system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: The idea that there is a "labor shortage" in the US is ideological nonsense, and at best, is franchise owners' complaining that they're getting squeezed from corporate.

So, I'm not really speaking to skilled trade jobs, who's workforce has been aging for the past couple decades. I can't imagine contractors are complaining about having higher bids for their work. I'm largely talking about the "labor shortages" coming after federally supplemented unemployment benefits ended.

I still keep seeing signs in retail + restaurants alongside reports on the news that there's a labor shortage. The way I've seen this talked about is pretty disgusting to me so I'm probably biased.

Firstly, I don't understand how this is even possible without a mandated maximum wage. I know a dollar or two above minimum wage is usually treated as a maximum wage for most retail jobs, but there's not actually a law forcing this.

All the employers need to do is purchase the labor they want at the market rate. If they can't find people, they aren't paying the market rate. It has nothing to do with a shortage. Why aren't employers able to pay the market rate for their labor. They pay it for everything else and transfer the costs to the consumer. Why is labor an issue?

The only cause I can think of is that large franchised companies aren't allowed to figure in the cost of labor into their pricing.

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Edit: ahh sorry got busy, will start responding again. Also I definitely should have clarified, I'm primarily talking about retail and service industries that overwhelmingly pay minimum wage or near it.

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Edit 2: I'm realizing my initial post was way too general, and relied too much on a subjective view of the messaging I've personally seen on the news and from large retail businesses. There certainly is a labor shortage as the economy is rebalancing itself. I still think retail storefronts restaurants and other non-livable wage jobs are pushing a gross cynical narrative as to why they can't find workers. Neither do I believe most of these companies have made a fair effort to raise prices based on their own labor costs (there hasn't even been enough time for this to equilibrate in most cases). I'll still read through the comments and try to give a delta or two to people pointing towards the fact that there is actually a labor shortage throughout the entire economy causing issues downstream.
gpt
Any labor economist will tell you that wages are sticky, but only in one direction. It's very easy for business to move wages *up* and nobody complains, but it is *very* hard to move wages *down* again without causing massive upheaval among your employees.

So now imagine you have a labor shortage, but you think it's only temporary (e.g. due to a short term COVID supply chain disruption that will eventually even itself out). As a business you would naturally be highly averse to offering higher wages to overcome this short term labor shortage because the natural stickiness of wages means you will be stuck with that higher wage rate even once the short term demand for employees subsides.