I obviously have a very small sample size but it seems like a lot of workers right now are in a weird situation.
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A huge number of businesses are “urgently hiring” but are surprisingly picky with who they hire, and are willing and able to have positions open for months/years at a time.
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People who are currently working are usually on skeleton crews where staff has been cut and the responsibilities just falling on whoever's left. This is most noticable in healthcare because of covid but seems to be pretty standard in most workplaces.
Without even getting into the narratives of “they're not paying enough” or “whether or not people want to work” this situation is giving me a very specific hunch.
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Businesses are probably continuing to game policies where they can collect government money for having open positions and doing a certain amount of interviews. This is somewhat similar to the rules on collecting unemployment, so it doesn”t seem to be outside the realm of possibility.
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They're perfectly comfortable with the “lowered business” their skeleton crews are buckling under because of this money, and will be continuing this practice for the foreseeable future.
Anyway, is anyone else feeling like this is the game for them at this point? It feels like we're already in a shitty economy/work shortage a la the great depression except it's only because of arbitrary human decisions this time so they can keep the puppet show for as long as it takes to demoralize everyone and get them to accept even worse conditions.