Recently I was talking to one to an elderly person who said their new hires are just lazy kids. I don't think older people who bought their house for 50 cents really fully grasp what is happening. He called me a kid which is kind of funny, but I had to explain several things to him.
1st. We are taxed to death. I live in Ontario Canada and the taxes here are out of control. I make around 3,200 a month and lose around 1,000 of that per month so my take home is around 2200 per month. Went on to explain that my 1,000 per month I lose I can't even justify. The roads are shit, the healthcare system is shit, public transportation is a complete joke, gas for you're cars just went up again. Explaining to him that 2,200 per month is damn near poverty line now a days.
2nd. Most people my age and younger are now starting to see they most likely will never own a thing. The dream of buying a house is gone. The dream of buying a nice car is gone. The dream of moving out of you're parents house is damn near gone. Trying to explain to him that when a young person has nothing that they can afford, why would they bother working. We don't want to work to eat plain rice and live in a 500sq foot box. If wages were higher and things were more affordable, I will bet every penny I have, younger generations would be a lot more engaged in working.
3rd. Corporations are making an killing and workers are seeing none of it. Don't get me wrong I'm all for turning a profit otherwise why would you even start a business. But when certain grocery stores ( cough cough loblaws cough cough ) is making record profits and can't provide a decent livable pay raise or wage, it certainly makes workers, a lot more I don't give a shit about this job. Amazon is another corporations who reaped record profits during covid but continued to pay near min wage for a job, that is physically taxing.
4th. The demands. I don't know how many people are currently applying for jobs but wow. Look through indeed and you can see for yourself. I tried explaining to him that most jobs seem to be wrapping 3 or 4 jobs into one, for min wage of course. Just yesterday there was a lot attendant at a dealership that wanted you to, wash and detail cars, take pictures of all the cars, do inventory for the cars, clean and sweep the entire dealership inside and out, also make small repairs to the cars ( doing tire changes, replacing batteries and the odd oil change ) and you guessed it, it was for 15.50 an hour ( min wage in Ontario ). When explaining to him that's basically 4 jobs wrapped into one, it's a hard sell.
5th. We are often asked to do things outside regular business hours, for no extra pay. I can't count the amount of times I hear my boss asking new hires to help outside business hours, and them just not noticing they will not be paid for it. It seems to happen far to often and it's hardly ever addressed. New hires and new immigrants are the people who are taken advantage of in these situations as most the time they do not know their basic rights.
6th. Most companies really do not care about you. While in every interview you hear we are a family, I can assure you that is a lie. When I hear new hires talk about how nice management was in their interview I always have to tell them, wait until you say no.
I told the guy I could continue but he seemed less than interested. Elderly people, bosses, ownership and everyone else. When you start asking employees or younger people what is wrong in the workforce you should really listen. Most of us are working for a life were we will never get ahead or even own basic things like a house. Often times it seems like people just complain but these are valid concerns that need to be addressed sooner rather than later. End of rant.