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Strangle US employee shortage

The shortage of bus drivers in USA has forced school districts to combine routes. The lack of waiters has caused restaurants to reduce their hours and the pay lines at supermarkets, pharmacies and other retailers have increased.

Currently, companies are having trouble hiring staff in the US. More than 10 million jobs were vacant at the end of August, while the activity rate, that is, the share of people who work or seek employment, went from 63.3% pre-school to 61.6% in September.

To ensure packages are delivered on time for Christmas, large companies recruit temporary workers at full throttle: 150,000 at Amazon, 150,000 at Walmart, 100,000 at Target, 100,000 at UPS, among others.

The $ 300 a week subsidy during the pandemic added to the states’ unemployment insurance and meant that, in many cases, a person received more money than when they worked.

The 2021 labor shortage is striking and puzzling. But there is no single answer, a crucial part of the explanation is that Americans are full of cash, according to The New York Times.

Thanks to pandemic stimulus programs, many families have received multiple checks from the federal government in the past 18 months.

These plans increased the size of unemployment benefits. In the same period, home values ​​and stock prices rose. As a result, many households have more financial cushion than before.

That’s why some workers, specifically those in service industries disrupted by COVID, have decided they didn’t like their old jobs enough to return.

Others fear catching the coronavirus, particularly if they have children or elderly people at home. Others took early retirement. Finally, they prefer to change the balance between private and professional life or they are just fed up with the salaries.

Since the 1980s, the incomes of the poor, the working class, and much of the middle class have grown slowly, unable to keep up with economic growth or the incomes of the rich.

Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and columnist for the Times newspaper, described this trend as “the rebellion of the American worker.”

By Israel López

PAL

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