I understand that part of it but what I don’t get is where in the hell did everyone that used to work go? Around here every single sector of jobs is short staffed, food service, medical, teachers ……….
They work for Amazon now
It actually scares me a bit that Amazon is building their own towns for their employees.
There’s no easy “one thing” explanation. There’s a huge shift in labor force happening right now and it’s for a lot of different reasons and a lot of different opinions. I don’t pretend to know everything but the things I’ve seen lately and my opinion (which ya know, who the hell am I? Ha) is it’s just a huge workforce change happening. Pandemic unemployment has ended many weeks ago and there’s been no significant change in labor, even though so many of the pundits blamed everything on it, I’m sure we’ll see a certain amount of return there in the coming months. Look at the sectors that are growing. There are still many growing especially now IT and company call centers especially, cable and Internet companies, etc
Many people working what I consider shit jobs (I’ve worked them I feel I’ve earned the right to call them that) such as retail, food service, entry level manufacturing that have had consistent low pay low benefits low respect no room for vertical movement, have simply moved on. A lot of people I know have started small businesses, landscaping, contractors, roofers, etc instead of working for their old company and most are actually doing pretty well so far. There’s a lot more work from home positions available now that people are willing to even give up some pay for and get rid of their commute in favor of work life balance and not having to pay childcare when they’re home. Hell a lot of people died too. I definitely believe the perspective of the 9-5 job has been forever changed and right now it’s a buyers market so to speak.
In this specific example I’d say you’ve got the first issue of getting the product to a Lowe’s distribution center. So that’s shipped from manufacturer to a port. Loaded, cross the ocean, wait to get unloaded, Unloaded and trucked to their DC.
Second then processed at their DC, a forecasting inventory system decides where and how many wrenches go to which store (all stores are not equal, and the system guesses where they will be needed based on inventory and sales blah blah algorithms blah) then loaded onto truck and to store and then unloaded and then finally stocked. Now let’s look at store perspective, how many employees did you see there? I’m guessing not that many, which means their daily tasks are not getting completed regularly, such as “scanning outs” where employees walk the shelves and scan anything that isn’t stocked and check inventory (top stock) to fill it or fix their inventory to zero to show they’re out so the system will reorder it. Lowe’s here pays $10-11 an hour and won’t hire many full time employees to avoid having to pay benefits so most are part time employees, and those employees have been working under frustrating conditions having to meet corporate deadlines for all of their standard operating procedures, everything still needs to get done it doesn’t matter there aren’t enough to do it. On top of that you have a customer base that’s pissed off because they can’t find help when they need it, they have to wait in line, and they don’t have what they want in stock, all things that $10 an hour employee has no control over and are actively bitching them out for and general Karen behavior.
So you have to ask yourself, would you go work at Lowe’s and deal with rude people for 10 bucks an hour and still give a shit if something is stocked in the wrong place or if it’s out of stock?
“If you hate your job get a better one”
So from beginning to end of this wrenches trip is just hurdle after hurdle to get to you, largely based on a workforce that’s sick of their particular jobs (whether pay, treatment, the job itself) and have taken other positions or looking elsewhere for greener pastures. An inconvenient perfect storm of logistics system breakdown, nothing working efficiently from the inventory system to the trucking company. I think people forget before this there was already a trucker shortage happening, at least up here in Mich you couldn’t drive down the road without seeing “Now hiring CDL A Drivers!”
But with all things economic they will reach a new equilibrium.
You guys wanna sign up for my only fans and support my Etsy shop where I glue glitter on Starbucks cups?
…kidding…
