<p>I don't understand the current economic situation. The savings rate is at a long-time low. Something like <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/16/30percent-of-americans-missed-their-housing-payments-in-june.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">30% of Americans failed to pay mortgage or rent in June</a>, <a href="https://time.com/nextadvisor/in-the-news/rising-inflation-rising-prices-how-to-plan/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">inflation is signficantly increasing the real cost of living</a>, yet <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/19/layoffs-mount-and-main-street-still-cant-get-anyone-to-take-jobs.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">90% of advertised jobs are going unfilled</a>! It's like every metric of worker survivability is declining, yet they still refuse to work! What the heck? As an employer I have run many ads for workers and the resumes I get are either non-existent or they just keep getting worse. I thought the applicants I got last year were bad, but the paltry few I get now are just pathetic, and I offer very high salaries, like \$120k+ benefits for semi-skilled labor. I hear that unskilled jobs pay only $20 per hour and it is unfathomable to me how they get even a single high quality applicant with pay like that. In fact, a lot of the clerks I have been seeing in stores recently are people with obvious personal issues.</p>
<p>A year ago I know there were all these federal payments and unemployment compensation extensions that were supposedly allowing US workers to sit home and entertain themselves, but my understanding is that these handouts have more or less ended. And anyway how far can \$3,000 go anyway? I mean you can't survive for months and months on a couple of \$3,000 checks.</p>
<p>I have heard rumors that the new mentality is 'don't work, just go live in your parent's basement'. So, I guess according to this theory workers are just &quot;slumming it&quot; and trying to figure out how to get by on the absolute minimum, to hell with standard of living. So, that is one possible explanation.</p>
<p>So, from an economic theory perspective (I am not an economist) what is the explanation for this phenomenon of the vanishing American worker?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-20T17:27:55.817Z
All your sources are news pages; I would not rely on them for any indicators. Specifically 90% of advertised jobs are going unfilled sounds implausible.
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-20T17:30:45.703Z
"*As an employer I have run many ads for workers and the resumes I get are either non-existent or they just keep getting worse. [...] and I offer very high salaries, like $120k+ benefits for semi-skilled labor.*" 
I don't know what your business is and where it is located (what is the local cost of living), but if I had to guess I would say that you are either very demanding w.r.t. the qualifications of your semi-skilled workers, the business is repugnant for some reason, or perhaps you are exaggerating. Hard to tell which one without more details.
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-20T18:00:39.150Z
@Giskard Uh, so now questions have to be fully documented with refereed papers from reputable economic journals? Maybe you could provide your list of approved journals so I don't accidentally cite a paper from a source you don't approve of.
Lassie Fair
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-20T20:18:57.087Z
Although the question provides only anecdotal evidence , I believe recent economic data is consistent with it.  I’d like to see  an answer from an economist .
dm63
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-21T09:30:28.563Z
I agree with @dm63. While I do not live in the States it is very similar in the UK and probably even more so in Austria, where I was born. If my company is advertising jobs, it is incredible hard to find applicants. Pubs close or have limited working hours because they cannot find waiters. I have very limited knowledge of labour markets but find it an interesting question.
AKdemy
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-21T09:36:26.167Z
Some promising articles I found are [US Chamber of Commerce](https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage), [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesnonprofitcouncil/2022/08/08/where-are-the-workers-tackling-the-labor-shortage-from-multiple-angles/), [CNN](https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/19/economy/worker-shortage-small-business/index.html). [Labour force participation rates](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART) are quite low, but [not in the labour force](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU05026645) (discouraged workers, ...) seems also low.
AKdemy
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-21T09:39:07.827Z
At least in the UK, [immigration restrictions](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-10/three-quarters-of-uk-business-struck-by-labour-shortages-survey) seem to play a role as well.
AKdemy
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-22T14:15:45.490Z
@user253751 Yeah, it attracts resumes from totally unqualified people with huge gaps in their work history and short stints at multiple companies. Although I get fewer and fewer even of those. People who even remotely qualified rarely apply anymore; you just get these scrapings from the bottom of the barrel from people who obviously desparate and delusional. I have literally hired nobody in almost a year because of the evaporation of real candidates.
Lassie Fair
<labor-economics><united-states>
How can there be a "lack" of workers? The Vanishing American Worker
Lassie Fair
# How can there be a "lack" of workers? The Vanishing American Worker

