In short?

 

How can the labor shortage be fixed?

It's not gonna be.

"Proposed solutions to the labor shortage generally fall into two categories: immediate moves to help businesses meet their staffing needs as quickly as possible, and more systemic changes that could help make the U.S. labor supply more resilient in the long term."

(Ask yourself, what has generally worked best in your life? Short term fixes? Or long term solutions?)

"Groups that could potentially be tapped include immigrants, teenagers, the formerly incarcerated and the recently retired."

Guess what? If the "recently retired" wanted to be working? a) they wouldn't have retired and b) if they did? they'd be working already :-).

(Good old fashions lefties (progressives, your truly, etc. :-) have been saying for years we need immigrants to come and work the jobs we so obviously don't want, particularly as the baby boomer generation retires and we need workers to replace them, and excluding former felons seems at the very least very counterintuitive.

“We don’t have a strong labor force participation recovery yet, and we may not have it for some time,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in December. It’s also possible, some argue, that elements of the current labor shortage may even be permanent.

(Hey Powell got one right finally :-) I'd go with the later statement in bold if I was you.)

“We need to fix work, not workers. I believe the inability of employers to fill job openings … is no labor shortage but rather an indictment of the low-quality jobs that tens of millions of Americans have languished in for years. The pandemic has exposed business models that undervalue and underpay workers, often subjecting them to dangerous conditions — now and before Covid-19.” — Don Howard, Forbes

(Somebody was saying the same exact thing a while back :-). I look like I write for Forbes? Life is just way to short to work shitty jobs for shitty people. Chickens always come home to roost eventually so here we are.)

"...there’s nothing disreputable about working as a cook or waiter or front-end manager.” — David Harsanyi, National Review'

(Go do it for a while then, see how you're treated)

Too many workers have been shut out of the market because of regulation, and too many consumers have been deprived of the benefits of more competition.” — Connor Boyack, Deseret News

(Deregulation for the past 40 years has lead to a CONCENTRATION of businesses, not the increased competition that was promised. If it wasn't for this quote I probably wouldn't even be doing this piece. Where exactly is the promised increased competition? Come show me the industry that has more competition now than it did 40 years ago. That's an important number 40, BTW. I'll be waiting.)

Something nobody is talking about is this:

We've had a million "excess" deaths in the last two years. Mostly from Covid but also from more: heart disease, high blood pressure, dementia and other ailments. These are deaths that wouldn't have taken place if not for the pandemic. The deceased are not gonna be participating in the workforce either, so there's another reason compounding the labor shortage.

We disincentivized work. When you can work hard all your life and just keep falling farther and farther behind? Working for less and less benefits and less job security and becoming indentured servants to debt? It's just better to not want the carrot they dangle in front of you. (Take away the stick they like to beat you with basically) You're never gonna get it anyway (The carrot) so why even bother chasing it?

Revelation 6:6

Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

Starvation wages have caught up to us and like the article points out, wages are not keeping up with inflation. NEWS FLASH, they never have and they never will.

It's why life in a garage with a beat up sportster appeals to some of us :-).

Not gonna do it their way. Been prepared to die a long time.

People don't see how some of us live like we do? Trust me, we don't see how you live in the world you live in either.