Well in London, we know where a lot of the low wage workers went: back to their family homes in the EU. Most of the hospitality business in London employed twenty-somethings from all over the EU. They came to the UK because it had a flexible labour market. In contrast in many parts of Europe there was a lot of job protection and few opportunies for youngsters coming on to the job market. In London it is very easy to find a low paid job and the minimum wage is a bit more than in other countries.
When the lockdowns hit, businesses had to close and the government subsided employee furlough. For many that means a year or more at home watching Netflix. Now it depends on how comfortable your home is. If it a bunk bed in an overcrowded apartment in a run down part of London, the obvious thing to do is go to your family home for the lockdown and save the expense. Plenty of time to consider your future and I guess many will be chosing something other than the long hours and low pay that is common in hospitality. Some will have switched to the home delivery business. I am amazed by the long lines of delivery drivers outside the better fast food takeaways.
This is the best time to change career, not least because ‘work from home’ has suddenly gone mainstream.
I’ve heard that the biggest factor is two-income families deciding to become one-income families, with one spouse staying home full-time. This is consistent with teachers (not highly paid, but far from minimum wage) being one of the professions currently in demand: A lot of teachers are married to someone who makes more than them, so if someone’s going to leave work, it makes sense for it to be the teacher.
I’ve been in HR for more than five years now, and in recent months I’ve had a lot of headhunters contacting me about positions here in Arkansas. Before 2021, I’d never had a recruiter reach out to me directly unless they were looking to see what positions were available at my company. I’m not really interested in a new position at this time as I’m quite happy where I am, but I’ve started to wonder if I could negotiate a higher salary than what many of those companies say they’re offering. A few of them have had positions posted for months.
Yeah I have heard this as well. Many two-income families dropped the lower income in favor of being able to manage the kids during the pandemic, while the higher-income could focus on work. I cannot imagine the chaos of managing two+ school-age kids doing remote learning with both parents working from home full-time.
My household went to one income during the pandemic, and we have remained relatively sane. A good friend of mine did not, and he has been incredibly stressed and burnt out.
I’ve seen a ton of burn out, especially among first responders, but not limited to them. Even in IT I’ve seen people burned out and with huge stress. It’s been a real trial for people, and it’s not like it’s over. While right now US covid cases and deaths seem down, we are headed into the cold and flu season, and this time last year was when we saw a huge surge. The EU is already surged past US numbers in recent days, and I noticed that while the US trends were down last week, they seem to be leveling off or even starting to rise again.
ETA: And this doesn’t even touch on the supply chain issues that have their roots, at least to an extent, in exactly what the OP is asking. There are a lot of people who aren’t driving trucks or getting containers off ships these days, and it’s adding to the overall issues.
How is this any different from how rent has always been paid everywhere? You earn and then save up money throughout the month and then pay the full rent at the end. This “service”, is it called a “bank” maybe? Or a “mattress”?
I suspect you’re an outlier on that. I think food delivery apps will continue for a long time, since they’ve greatly expanded the types of food that you can get delivered. It’s not just pizza and Chinese food any more. Now that it’s become practical to get delivery from almost any local restaurant, I think people will want to keep that.
And curbside pickup for groceries is just great. I’ve been doing that for most of my groceries since the pandemic started, and the few times I’ve gone into an actual store recently just remind me of how much I hate lineups and dealing with other people getting in my way when I shop. For pre-packaged stuff, curbside pickup is far superior, and I’m pretty sure I’ll keep doing it for as long as they keep offering it.
Pre Covid you had a job that is just about okay, a commute that’s doable and a salary you can live on. Your employer sent you home. Maybe you could work from home and keep going that way or maybe you just had whatever benefits there were available where you live.
For many people, this is the trigger to re-evaluate. The City salary might have been more than you can make locally, but no commute? Maybe you use your Covid break to start up a small business.
The point is that without Covid, you would have carried on as you were. Now you have a chance to do something new.
Anecdotal, but for the past six months I’ve been wanting to hire an electronics technician. The pay starts at $30 to $35/hour, plus full benefits (including free colleges for children). Cost of living is low here. I’ve interviewed a few people, but they were comically unqualified. I’m still looking.
I feel like this is a huge part of the equation. Many younger parents start out in two-income families, resenting it but finding it necessary. Fast forward 10 years, COVID forces a change, and many find out that they don’t need a second income (especially since child care is impossible to find right now). They’re thinking “what would make me go back and give up this time with my child” and the answer is “definitely not the assholes who demand that I work in unhealthy conditions”.
