Where have all the Workers Gone
By Albert B. Kelly
Over the past several months, one thing I hear repeatedly from employers in all industries is that they cannot find people to fill their open jobs. If you pay attention to the news, this problem is playing out all over the country and in some cases causing serious problems such as in healthcare. The concern, is that there’s not one quick and easy answer to solving the labor shortage.
I suspect that at least part of what feels like a shortage is really just people changing jobs. I see this on the local level with regularity. It is one of those rare times when the grass may very well be greener on the other side. Workers are looking around and seeing that employers are upping the ante by paying hire hourly wages, giving signing bonuses, and offering other goodies in order to get people to fill open jobs.
Employers are bleeding staff left and right as workers scan the landscape to see who is paying more and then submitting their 2-week notice. You certainly can’t blame people for wanting to earn more money for themselves and their families, after all that’s the American way, it’s in our DNA. To that extent, I say more power to them, at least they’re working.
Keep in mind that wage growth in this country has been stagnant more or less since the Nixon administration, so when you get this perfect storm of events that appears to give a little leverage to workers, even when we’re talking about unskilled entry level jobs, then we can’t be surprised when workers are unwilling to settle for whatever employers might offer.
And it is here, with the category of jobs considered unskilled, entry-level, front line, service-related that we see the biggest impacts. Locally, the crisis is most visible with solid waste and trash hauling. Over the past several weeks we have been in close communication with our contracted hauler, Atlantic County Utilities Authority or ACUA, about delays in curbside trash pick-up.
The problem comes down to a labor shortage made worse by a pandemic surge and most recently compounded by some recent snow. The thing was fragile to begin with because we’re talking about picking up garbage, which is not exactly the type of thing that people wake up excited to do. Because of that, the hourly wage has to be high enough to overcome the drudgery and what that number might be is still being fleshed out.
What tipped the whole thing over and has us off balance still, is the Omicron surge that has rotating numbers of employees either out sick with symptoms or out on quarantine and this throws the whole schedule behind. On top of that, throw in a decent snow that prevented pick up for a day and half, and the whole things gets backed-up and takes a couple of weeks to untangle.
We are meeting with company officials to better understand how they plan to address this mess. Until this situation gets stabilized, enforcement has been suspended including the need for stickers on trash outside containers awaiting pick-up. Trash pick-up might be delayed, but it will be picked up.
This is just one example locally of the labor crisis, but it is not confined to solid waste. Rite Aid, which was known for having the pharmacy portion of the store open 24 hours, has had to shut the pharmacy at 11:00pm eliminating the overnight shift because they simply cannot staff it properly. Stores of all kinds are shortening hours and trimming their sails because they lack employees.
There is legitimate concern among older workers about getting sick from Covid and this explains a wave of retirements among those with institutional knowledge in companies and organizations of all shapes and sizes. We won’t know the full impact of this brain drain for some time to come.
Finally, it’s not just the pandemic or stagnant wages. The work ethic is different depending on your generation. If you’re of a certain age, you worked not only to earn a living but because there was pride in not taking a hand-out. Today, there is a mindset among some that takes pride not in work, but in figuring out how to work the system. Wages will adjust upwards and the pandemic surge will ease, but I’m not sure there’s a fix for a lack of work ethic.