Why is There a Shortage of People to Fill the Job Market?
It’s Happening Across the Board
A few days ago, I had a sixth-month checkup with my cardiologist. I noticed on My Chart that we had only been allotted 15 minutes. Wow! Fifteen minutes for a newly diagnosed heart condition that I had a million questions about is pushing it. How could I organize myself so that at the very least the top questions were answered?
I didn’t harass my doctor.
I already knew that he likely didn’t set the schedule. Most docs today aren’t running a private practice but instead work for a corporation. The old private practice doctor scenario has long been replaced by a bigger and supposedly better model.
However, I did mention to him that I wished we had more time to talk.
He sighed and told me that he wished we did, too. Then he went on to tell me that one reason the appointments are only fifteen minutes long is that they’re suffering a major shortage of cardiologists. He went on to tell me that they were working with only two-thirds of the practitioners that they needed.
Frankly, he looked tired.
My sister is a speech pathologist in a public school district. She’s complained often about the extreme teacher shortage. They started this year with a first-grade team that consisted of all brand-new teachers except for one who was a second-year teacher. Needless to say, the strain on those teachers without anyone to mentor them is dire.
Teacher shortages have expanded across the nation.
I own land in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I get regular news report from Bridge Michigan. The following story caught my eye. There’s a growing police shortage in Michigan, apparently.
In April of last year, a nursing workforce analysis in Health Affair found that the total number of RNs had decreased by more than 100,000 from 2020 to 2021 — the largest drop ever observed over the past four decades. The shortage is predicted to continue to grow.
The number of pet owners has increased dramatically which means that 41,000 new veterinarians are needed to meet this demand. As stated in the article below — “Despite a regular pipeline of veterinary graduates, there will still be a shortage of about 15,000 veterinarians by 2030. It would take more than 30 years of veterinary school graduations to meet the 10-year industry need for credentialed veterinary technicians.”
What about firemen? Is there a shortage as well? Turns out the answer is YES.
It doesn’t stop with jobs that require a lot of training, degrees, or certifications either. The shortage of workers has swept across loads of service jobs as well.
I spent only about an hour researching a handful of jobs that modern society depends upon.
How many more professions are feeling the same crunch? Nursing homes, roofers, plumbers, professors, pharmacists, where else? Let me pick just one from the above list. Let’s go with pharmacists, shall we? Hold on while I do a quick google search. I’ll get right back to you.
Bingo! The answer is YES once again.
So my question is this. What the hell is going on? Where did the people go? I suspect the answers vary somewhat according to which job shortage we’re talking about but that doesn’t make me feel any better.
Along with so many things that seem to be changing in the world and thus increasing our collective angst, our world of goods and services feels precarious as well.
I don’t have any answers.
This article was merely a short perusal of some of the growing complaints I keep hearing about the job market. It’s a weird and whacky world. One thought does cross my mind, however. In a day and age when education is too expensive and Republicans seem hellbent on making it harder for people to receive additional training, why would we sabotage our own best interests? Why wouldn’t we be behind college loan forgiveness, recruiting students to train by creating incentives through bonuses, free college for those who qualify, and ways to pay back loans through servicing regions that are in dire need of workers?
My dad went to college after he came home from the Korean War.
That was when America had a strong and growing middle class. He was able to benefit from the GI Bill. Also, many state universities were offering tuition-free classes to local young people. The number of people attending college more than doubled during that time. It was a push by the government to get more highly trained people to fill important jobs across the country.
There has never been a period before or after which provided so many Americans the path toward a higher standard of living.
Sinking money into education is more important than ever. Our modern world is becoming more complex by the day. Somewhere along the line, we have failed to impress upon our leaders that a highly educated and well-trained citizenry should be the number one goal of any modern society.
Like our infrastructures that we have neglected for decades, we’re losing ground in education as well.
The price is steep. It will take decades to reverse the trend. Shortages of trained individuals will only increase as more people retire. These are jobs that we can’t simply pull someone off the street to fill. These jobs require years of training, certifications, and even ongoing training throughout a professional person’s career.
How sad to watch the decline of the modern world, especially in the United States, and be helpless to fix it.
Progress, whether social or technological, often seems to follow predictable cycles. There are boom times followed by regressive movements.
I believe we’re going through a dangerous period right now where the progress made in the recent past is slowing down to a screeching halt. We’re watching the decline of a nation.
I don’t know exactly what to expect in the days to come but I do know that if we continue down this road, a lot of people will suffer.
Teresa is an author and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
