There are fewer businesses open as many succumbed due to Covid. There are currently 9.5 million unemployed yet there are as many jobs that are not being filled. It is so hard trying to find employees that many are raising their wages and even trying to lure employees from other businesses with bonuses, perks, employee discounts, and higher pay then their competitors. Employees with experience may be even able to negotiate an even higher wage. So is the free unemployment bonus still in play and will these higher wages remain or dropped back down after things get back to normal?
I wouldn't say unemployment is a big factor but it is a factor for some. I think it's bigger than we think, put it this way, we literally went through a whole pandemic, I know it's not as big as it was before but remember how everyone was in the beginning and how the cases were rising and people were dying, really made people look at this differently. Many people had to face the fact if they were happy with their life, especially when the idea that death is at your door, people realized that their life felt senseless, and of course with that comes people trying to make sense of it all and realize that they weren't happy with how life has been going for them. That's why we see a lot of these jobs being unfulfilled because a lot of these jobs add value to people's lives, there is no career or potential at those jobs and people are realizing that those jobs need them more than they need those jobs. I think a lot of people are finally pursuing a job that makes them feel happy and fulfilled instead of chasing a dead-end job that. Also, the way many of these jobs handle their employees during the pandemic really showed the companies their true colors.
from my experiences with small and mid-sized businesses, the issue is that there are hardly any adequate graduates. cause politics not only fucked the economy but also education by their corona measures.
another issue is that (maybe due to corona) young people are fading out of reality, living in social media online, sheltered from the world outside, such that mom and pop businesses around the corner don't find any employers.
also a very much growing issue is that low qualification jobs like in retail have been ruined by inflation. they pay too little and the working conditions are so bad, that litterally nobody is willing to do those jobs anymore. partially cause they have been spoled by what they see on social media maybe.
No entry level job is going to treat them as well as their unemployment is going to.
I see a lot of kids (18-25) applying for jobs but they aren’t staying long because of poor leadership, broken promises, and these jobs want to schedule them outside of their availability in conjunction with school and other side hustles.
A part of me can’t blame them really.
I just think time best used while on unemployment is using it to start your business and be able to work remotely (because this pandemic shit is far from over). But not nearly as many people are using this free time wisely. Most will end up being cut off from unemployment and competing for the same shitty entry level jobs who aren’t going to treat them properly.
Some of these people also see that them working was not "working" for them as well as getting free money on unemployment. That is why a ton of people are quitting jobs. However they may find they don't get unemployment if they quit a job, or at least they shouldn't. Who knows if it is allowed now.
You can thank the rise of the welfare state for that.
Even if it's not necessarily more profitable to live off the government teat than to work, it does free up ~40 hours of your life to f*CK off doing whatever you see fit.
Even now that my company has raised it's entry-level wages to almost double the minimum for an hourly employee, the applicants are making insane, unreasonable demands knowing full well there's no way we'd accept it. Others take the job but then never show up.
In my area, where the economy is relatively strong both historically and relative to the rest of the country now, almost all restaurants have closed up to only serve dinner and maybe ~50% of them serve lunch. Many fast food joints are anything but fast because they're reduced to a skeleton crew or even less during the day. Normal sit-down restaurants are becoming a 90-minute ordeal because it takes that long for staff to keep up. Thank God the quality of the food itself hasn't really taken a hit or it wouldn't be worth dining out at all. Many retail stores are basically down to only full time supervisors and management working during the week. I don't know of any food or retail or entertainment industry establishments within driving distance that aren't hiring.
I should also add that so far almost 50% of the employees who take the job and show up can't pass a drug test... The implication is that the ones willing to work are trying to finance a habit.
What insane demands are you referring to? I think most workers absolutely need to demand more. Although of course they should be able to pass a drug test. But a reform in this area has been long time coming when it comes to pay, availability, paid time off, benefits, leadership quality, etc.
I know how Walmart employees are treated. I’ve had enough friends and family work there. You’ll never see my ass putting up with that shit for $15 an hour.
