The pandemic changed a lot of things for a lot of people. I know I retired a few years sooner than I had planned for several reasons. I retired earlier than expected in part due to the requirement to return to the office sooner than I felt safe, in part because of unfavorable changes in the work environment itself, in part because I could afford to comfortably retire, and in part due to the demands of my husband’s cancer treatment. While it may seem like there are many older people like me who greatly contributed to the “Great Resignation” statistics, the actual data shows otherwise. According to a great article I read titled, “18 Great Resignation Statistics” by Jack Flynn from Zippia, young people seeking better pay and more favorable working conditions make up the greatest percentage of people quitting one job to find another. What is evident though is that the shortage of workers and the abundance of new workers makes everyday life a little bit more difficult for everyone.
Over the past several months, I’ve found many of the local businesses I relied on for goods or services have gone out of business. Others are experiencing a remarkable decline in customer service because of either a shortage of employees or employee inexperience. For example, it’s become normal to wait four to six months for a non-emergency doctor’s appointment. Then in dealing with a hospitality company, I fought over a $1200 simple mistake made by an inexperienced employee that took me several months to rectify by a combination of emails, letters, and multiple phone calls. I had to find a store manager to convince a checker that in California food items in their small food market are not taxed. I’ve noticed that it takes longer to receive some items that I ordered, sometimes by a wait-time of months. On Friday, I called my bank’s customer service phoneline and was greeted by a recording that informed me that my estimated hold time was 60 minutes. I’ve waited on hold for as much as 90 minutes to talk to a representative. Most times when I ask a store employee for assistance, I hear the words, “I’m new here, so….” But it’s only getting worse.
Anyone traveling by airplane knows that its pure luck these days to have a flight that isn’t either delayed or cancelled because of pilot or crew shortages since the airlines provided incentives for workers to retire or leave during the pandemic. The stress of the pandemic has also led to a shortage of healthcare providers as many of them exited the field with emotional scars. My son places healthcare technicians and says they have more job openings than trained technicians to fill them. Even though the pay and signing bonuses rise, the stress of dealing with an ungrateful and irresponsible public is just not worth it.
Dealing with an increasingly angry, irrational, inconsiderate and demanding public in addition to unreasonable laws banning history and books, banning abortions, and loosening gun carry restrictions is likely to push even more workers out of public service professions like teaching, healthcare, social work, law enforcement, and poll workers. There will be women in red states who will have a more difficult time finding an OBGYN. There will be overworked social workers dealing with an even greater demand for foster care and family services among poor women forced into giving birth. There will be confused law enforcement officers who can’t tell the difference between a good guy with a gun and a bad guy with a gun. Some will be too cowardly to act in the face of an AR15 like we saw at the Uvalde school in Texas. There will be public schools without enough qualified teachers to teach children actual history or science because they can no longer deal with irrational laws and parents ready to criminalize them in addition to the daily threat of gun violence. There will be a lack of experienced election officials at the voting polls because of crazy people with guns “monitoring elections”. And there will be overwhelmed mental health professionals dealing with heartbreak and hopelessness among LGBTQ youth and adults who are ostracized.
Every day, my email inbox is filled with companies looking to hire. I see help wanted signs in the windows or entries of nearly every place of business I enter. With unemployment at a 50-year low and inflation at a 40-year high and wages rising by about 5% over last year, I fear that even though our pain with higher prices will eventually settle down, our pain with worker shortages and inexperienced workers is just beginning. I predict more deaths caused by inexperience in the air, domestic violence and child abuse, suicide, guns on the streets, and errors in hospitals.
I once read an article that explained how it takes two full years for a new employee to become fully competent and comfortable in a new job. However, when the people who would otherwise serve as mentors or trainers are absent, the training time increases, and more mistakes will be made. It’s scary to think about the effects of pilot error, hospital errors, social worker errors, and police officer errors due to inexperience.
Where there is challenge, there is also opportunity. The opportunity now exists for employers to work harder to retain their existing and new workers by better valuing them, paying them living wages with benefits, and providing them with good working conditions and flexibility to care for family. We know that it costs much more to recruit and train than to retain good workers. There is also the opportunity for workers to demand more of their current employer or to find an industry that is personally rewarding while also meeting their financial and family needs. For many people, it may be time to move to a state where they can practice their profession without fear of arrest or being overburdened. Until public policy and elected lawmakers in red states recognize the detrimental effects of loose gun laws, abortion bans, LGBTQ bans, and bans on teaching history and science, it’s probably wise to steer clear of certain professions in red states. You couldn’t pay me enough to work in these states.
The time to retrain, rethink, and revise our relationship to work is here. Those help wanted signs put workers in the driver’s seat and I hope workers are wise enough and persistent enough to demand better conditions and demand more pay. As a society, I hope we realize sooner rather than later that we must treat public servants with the respect they deserve and also pass laws that help them do their jobs well. If we continue to fail at this, we won’t have the teachers, the doctors and nurses, the social workers, the poll workers, nor the police officers we need to protect and serve any of us.