There is absolutely no labor shortage in america, it's 100% a fair wage shortage. Truck drivers are a bit like boot campers in a way, you can go and take like a 6-month course and become one. So the market flooded with these folks, and while let's just say a fair wage for a truck driver would be around 100K a year, most are only making 60 to 70.

I bet if the trucking companies decide it to start all of their employees at 110k they'd have no shortage of people willing to drive.

+1. America has two different labor pools: those who are willing to compromise on their lifestyles and those who will only accept a living wage.

One side of America has been celebrating a reduction of migrants entering the country for four years, and now suddenly business owners are seeing that resource pool run dry. Even if these business owners did not rely on immigrant laborers, their own workforce is finding more opportunities. In many ways, it seems like that particular populist administration has provided what was promised.

Unless there is some major shift back to the norm, I can see businesses shifting to leverage labor more productively. I don't think this is a bad thing - America has always been addicted to its cheap, exploitable labor and this trend has gotten worse over the last three decades. Hopefully, these changes can continue to be more equitable to both sides. I could also foresee a reduction in excessive consumption - maybe a reduction in the number of "fast casual dining trends" and other horizontal growth trends.

The workforce participation rate is at an all time low. There are ~5 million fewer people looking for work than in 2019.

This is like saying that there is no housing shortage, just a shortage of people willing to pay a fair price.

This is hugely due to (mostly) women leaving the workforce to take over childcare due to closed schools.

Then that sounds like a shortage to me. Raising wages isn't going to make the kids disappear.

Raising wages will make daycare a financially reasonable decision again.

Wouldn't the wages for daycare workers need to be raised as well?

So I just looked it up. Unless you make $4.75 an hour or less, you're coming out ahead working and putting your child in daycare. I'm in a ~1 million population US city.

$4.75 is half the state minimum wage, and a fraction of what anywhere near me is starting people out at. No one pays minimum wage any more. Target is paying $15/hr to stock shelves.

How does this work out? Most daycares have a legally required low ratio of staff-to-babies (like 3:1 or so). So just on wages alone you need 1/3 the minimum wage per baby. Add in all the overhead and the fact that maybe you don't want your daycare staff making the absolute minimum wage to watch your children..

"Is there really a shortage of houses? Or are there enough houses, but they'd rather sell to investors/foreign buyers, because they pay more?"

I mean.. houses are an item.... a better question would be, is there enough (desirable) land to build houses on, and will the government let you build there.

I live in a city where we have enough land, but the government wont let anyone build pretty much anywhere, and the housing prices are horrible.

This is actually a thing, though. Chinese interests own a huge amount of land in the US, for example, and they're buying more every year [0].

[0] https://americanmilitarynews.com/2021/07/china-is-buying-bil...

That article says "As of the start of 2020, Chinese investors owned about 192,000 acres of U.S. agricultural land valued at about $1.9 billion". That's out of 900mil acres of farmland in the USA. So about 0.02% -- hardly a "huge amount".

True. For added perspective, the top 100 largest land owners possess about 40 million acres throughout the US [0].

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-largest-landowners-i...

Land and building permits are way harder to obtain than a truck driving license.

It is my understanding that at least a part of the problem (not sure how significant) is that some new pollution prevention regs at California ports have sidelined many independent operators because their rigs do not meet the required standards. New trucks are extremely expensive so a good chunk of these operators have left the market.

This might be accurate. Also at McDonald's you don't have to be away from home for weeks or months at a time.

Is this a literary device or does McDonald’s actually pay more than long-haul trucking??

Depending on how you do it, long haul trucking is a worse job than McDonald's, if McDonald's is paying enough.

> The average truck driver salary in the USA is $61,843 per year or $31.71 per hour. Entry level positions start at $45,970 per year while most experienced workers make up to $85,000 per year.

McDonald's is approaching $20/hr around here, which is getting close to those entry-level positions, no special training needed, and you get to live at home with family instead of being OTR all the time.

Would be curious to know what general area you live in to understand how McD's can pay close to $20/h. Presumably a very high COL.

No, it's a low COL area but there are just no workers. Closing shifts are $18/19 starting (at least according to the sign they've had stuck up since before COVID).

McD's won't start everyone at $20/h, but in an environment where starting wage is $15-$17, shift managers will be at least within striking distance of $20/h. This is not necessarily in a high COL area.

I was just in rural Idaho and the McDonald's sign said pay starting at $15/hour. COL index is about 5% higher than national average, based on a quick search.

Here in Canada, truckers have an entry wage of about $18/h. Starbucks pays $15-16 and from what I’ve heard anecdotally, has excellent benefits and flexible hours, neither of which are guaranteed as a long-hauler.

I used this as a literary device, because apart from many other unregulated professions, trucking requires special licences that most people don't have. Anyone can clean toilets, most just don't want to for the money offered. Not anyone can drive a trucks... so i was wondering is this a "not enough licenced people" issue to cover the work, even with "infinite pay", or just a "not enough pay" issue for people with licences and other job offers.

But considering the other comments, McDonalds-like jobs pay similar amounts of pay for a lot better working conditions (less responsibility, stay at home with family, less dangerous,...).

$30 an hour driving might be more than $12 an hour at Macnaldo's or Prince Hamburger, you're only getting paid for the eight hours you're driving and not for the time you're away from home.

My understanding is that it really depends on how you calculate pay. Trucking is often paid pr mile driven rather than pr hour 'worked'. So if you divide your total wage by the number of hours you are in or around your truck then hourly wage can come out much lower than McDonald's.

Retail and food service management can be pretty lucrative. For an entry level position though I can't imagine this would be true.