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The signs are everywhere. Whether you are talking about your local grocery store or the gas station, your favorite restaurant or that summer-fun attraction, everyone seems to be looking for someone to do the work that keeps the doors open to keep the money flowing.
It’s not just a Pennsylvania thing. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has called the availability of jobs versus the dearth of people putting in applications for them a ”national economic emergency.”
The coronavirus pandemic and the uncertain closings and openings and restrictions that were part of the social distancing response to limit exposure have had an impact few could have foreseen a year ago. Back in 2020, as restaurants were closing their doors and people were being laid off or losing the jobs left and right, it seemed like when the world got back to normal there would be a lot more people in need of work than jobs available.
But in recent months, as vaccines have been distributed and masks have become less common, the economy has started to spin. Unfortunately, the lack of a labor force is making it chug like a sluggish lawnmower more than humming like a well-designed sports car.
Some blame the number of people still choosing to collect unemployment, which had a nice federal supplement. Others blame a lack of appreciation for our lowest-paid workers and the high cost of having a job when it comes to things like child care.
What might be the saving grace at the moment is the number of young workers stepping up to get the jobs done.
In Pennsylvania, a work permit can be obtained at age 14. There are a lot of jobs that minors aren’t allowed to do — working certain equipment like deli slicers or fryers.
Workers younger than 16 can’t work full-time during the school year or more than three hours on a school day, but during the summer, they can work the same hours as someone twice their age. Over 16? There are no limits on how many hours they can work or when they can work.
So right now, in the middle of July, minors are picking up a lot of slack. College students are free to do a lot of work, too. In fact, the number of those 16 to 19 working nationwide in May was at its highest point since 2008 — the height of the last recession.
And yet still, there are desperate calls for jobs to be filled.
That’s important because school starts again in about six weeks, give or take. By the end of August, those 15-year-olds working at the grocery store are going to have to cut back from 40 hours to part-time or occasional. The college student tending bar is going to have to scale back his hours because of an organic chemistry class. The work will still need to be done, but there will be even fewer people to do it.
The cause of the shortage is probably not simply higher unemployment checks, low wages or lack of daycare, but a combination of factors greater than the sum. That means a solution is going to have to address multiple problems to fill the need. And, recognizing that economic phases operate like pendulums, time will be part of that solution.
— The Tribune-Review, Greensburg/TNS
