nObODy wAnTs To WorK AnYMore!

it's a classic gripe of outof touch corporate Executives hiring minimum wage workers or the trust fund baby who is angry that their gym is busy in the middle of the day nobody wants to work anymore now I really hate to say this but by looking at the numbers they might have a point labor force participation is approaching generational lows even after the pandemic while labor force participation amongst men specifically is the lowest it has ever been these declines have been happening at the same time that unemployment is theoretically quite low which if the economist to

be believed means it should be easy for people who want to get a job to get a job right well not quite and these numbers are confusing at best or downright misleading at worst is people just don't want to go to work there was a poll I read a long time ago only like 18% of Americans feel engaged when they're at work I hate my job the signs are everywhere businesses especially restaurants need employees and they need them dude less than 20% of the country likes their job okay so there are two general schools that

people fall into when they see that nobody wants to work anymore the first group are wealthy Executives business owners or just people who have always worked incredibly hard who don't like that jobs are going unfilled so they blame it on lazy young people who would rather sit around all day smoking cones and watching skibbidy toilets the second school of thought agrees that yes people don't want to work they don't want to work demeaning jobs where they won't get paid enough to support a decent quality of life it's nice when two groups who are so different

can agree on something so really the only thing left is to work out why people don't want to work now in most cases the jobs that nobody wants to work fall into one of three categories the first are jobs that are just paying well below Market rates given the experience or the location required businesses aren't going to be able to fill a full stack senior development role in Silicon Valley for $50,000 a year plus equity in their questionable preed startup but there are still plenty that try even entry-level jobs that pay minimum wage in very

high cost of living areas are going to be much harder to fill in a city where even Finance Bros are living in shared housing now hot take alert but just like there are no shortage of crappy businesses and managers that expect to pay workers nothing for worldclass skills and experience there are lots of workers who expect worldclass pay with little or no marketable expertise one of the most insightful pieces of data on this issue is this recent survey right here it asked a selection of Americans would they consider to be the minimum salary they would

need to be financially successful now most of the responses to the numbers have been laughing at the genzies just entering the workforce who think that almost $600,000 a year is a realistic salary goal because for most people it just isn't unless you are in a few very specific career paths there are basically no jobs that pay this money and even then you need an insane amount of luck to get those opportunities now you can blameless on young people who don't really know how the world Works yet or social media that makes it look like every

hustle bro is flying private but it's all distracting from a more interesting data point the average Boomer thinks financial success is achieved with a salary of just under $100,000 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics this is still almost double the median national salary but in most major cities where people can actually find jobs that pay this much $100,000 certainly doesn't afford a lifestyle of financial success there is simply a massive Gap in expectations between the generations looking for their first jobs and the group responsible for giving out most of the jobs so they both

agree that nobody wants to work just for different reasons the second type of job that nobody wants to work are in workplaces that push their staff demand unreasonable overtime or have management that are needlessly abusive this happens in a shocking amount of businesses across the country and even if you are lucky enough to avoid a boss that thinks shouting is an effective motivation tool you have probably worked some overtime out of fear of losing your job or being reprimanded according to a 2023 workplace survey the average full-time worker across the country studied is now putting

in an average of 9.2 hours of unpaid overtime these jobs offer don't have much trouble finding people to start but they do struggle with high staff turnover the third are simply jobs that never actually existed you probably all know about ghost jobs by now but even if you really do want to work there is a good chance that most of your applications are just going to build out a Workforce database not to actually be considered for employment now whatever the specific reason the results are the same less people end up working but aside from settling

some beef between entitled Zoomers and some outof touch Boomers this data all reveal something more concerning about work in the current economy it's not that people don't want to work anymore they simply can't afford to so it's time to learn how money Works to find out what's really behind the worst phrase in the workplace this week's video is sponsored by my Heritage ever wondered what remarkable stories are hidden in your family history my Heritage is the world's leading platform for genealogy research and DNA testing trusted by over 90 million users worldwide with 20 billion historical

