Where are the workers?

[jimbogumbo]

Not allowed to com e to the US per this report: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/15/immigration-reform-congress-worker-shortage/

[kaysixteen]

That's too bad for the employers, but it may actually start to become good news for millions of underemployed, underpaid workers, mostly in Trump country (but not all).   Stock prices and corporate profits are very high, and inflation, like it or not, has allowed some employers to raise prices beyond their increased costs.   They can afford to pay more, and to start up more jobs to get these people back to work, rather than replacing them with low-wage immigrants.

[Anselm]

I suspect that many workers went back to their home country during the pandemic and are in no hurry to come back.   Restaurants reopened partially and then shut down again.  You can't pay the rent with a job like that while rents also increased significantly.   I suppose many had to take care of sick family members.   I will speculate further.  Maybe the internet and cell phones have made it easier for people to find the better paying jobs so they are less likely to stick around with the lower paying gigs.   The reason given a year ago was the stimulus money kept workers home but that is over with.   I also am confused about a lack of workers when supposedly so many establishments were closing down permanently in 2020 due to loss of revenue.   The silver lining to all of this is that we are seeing the biggest raises in the service sector in my lifetime. 

[Caracal]

I also am confused about a lack of workers when supposedly so many establishments were closing down permanently in 2020 due to loss of revenue.   

That was mostly in the restaurant industry, where there's always a lot of churn. My impression is that the pandemic just pushed a lot of closings that might have happened anyway forward. If you'd been thinking about retiring and closing down a restaurant for a while and then the pandemic hits, you probably just decide to call it a day. Same if you owned a place that had been struggling for a while. Many high end restraunters tend to think of their places as having a limited life span. The goal is to move on from a concept before it starts becoming dated and unprofitable. If you had been starting to think things were getting stale and considering a new venture, the pandemic probably pushed you to pull the trigger.

The point is that these places have been replaced for the most part. We don't actually have far fewer restaurants than we did in 2020.

[jimbogumbo]

There are plenty of tech jobs that can't get workers because of Trump era visa problems. The US doesn't have enough citizen workers to fill them. The border issues mean that seasonal workers can't get through. Those are the biggest problems, along with experienced workers who have retired with the known boomer aging out of the workforce.

kay, none of those groups depress the wages of your worker group. That is a systemic issue brought on by long term domestic policies, not immigration.

[Cheerful]

The US doesn't have enough citizen workers to fill them.

Why is that?

[Hibush]

The US doesn't have enough citizen workers to fill them.

Why is that?

In agriculture, much of the labor is structured for seasonal workers. Those workers have very different priorities from local workers. Their primary goal is to make money to send home to their families. They welcome 60 or 70-hour weeks because they make more money. Time off is just wastes opportunity, even a penalty.

Local workers are interested in having a life, so normal hours are an expectation. Many farmers work long hours, and have their familty members work long hours as do the seasonal hires. It is very difficult for someone in that world to imagine how to structure an employee's 40-hour a week job with overtime pay. That difference in what is considered normal results in job openings for which there are no domestic applicants.

[Cheerful]

There are plenty of tech jobs that can't get workers because of Trump era visa problems. The US doesn't have enough citizen workers to fill them.

Hibush, I realize there is much tech in farming but I was referring to jimbogumbo's point about "tech jobs."  Why doesn't the US have enough citizen workers to fill tech jobs?

[Hibush]

There are plenty of tech jobs that can't get workers because of Trump era visa problems. The US doesn't have enough citizen workers to fill them.

Hibush, I realize there is much tech in farming but I was referring to jimbogumbo's point about "tech jobs."  Why doesn't the US have enough citizen workers to fill tech jobs?

Some of the tech jobs filled with Indian coders on H1-B visas were similarly exploitative. Managers used to having workers devoting all their time and energy to the job, albeit at higher pay, may have the same challenge defining jobs that make sense to locals.

[Hibush]

There are plenty of tech jobs that can't get workers because of Trump era visa problems. The US doesn't have enough citizen workers to fill them.

Hibush, I realize there is much tech in farming but I was referring to jimbogumbo's point about "tech jobs."  Why doesn't the US have enough citizen workers to fill tech jobs?

