https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-putting-coin-in-a-piggy-bank-3943716/

There has been a lot of talk about a labour shortage, it is especially talked about in the US as they have a more drastic display of this problem. What the labour shortage narrative says is that people don’t want to do menial jobs. This is how they paint the issue as a worker issue, and that it is on the workers to fix this not the employers. A classic example of passing the buck, however to play on words employers are not passing any bucks over that they don’t have to. 

The almighty dollar or buck, this is the real issue. The problem is not that people don’t want to do the work but rather they don’t want to live to work, they want to work so they can go and do things they enjoy. The reality of people not wanting to take these jobs is that there is nothing in it for them, people are not getting paid enough for their work. This is huge in the US where an employee’s wage gets spent in ridiculous health insurance costs, inflated rent, and on you know things that people need to live like food. In Canada the situation is just a little different as we replace ridiculous health insurance with crazier rent prices. 

So what can be done?

Employers, especially corporate ones, can cut down on profits and start to pay people a livable wage. When it comes to Canada we have already done one of the solutions, granted it was for a short while. CERB. 

https://www.ubiworks.ca/blog/wage-shortage-not-labour-shortage

CERB is universal basic income, that is what it was there to do, it was during a time where work wasn’t available but the idea is a sound one. It doesn’t decrease people wanting to work, what it does is force employers to compete with it. Setting a base rate of what my time is worth. As well as it would be important for us in the future to change the idea that working is all there is to life. Maybe there is more, anyways I’ll get off my soapbox.