What’s going on? It seems that everywhere I go, I see “We’re Hiring” signs, but businesses continue to complain about shortages in staff. Business owners whom I know complain that many of their new hires are disinterested in their work and care little about providing “customer service.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics only 61% of the able workforce in America is currently employed. Yet thousands of new immigrants continue to pour across our borders. Are more of the unemployed enrolled in colleges? Apparently not. There is presently a 70% enrollment decline in America’s colleges and universities. And women make up more than 60% of those who are enrolled. So, if fewer males are enrolling in post-secondary education, what are they doing?
A disturbing trend appears to be showing which may help answer such questions. Among the college-age male population in America a great proportion is still living at home and not fully employed. Also, a great percentage of those are in debt. Their listed pastimes or amusements are “hanging out,” video games and social media. Fewer and fewer 20-something males show an interest in marriage, much less in raising families.
The trend shows that Americans are marrying later. They are having fewer children and they are opting to have them later—in their 30’s rather than their 20’s. With federal subsidies for the unemployed, the unemployed life is too enjoyable, much preferable to marrying and raising children.
This is the age of delayed airline flights, delayed construction projects, and delayed health services. Most of the time the reasons listed by employers are “labor shortages.” During the two-year-long shutdown, when firms laid off millions of employees, many people in their mid-60’s simply chose to retire early. Now, as employers try to return to a state of normalcy, the younger workforce—the ones who benefited from state and federal financial support for the unemployed—have figured out that they will earn not much more by working rather than staying at home. They have apparently become used to a more leisurely lifestyle rather than returning to the drudgery of a 40-hour work week schedule.
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