Some of the tech jobs filled with Indian coders on H1-B visas were similarly exploitative. Managers used to having workers devoting all their time and energy to the job, albeit at higher pay, may have the same challenge defining jobs that make sense to locals.

About ⅔ of H1-B visas went to Indian citizens working at tech companies, so the specificity reflects the actual situation.

[ciao_yall]

With WFH a lot of restaurant jobs moved into the suburbs, and all manner of low-wage workers found jobs closer to home.

And the low pay for teachers and college faculty means we aren't educating enough young adults with skills needed for tech jobs. Easier and cheaper to 'import" them from other countries' education systems.

[dismalist]

When I hear the word "shortage", my hands start shaking!

Let wages rise, and the talk of shortage will disappear. Immigration is a method for preventing wage rises.

Higher wages for some skills will induce more domestic creation of those skills by themselves. Nothing more need be done.

The talk of shortage is only special pleading.

[poiuy]

When I hear the word "shortage", my hands start shaking!

Let wages rise, and the talk of shortage will disappear. Immigration is a method for preventing wage rises.

Higher wages for some skills will induce more domestic creation of those skills by themselves. Nothing more need be done.

The talk of shortage is only special pleading.

Overall you are correct.  But there are sectors where higher wages and better working conditions are desperately needed for workers (e.g. caregiving), but raising wages will make these services unaffordable for individuals and health care systems.

These jobs have often been a ladder up the system for lower skilled immigrants. I do not condone their being exploited for lower costs to the system. I cannot think of any way out of this conundrum.

There may be greater automation in other sectors (and I think robots should pay taxes to make up for the shortfalls in human taxes) but our tech overlords have not yet made major strides in robotic caregiving (e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00072-z )

There are authors like Parag Khanna who have argued that the debate of immigration and wages is not clear-cut, i.e. more immigrants = lower wages. They show that in many cases, immigrants create innovations that create more higher-wage jobs. They argue that for aging industrialized societies with below-replacement birth rates, immigration is necessary for economic and societal sustainability. Immigrant acculturation can be achieved with will and support.

[dismalist]

When I hear the word "shortage", my hands start shaking!

Let wages rise, and the talk of shortage will disappear. Immigration is a method for preventing wage rises.

Higher wages for some skills will induce more domestic creation of those skills by themselves. Nothing more need be done.

The talk of shortage is only special pleading.

Overall you are correct.  But there are sectors where higher wages and better working conditions are desperately needed for workers (e.g. caregiving), but raising wages will make these services unaffordable for individuals and health care systems.

These jobs have often been a ladder up the system for lower skilled immigrants. I do not condone their being exploited for lower costs to the system. I cannot think of any way out of this conundrum.

There may be greater automation in other sectors (and I think robots should pay taxes to make up for the shortfalls in human taxes) but our tech overlords have not yet made major strides in robotic caregiving (e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00072-z )

There are authors like Parag Khanna who have argued that the debate of immigration and wages is not clear-cut, i.e. more immigrants = lower wages. They show that in many cases, immigrants create innovations that create more higher-wage jobs. They argue that for aging industrialized societies with below-replacement birth rates, immigration is necessary for economic and societal sustainability. Immigrant acculturation can be achieved with will and support.

Yes, but I meant nothing about the further pro's and con's of a general immigration policy beyond the undeniable effect of lowering wages now. Even that will be reversed after some time through sectoral shifts, but meanwhile there will have been losers. More heads here than more heads in India means more ideas, no question. Those ideas will benefit on average, but there, too, there will be winners and losers.

As for sectoral immigration, such as for health care, that too is special pleading, nothing more. I want cheap health care! Those who pay with more expensive health care live in the countries from which health care specialist immigration will have been liberalized. Those are poorer countries.

[jimbogumbo]

If you look at any CS/Math/Phys/CHM/Engr programs in the US there are simply not enough US students enrolled in them to fill the jobs which will be needed.This has been true for decades, and at both undergrad and grad levels. The jobs those students would be seeking are already well compensated. If wages rise much more the work will be done overseas even more than it is already.