In his exhortation to his new mayor to live up to his professed Christian values and welcome immigrants to replenish Rapid City’s workforce, South Dakota Standard‘s John Tsitrian links to some statistics from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on America’s labor shortage. According to the Chamber, South Dakota ties with New Hampshire for the second-worst workforce shortage in the country:
South Dakota and New Hampshire have only 42 workers available for every 100 open jobs. Only North Dakota is in a deeper labor hole, with 38 workers available per 100 open jobs. But darn near everybody is hurting for able bodies: Iowa is the best in the region for labor supply, and it still has just 69 available workers for every 100 open jobs. Wyoming is at 68. Minnesota, at 62, is close to the national average of 60.
California, Nevada, Washington, and New York are the only four states with more unemployed people than job listings.
It sounds as though the country as a whole needs more immigration and programs to settle new arrivals where they are needed.
This is what happens when baby boomers retire and are not replaced by a similar “boom” generation. People just didn’t have kids during the Viet Nam war years and have gotten out of the habit since that time. Baby Boomers caused a certain amount of economic disruption and change as they moved through the demographic. Now we’ve retired and things have really gone to hell in the job market. Not to worry. The country is resilient.
Society and a culture of entitlement has created generations of softies, who just want to sit back in a cushy life without working hard for years to earn it. When the cushy life collapses for many and they have to pay $50 for a cheeseburger, they’ll get back to work again.
I beg your Dolly Parton, Mr. G- I cannot think of one of my cohorts who fails to know how to get work done right. We be workin. Hustlin and workin is how you get to go wherever you want.. like dip out.
grudznick struggles to word this appropriately, Ms. Mammal. I fear a woman of your youthfulness and perhaps your cohorts as well may not quite fall into the generations to which my comment referred. I have no doubt that you are a hustlin’ and bustlin’ and earned all your keep. It was not my intent to infer otherwise. I’m talking about the slackards under … some other age.
Well, maybe if abortions are stopped we will have a strong workforce for the next generation.
LCJ- I don’t consider breeding in order for the corporate greed balls to have a steady supply of uneducated workers to fill their crappy jobs for meager wages a very noble act of love. One nation, underpaid doesn’t have to be a thing. If you want healthy births, go after the water polluters, not medical patients. It’s just much easier for you to fight women for the corporations than to protect women and children from the corporations. I get it.
And Mr. G- I get what you’re saying. Still, all the kids I know have jobs. Also, more families are sharing responsibilities amongst members more than before. More people under one roof, with different schedules and all pitching in sometimes looks like they don’t work. In some cases, it’s just because there is always someone home because of the schedules and extended members going in and out. And some don’t keep business hours because they are making a living in a less traditional, entrepreneurial way.
Second that, Nick Nemec.
My concern is that immigrant citizen-bound workers are exploited in a capitalist system, underpaid as they are and at the mercy of unaffordable housing while being at the same time a solution to our woes as regards job openings.
They deserve better than just occupying the lower paying jobs we have to offer, jobs we obviously won’t do or there wouldn’t be so many openings, and jobs just as critical to the overall functioning of the U.S. as higher paid and more ‘glamorous ‘ jobs . The notion that immigrants should have to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” starting at the lowest rungs of the ladder while at the same time serving a critical function in the service of our economy –if I admit capitalism as an optimal economic philosophy which I don’t —is effectively nothing but economic stratification and discrimination in the service of capitalists who seek to extract maximal profit at the expense of their workers.
Equal pay for equal work. One hour by an immigrant contributing to society is worth every bit as much as an hour contributed by a PhD in their position. Time for critical economic theory (CET).
There is a simple and answer to this problem. We need do go back to the days that made America Great..we need more child labor and toss in requiring gun ownership for good measure to make sure they work hard. Toss in a mix of old fashioned right wing religion in the schools —spare the rod and spoil the child right!
Grudznick–were it not for the occasional slackard in our society, you would have nothing to blog about. Slackards are as old as history…at the turn of the 20th century they were called “sports”. They hung around the pool halls, bars and other dens waiting for something to turn up in the way of an easy, perhaps illegal, payday, money that could be put down on a wager or converted into frolic. Even in the small town I grew up in there were a few of these. My father used to call them “Lillies” as in Lillies of the Field ” who neither sow or reap. ” They are fewer than you think though perhaps Rapid City has more than its share.
You are probably righter than right, Mr. Blundt. I know a number of these Lillies here in Rapid, although the pool halls are not the same as the old days. Some of these fellows call themselves “artists” today, but your pa’s term Lillie is very good as well.
Yes Grudz, they are local color. It used to be they contributed by telling you where you could get a bet down on a prize fight, where the poker game was on Saturday night, or what bartender was running a $5 World Series card. I suppose the casinos have taken all that action.
grudz, I don’t think you have the idea presented by the data correctly positioned in your mind. It seems you maty be standing in your head. There are far more jobs available than there are people to do those jobs. It has not one thing to do with anyone being “lazy”, or “soft”. It has to do with there simply not being enough people to get the work done. Example: There are 17 trucks with loads that need to be delivered. There are only 11 drivers. Not simply 11 available, but only 11 at all. One cannot drive 2 trucks simultaneously.
“Help Wanted” and “Hiring Now” signs are thick as pollen and spring flowers.
And yet, the foolish developments of the past 70+ years are coming home to roost – in the coastal and Midwestern cities (Could Sioux Falls & Rapid City be far behind?) Cities were foolishly designed for cars, not for people. The people have had enough of commuting, taking out a mortgage for a parking spot, and just plain wasting their time coming and going (unpaid!) to work. Human transportation (walking, biking) is an after thought. Cities put themselves in a “doom loop”.
The future of transportation as a service instead of everyone owning a car will accelerate the reduction of the value of urban downtown real estate, and thus, the tax base.
The trend manifests in South Dakota’s small cities also. Buildings collapse in downtown Aberdeen (even in Davenport, IA) – they didn’t use Roman concrete. Other towns catering to developers think they need to spread out all over the county (Watertown, Spearfish, Mitchell) – making human transportation near impossible with their neglected after thoughts of sidewalks and bike paths. The helter-skelter development creates more ‘county’ doughnuts in the city than previously existed.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/doom-loop-hammering-middle-america-095800515.html