Worsening labor shortage crisis in the US

Americans will put up with a lot to self-preserve. They will ignore a massively failing economy if they know they have enough for themselves.

Also, there is almost no organized labor support any more. In 2020 one of the largest labor protests in human history happened in India and there was zero news coverage of it in the US.

Immigration. Send us your best and brightest.

Here's an idea. Pay them better and reduce the percentage of wealth in a very wealthy GDP economy, that is filtering to the rich.

OH NO WE CANT BE COMMIE PINKOS!!!

A lot of highly skilled Cantonese want to move out of Hong Kong, just give them work permits and let them work in the US. Besides, they are more progressive than shithole, homophobic, anti-abortion, ultra-religious Latinos.

The pandemic kicked the healthcare system's ass so badly it still hasn't recovered, there has been 90% turnover in some hospitals! My job gives me a look into the critical care units in a network of local hospitals, and that's what I see. Less turnover in doctors, but almost the whole nursing profession has changed jobs. Experienced workers have left bedside healthcare, new grads are being shoved into positions they aren't qualified for and aren't being given adequate training, those who work at crappy small hospitals have gone to the big hospitals that pay more, and the crappy small hospitals are staffed by travelers or people who barely speak English.

I know I was one of those bedside nurses who found a desk job. I had to, the pandemic hit when I was sixty, and the stress of risking my life in a plague house was causing some very serious health problems. I had to find another job or retire.

But seriously, don't get really sick right now, because the hospital nursing staffs have all turned over and it'll take all the noobs a few years to learn their trade. Get your COVID boosters, get your flu shots this winter, and avoid children if you have any history of pulmonary disease, because there's a plague of RSV among children and adults with chronic lung problems are also getting sick from it.

[quote]because there's a plague of RSV among children and adults with chronic lung problems are also getting sick from it.

Good! I hope all smokers just get sick and drop dead from those diseases, especially fat smokers.

I got the RSV and I'm 60 and my doc couldn't conceive of it because its supposed to be in children 3 weeks of flu like annoyances and dry cough. Have all vaccines.

[quote]But seriously, don't get really sick right now, because the hospital nursing staffs have all turned over and it'll take all the noobs a few years to learn their trade.

But here’s the rub: the noobs aren’t sticking around to learn the trade. We have nurses fresh out of school and not even a year at the bedside orienting a new set of brand new grads. And why the hell would they want to stay at the bedside? Crappy pay, crappy benefits, unsafe patient assignments, no breaks a lot of the time for 12+ hours, and the expectation to be in 10 different places at once (at least where charting is concerned).

Hospitals nationwide are in a slow-motion collapse and the general public is completely unaware of how desperate things are.

OnlyFans, online influencers, day traders,, gamers, all around slackers still living at home, etc. So Many Options, who wants to work a real job and all the BS that comes with it anymore???

A lot of corporations pushed both automation and the freelancer industry every chance they got, plus cut back on wages, benefits, training and support in all sorts of industries. It was entirely based on greed. They were in denial about the shortage of workers until the pandemic meant teachers, nurses, and customer service staff (help lines, fast food workers, stockers at stores, etc.) left and never came back.

Now corporations are upset that there aren't enough workers, but this is entirely their own doing. They made it clear during the pandemic that they won't pay more, so they can just deal with the consequences. They're going to lose profits and, in the case of schools and healthcare, probably get their asses sued a few times when students, employees, or patients die on their watch.

Starbucks has about 400K employees. That's a lot of people who could be filling these desperately needed positions. Instead of trying to unionize these stupid go nowhere barista jobs they should be focused on making a career change that will pay them better.

Leave it to a Repug to come up with the brilliant idea of forcing untrained Starbucks workers into becoming nurses and teachers whether they want to or not, just to prevent the creation of an employees' union.

R5 and R8 are right. Hospitals right now are extremely dire and the general population doesn’t know how bad it is. They only find out when it takes 30 hours to get a bed after getting admitted. And even then if you are reasonably healthy (acute care, no oxygen requirement/diarrhea/vomiting/etc), walk, and aren’t confused they may take you to a unit... but keep you on a stretcher in the hallway there due to no open rooms and you have to wait a few more hours until somebody else gets discharged! And then they get mad at the bedside staff who can’t control it and not the people who actually deserve it (mainly hospital administrators and politicians).

Many experienced bedside nurses (2+ years) are either doing travel nursing, working on becoming nurse practitioners, or leaving nursing all together. And the ones who do travel nursing are 100% over bedside, know how horrible hospital administers are, are only in it for the money, and are very often doing the bare minimum to keep their nursing license. CNAs and PCTs used to work to make money and gain some bedside experience while getting through nursing school but sooo many of them see how horrible bedside is, drop out of nursing school, and get new dreams. And RNs and to lesser extent PCTs (as they take some load off of RNs who can now focus on more important things) are basically the backbone of a hospital, and if there aren’t enough RNs shit doesn’t get done, patients suffer, outcomes are worse, and units have to close. Yet despite being the backbone, administration deliberately ignores their pleas for safer staffing and more pay (hence traveling). Administration also tosses them aside and blames them if something actually happens or a patient complains about something despite the fact that poor staffing is the biggest reason why patients suffer.

^Oy, some dire stuff about healthcare; I've read that care in rural areas in even worse or non-existent, but at the same time, people have such hostility towards healthcare workers telling them to get vaccinated, COVID protocols, etc.

