
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
Start your day with our roundup of the latest labor developments. See all
February 3
New Jersey advances a temp worker rights bill; Johns Hopkins doctoral students join a wave of unionized graduate students; canvassers systematically misrepresented a petition for a veto referendum on the California fast food workers bill; and strikes continue in the UK
February 2
Starbucks made illegal threats during a union election; an Illinois bill would paid time off; and the UK cost of living strike continues.
February 1
Judge rules Amazon violated labor law and HuffPost workers announce readiness to strike.
January 31
Apple faces ULP charge; public school teachers strike in Massachusetts; UAW runoff voting begins; a Jacobin article discusses a new app that could facilitate union organizing
January 30
[email protected] — Illinois’s highest court considers whether federal collective bargaining law preempts BIPA; the EEOC publishes a new plan to enforce nondiscrimination laws against AI hiring technology; and working professionals discover the wonders — and dangers — of ChatGPT.
January 29
Republican states challenge DOL's ESG rule, Ninth Circuit agrees to hear lawsuit challenging private prison labor