if everyone is experiencing staffing shortages at their jobs, but unemployment is at record lows, where is everyone working?
In: Economics
That means that there is more demand for jobs than there are people. Why that is I don’t know.
That’s not a contradiction, both of those facts (if true) support one another.
Unemployment is at a record low. Therefore, most people who want a job have one.
Everyone is experiencing staffing shortages. Employers are having trouble finding new employees, because most people who want a job are already employed.
>where is everyone working?
At places experiencing staffing shortages.
A weird upskiling thing happened where lots of people learned enough to get entry-level skilled jobs who were previously doing unskilled work. Meanwhile, a lot of highly skilled people in more “important” positions are taking stock of their lives and working less.
So now you’ve simultaniously got places looking for cheap labor struggling to find cheap labor, and other places desperately trying to retain hires until they’re actually useful because all of the smart people got the memo that they don’t matter as much as they thought they did.
because the unemployment number was meant to show a warm and fuzzy number to maintain public confidence
Workforce participation rates should also be looked at.. for example, after the pandemic, workforce participation rates dropped for some, especially older generations. Those people aren’t looking for jobs so they don’t show up on unemployment rolls
> Unemployment is at record lows, so everyone is experiencing staffing shortages at their jobs
Fixed that for you. Low unemployment and staffing shortages go hand-in-hand. The vast majority of those actively seeking a job are employed. Employers that would otherwise find workers easily when unemployment is high, are now having trouble finding staff because those workers are already employed.
A bunch of people left the workforce, a bunch more upskilled and will no longer take certain kinds of work.
So you’ve got shortages, but especially at the stuff people don’t want like food service.
Veering from those more solid items into conspiracy theory territory: I’m also vaguely convinced a lot of “short staffed” places figured out they could just leave a hiring sign up and save on payroll. Blame the results of understaffing on “shortages”.
“Unemployed” has a different meaning in this context. In order for the government to count someone as unemployed, they have to first be wanting a job. A stay-at-home parent does not have a job, but they are not looking for one, and are therefore not counted as “unemployed.”
So all of this can be true. Unemployment can be low as everyone who wants a job has one, and thus, as others have pointed out, those that are looking to hire are having trouble finding workers.
Interestingly, if, for example, the companies looking to hire start increasing the wages they’re offering, you could actually see unemployment *increase* as those like our stay-at-home parent are now incentivized to get off the sidelines and get back in the workforce.
Answer: if a business is trying to grow/expand and unemployment is low, it might very well have staffing shortages. Similarly, if there are more jobs then qualified applicants, people with jobs have more opportunities to quit their existing jobs and pursue other opportunities.
People who are unemployed are having a harder time than ever, because most of the people taking the jobs already have jobs. We’re all on the outside watching the fucking party going on.
there are more jobs available than workers available. Lots of workers have jobs, but there are still lots of open positions.
What is the problem?
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