The Great Hesitation?

Evidence for the “great resignation” is thin on the ground

Job quits are not unusually high

So states The Economist.

And not just the economist.

Perhaps. . . but I think something else may be going on, which explains the caption of the entry here.  Let's call it The Great Hesitation.

The recent news stories on the Great Resignation are claiming its pretty much bunk.  But what was it in the first place?  Well, supposedly just what the name implied.  People were quitting their jobs in the post Pandemic world. 

Apparently, they aren't.

That doesn't mean something isn't going on.

Some personal observations.

A couple of months ago, in late summer, I tried a case in Denver.  The hotel I stayed in downtown had very little in the way of staff.  We were warned about that upon checking in.  It was also quite spartan downtown in general, and maybe that explains it.  Maybe they just hadn't added staff back, as they weren't anywhere near at capacity. . .maybe.

Countering that, downtown restaurants were back open, and they seemed fully staffed and plenty full.  Well, full, not hugely full as they often had been.

Further, however, it seems that the entire legal industry is experiencing an entry level lawyer shortage.

Not that there's a shortage of graduating folks from law school.  Not hardly.  There are lots of new graduates.  They're just not taking law jobs.  And that isn't a singular observation, it's extremely widespread.

This is also true of staffing positions for law firm.  Lots of openings. . .no takers.

So what's going on?

Well, maybe not resignations, although one newly minted lawyer I'm familiar with, who was mentioned in a draft post here the other day, is on her third or fourth position in just two years.  But some of those were temporary by nature (one definitely wasn't).

Rather, it seems fairly obvious, people aren't going back to jobs they once held, or they're holding off entering the job market entirely.

At some point, that probably has to end, but this is some sort of big social trend.  And it's been going on for a while.  We may have in fact just noticed it, and in part it may be somewhat amplified right now.

So what's up?

Well, a lot of what's up is what we've noted here again and again about the nature of modern work, and people are reacting to it. And the people who are reacting, are those at the entry level, or those who have been knocked out of work.  People aren't getting in, and they aren't coming back.  

Those who never left, have kept on keeping on.

The other thing that is going on is, I suspect, something that's been going on for quite some time.  And its a generational thing.

The World War Two and Silent Generations weren't given much option about working, but because of the war and developments in it, combined with the advance of certain types of (domestic) machinery, they entered work at a pretty advantageous time.  The World War Two Generation built the modern American work culture, although they did it when they were quite young.  And the Great Depression and the Second World War enormously amplified a trend that had been going on since the early 1900s, which was the migration from the country to the city.  The Silent Generation went along with all of this, as it didn't really have any choice. The Baby Boomers, in spite of initially protesting everything, fully embraced it by the 1970s, theirs being the last generation to enter the workplace in which 1) you didn't need a college education in order to get a decent paying job; and 2) a bachelors degree pretty much let you write your own ticket.

Things have fallen apart since then, although the generations that entered upper middle class positions haven't noticed or have excused it away.

It turned out, and turns out, that a bunch of the things Americans were told since 1945 about work, combined with economic policies in place since that time, have created a work life that people simply just don't like.  Shipping blue collar jobs overseas, amplifying the move to the big cities beyond what was already in place, and putting everyone in cubicle jobs didn't suit their tastes as it doesn't suit nature.

Additionally the inflating requirement for a college degree, combined with the forced industrialization of female labor has pushed the marginalization of young adults back to some degree.

Indeed, in the draft posts I have up here, I have this item, which I'll incorporate here as its somewhat relevant.

 Some time ago we took this highly unpopular view here in our Zeitgeist series.

Children and Forced Industrialization

You've seen them here before, and yes, here they are again.  Migrant farm couples, 1938.

I've come to be simply amazed by the degree to which Americans are now acclimated to the concept that the government ought to pay for things, well, related to sex in some way or another.

Joe Biden's economic "relief" bill, which really addresses a topic that no longer really needs addressing, includes a big boost for pre K childcare.

Why?

To make my surprise, if that's what it is, more plain, what that means is that money will come from taxes (and loans) to help pay for the childcare of people so that they don't have to pay for it, directly, themselves.  

More bluntly, this will make it easier, which is part of what is being boosted as a reason to do it, for those with low incomes to have two working parents, as the thesis is that otherwise they'll have to make economic choices that will be difficult.

First of all, while it makes me sound like a Marxist saying it, isn't it clear that what this amounts to is the forced industrial employment of women?  What hte goal really is, is to make it easier for working mothers to work, which rapidly equates into forcing them to work, which is essentially what our economy had done over the past 70 years.  That is, we've converted from the early industrial revolution economy of forcing men out of their homes to work from eight to twelve hours per day to one t hat now requires women to do the same.  In order to do that we've subsidized all sorts of things to the benefit, essentially, of industry, and now we propose to go one step further.

