Across the country, labor shortages have become some of the most pressing issues. These shortages are a result of increased unemployment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many minimum wage workers are quitting their jobs just as the demand for them increases.
Other factors behind the shortage include a growing number of aging or retiring workers, demand for better pay and working conditions, as well as newly implemented immigration limits.
The biggest work sectors that have been impacted by the shortage include retail, food and beverage, trade and education
Because of the shortage that these sectors are experiencing, international supply chains are being disrupted due to both a lack of workers and limited raw materials.
Winthrop students believe that the pandemic has not helped this problem.
“We’ve already been landslided by COVID-19 and even though the effects of COVID have been stagnated by vaccinations across the country, we are already too far gone,” junior theater major Jacob Dunham said.
Experts stress that while the pandemic exacerbated these problems and caused them to grow quicker than normal, the roots of this issue lie with problems that were already found pre-pandemic.
This is not just a problem that the United States is facing, but one that most countries around the world are having to deal with.
Part of what is driving the current labor shortage is that workers are striking for better conditions. In 2021 so far there have been over 178 strikes and protests for better pay and working conditions, including companies like Kellogg’s, Spectrum and McDonald’s. Many job vacancies are minimum wage and have little or no benefits such as paid time off, paid family leave and insurance.
Winthrop students agree that workers need better pay.
“This is something that won’t be resolved until people disassociate the livelihood of people from politics,” freshman political science student Carrie Vaughn said. “Putting food on the table of a family of five should never be about partisanship but for a brighter America.”
“Elevated quit rates suggest that companies may also have to raise pay to retain the staff they currently have given the high costs of worker turnover,” the ING noted. Some major corporations such as Starbucks, Amazon and Costco have announced major wage increases in the hopes of attracting more workers.
The United States has fully recovered from the economic output from the pandemic but there are more than ten million job vacancies across the country.
Economists have noted that larger numbers of older workers are more inclined to take retirement rather than return to the office.
“The thought of returning to the office and the daily commute may seem unpalatable for many people,” the ING said to CNBC. “With surging equity markets having boosted 401k pension plans, early retirement may seem a very attractive option.”
If this problem of more middle-aged workers leaving persists, “labor market shortages could persist for a good deal longer than the Federal Reserve expects, which will mean companies increasingly bidding up pay to attract staff,” the ING said.
“This is going to lead to rises in wages. Those rises in wages are good for all, but they can be inflationary, and at the same time we could see less demand because as people get older, their consumption tends to go down,” economist Alfred Marcus said to Marketplace.
