Help Wanted

If you take a look around, almost anywhere in the state (and likely the country) you’ll notice something in almost every place of business: a “Help Wanted” sign. They are taped to the windows and doors of almost every business and if you’re a social media person, the pleas on Facebook looking for help are endless.

Business owners are struggling to find anyone to fill positions, especially in the areas of retail, food service, hospitality, and the like. Getting anyone to apply for work, show up and stay in a position for any length of time is nearly impossible. Why? I have my theories.

I feel like there are a couple of reasons for the shortage of workers. One, is the general lack of work ethic in folks these days. Those I mostly see working are older and were taught the value of earning their dollars. These are the same people who save money and pay their bills. These are also the people who showed up day after day to their jobs during the pandemic until things were shut down. Most of them then had the most difficult time trying to collect any sort of unemployment benefits, and in my opinion, they probably needed those benefits the most. Not to go purchase things they didn’t necessarily need, but to continue paying their bills while work was truly not available for them. I was one of those people who found most of my livelihood ripped out from underneath me as the classes and shows I was scheduled to be at were no longer taking place. It took me more than 60 tries each time I called unemployment to get through. I spoke with them 18 different times between March and May, spent countless hours on hold, and more than four months without a paycheck. It wasn’t unemployment’s fault; they were simply beyond their capacity, without any real resources to carry out orders by the federal government.

Another reason for the recent shortage of workers? Those without a work ethic found it much easier to just stay home and collect more money on unemployment than for them to actually work. If you think about it, most of the jobs in retail food service, and here in Lincoln especially, are minimum wage positions. If someone worked 40 hours a week at $8 per hour, they would make $320, pre-tax.

When shutdowns first began federal UI benefits paid them a minimum of $600 a week, in addition to their regular unemployment benefits. Who could blame someone for wanting to stay home and make double the money to do nothing? The problem was when things began opening up little by little, people who had jobs, quit their jobs because they made the same amount or more money staying home, even with reduced federal benefits.

Think back to a little over a year ago. Almost everything except essential businesses were being shut down. People were in jeopardy of losing their homes and their vehicles, and of not being able to put food on the table for their families. Parents found themselves needing to stay home to care for children and perform some sort of version of homeschooling or virtual learning. Those unemployment benefits and stimulus benefits were created for those people. Others who had essential positions had to continue to work for their regular paychecks. In my opinion, those who continued working really should have received some sort of additional bonus too.

Now, with things opening up more and more, the additional federal unemployment benefits are coming to an end. That in itself should be reason enough for the help wanted signs to start coming down and jobs being able to be filled. But get this: those who haven’t worked in more than a year are also now being offered a “Return to Work Bonus.” A what? An “I stayed home to collect more money than those who continued working AND I get to get a whole month of federal unemployment benefits (the amount of the bonus) to finally get off my butt and go back to work bonus?”

Okay, that just seems completely ridiculous, and while I know life is not fair, completely unfair. Here’s an idea: let’s for once, instead of rewarding the slackers in the world, we actually reward those who work hard, contribute to societ, and do what it takes to make ends meet.

In theory, those who were collecting unemployment of more than double their average salary should have socked money away the whole time they received it, paid off bills or done something responsible with it. Why in the world do they need a bonus to go back to work? They’ve had their bonus, for more than a year already.

When is enough, enough? When do the people who work hard get some recognition, some help, a bonus?

From my perspective, the entire system is completely flawed, needs to be changed and, while we’re at it, let’s teach this generation to have a damn work ethic so if anything like this happens again, there won’t be a need to stay home and collect benefits, or a return to work bonus.