This week the Department of Labor and Statistics released their latest unemployment statistics. The rate is 3.9% and apparently that is an historically good and encouraging statistic. The economy added over 6.4 million jobs in 2021 (the most in a single year) and the unemployment rate is now the lowest it has been in the pandemic.
You don’t need to spend much time with me to know that I am neither an economist nor a statistician. Statistics help us measure many things, including our economy, but statistics don’t tell the entire story. We have to look for the story behind the statistics story.
We all know that low unemployment is good news and yet it boggles my mind that I am still hearing some news commentators, as well as random people whining about why are there so many job openings? Why don’t some people want to work? Why can’t businesses find the people they need or their favorite proclamation, We need to stop paying people NOT to work. I can guarantee you that these complainers are ones who have never had to try to live on unemployment.
Yes, there is a multitude of jobs available right now. You see the NOW HIRING signs on every stretch of highway, on every business window. But we have to look at the story behind this story.
Some of these jobs are the same low paying jobs that no one really wanted even before the pandemic. These are the jobs that turn over and over and over because they don’t pay someone enough to make a living. Here in Asheville, it was just determined that the minimum living wage is now $ 17.70 per hour. That hourly rate will allow you to rent a one bedroom apartment, pay utilities and buy food. It has been (and still is) a battle to try to get wages to $ 15 per hour and yet the reality is that you will not be able to pay your bills unless you make $ 17.70 per hour and work full-time. Some Asheville employers feel they cannot pay a wage that high.
During the pandemic some workers (who were laid off or working from home) had time to ponder if what they were doing to make a living really felt like they were making a life. Some chose to not return to their former jobs but try a new work path; some chose to start a business of their own; some chose to go back to school to earn the credentials or education that would allow them to find a job that was more fulfilling or better paying or both.
To think that every job that had a worker pre-pandemic will now find a worker for that same job is simply part of the same fantasy that everything is going to go “back to normal.” It won’t. We can’t make things normal through wishing; we are all having to learn and adjust to a new way of living. Everything has changed.Including the workforce.
The other issue that prevents some people from returning to work is the reality that they have children and they are the caretakers of those children. So when schools stay remote or when there is a massive covid outbreak in a classroom and children have to stay quarantined at home, someone has to stay home with the children. Few employers are so flexible that they let their employees schedule their work life around the needs of their children. I wish it were so but we all know it is not; plus with some jobs that is impossible. Nurses can’t work from home. Firefighters can’t bring their children along with them on their jobs. Some parents just can’t return to the job they once held.
Another aspect of work in the covid pandemic is that people have died. To put it bluntly we have fewer workers. Not every person who died was retired; over 835,000 people in the United States have died and with those deaths there are jobs that will remain empty. Some of those who have had covid still have it; covid did not go away after 14 days. Many suffering with longterm covid cannot return to work. It is not a path they chose but it is a reality they face.
There are also those who are not returning to work because they see their jobs as too risky, too vulnerable. They fear that they will get covid and they worry they will die, or if they die or are even ill, who will take care of their children? Of their aging parents? Of a disabled spouse or child? They can’t take a chance on going back to work when we still have those who refuse to get vaccinated and those who act like a vaccine mandate is the end of the world. They would love to return to work but they simply cannot take that risk.
So I think we need to celebrate all those jobs that HAVE been filled, all those brave and creative people who have found a way to return to work and still take care of their families and pay their bills, and the fact that we now have a President who cares enough to see that children do not go hungry just because a parent or grandparent cannot return to work at the moment.
And for all those who continue to whine and accuse people of not wanting to work, of living on what they see as the easy street of unemployment and government checks, I have only one thing to say to you: Judge not and shut up.
Hear Hear!!
Good points, well written! 💗