
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
July 11
Regional director orders election without Board quorum; 9th Circuit pauses injunction on Executive Order; Driverless car legislation in Massachusetts
July 10
Wisconsin Supreme Court holds UW Health nurses are not covered by Wisconsin’s Labor Peace Act; a district judge denies the request to stay an injunction pending appeal; the NFLPA appeals an arbitration decision.
July 9
In Today’s News and Commentary, the Supreme Court green-lights mass firings of federal workers, the Agricultural Secretary suggests Medicaid recipients can replace deported farm workers, and DHS ends Temporary Protected Status for Hondurans and Nicaraguans. In an 8-1 emergency docket decision released yesterday afternoon, the Supreme Court lifted an injunction by U.S. District Judge Susan […]
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.