Where is everyone working at?
In: 6379
There are several effects that can cause this.
First – the number of job slots is not fixed.
Imagine there’s 100,000 people looking for work, 100,000 jobs, and 98,000 of the possible workers have jobs. You’ve got 2% unemployment (2k out of 100k). This would not really be considered a “shortage”; a small amount of unemployment and open positions is normal as people shift jobs over time, etc.
Now imagine there’s 20,000 more job positions opened, but the population is unchanged. Now you have the same 2% unemployment but a major “labor shortage” – one in six jobs is unfilled.
Second – the population can decline. As others have mentioned, the “people looking for work” is not the same as number of total “people”. For example, instead of 100k possible workers you now have 95k possible workers.
Third – shortage doesn’t necessarily mean that “there’s no X”, it’s also used fairly frequently to mean “X is more expensive”. In the above example, with the same 100k people, the same 100k jobs, and the same 98k people working in jobs – if the workers are now demanding a higher rate to work, the employers are likely to describe that as a “labor shortage”.
Fourth – shortages are not necessarily “global”. Let’s say the country has two industries, steel and food. Same original stats – 100k possible workers, 100k positions, 2% unemployment – so 2k unemployed workers and 2k open jobs. In an “evenly distributed” case, the 2k open jobs would be 1k each between steel and food, and the unemployed workers would have their skills and interests evenly split between those. But what if all 2k open jobs are in the food industry, and all of the unemployed workers have steel-making skills and interest? Now the food industry is unable to get new hires at all while the steel industry has extra.
In the practical world, a combination of factors is usually at play, and all of the above can be found to various extents.
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