[gus_massa]

You forgot to count plumbers, and everyone in the construction industry.

Also the guy that fills the milk bottles. My brother used to work in a milk bottling plant, but he was not filing the bottles by hand. A machine filled the bottles, someone overlook the machine, my brother was making the chemistry and biological test to ensure the milk was safe to drink. And there was some additional people they call in case the machine gets broken (or to build a new machine.)

You are forgetting to count a lot of people.

[falcolas]

Even if every single position in the US held today were considered essential, there would still be more people in the US who are unemployed than employed.

And every job currently held today is absolutely not essential.

[kortilla]

That doesn’t support your point though that we’re anywhere near post scarcity and can support people quitting. Many jobs that were classified as essential during the pandemic are things people don’t have oodles of joy doing (garbage pickup, power plant coal loader, etc).

You can cut out the entire “entertainment” or whatever industry you think isn’t essential, but we still need to convince the people working the essential jobs to do it while everyone else free-rides.