In touch with your inner economists?

[steve-in-kville]

Steve, how do you integrate the labor shortage with the inflation/collapsing economy. I not a macro economist but it seems those narratives conflict.

Shoot off of the labor shortage thread. Comment on your theories as to what the economy will do as the pandemic is winding down. I'll allow some politics as long as everyone is nice to each other

[steve-in-kville]

Some thoughts and observations:

Car lots are full, both new and used. I see prices starting to become reasonable (to an extent) on used vehicles.

Real estate... last year at this time, homes were being sold swiftly at asking price or above. Now? I see homes going for asking price or below, and I am seeing homes stay on the market for more than a week like it was.

Food: still higher than it was but I am seeing less shortages. Still some, but not like it was.

Sporting goods: guns and ammo are out there. Haven't checked the price on .22LR ammo, but it was close to 14 cents/round for a while compared to 5 cents like it was.

Not sure how to answer barnhart's original questio as to worker shortage compared to inflation. I have some ideas... warehousing jobs are at an all-time high, and I think people are doing more web purchasing than ever, mostly due to the pandemic. I'll ponder this a bit...

[Josh]

Wages have not kept up with inflation, so people are poorer than they used to be. The slowdown in the increase in housing costs still isn’t even close to bringing them back to 2019 levels.

Unemployment will not increase because so few people are seeking work. It is easier than ever to be homeless and to be intentionally unemployed, so unless the government slashes welfare benefits - which I think is very unlikely - the ranks of jobseekers will shrink even more if employers try to lower wages or have stricter working conditions. Expect the table side service at your local chain restaurants to become even worse than it already is.

Higher interest rates mean a lot of businesses will have trouble rolling their looming debt over. Expect a lot more mergers and consolidations, as smaller businesses decide to sell out instead of try to refinance ever-growing debt.

Higher interest also means there is a big cost to moving. Now when you want to sell your house and move, you lose your old 2.99% mortgage and have to buy your new house at 7%. That means your $1500 a month payment turns into $2500. That same payment that used to cover a $400k house now can only get you $250k.

And the seller can’t cut their price - because they’ve got a mortgage to pay off. They can’t just sell for less than they owe. So houses will sit on the market a long time.

People need a place to live, so rents and mortgages will take up bigger and bigger percentages of income. The ultra wealthy will continue to buy up homes and land, because they can turn around and rent them to people and extract more and more do their income. The top 0.1% will become unimaginably wealthy in the coming years, even as you can barely cling on to what you have left.

[QuietlyListening]

Another reason many are buying online is because more and more things, even common place things, are not available in the store. So you go online to buy it.

Walmart is often keeping things off shelves so they can have them for online customers who pickup.
Other stores just aren't carrying as much inventory- understand that but it does push one to buy things online.

I've seen more and more RV's at homes that are set up and being used, makes me wonder if family and/or friends are living there as they have lost their homes.

[justme]

Walmart is often keeping things off shelves so they can have them for online customers who pickup.

the first time i used walmart pickup, i decided that was a very lazy way to go shopping. but that i would be using it again. and i have. i love it.

[barnhart]

Steve, how do you integrate the labor shortage with the inflation/collapsing economy. I not a macro economist but it seems those narratives conflict.

Shoot off of the labor shortage thread. Comment on your theories as to what the economy will do as the pandemic is winding down. I'll allow some politics as long as everyone is nice to each other

I was just wondering how we can have a stalling economy choked by inflation and a labor shortage at the same time. It seems like they would be mutually exclusive.

[Ken]

Steve, how do you integrate the labor shortage with the inflation/collapsing economy. I not a macro economist but it seems those narratives conflict.

Shoot off of the labor shortage thread. Comment on your theories as to what the economy will do as the pandemic is winding down. I'll allow some politics as long as everyone is nice to each other

I was just wondering how we can have a stalling economy choked by inflation and a labor shortage at the same time. It seems like they would be mutually exclusive.

They are caused by completely separate things. Inflation is largely a combination of energy prices and supply chain bottlenecks, especially from overseas producers. Labor shortage is a lot of people dropping out of the workforce for a different combination of reasons.

Inflation is largely global while labor shortages are largely domestic.

[steve-in-kville]

Walmart is often keeping things off shelves so they can have them for online customers who pickup.

the first time i used walmart pickup, i decided that was a very lazy way to go shopping. but that i would be using it again. and i have. i love it.

My wife would rather use Walmart.com for stuff rather than walk into the store. Back in my ambulance days, we referred to our local Walmart as "ghetto-mart."

[Josh]

Shoot off of the labor shortage thread. Comment on your theories as to what the economy will do as the pandemic is winding down. I'll allow some politics as long as everyone is nice to each other

I was just wondering how we can have a stalling economy choked by inflation and a labor shortage at the same time. It seems like they would be mutually exclusive.

They are caused by completely separate things. Inflation is largely a combination of energy prices and supply chain bottlenecks, especially from overseas producers. Labor shortage is a lot of people dropping out of the workforce for a different combination of reasons.

Inflation is largely global while labor shortages are largely domestic.

The labour shortage is global, too, at least in places like China, Russia, and Western Europe. It’s caused by many factors, including an aging population from people having smaller families or no children at all; excess deaths from COVID or from COVID lockdowns; increased rates of accidents and other diseases since 2020 (other than COVID), the causes of which are not fully known.

Likewise, labour force participation is down globally. A lot of people simply find that working for bad wages is no better than not working at all. My personal opinion is that workers being forced out of work during lockdowns made many of them realise they didn’t need to keep working in dead end jobs, with long commutes, barely making enough to pay for childcare and fuel / commuting expenses.

A few notorious CEOs including Chase’s Jamie Dimon keep complaining about this. Bank of America senior mgmt got caught expressing hope that raising interest rates would increase unemployment and thus make workers accept bad wages and working conditions again. But I think these desires are mostly just that, dreams.

A good analogy is the Black Death which vastly increased demand for labour due to so many labourers dying. It caused permanent economic changes including much better conditions for the mediaeval peasant.

Some obvious things employers can do:
- Arrange to own housing and provide free or rent stabilised housing to workers. If your employees’ rents don’t go up, you won’t have to raise their wages as much.
- Figure benefit plans that help meet employee needs.
- If you want to hire single people with children or people where both parents have to work, arrange child care facilities.
- Provide avenues for employees to share complaints with upper management.
- Make very clear opportunities for long term, stable employment and fair opportunities for advancement.
- Do not use aggressive computer software for scheduling they leaves part time employees with no idea when they need to wake up or how many hours they will have next week.
- Have a real plan to mentor junior employees.
- Offer things like a generous (6%) retirement match to employees so they get the same tax breaks wealthy executives do.
- Offer plenty of time off (at least 2 weeks per year) including sick days, personal days, and holidays. Stop doing dumb stuff like expecting employees to take an unpaid day off the day after Thanksgiving. Stop expecting employees to never have more than 1 or 2 days they’re a sick per year.

An example of an employer that seems to make employees really happy is Buc-ee’s. One big reason is consistent and transparent scheduling. Despite this, they don’t charge more than other gas stations or convenience stores that are much worse to work at. They do quite a few of the above things.

[justme]

Arrange to own housing and provide free or rent stabilised housing to workers. If your employees’ rents don’t go up, you won’t have to raise their wages as much.

i think this is a really bad idea.