RiverDog wrote:So exactly what is it that I'm predicting? All I'm saying is that the labor shortage that we are dealing with today is going to be something that we're going to have to learn to live with for the foreseeable future. The pandemic didn't create the problem, it accelerated it. It will remain with us long after the pandemic has past. You're right, it will take years for companies to respond by utilizing technology to decrease their reliance on labor. And in the meantime, the consumer will have to deal with the consequences of having to wait those years for various industries to modernize and adapt to the new environment.
I don't agree with the part about the general labor shortage maintaining at this level. This is all very weird.
Take Seattle for example. I work in the heart of Seattle. This place isn't near as busy as it was pre-pandemic. Multiple restaurants have closed. Office buildings are still empty. The bus traffic is still lower than it ever has been in the entire time I worked in Seattle. Pre-pandemic, this place was crawling with people and very active. On the weekends when I was going home, the clubs were bumping music, restaurants and bars were full. The place was packed on weekends. Sporting events were packed. Show as the 5th Ave Theater and Benaroya Hall all the time. Lots of huge conventions. All shut down or way less than before. It's picking up, but nowhere near what it was. This isn't occurring just here, but everywhere except maybe places like Florida, Texas, and Kansas.
Now after we open back up, suddenly there are tons of shortages in local clinics, restaurants, airlines, and the like that weren't there pre-pandemic even with the labor shortage. These were not jobs held by old people retiring. I'm not sure where the people who occupied these jobs are which is why I listed the app economy and living at home with parents as some factors in this labor shortage.
It's a very strange situation. I don't expect to live with this level of a shortage into the future. I see it more as we shut down a ton of stuff, furloughed or laid off a ton of workers, pumped unprecedented stimulus into the economy, and took all types of measures never done before in a modern global economy. You don't get to just turn it back on like flipping a light switch expecting everyone to come back like nothing happened. So we're getting this very strange slow ramp up of labor with lots of shifting by workers and companies and figuring out how to get things going again. Once we're able I expect us to bring in more people and fill lots of spots using immigration as we have done before once we get our house in order and see what this mess looks like once we fully ramp back up. Right now, this environment is very strange and unprecedented.
I'm 100% certain the number of jobs in the city have not returned. I know that from just looking around compared to pre-COVID. How many jobs shifted to working from home? How many companies moved from the city to somewhere else? How active are factories? How many people are still riding out unemployment even without the stimulus bonus because they're waiting to get called back?
This is not at all a good picture of the level of labor that will exist once this gets sorted out. I don't expect the shortages you're predicting once we fully ramp back up. I mainly think it's not as easy as people think to turn all of this back on and get moving again. We're seeing the results of turning so much of the economy off and now trying to turn as much back on as fast as possible in an environment that had so much money pumped into it causing this inflation. Until that is sorted out, I don't expect the doom and gloom you're painting of short clinics with tons of people trying to get access.
This labor situation seems to be occurring worldwide, not just here. It is for the same pandemic related reasons.