Originally Posted by LV2TNDM

How to remedy this problem? You think this is the only industry suffering this problem? Have you not been listening to the news in the last several years? Bike shops, all retail, restaurants, you name it all have issues with hiring and retaining workers. Where did they go? Did they all die? Get abducted by aliens?

"Worker shortage." I am SO SICK of hearing this baloney repeated by the media. We don't have a worker shortage. We have a WAGE shortage! Workers aren't taking jobs because the pay is too low. Market forces at work, plain and simple.

Universal basic income would go a LONG way to remedying this situation. If we don't do something, we're basically leaving about half of our workforce behind. Making lame excuses about "the global economy," or "highly-skilled workforce," or "gotta get a STEM degree" or any other manner of rationalizations aren't going to solve the problem. Race to the bottom economics are to blame for wages no one wants to work for.

No kid today with half a brain would consider a "career" as a bike mechanic. But if it were suddenly a lucrative career that paid the bills and provided for a worker? Hey, maybe then the smart kids WOULD consider this as an option. If you think about it, we're devaluing so many of our career choices, we're ending up with unemployed, homeless on one end, and the professionals on the other, with nothing in between.

And every parent wants their kid to be "the best." With this mindset, we're basically saying, "Yeah, any job that you have to clean, fix, or build is A NO GO!