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Comment by reefoctopus | Hacker News Reader

If you can't find workers, you aren't offering high enough wages. This is econ 101.

I generally agree but there's a limit. If the cost of renovating my house becomes too high (e.g. labor too expensive) I simply won't do it and will put it off. In fact this just happened with a relative. There's certainly an equilibrium point.

This seems to be the mistake that the article makes. You saying that you want to renovate your home, or that a farmer wants to harvest his crop, or that an airline would like to fly somewhere, is not a real indication that work needs to be done. There is always a point where the cost makes it not worth doing anymore, and at that point, the jobs aren't really jobs. Trying to include them in the demand for labour violates what demand means.

And then wages will back down a bit. But I don't think anyone could argue that we are anywhere near that point.

Yes. At this point the price you are willing to pay would be below the equilibrium price.

Practically speaking, you're right, but only to a degree. Pay is not always a motivator for people past some point. Some jobs require a baseline intelligence to do effectively, and often times those people have other great employment opportunities. People capable of becoming skilled tradesman are also capable of getting high-paid jobs working in offices.

So companies looking for electricians or machinists are competing with companies looking for IT managers and the like. Not only is the pay much less than these people could otherwise get, the jobs are more physically demanding and often times, less flexible.

It's going to be hard to entice workers who already make 60+k a year doing a job with a lot of flexibility and downtime to take up a more demanding position. People love to talk about how much tradesman make, but the generosity of their salaries is often over-stated and ignores the seasonality and volatility of these jobs.

along those lines most jobs require you to:

pass a drug test

not be a convicted felon

have reliable transportation

show up consistently(i.e. reliable childcare)

And if you fall into one of those categories good luck.

or if it's an IT job:

have one of your last jobs be exactly that same technology as what the company is working on, nevermind how many other similar technologies you've worked on and learned on the fly.

Or the marginal productivity of the workers is below the required pay to attract them

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