It’s certainly true that anyone who wants to get a job can get one, but we worry that pandemic payments and the changes in the labor force brought on by COVID still make it harder for firms to get workers.
A couple of anecdotes: Many American Airlines flights leaving its Miami hub can’t offer passengers food and beverages because the caterer couldn’t deliver them. American has a 120-day lead time for ordering catering items and their caterer is always short-staffed. It didn’t get a single applicant when it advertised job vacancies at good wages recently.
The travel blog View From The Wing reports that hiring commercial licensed drivers is especially difficult. The lack of staff means the final 20-30 American departures out of Miami “have no one left to cater planes.”
In Denver, several iconic diners have closed just since the start of the year. The owners of one, The Breakfast King, didn’t keep the reason for its demise a secret. They posted a note on the door:
This is the predictable result of the Biden policy of paying people not to work.