Or did you really think mom and pop were paying the teens running their bookstore $17/hr? You think they had great health insurance and other benefits?

I am here saying that, yes that paltry $15 an hour you scold Amazon for paying? Well mom and pop they drove out of business was paying about HALF of that.

The array of possible jobs could be one or none.

If a basic income existed your point could be true. That's not reality today.

It turns out that Amazon actually competes for labor in a vast market for same. So many people work there because they have to be a better option than most unskilled labor jobs because they have so many packages to deliver.

Yeah, they can't find enough labor because they want to pay people $15 an hour in an area where the median home price is $572,000. I work in logistics. I occasionally overhear some of executive staff down the hall from my office complain about being unable to keep workers in a non-climate controlled warehouse, lifting enormously heavy things, for 8 hours a day, in one of the richest areas of Texas that isn't Houston or Dallas.

Gee, I can't imagine why people wouldn't want to work in a warehouse in 100 degree F weather, lifting 30-80 lbs. boxes for 8 hours.

So I pulled data on that warehouse and it's location. In-N-Out is hiring just 10 miles away for $16 an hour. Yeah, it's not a great job either, but it's air conditioned. And you won't be lifting anything heavier than a box of fries. Furthermore, the cheapest rent within a 10 mile radius of that warehouse is $1700. Good luck paying that on $15 an hour.

So yeah, I can understand why employers can't find workers...

This claim would be stronger if you compared to the bottom 10% of housing, say.

Where did all the money come from in last 1 year to inflate the prices to this insanity.

So asset inflation is eventually going to make impact on labor prices and cause inflation. Then is why FED so cocksure that inflation is no big deal.

>So yeah, I can understand why employers can't find workers...

I don't understand why employers cant simply pay more and pass on the costs to their consumers. What's stoping them.

> Where did all the money come from in last 1 year to inflate the prices to this insanity.

This area of Texas is not well-known to most people. It's a bit of a well-kept secret. While Austin is new money and trendy, and Dallas is cosmopolitan, this area of Texas is old... old money.

> I don't understand why employers cant simply pay more and pass on the costs to their consumers. What's stoping them.

Our company not only has two nationwide competitors, we have significant regional competitors across America, and on top of that, we're having to fight Amazon as well.

I get CC'ed and BCC'ed on most shifts in company policies because it can directly affect logistics and I need to be able to actively work around or with these policies, and things are getting so crazy that Directors of Operations at each warehouse are being tasked with asking low-level warehouse employees to clock out 15 minutes early each day just to avoid any possibility of overtime.

Obviously this creates logistics problems because when a warehouse fills up, you can't send any more stock from suppliers there. So I've had to fold COVID-19 absentee reports into our data analysis, because the loss of productivity from workers can directly affect storage space. For instance, one warehouse currently has three people out with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis, but we contact traced another seven people between those three, so that's 10 workers out, 3 of which for at least a few weeks, possibly months. The other 7 until they're cleared by medical doctors. That could mean roughly a 30% reduction in ability to process merchandise at that location for up to a week or two, and around an 8% decline for several weeks or months.

So we can't pass the cost on to consumers because why would you buy a headlamp assembly for your Audi A6 from us for $479 when you can get it from Amazon for $382?

We've been printing trillions over the past 15 years or so. And we've disproportionately accumulated it at the top (including the audience here, although the top 1% and 0.1% are doing even better than that). That money has to go somewhere. Traditional conservative investments have low rates of return right now - think low interest rates - and housing has historically been seen as "safe". And it's providing fantastic returns.

Take COVID - nobody wants to move, so housing supply is low. Tight supply is just exacerbating an existing issue, especially sharply over the past year.

Totally anecdotal: I just moved from SF to Seattle, somewhat related to my job. We were outbid half a dozen times, often by cash offers. I remember one of them in particular, because we got beat way over asking by a cash buyer, and it was rented on Zillow the week after closing. Housing is an asset class, not a place we live.

> I don't understand why employers cant simply pay more and pass on the costs to their consumers. What's stoping them.