Indeed, the irony of this is that this is where Marxist and Capitalist come back around and meet.  Early Marxists sought the dissolution of marriage and the collectivization of child care.  That has been regarded s horrific, but that's exactly what industrial economies have done over the past seventy years and the Biden Administration proposes to knock it up a notch.

This isn't just.

It isn't just to force women to leave their children in order to work.  It likewise wasn't just to do that in the case of men, but the level of subsidization evolved into force was lower in that case, although still very real.

It also isn't just to tax people in order to pay for the children of others, except in dire emergency.  People like me who have paid for and raised our own children are now being asked to pay for the care of children we don't remotely know, including children who are raised in circumstances which we wouldn't approve of.  If, for example, we can be taxed to pay for childcare for these children, can we also justly require that they be raised with basic sets fo values, including the value of a two parent home, which quite a few won't have?  No, certainly not, we won't be allowed to suggest that.

I feel this way, I'd note, on a lot of programs in this area, the long lasting ones which provide examples of why going down this path is a bad idea.  I've mentioned the "free and reduced" lunch and breakfast programs before, which directly transfers the duty of feeding children from parent to government.  I know that it had good intentions, all of these things have unthinking good intentions.  The proposals to wipe out student debt or provide free college education also have good intentions, and also are all massively subject to the law of unintended consequences.  What they also are, without it really being thought out, are subsidies for industry in varying degrees.

I know that the ship has sailed on many of these things, the strong evidence against doing them notwithstanding.  It's almost impossible to go back, once these steps are taken.  Americans may imagine themselves in some quarters as being rugged individualist, but even people who imagine themselves to be real libertarians acclimate themselves to such things pretty quickly.  But it is interesting to wonder what would happen if things went the other way.  I.e., if, save for K through 12 education itself, the government simply got out of this area entirely.  Feed your own children, provide for you own children, no subsidies for childcare of any kind, and not even any governmental bodies that seek to enforce child support orders.  Leave it up to the individual.

It'd be really rough for some at first, but I suspect pretty quickly a lot of the old rules would rebound once the burdens returned to the individual.  It might even do more economically than proposals to raise minimum wages would, as lots of families would be back to one breadwinner.

But no, we're just going to keep in marrying the government and making it the big parent.

I should note that probably right away, if anyone reads this, there will be a claim that this is radically traditionalist or something, or maybe anti feminist.  Feminism, I'd note, is a term that's now so broad to pracitically not have a meanning without further refining, but in any event, none of that is intended.

Indeed, I'd note that its already the case that the public sector has, in some instances, taken care of this much the same way that it took care of health insurance during the 1940s.  It's a recruiting incentive.  Some big firms of various kinds have in house daycares so their female employees don't have to worry about finding one and still being able to get to work.

In addition to that, at least by my observation, it's also the case that workplaces have becoming much more child friendly over the years, particularly in recent years.  I never observed children in working spaces when I was  younger.  Never.  Only farms and ranches were the exception.  Now I see them all the time.  Its not unusual at all for female employees to bring children into the office for one reason or another, often for long hours, and for that to result in very little notice.   Therefore, I really don't think that the claim "women will have to choose to go childless" is true, although that no doubt has an economic aspect to it. The poorer you are, the fewer the options.  It's one thing to bring your child into a business office. It's quite another to your job at the bar or restaurant.

I also don't think that this would ipso facto mean an increase in abortions.  Indeed, the current legal trends are towards increasing restrictions in this area as both men and women support increasing restrictions.  And social trends seem to suggest that younger people are less interested in acting like their grandparents who came of age in the 60s and 70s in this area in general.

What I do think, however, is that it forces choices up front and therefore vest "moral hazard" where it ought to be vested, at the individual level.  That probably reemphasizes some old values while combing them with the new economy, which should be done.

It probably won't be, however.

That pretty much guaranties that this blog won't be receiving any Radial Feminist Of The Year awards.

Following that, we ran across this item on Twitter:

I don’t want to work. I want to be home with my baby and I can’t afford it. I hate that. I hate it so much.

My point would have been a different one at the time I first noted these things, but they're still relevant to this one.  Lots of people who would have entered their full adult years in their late teens and then gone on to pretty stable adult lives by their mid 20s, now are in college and university for many years instead by necessity.  Some are pursuing careers that they really want to be in, both men and women, but many are there by economic force or compulsion  The reason that's relevant is that they've become acclimated to it, and at the same time know that jobs they've trained for that they really dont' want won't be all that much when they obtain them.  

The solution?

Well, maybe they're making it now.  If much of the old economy was remade in a much more local, direct, fashion, it would not be a bad thing.