True. Sometimes I try to remember that some people feel fortunate to have any job at all. The cost of living does keep going up, and it varies from state to state too. I definitely see a difference where I live now in a coastal high tourist town vs when I used to live in Indiana. There, $15 an hour is pretty doable when rent is only $500-$600 a month. Here, you’ll be lucky to find a decent place under 1200 a month unless you move inland.
I also think I’m at an age where I expect to be earning a more comfortable life. In your 20s, making lower wages and dealing with food service and retail bs is manageable. But in your late 30s it just like you want to level up by then.
@MzAsh Okay think applicant of roughly college age or possibly high school senior, but demanding $25+ per hour, and in at least two of the specific cases I know of, they were still living at home with their parents and not paying any rent. That's what I'm talking about when I say insane demands that nobody is going to let fly on an entry level job, because they have no intention of taking it anyway; they're filling the square of "trying" to find work so they can keep collecting.
I know there are people who do that. They are only shouting themselves in the foot for the long term because the free ride doesn’t last forever. On the other hand, some employers do also take advantage of their workers too when they favor warm bodies who are “yes” people who need them to survive and won’t challenge the way they run their business.
@MzAsh I'm not saying employees getting taken advantage of *never* happens, but I can assure that nobody near here is in the position to be doing that. With some exceptions, employers are pretty happy taking just about anyone who is willing to actually show up to work at competitive rates, even if they act a bit belligerant or aren't the best with customer service. People who wouldn't normally get hired easily could right now, and that door won't be open forever, one way or another.
I think people still get $300 a week until like two weeks from now, but that’s peanuts and doesn’t really explain the situation, you can’t really live on $1,200 a week where I live, let alone a month lmfao.
One positive thing from a lot of us sitting on our asses for a year, I think this may offer an opportunity to tip the scales a little more back in the workers’ favor. One constant throughout all the jobs I’ve ever had: they’ve been fucking bullshit, lmao. So I like seeing businesses on their heels a bit, because usually there the ones doing all the flexing on the labor.
One thing I’m learning on this journey through life: “working hard” is one of the biggest scams we encounter. I don’t mean to have no work ethic, in the wild we’d have to survive for ourselves, this system makes things easier in terms of survival, but we’re robbed of our joy and freedom. I think I’m “semi-retired” now, I don’t see myself working full-time or for someone else ever again, but now that I’m out of it, I see how absolutely bananas that life was. So when people don’t want to sign up to work at Walmart for a lame $15 an hour to be treated with disrespect (my last job had me working very closely with Walmart….. shitty, shitty company to work for), I definitely get that. These places that make money hand over fist need to pass some of that profit down to the people who actually make the shit “go.” There were people working full time at Walmart who still had to get public assistance, and that’s just fucking crazy. And these aren’t people with a dozen kids and a Mercedes they can’t afford to be driving either. The American business world is a fucking JOKE, and I’ll be real thankful if I can stay out of it from here on out.
At 42 I don't see you retiring soon. Couples are both working just to stay in their house. Getting child care is expensive and hard to get as many caregivers are not accepting any new kids due to Covid. So one has to stay home with the kids. So it gets really hard to make ends meet.
There are two other angles: first, fear. Feeding the masses a diet of FUD for a year and a half makes them start believing it all. There are those who thrive on self-righteousness, and will cling strongly to it even if they don't seek it out. And there are far, FAR more of them than you'd think.
The second is drugs. It turns out that isolating people for over a year and removing their ability to not only feed their families, but see and interact with each other, visit each other when sick, get medical treatment for other illnesses (we're going to lose more people to colorectal cancer ALONE than Covid has killed, because of missed screenings), or attend or even HAVE funerals for loved ones when they die actually causes psychological harm. Who knew? Aside from people with the slightest knowledge of humanity, or psychology, or Harry Harlow. Many people have simply fallen into despair. Many have killed themselves. And a shit-ton have turned to drugs. Remember the great Opioid epidemic that was the big health concern a few years back? It hasn't gone anywhere- it's gotten quite a bit larger. There are quite a few people out there who couldn't pass a drug test anymore because of the stuff they've become addicted to, and thus CAN'T get a job.
