overall work rates are lower than they have been since the 1980s — and millions of workers who dropped out of the labor force during the COVID-19 lockdowns have yet to return. A peacetime labor shortage has erupted, yet vast numbers of men and women are still sitting on the sidelines of the economy.
America is renowned for its work ethic — and rightly so. The average worker in the United States clocks more hours each year than those in Canada, Australia, Western Europe and now even Japan.
But those are the work patterns of US men and women holding down a job. A “flight from work” in modern America is simultaneously afoot.
It first became evident among men in the prime of life, between 25 and 54.
Today over 7 million of these men of “prime working age” are neither working nor looking for work. And now, in the wake of the COVID calamity, the “men without work” syndrome seems to be spreading, afflicting parts of the US workforce that did not suffer from it before the pandemic. Work rates for older Americans (55-plus) remain stuck at pre-vaccine levels. Warning lights seem to be flashing for prime-age women as well.
Ordinarily, prime-age men are society’s providers, but a steady retreat from the workforce has been underway among this crucial contingent for over half a century.
Today work rates for prime-age American men are actually lower than in 1940, when America’s unemployment rate stood at almost 15%.In the post-lockdown recovery, job openings soared. Since Labor Day 2021,
unfilled non-farm positions have averaged over 11 million a month. For every unemployed man and woman in the United States today, there are nearly two open jobs. The current labor shortage affects every sector of the economy and every region of the country.disturbing.
we have initiated a taker mentality.
usually this is fatal