Complex Numbers

Labor

I've mentioned before that if you ask four economists a question, you'll get six answers. None of them will be right. If you want "right," you have to go to comedy sites like Cracked.

Nobody Ever "Wants" To Work, You Idiots  

Okay, so not completely right. Plenty of people want to work, and would even if they'd be able to eat if they didn't. But I'm not one of those people, so I'll accept the title as hyperbole, not literalism.

An older generation disapproving of the incoming one is a tale as old as time.

I don't disapprove of the younger generation. I disapprove of every marketing gimmick assuming that they're the only ones that matter. Well, every marketing gimmick except ads for Depends. And even there, I'm not so sure.

The latest bug to crawl up the butt of the boomer generation is their collective decision, in what they’re calling “the Great Resignation,” is the idea that these ding-dang gosh-darn millennial snowflakes just simply don’t want to work anymore.

Considering that the youngest of what marketers have decided is the Boomer generation are pushing 60 right now, I know who doesn't want to work anymore, and it's the folks near or past retirement age. The definition of "retirement" is "not wanting to work anymore."

Instructor at University of Calgary and Twitter user Paul Fairie, smelling the stench of an argument endlessly made, put together a thread of quotes from publications going back a full century accusing workers of not wanting to work.

It's an image, so you'll have to go to the link above to look at it. In summary, it's variations of the phrase "no one wants to work anymore" in publications going back to the 19th century.

Once again, the people in need of labor for incredibly unrewarding jobs have pointed their finger at a willpower-less public. After all, they’re talking about fruit-picking, a job that is literally often used as a punchline or example of undesirable work. One that is now the go-to example of the work taken by desperate and less-than-documented migrant workers because, well, the job f**king sucks.

I can think of a few jobs I'd hate more than fruit-picking, but the point stands.

What’s even more bizarre about these froth-mouthed claims is that simple economic data doesn’t back up the narrative. The current unemployment rate in the U.S., via the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is 3.6%. This is one of the lowest unemployment rates in the last 50 years or more.

Mostly I'm including this quote because you're going to hear people claiming that unemployment is at an all-time high. Usually followed by "Vote for me in November."

I guess politicians want to work. Or at least provide the appearance of working.

So apparently, the amount of people that want to work is the highest it’s ever been, but no one wants to work anymore. How do these two things co-exist? It’s pretty simple: people don’t want to work TERRIBLE JOBS, and they don’t have to.

And as far as I'm concerned, this is great. There's a word for being forced to work a horrible job just so you don't die, and it was supposedly outlawed in the 19th century here in the US.

The unemployment rate shows that there is a large supply of jobs. If no one wants to work for you, that likely means whatever job you’re offering is in very low demand. So maybe do what the businessman you hold in such high regard would do in this kind of situation: examine why what you’re offering sucks so much that nobody wants it.

Of course, it's not always about the paycheck, or at least not just about that, but you know how people would say "I wouldn't do X for a million dollars?" Well, how about ten million? "Hm, I'll think about it."

Is paying your workers a living wage not financially viable? Well, unfortunately it seems like your genius business plan was actually financially unviable and was held afloat by simple desperation.

We can argue about what a living wage really means, but at the very least it means a single person being able to afford water, food, shelter, and electricity.

The words you’re looking for aren’t “nobody wants to work anymore,” they’re “I can’t find anyone desperate enough to do awful things.” Which, for anyone looking at a picture beyond numbers, isn’t the worst state of things.

It's not just "doing awful things." I derive immense satisfaction from stories about people quitting decent jobs because of shitty management. Because they can. Employers (remember, I used to be one) and managers have had the upper hand for far too long, and it's about time someone gave them a reality check.

By the way, the entire statement “no one wants to work anymore” is inherently dumb. Nobody likes to work, except for mattress testers and candy tasters. People work because it’s necessary to live and do the things in life that actually bring them joy.

This is the only part of the article I have an issue with. I know several people who, if they weren't somehow contributing something (aka working), would feel bad. Like I said, I'm not one of those people, but I know they exist. The open question is: would they take that job as a sanitation technician (second class) if they didn't need the money?

In conclusion, we're at the point right now where demand is high and supply is low. Classically, when that happens, prices go up to balance things. That's Econ 101, which I actually passed. The product in question, though, isn't bananas, but labor. And yes, this may be a cause of inflation in the short term, but in the long term, you have more people with more money they're willing to spend, and if production ramps up to compensate, things stabilize again.

If not, if inflation continues at an astonishing rate, then we've just proven what I've been saying all along: capitalism requires an underclass. Don't like it? Change the system. Not my problem anymore, because I don't want to work at solving it.