They're probably on Ashley Madison all day, like me.

Propaganda from the corporate media to get us to accept more masses of third world immigrants being dumped at us at a time when Americans already cannot afford groceries, bills, and housing.

We don’t have a labor shortage. We have massive greedy corporations that don’t want to pay a living wage.

R15. How exactly did Rowe determine that the vast majority of these 7 million men are just sitting at home?

In this economy I highly doubt that. The article itself points out that likely reasons for a lack of workforce participation are care-giving, health-related concerns, early retirement, schooling or joining the military.

I highly suspect care-giving is the BIGGEST reason for a lack of workforce participation, followed by health issues. Child or elderly care is just too expensive and there is so little governmental or corporate support. It is probably easier on most peoples' finances to just have someone stay at home to look after the people who need it, especially since people are paid so little. And since men are less likely to have degrees it just makes more financial sense for women in the household to work.

It's simple math that with serious health problems you not only take out 1 worker for the illness but another so that someone can look after them. And having a parent stay at home to look after 2 or 3 kids is completely unnecessary. A ratio of 1:7 would be fine for a daycare.

As an immigrant who looks like an American I’m 55 white and retiring in 6 months. The product of nepotism I have really only worked seriously for 20 years. I try to hire local people to my rural inland location were I have a shop making parts for the tech and medical industries. I’m always in need of help but The locals are terrible workers. Even American clock time is an insurmountable challenge. I can only give them the most basic tasks. I send my serious work to immigrants in a nearby big city when I need a professional serious task done. The exception to this is Mennonite’s who are awesome workers and who I like to work with. I’m not the type who likes to tell people what to do but for the most part the local labor pool of people will not stop doing drugs to even learn a task. The fact is immigrants work and are motivated by money and will work sober in many cases that money, they will send it home, and it’s worth something. In the USA that same wage is barely worth working for. The unaffordability of housing is a huge element in this. The middle class is being forced out of housing as it has become a bank account for the wealthy. People living in there cars is what American wages bring American workers. Until this changes it’s getting high then working as a priority list. Making working people into rent and mortgage slaves has turned The USA into a work camp of pissed off druggies. Politicians and banksters have done this. I blame them. People have got to have hope that they can improve there lives.

[quote] The exception to this is Mennonite’s who are awesome workers

Oh, dear!

yum-ooooooooooo!

...............

I have nothing to contribute except I’m a real bitch.

Americans have basically gotten lazy, for any number of reasons. They don't want to work hard, they don't want to work in physical jobs, they don't want to do a minute more than they absolutely have to, even if they are being paid more to do it.

I have no idea what the solution is, honestly. Maybe societal collapse and reset.

^Typical Boomer mindset. 🙄

The intense anti-immigrant fervor of the past few years is coming home to roost. Most Americans don't realize that we are below replacement levels in birthrates and have been for some time, and the entire cohort of Baby Boomers is its last 4 years of work life before retirement, which means that most middle and upper middle management is going to be gone - out the door- in the next few years, along with decades of experience and simple knowledge of the operations of their companies. A steady but controlled flow of immigrants would actually be very handy right now. But pay has to increase, especially for the lowest level workers. When rent has increased as drastically as it has in the past 4 years, there is no way that anyone earning less than $20/hour can possibly survive without having a very generous support structure. That means that corporations will have to accept lower profit margins and Americans in general will have to get used to paying more for fast food and other commodities that have always been exceptionally inexpensive here.

R19 if you had reading skills or were a kind person, or both, you wouldn't post such snark about ESL R18.

Thank your lucky stars that you're living in a Biden economy.

There's always someone who says people are just lazy and don't want to work, but I think this is the first time I've heard someone say people are lazy and refuse to work even if they're paid MORE to do it.

My partner works at a factory and there are a lot of people who previously had careers, not just jobs: teaching, nursing, store managers, engineer, architect. They make more at the factory which is why they stay, even though they hate the work. If they can't stand working at that factory anymore, they work at another one rather than go back to their careers.

I’ve always felt that good nurses are angels on earth. What an under-appreciated and difficult job. It takes a special kind of person with a lot of compassion to do that type of work in a hospital. My god.

Given how selfish and sedentary the younger generation is - I am guessing there will be a nursing shortage for the foreseeable future. I doubt a bunch of Gen Zers will be drawn to nursing school.

Maybe we will start importing nurses from abroad like we do with doctors now. Is that already happening?

To OP and the other nurses on DL - thank you.

I blame this on Trump and his influence regarding Covid, making it political and contributing to the cynical horrible way we treat our nurses and teachers…

The anti-vaxxers were usually Rethugs who only care about themselves. They would end up getting Covid and would stay in ICU for months, denying people with other serious medical conditions the intensive care they need. It was frustrating for healthcare workers. The hostility towards Dr Fauci, health experts and healthcare workers in general contributed to nurses leaving the profession in droves.

Also, the Far Right like DeSantis targeting teachers and limiting what they can teach and billionaires like Elon Musk mistreating their workers.

Notice that it’s the mindset of Rethugs that is behind this disrespect for the essential workforce,

We need to import workers that don’t want to better their positions. They keep aspiring to higher paying work . Those are the wrong ones. We need to import the losers that will work for almost nothing and be happy about it.

Still waiting for free market capitalism to step in and solve everything!

" I am interested in being a social media influencer. That's it."