• No one wants a labour job.

    I work at a large factory and we have been short staffed for years. At every level too, guys to sweep the floor, machine operators, heavy equipment operators, and maintenance people.

    When you tell kids “if you don’t stay in school you’ll end up working in a factory” you get a labour shortage.

    • If you can’t find workers, pay more and people will come. It’s not a labour shortage. It’s an abundance of greed.

      My baby boomer parents worked in factories because they could afford a family and buy a house. I don’t work in that factory because wages are stagnant. There’s no incentive for employers to increase them when you can simply exploit overseas workers who will work for a pittance.

      There is no labour shortage.

      • My wife’s father worked carpentry in a factory.

        Carpentry.

        He has a retirement and a decent pension. He ate shit for his 30 years, and now he can putter in his woodshop all week.

        That’s last-gen. It’s not so long ago that the good life was still within reach. It can be again.