This is the free market in action, which is why I said we do not need a minimum wage. Around here restaurants have now hit 15 dollars an hour for average starting pay... and this state still has a minimum wage that matches the federal one.
At the same time, its led to massive inflation... burgers are now 10 to 12 dollars for a combo and customer service sucks rocks.
10 to 12 for a combo and you have to wait 45 minutes to get one in the drive through or inside.
Then add into the mix that free money, my state dropped the extra federal unemployment already, did not really help get people back to work... instead people are now whining the federal government needs to do something, cause they can't pay their bills and soon as the eviction order runs out they will be homeless. Naturally they are not paying rent, they are just living on unemployment, food stamps and whatever else they qualify for, not planning for the future and expecting the government to take care of them.
Now is the best time ever to get a job, it has never been this good in my life time... and yet people whine about it.
$15 an hour doesn't even keep up with inflation, or the rise in prices for almost everything yoiu can think of. Either the prices for everything have to go down or raise the wages. Companies are also being hit hard with cost of shipping and trouble receiving their goods. UPS and USPS have raised rates for the Holidays. How can people survive on minimum wage?
Your right, it does not... in fact this year I've taken a 5% pay cut thanks to the high inflation. Since I'm already above minimum wage, my company will not be giving me more than probably a 2.5% annual raise around March of next year.
This is why the middle class gets smaller all the time. However my point was back when I was younger, restaurants only offered minimum wage, they are now more than double minimum wage. There was no way I could have lived on $4.25 an hour back in the day, or even double that... but it would have been closer to being possible on double.
Fact is if everyone had a livable wage, no one would be able to afford much, the cost of everything would sky rocket. Many businesses (especially small business) have little to no extra and can't compete against big business. They cannot afford to pay people more... if everyone had a livable wage, there would only be big business and no small business around anymore.
Hence why people like to hire illegals, pay them under the table and hope for the best. If farmers paid a real cost for growing food, everyone would complain how expensive food is... as the cost of it would go up 10 fold. I grew up on a farm, very intimately involved still with the family farm and all the neighbors and so forth... only thing keeping prices down in food is cheap labor and government subsidies. Get rid of either or both of those and the real cost of food would by unsustainable.
What really sucks is someone who has been working for a company for 10 years and is up to $20 an hour and then have some brand new employee starting at the same pay. There ought to be a law!
This is exactly why I say the only way I can support the minimum wage law, is if when it goes up, it goes up for everyone.
I know a lot of people have a hard time understanding this concept, but it means if someone is making minimum wage now and it goes up by $7.75 an hour to $15 an hour and someone has been there for 10 years and at $15 an hour they should also get the $7.75 raise and go up to $22.75 an hour.
If they are at $10 an hour, they should go up to $17.75 an hour, not just $15 an hour.
This way it at least keeps the middle class from shrinking or losing purchasing power. Sure they could cap it if they want, if you make X amount already you won't get it, half million or whatever.
One reason is how online sites like indeed and zip recruiter have flooded companies with often spam applications. For example I recently applied for a remote position that had been posted for 12 hours and saw that I was the 1,300th application. So just imagine who (computer or manually) has to filter those applications and actually narrow them down to an interview phase.
Another personal example is applying to Barnes and Noble. I couldn’t complete an application in the store because they must be fair to all so had to apply online. Now mind you I have 5 years of experience at B&N including management. However 2 weeks later I got the boilerplate response from the online site saying my application for a Part time Bookseller opening has been not selected. I can’t be sure if the local store ever saw my resume as following up was informed all HR must go through their corporate website/hr.
I am choosing to be honest and answer your sincere question as I have 15 years experience as a software engineer and cannot fill one of the openings you asked about so I believe the system is broken at some level.
I also assumed they hire locally so that’s why I followed up at the store. But they couldn’t help and I haven’t gotten feedback from corporate yet as to why I wasn’t considered. I am someone willing and able to work, yet not getting through the red tape to get hired.