There were lots of two-income families that didn’t really need to be two-income families, and now they know that.
Many office environments have become more ageist and ableist, crowding people into open-plan offices that are the equivalent of high-school lunchrooms. Noisy, low-privacy, being stared at all the time. After years of employees begging “we’d like to work at home please”, and the company saying “sorry, impossible”, we now know that was a lie because it was the norm during the pandemic. And we’re holding out for better conditions.
Most companies are absolutely allergic to responding to employee flexiblity needs. Employees aren’t to ask for concessions; they’re to wait until they’re granted. Money, better work environment, flexible schedules, etc. So when employees ask for what they need, what bosses hear is “I refuse to work.”
The workers are out there. Employers just don’t like the new era of employee empowerment. They could pay better wages and offer better conditions, but instead they’re waiting it out. I’ve heard it said that this isn’t an employee strike, it’s a capital strike, and it seems true to me.
Our Country, the United States, has exploited so-called “illegals” for generations, with lousy wages & working conditions.
Lately, hostility to them has increased. So have economic opportunities in Mexico.
Result–a worker shortage.
Sure, but curbside isn’t a gig economy type thing, at least in my area. It’s just regular store employees bringing your order out to your car. Granted, that probably requires them to hire more people than they otherwise might, but it’s a “normal” job.
I’m just saying that I’m unlikely to use services like Doordash now that I’m willing to go pick stuff up myself. And certainly not ones like say… Drizly, if I want a couple of bottles of wine or something. I’ll just go to the liquor store myself now that I’m vaccinated.
I get that. What I’m asking is more a question of where the people who are doing something new ended up. I didn’t think there were that many open jobs out there for people who finally got a chance to let go of the tiger’s tail, so to speak. Or at least not as many as would account for the low wage job shortages we’re seeing right now.
I agree with you; far too many workplaces don’t acknowledge that work is a two-way agreement where both sides have requirements. They view it from the perspective that they have a job that pays, and you had better be grateful that you have that opportunity, and thus be willing to put up with poor floor plans, obnoxious hours, on-call requirements, dress codes, etc… because you were lucky to have that job.
That charade only went on as long as nobody pointed out that the Emperor had no clothes, and the pandemic basically took a spotlight and shined it on the Emperor, and then announced over the PA to everyone “Hey- look, the Emperor has no clothes!”.
So now the shoe’s on the other foot in large part- people aren’t willing to put up with a lot of the BS like working strictly in the office, or (I suspect) pointless dress codes, or strict work hours, or whatever, because they don’t have to.
I think I’d like to see the pendulum swing a little differently though; personally I find this latter-day blending of work and home to be extraordinarily problematic. Blurring the two is something that I don’t like at all- it feels like I never really get away from work when they blur too much. Maybe it’s some sort of hangover from my consulting days, but I did not like feeling like I was constantly on the hook with a company phone, and that they might call me and expect work at any time of the day or night. Yet that’s what it seems like the working world is heading toward.
One data point; in my suburb of Ohio, the retail and restaurant owners I’ve spoken with have told me that the high-school and college worker pool has shrunk. Those workers were in it to make a couple of bucks to offset a few expenses or have extra pocket money. It appears that with COVID, the staff-shortage stress, and unruly customers, they may have decided that it wasn’t worth the effort.
I’d say it’s just a new way of setting boundaries. WFH will also eliminate that stupid game of chicken with who leaves the office first.
I can see in consulting you may very well have to be at someone’s beck and call, but for most jobs, it will have to wait until the morning (or the next shift)
Years ago, my company (large, with good pay and benefits) let go almost all the secretaries, janitors, maintenance people, etc. Leaving something like one secretary per 500 employees, which meant only the higher level management could use a secretary’s time. Let the engineers and scientists do that kind of stuff for themselves. Typical “penny wise, pound foolish” strategy.
That worked well enough (that is, poorly) when you could hire more engineers to get the engineering work done. Except now, there’s a shortage of engineers and scientists. (I’m not sure what the ultimate cause of that shortage is, but these are very specialized positions that take years of on-the-job training.)
Finally, the company is hiring more secretaries, janitors, etc so that engineers can focus on the engineering. They are paid well and get good benefits. And are probably being poached from smaller companies. Which get who they can to fill these relatively lower skilled job, and so on going down the value chain.
