Where are all the Workers?

Every business in our area has a "Now Hiring" sign in the window.  The amount of companies needing employees has to have hit an all time high.  It isn't just hourly workers that are hard to find, but also skilled and educated employees as well.  Doug's company has struggled to find new hirers.  Brett said that they have had days when they have had a worker shortage as well.  Meg told me that one night at Bell Trace, there was no one scheduled for the dinner shift.  Every company that Doug has talked to in our area is in the same boat, not enough employees for all of the work that needs to be done.  Hiring bonuses, higher wages and other incentives just aren't working.  Every day in the news another restaurant closes their doors due to the employee shortage.  Even businesses in Chicago had signs in their windows that they had to shut their doors due to the current employee shortage situation.

On Monday night after Cameron's match, we tried to stop at several different places to pick up dinner.  Almost all of the restaurants that we saw had closed by 9 p.m.  Penguin Point had even altered their hours to end serving food by 8 p.m.  Grandma Jane said that McDonalds hadn't even opened the last two days and Doug told me that he tried to get food at Subway in Ocala Tuesday night, but had to leave as there was only one person working and she was completely overwhelmed.  

Cameron asked me why all of the businesses were closed.  I explained that the employee shortage was making it extremely challenging for restaurants to have their pre-pandemic hours and in some cases even to remain open.  He questioned what was the difference between then and now.  I answered how I honestly felt.  In the beginning, there really was a large amount of Americans forced out of the workforce.  Once jobs opened back up, however, some were still unable to work because they didn't have childcare or were concerned about contracting coronavirus.  On the other hand, a lot of people chose to just stay home and not worry about looking for work because they were receiving huge unemployment payments.  Those along with the stimulus checks meant that they were making more from the government than they did when they were employed.  Thus, there wasn't even an incentive for them to find a job for the past year.    Hopefully, with the country opening back up, vaccines available everywhere and the number of Covid-19 cases at an all time low, those voting for these large payouts will soon come to understand realize that these payments need to stop.  If not we will all have to pay a heavy price as more and more businesses will be forced to close their doors.