12.2K opinions shared on Society & Politics topic.
The problem is not a simple issue. Nor is it about simply unemployment. People have a lot more commitments in having to care for their children, disabled, and family. There is a shortage of carers and daycare that would normally take in these vulnerable when times were better. The people would then be able to go out and work.
Then you have issues with travel and expenses. It costs a lot more and there are queues for groceries, medicines and everything between. Even getting stuff delivered you're talking weeks in some cases and you've got to be home, else you've got to travel.
Lastly businesses themselves aren't offering much support to their staff and the pay and bother isn't really paying much for the hassle.
Some say WHY WORK when you can get PAID MORE to be a couch potato & if unemployment lowered the amount of their generous handouts those couch potatoes would start looking for jobs.
So I think people start realizing retail and other hospitality jobs don’t pay well enough to sustain a livable wage so those jobs will cut your hours at anytime even if you’re a role model employee.
Then again, most places want 40 or 50 years of experience and a hundred certifications in their fields and apparently it’s all thanks to Human Resources who place all these which as a result positions go unfilled as well.
It is true that a lot of employers cut hours to 3 hours a week so they don't have to pay benefits. But I'm sure the CEO get's his $millions in bonuses.
There are a lot of reasons, but without getting political and partisan; here are the biggest reasons.
1. That the people who would otherwise take those jobs realize that the work really sucks and doesn't pay well enough to justify returning to work. 2. Many people found other ways of making money during the pandemic. 3. The jobs available are different from the ones people used to have because of how the pandemic changed society's priorities. There are entire economies, like the restaurant industry, that have been permanently altered by the fact that people aren't commuting to work anymore. Companies have realized that it's cheaper for them to simply work from home.
I worked in Texas. People get paid 2.15 dollars an hour and the customers are terrible. And Texans are brought up to believe that being demanding and annoying over cheese sticks is a sign of 'high standards'.
What's the point?
If you are gonna work a crap job it might aswell be construction where you make coin.
It just means Capitalism finally working, despite the socialist manipulation of the labour market by the government working to keep wages artificially low.
"There's a shortage of new cars I can buy for $200 ..."
If you can't hire people at $8 an hour, it's not a labor shortage !!!
Well I suppose in the USA the wealthy middle class is much richer than the the middle class in other countries. But why should people have to be in these lucrative professions just to make ends meet? Why can't normal workers have a decent life like in other countries?
They come for the opportunities. But in the USA if you are not a high professional there is no job security and no respect for the regular worker at the aforementioned companies.
But they won't. They will suck up benefits as long as they can because they are probably those people who are unemployable due to mental illness or drug addicts. Or schizophrenia or by being bi polar.
My opinion too. They are having too much fun lazing around that they are putting off going back to work as long as possible and thinking they can easily get a job at Walmart.
From what I have found happening specifically in my state …. people are saying they’re going on interviews they get then not showing up but showing the paperwork of an interview time to unemployment.
Also I turned down a few positions I’m qualified to fulfill due to pay you’re going to have to run me my money especially if you’re short staffed.
Because the idiot liberals decided everyone needed double or triple unemployment benefits, nobody is gonna go flip burgers for $8.50/hr when they are getting $24/hr sitting on their ass collecting FAT unemployment checks.
People are realizing that their purpose in life is not working a 9-5 job. There are better things to do. Obviously the jobs are important and people need money, but a lot of jobs are not worth the time and effort for minimum wage
Ironically congress made it so people can't sue the manufacturers until 2024 if they have a adverse side effect to the vaccines. If its so safe why did they do that?
People are dependent on government support instead of going out and making a living. Democrat politicians love a welfare state. More power over people.