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-11-20)

I don't understand the current economic situation. The savings rate is at a long-time low. Something like [30% of Americans failed to pay mortgage or rent in June](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/16/30percent-of-americans-missed-their-housing-payments-in-june.html), [inflation is signficantly increasing the real cost of living](https://time.com/nextadvisor/in-the-news/rising-inflation-rising-prices-how-to-plan/), yet [90% of advertised jobs are going unfilled](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/19/layoffs-mount-and-main-street-still-cant-get-anyone-to-take-jobs.html)! It's like every metric of worker survivability is declining, yet they still refuse to work! What the heck? As an employer I have run many ads for workers and the resumes I get are either non-existent or they just keep getting worse. I thought the applicants I got last year were bad, but the paltry few I get now are just pathetic, and I offer very high salaries, like \$120k+ benefits for semi-skilled labor. I hear that unskilled jobs pay only $20 per hour and it is unfathomable to me how they get even a single high quality applicant with pay like that. In fact, a lot of the clerks I have been seeing in stores recently are people with obvious personal issues.

A year ago I know there were all these federal payments and unemployment compensation extensions that were supposedly allowing US workers to sit home and entertain themselves, but my understanding is that these handouts have more or less ended. And anyway how far can \$3,000 go anyway? I mean you can't survive for months and months on a couple of \$3,000 checks.

I have heard rumors that the new mentality is 'don't work, just go live in your parent's basement'. So, I guess according to this theory workers are just "slumming it" and trying to figure out how to get by on the absolute minimum, to hell with standard of living. So, that is one possible explanation.

So, from an economic theory perspective (I am not an economist) what is the explanation for this phenomenon of the vanishing American worker?

**Tags:** labor-economics, united-states
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: All your sources are news pages; I would not rely on them for any indicators. Specifically 90% of advertised jobs are going unfilled sounds implausible.  
> **username_1**: "*As an employer I have run many ads for workers and the resumes I get are either non-existent or they just keep getting worse. [...] and I offer very high salaries, like $120k+ benefits for semi-skilled labor.*"  I don't know what your business is and where it is located (what is the local cost of living), but if I had to guess I would say that you are either very demanding w.r.t. the qualifications of your semi-skilled workers, the business is repugnant for some reason, or perhaps you are exaggerating. Hard to tell which one without more details.  
> **username_0**: @Giskard Uh, so now questions have to be fully documented with refereed papers from reputable economic journals? Maybe you could provide your list of approved journals so I don't accidentally cite a paper from a source you don't approve of.  
> **username_2**: Although the question provides only anecdotal evidence , I believe recent economic data is consistent with it.  I’d like to see  an answer from an economist .  
> **username_3**: I agree with @dm63. While I do not live in the States it is very similar in the UK and probably even more so in Austria, where I was born. If my company is advertising jobs, it is incredible hard to find applicants. Pubs close or have limited working hours because they cannot find waiters. I have very limited knowledge of labour markets but find it an interesting question.  
> **username_3**: Some promising articles I found are [US Chamber of Commerce](https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage), [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesnonprofitcouncil/2022/08/08/where-are-the-workers-tackling-the-labor-shortage-from-multiple-angles/), [CNN](https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/19/economy/worker-shortage-small-business/index.html). [Labour force participation rates](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART) are quite low, but [not in the labour force](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU05026645) (discouraged workers, ...) seems also low.  
> **username_3**: At least in the UK, [immigration restrictions](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-10/three-quarters-of-uk-business-struck-by-labour-shortages-survey) seem to play a role as well.  
> **username_0**: @user253751 Yeah, it attracts resumes from totally unqualified people with huge gaps in their work history and short stints at multiple companies. Although I get fewer and fewer even of those. People who even remotely qualified rarely apply anymore; you just get these scrapings from the bottom of the barrel from people who obviously desparate and delusional. I have literally hired nobody in almost a year because of the evaporation of real candidates.  

---

## 0 answers

