
Nicholas Anway is a student at Harvard Law School.
In today’s news and commentary: We’re in the midst of a “structural” labor shortage, giving workers bargaining power.
“It feels like we have a structural labor shortage out there,” said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell late last week. And according to Business Insider, the tight labor market is a source of worker power. There are just under 4 million more jobs than workers in the labor force, the Fed reported; the aggregate labor force participation rate remains stuck below pre-pandemic levels. Powell pointed to three factors as driving the worker shortage. First, “accelerated retirements”: Goldman Sachs estimated that of the 2.5 million people who retired during the pandemic, 1.5 million retired early. Second, Powell emphasized the pandemic’s tragic effects on workers, explaining that “[c]lose to half a million who would have been working died from COVID.” Third, the market is “missing” over one million immigrant workers, according to Giovanni Peri, the director of the Global Migration Center at the University of California at Davis. “If you ask businesses, you know, pretty much everybody you talk to says there aren’t enough people,” Powell said. The labor market demand, reports Insider, means that “employers are still offering more in attempts to get workers.”
Daily News & Commentary
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July 8
In today’s news and commentary, Apple wins at the Fifth Circuit against the NLRB, Florida enacts a noncompete-friendly law, and complications with the No Tax on Tips in the Big Beautiful Bill. Apple won an appeal overturning a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision that the company violated labor law by coercively questioning an employee […]
July 7
LA economy deals with fallout from ICE raids; a new appeal challenges the NCAA antitrust settlement; and the EPA places dissenting employees on leave.
July 6
Municipal workers in Philadelphia continue to strike; Zohran Mamdani collects union endorsements; UFCW grocery workers in California and Colorado reach tentative agreements.
July 4
The DOL scraps a Biden-era proposed rule to end subminimum wages for disabled workers; millions will lose access to Medicaid and SNAP due to new proof of work requirements; and states step up in the noncompete policy space.
July 3
California compromises with unions on housing; 11th Circuit rules against transgender teacher; Harvard removes hundreds from grad student union.
July 2
Block, Nanda, and Nayak argue that the NLRA is under attack, harming democracy; the EEOC files a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by former EEOC Commissioner Jocelyn Samuels; and SEIU Local 1000 strikes an agreement with the State of California to delay the state's return-to-office executive order for state workers.