not going back to work is an option for you.

Noel

You would not have gotten away with that in Texas in the year 2000.

If you have any income at all OR any financial resources at all, they are counted against the maximum foodstamp allotment.

There were pages and pages of forms to fill out to get foodstamps.  You had to have forms filled out by your landlord and your parents to verify you actualkly needed help.

I remember one time I had $20 to my name and I went there in the mornning and I wrote that down on the form but at noon they told us all to go away because the office waas closing for lunch (it was a requirement to wait there until you were called or they would just throw your application away)  and so i went to a nearby gas station and bought a soda and then I had to change the number on the form from $20 to $18.95 or whatever it was and that caused a MAJOR upset and I got triple crossexamined for a half hour over the issue.

The idea that you CHOSE not to work and live a "less comfortable lifestyle" while refinishing your basement... and I bet you didnt have a single health condition to deal with --- no doctors you needed to figure out how to pay for...no mends you needed to remain concious...  Choose...what a concept.

One thing that does great damage in this world is when wealthy and healthy people use their personal life experiences and apply them to everyone else.

Edited September 24, 20214 yr by sightseer

1 hour ago, sightseer said:

One thing that does great damage in this world is when wealthy and healthy people use their personal life experiences and apply them to everyone else.

Not applying my case to anyone else.  Just an example of someone who took advantage of the system and suspect others did also.  Since I was a homeowner who had recently purchased the home I had no equity in it and had no landord.  Both parent's dead.  The only income was my wife's and it was low enough to qualify for food stamps.

But TEXAS!  What can you say but TEXAS!

Noel

6 hours ago, birdguy said:

Extended unemployment compensation and the moratorium on paying rent plus food stamps make it possible for them to say no to poor labor conditions and for some who have the skills and knowledge to work where wages and conditions are pretty good to take extended vacations. When all of that ends I think many jobs now wanting will be filled.

You keep saying that, but your own experience (with another income in the household and for six weeks) isn't exactly germane. Benefits barely cover rent and food. As an exercise, try and live on $1400 a month, assuming you're paying $700 for rent and $400 for health insurance. Don't forget to deduct $224 off the top for taxes! 😄

The first recession I really paid attention to was in the early 1990s (I vaguely remember the 1982-83 one, but merely as a child seeing things slow down and not restart for a bit). What was so interesting about it was that it was one of the first "structural" recessions in a long time. Previous examples were just temporary imbalances in supply and demand; you'd be off work for a few weeks or months but then business would pick back up and you'd go back to work. In the early 1990s, entire types of jobs vanished, never to return again. It was a very rude shock for a lot of folks when they realized that their work (never mind their job) simply wouldn't return. Many of the subsequent recessions have done the same thing.

I think 2020-2021 is doing the same kind of structural changes to the job market. We talk about how we want workers to retain and upskill and move into higher-value roles. I think a lot of people looked at what was going on with the service sector during the pandemic, took advantage of the breathing room the economic stimulus provided and permanently shifted away. In the past the jobs went away, this time the workers went away, not to return.

Cheers!

4 hours ago, Luke said:

As an exercise, try and live on $1400 a month, assuming you're paying $700 for rent and $400 for health insurance. Don't forget to deduct $224 off the top for taxes! 😄

I have to look at it from a personal point of view, Luke, because that's all I have.  And I am speaking about 30 years ago.  I retired in 1996.  I never made $1400 a month in my life.  The highest paying job I ever had I think was $760 a month.  My wife was making just over half that amount.   At the time I was renting a 2 bedroom apartment in a highrise in downtown Denver for just under $300 a month.  When I wasn't working I didn't have health insurance.  It wasn't an issue because we were always pretty healthy...and still are. 

Noel