That would be news to me. They are opening up new, strategic locations (read that "near Wal-Marts"), and remodeling existing stores. In fact, our town will lose it's Aldi to a neighboring mall- in a neighboring village- which has a Wal-Mart, and double in size and adding a "dedicated pick-up feature" (whatever that turns out to be). The Albrecht family from Germany own both Aldi and Trader Joe's (higher end) and is worth- depending on sources- $60-120B USD. Aldi is always very hush-hush about their changes/suppliers/everything, a contrast to Costco which spotlights their suppliers (Kettle Chips, Perrigo for drugs, GP for paper goods, etc). Maybe (Aldi going south) is a smoke screen from the fam to hide current successes?
because it was much more important to Biden to virtue signal that he loves us. He didn't care that it would costs us a trillion when it wasn't needed. He didn't care that it would hurt future Americans or fuck up the economy
I get it yet it amounts to raising the minimum wage to $15 which they didn't want to do so now it is there without Congressional help. We all know Congress is for themselves, not us.
People retrained People aren't going to customer service jobs anymore Baby boomers retired People became self-employed Unemployment but even in States that end the unemployment it's still a worker shortage which is werid
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0 Reply
Anonymous
(25-29)
+1 y
Who knows why... I'm self-employed and doing fine, we need far far more self employment like the 1700's might just have to discard a few million worthless husks song the way but it's for the greater good
It's been great for my commodity focused business that more often gives people money for what they have, I get to trade in weight and make money in the margin
Who wants to work when Father Government will provide for us at the expense of others that once had to earn their riches
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Anonymous
(45 Plus)
+1 y
would you want to work for some of these scumbag lowlife places and deal with a rotten degenerate piece of shit middle manager who's power hungry and gets his knickers off bullying his employees for minimum wage?
Managers like that have a high turn over rate. It's a wonder the company they work for don't can them. Maybe if more employees complained to the company. What you need is "Undercover Boss" in there to see how employees are treated.
yeah but ceos are to cheap to do that because it would take a few bucks out of their pockets and earnings and they don't want that. they have to be as greedy as possibly especially around the holiday time
What do you mean? Right now some are paying their employees more than that because they are so desperate to hire people. I've seen stores/fast food temporarily closed because they don't have enough employees to run the business.
Some people will be desperate but the reality is that they will infect the others decently good workers and make them have the same poor work ethic so there really Geting payed to hurt the buisness. I can do a lot more with 3 good works than 5-6 shitty ones so id rather keep the 3 good ones happy and hire more slowly
its common sense the government are the satanic rulers of the world
PSALM
Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The KINGS of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the LORD and against his anointed CHRIST, saying, “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.” The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. He rebukes them in his anger
so the rulers of the world are satanist,,,, so what is their GOAL? to control everything
Ask yourself this, why would the Lord want to put any of his children through this? If anything it would be mid trib with the first 3 1/2 years being peace. The 2nd 3 1/2 years is when the shit hits the fan.
If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity they will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword they will be killed." This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God's people.
It sounds like a better approach, yet apparently a whole bunch of people in power think it's right to give people the equivalent of 16USD/hr. When even the people pushing for a minimum wage *boost* are asking for 15. It'll vary by state of course, but the system seems to range from slightly fucked to majorly fucked.
The Australian government is forcing us all to get the jab now, the key problem is that we only have a small window of time to get the vaccine, before our assistance will probably run out, no jab no job, seems to be the policy, what will happen is that a lot of people will loose the current position they hold to someone who was already vaccinated. Also many of us are ineligible for the Pfizer vaccine, because of where we live. Plus wait times can be 2 months. And rich people are getting treated in a favourable manor, like if you got money you can get anything you want. Including a jab that was ment for some pensioners. It’s pretty fucked, the cops got our army involved in the policing of what might have turned out to be very riotous protests, as a result almost nobody turned up. The ramifications of all this might not be felt till nest year when loads of poor people get arrested for living on the streets, our government has turned out to be very sneaky and overtly evil. They will loose the next election, but by that time the damage they have caused is probably going to be terrible, shit is probably going to get real nasty in Australia soon.
Beginning to sound like the end times when unless you have something written on your forehead or right wrist you can't buy or sell, and probably not work either.
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