[panarky]

The key point is that employers have job openings they can't fill [1].

If you are correct that other workers are willing to work that cheap, then the jobs would be filled.

Workers exist but are unwilling to work that cheap, so they're idle while employers have unfilled jobs.

Whenever you see a news story that says "employers having difficulties finding qualified workers," you can safely replace that phrase with "employers are unwilling to pay the market rate for labor."

[1] U.S. job openings hit record high of 7.14 million https://www.investing.com/news/economic-indicators/us-job-op...

[dleslie]

Indeed; they're either unwilling to pay the market rate for the labour _or_ they are unwilling to train.

Any time an employer states that they cannot find a _suitable_ candidate for a position it is an admission that they are unwilling to train.

[gwright]

I think you are excluding other scenarios:

A business may not be able to pay minimum wage and training costs. The solution there is more qualified people (but they take better paying jobs), lower wage (legally impossible), pass increases on to consumers (higher wages paired with higher costs). Wage increases can't magically be absorbed, especially in service industries with plenty of substitutes. Customers will just disappear.

The best example I can think of is restaurants closing in NYC because the increased wage costs due to increased minimum wage requirements made certain business models unsustainable: http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/16/15-minimum-wage-hike-wre...

[dleslie]

You gave many reasons why an employer may be unwilling, but it's the same outcome regardless: an unwillingness to train or pay more.

[gwright]

I don't think that is an accurate summary of the situation at all. In particular your characterization asserts indirectly that that the employer is doing something wrong, that if only they were "willing" the problem would be rectified. But it is nonsensical to think that a business is going to willingly make choices that go against its own self interest, that hurts its business.

It makes no sense to hire an employee for $X/hour if that won't increase revenue by at least $X/hour.

It makes no sense to raise prices to cover an employee's wages/training for $Y/month, for example if revenue goes down by more than $Y/month (higher prices => less sales)

[dleslie]

I don't believe I asserted that the employer is wrong in being unwilling to train or pay market rates for labour. There are many valid reasons to be so unwilling.

[JoeAltmaier]

Yes all this. My mother-in-law lived through the institution of minimum wage in America. She saw many people lose their part-time jobs because of it. Initially it was a big upset.

[ams6110]

Thanks, your clarification is helpful. I think that it's more accurate to say, rather than "employers are unwilling to pay the market rate for labor," that "at the market rate for labor, employers have other options than employing workers."

Either they decide that the work is not worth doing at the higher cost, or they have some way to get it done other than directly hiring people to do it (automating, outsourcing, assigning more tasks to current employees, etc.)

[gwright]

The "other options" category also includes closing because the business is no longer viable given the legal/market constraints.