Neither. Labor markets are tight. That improves employees’ bargaining power. The time since our last jobs recession means more may choose to trade that leverage for free time versus savings. (I certainly have.)
I see the logic there, though I think there's more to it. Like quality of work, and reward structures for hard work. Carrots work much better than sticks, with much lower risk of social unrest.
I think those on the broad right are also undervaluing the power of idle hands at this point in time: some small percentage curious people with free time are largely responsible for innovations in society that everyone benefits from, the rich most of all.
We still need at this point, new ideas with which to feed into the training data of the coming AI labor decimators.
You're not wrong, but I believe we're still in the tightening phase. During the "Great Resignation," workers had lots of power because of labor shortages. Employers responded by firing and rehiring (Meta) to reset wages, offshoring, H1Bs, etc. It's also why, I believe, that employers are dragging out hiring as long as possible. They want to "redline" the org and see how far they can push to cram down labor costs and wages (throwing job reqs out over and over with lower and lower comp to trawl for the desperate) while also striving for as much profitability as possible in a high cost of capital environment (see Fed benchmark rate and cuts going to be pushed out much longer due to strength of economy). Employee bargaining power will be challenging for the next few years with the new admin being anti-worker (with regards to organizing and labor rights enforcement), but at the same time, we must consider structural demographics and the fact that ~11,200 Boomers retire per day (~4M/year).
Because of the slow burn of this, the labor market is in a bit of a Mexican Standoff. How this resolves or concludes, I cannot predict. Services labor would tighten if immigration of all sorts was constrained, labor that requires firm authorization checks would tighten faster if some combination of Boomers leaving the labor force faster or workers 55+ aging out faster occured.
JumpCrisscross|1 year ago
Neither. Labor markets are tight. That improves employees’ bargaining power. The time since our last jobs recession means more may choose to trade that leverage for free time versus savings. (I certainly have.)
truckerbill|1 year ago
I think those on the broad right are also undervaluing the power of idle hands at this point in time: some small percentage curious people with free time are largely responsible for innovations in society that everyone benefits from, the rich most of all.
We still need at this point, new ideas with which to feed into the training data of the coming AI labor decimators.
toomuchtodo|1 year ago
Because of the slow burn of this, the labor market is in a bit of a Mexican Standoff. How this resolves or concludes, I cannot predict. Services labor would tighten if immigration of all sorts was constrained, labor that requires firm authorization checks would tighten faster if some combination of Boomers leaving the labor force faster or workers 55+ aging out faster occured.