The Pandemic is One Reason for High Job Vacancies

 

Last evening's PBS Newshour aired a story about why there are so many unfilled job openings, leaving unemployment at 50+ year lows. It focused on working-age people dropping out of the workforce. 

As for why they are doing so, it gave a list that included some of the usual suspects. First, there is a hollowing-out of the labor market. 

Mid-tier jobs—ones that had attractive salaries and benefits, including retirement—continue to be replaced by automation. This means there are a lot of low-tier jobs that are not attractive to workers and high-tier jobs they are not qualified for.

Another factor cited was the large number of people with felony convictions, a result of our incarceration-happy culture. Yet another was government benefits, particularly disability payments.

But the not-usual suspect was the COVID-19 pandemic. For one thing, the pandemic outright killed 217,978 people of working age, and most of those people occupied jobs. 

But that's not all. Julia Pollak, an economist cited in the story, attributed the problem to

a huge decline in participation among older workers. And part of that may be driven by long COVID. We have seen an increase in the number of people reporting disabilities, especially cognitive disabilities.

So there you have it folks. The pandemic not only jolted our society and killed a bunch of people, it disabled a lot of people it didn't kill, and those people are no longer available to work.




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