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ancestors lives unfold in official documents is like piecing together a historical puzzle ready to discover your own family's hidden stories my Heritage offers a 14-day free trial so you can experience the platform's full range of features start your journey today trust me you'll be amazed by what you uncover okay so yeah there are millions of people out there that think nobody wants to work because they couldn't hire someone with 20 years of experience on a programming language that has only been out for 5 years for $15 an hour there are also people who don't want

to work because they think unless they are offered six figures in their first roll out of high school it's not worth their time and they would be better off sitting at home working on their nft dropshipping business both of these groups definitely exist in shockingly large numbers but even though it's really fun to make fun of both sides it distracts from the much more important reason why labor force participation is getting worse well as you might have been able to guess this trend is really being driven by specific age groups and specific locations if you

look at labor force participation and exclude the youngest generation of workers and the oldest generation of workers it's actually approaching alltime highs which really makes sense when you think about it it's common for both men and women to work full-time these days and for most households it's simply a financial necessity so yeah even if people don't want to work anymore they kind of are stuck doing it anyway the reason labor force participation has fallen off in general though is because the average is being dragged down by a lot of young workers and old workers the

old workers are the easiest to explain as as people started Living longer retirement Ages were pushed back and more of the population began working in non-physical jobs as a result a larger share of the population over 55 remained in the workforce this has started to reverse though as self-funded Retirement Systems and general asset prices have allowed a lot of over 55s to step back from the labor force especially after covid as a lot of people received Severance packages and decided that an early retirement was better than going back to the office labor force participation from

young people just entering the work work force either out of high school or college is also pulling down the average just for different reasons more people than ever are getting a college degree which means they are starting to work later and fewer people are working part-time jobs while they study because for many it's simply not worth it given how much debt they are going to be in when they graduate anyway this might not also be a shock to you but it's getting really damn hard to find a job out of college a few months ago

a post from a professor at Berkeley made the rounds after it spoke about his top students from a top college struggling to find work in technology an industry that was hiring highly intelligent graduates like this as fast as they could make them just 24 months ago previously a Berkeley CS graduate even if not a top student would receive multiple appealing job offers in terms of work type location salary and employer however outstanding students like those with a 4.0 in major GPA are now contacting me worried because they have zero offers I suspect this trend is

irreversible and likely part of the broader Trend impacting almost every employment sector it's pretty Grim stuff coming out of one of the best schools in the country it might not be the most logical thing to do but a common reaction from people who can't land a job with the degree they got to make them more employable is to just go get another degree the rate of Masters and PhD recipients has grown even faster than people getting an undergraduate degree because that's now normal to stand out in a highly competitive job market and to be honest

it's a nice way for people to avoid the reality of the job market for another few years spending another 2 to eight years at college to get Advanced degrees means people aren't in the labor force which pulls down the average to look worse than it really is so those are the ages that are perpetuating this dumb myth but this trend is also highly dependent on location and to see that you need to go to the place where apparently the absolute least amount of people want to work yes the Rust Belt state has the lowest labor

force participation in the country country but also some of the most unusual statistical anomalies the state is quite poor after its major industries like coal Mining and Manufacturing were either outsourced or simply fell out of widespread use this means that a lot of areas have effectively been left behind with no major employment opportunities meaning that labor force participation is much lower than the national average but strangely in some areas the participation rate is much higher than what would be expected a recent study conducted by economists from Hamlin University Cornell and vir Virginia Tech found that

depending on the County labor force participation in West Virginia ranges from 42% to 77% a gap between regions of 35% while the average across the US states is just 177% less than half of West Virginia It's Not Unusual that cities and working towns will have higher labor force participation than other areas because people often specifically move to these locations just to get work but this variance was startling and uncovered a bigger National Trend the people in that still had work can't afford not to work and the people in areas with no work couldn't afford to

move to areas with work since it could mean giving up family support networks or simply paying for the cost to relocate housing a lot of people who had the financial means have already moved out of the state only making this problem worse as they take business opportunities and money away with them it's a dense read because it's an academic paper it's for nerds but if you ever feel compelled to say that nobody wants to work anymore I definitely suggest you have a look at it the report itself also looks at welfare issues specific to West

Virginia but just because the state is experiencing this problem the worst doesn't mean that it's in any way just something hurting them the trend of a few concentrated cities doing extremely well while everywhere else stagnates can make Nationwide figures look good but it also means people who want to work have an option of trying their luck for one of the few jobs left in areas with fewer opportunities or living in an extremely expensive city to compete with everybody else fighting over a spot in the few places left where people can reliably get ahead finance and

Tech have become one of the last Escape ropes for people to make a deal with the devil to get out of these areas with little to no opportunities and I am going to be writing an article about how even that career path is becoming impossible in my completely free email newsletter so sign up if you are interested in reading that and other articles that will never be made into videos here thanks for watching and thanks again to my Heritage for making this video possible check them out by scanning this QR code or clicking the Link

in the description now obviously a lot of this could be handled by companies just allowing remote work so go and watch my recent video on why companies absolutely will not let that happen for anybody except their CEOs and make sure to like And subscribe to keep on learning how money works