Passing costs onto consumers is a bit of a lie used to scare consumers into opposing wage increases. You can only pass on so much cost, and it depends in part on the elasticity of demand for your product.

Anyhow, employers generally can pay more, but they are optimizing for their shareholders and return on equity. That's going pretty well if you look at the market. But that's why the market isn't reflective of the economy as a whole.

In Seattle back in the day a teacher could own a house in the city and pay it off without a sweat. Nowadays, unless you are a doctor or software engineer or patent lawyer it's kind of ludicrous idea.

I was under the impression that lots of people wanted to move out of the cities both because the high population of cities made living in them much riskier than living in more rural/suburban areas in terms of infection risk for COVID, and because with the economy hurting from COVID-related lockdowns living in cities (especially expensive ones like SF) was much less affordable.

No, as in, can't find skilled labor for a good salary. The notion that only unskilled labor is sought after is incorrect. Good people are always hard to find. Smart people are always hard to find. But most workers are average, and it is hard to find a job that can support a half million mortgage for the worker who is average.

What is also true is that there is skilled labor in shrinking industries and that labor is not easy to transfer to other skilled industries. You can take a smart person in logistics and convert them into a highly sought after programmer with enough time and the right attitude, but if you already have a family then you can't handle the dip. Skill mismatch is a real problem, particularly given our penchant for outsourcing. But I don't see why meeting the mortgage needs of half million dollar homes should be the yardstick by which you judge a labor market.

I have for years always gotten emails from recruiters trying to hire me as an FTE for SWE jobs in nothing towns in flyover states at 6x less than what I charge, too. Those positions are similarly unfilled.

People pick their best options available, usually.

If they can't find/keep labor for $15/hour, that means the price for labor in their market is greater than $15/hour. That's a good thing, as that's not true most places on this planet.

You are wrong. businesses are primary drivers of illegal immigration into the country they want more immigrants not less.

There was a BIPARTISAN senate immigration reform bill that passed the senate in 2013. THIRTEEN Republicans voted for it and every Democrat and independent did.

It went to the house and died there because the Republican majority leader Boehner knew it would pass and refused to let it be voted on. He was beholden to the most xenophobic, bigoted Republicans in his caucus and thought they would vote him out of leadership if he let it pass. He ended up losing his job anyways shortly thereafter for other reasons.

Now the entire Republican party is beholden to the xenophobic bigots and I guarantee you the exact same bill wouldn't find more than 2 votes from a Republican in the senate.

So no, there is no "both sides" here. Democrats have been remarkably consistent about what an immigration compromise looks like, and even were able to pass it in the senate 7-8 years ago, only to be blown up by the Tea Party ur-Trumpists. The GOP has only moved further to the right and will never support anything close to that.

That these same people also exploit undocumented people is a separate issue. Give them papers and you'll have no problem finding jobs!

I am refuting your point that people complaining about labor shortages shouldn't be voting republican. Which doesn't make sense because these ppl want

1. low regulation, taxes and lax labor laws.

2. availability of immigrants.

GOP provides both of these. Why would they care if ppl working for them are illegal or on h2 visa.

> Give them papers and you'll have no problem finding jobs!

Trump admin increased h2 visas despite what you are claiming. We had the highest number of h2 visas allocated under Trump and Bush and lowest under Obama admin. Obama slashed these visas by half from bush era. Most of the resistance to seasonal visas comes from democrat voting unions who lobby against these visas. They lobbied obama govt to slash those visas under the guise of protecting their local union memebers.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/biden-agenc...

Check these numbers for yourself here

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/FY08-A...

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Annual...

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Annual...

Seems an important fact that's left out here!

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/president-trump-extends-ba...

But yes your larger point that Republicans are fine with migrants they can exploit for a few years as long as they can make sure they "go back to their country" is well taken!

If someone said this about employment in software dev there'd be a thousand comments about how there isn't a shortage of labor, just of labor at the price point businesses want to pay.

Workers are not OK working on slave wages that these employees want to pay them.

Let us know if it's still an issue after the pay increases and work condition perks increased?

What they are not raising wages? Was the article looking at justifying some political point of view?