On my last pair of trail running shoes - Olympus Altras. Sometimes, when they change the style, they can be found for about $100 or a bit less. Usual prices is $150 - or was. Now everyone wants $170. It takes me about 90 days to blow out a pair. Still cheaper than blowing out a knee I guess.
The wage inflation for tech roles is legit. Offer acceptance rates have plummeted along with a significant increase in people accepting then later declining. Companies are outbidding each other for talent. That’s going to lead to higher prices.
Even retail and food jobs are starting to offering hiring bonuses and increasing starting pay to attract workers. This level of wage increase while unemployment is still so high is unprecedented. It’s what happens when tons of free money is given out without people having to work for it. Demand sky rockets while production capabilities remain limited.
I think companies are so desperate to increase output to meet demand that it’s leading to the bidding wars. That makes the real question: is the increased demand sustainable? If it is, then the higher wages will last and inflation is structural. If demand is temporary, then companies will end up laying off just as quickly as they hired.
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Extra unemployment benefit will get completely phased out in a few months. We will have a better handle on labor situations by the end of the year.
Honestly I am happy to see wage rising for the bottom tier of workers. Their wages hasn’t seen much increase in the last 20 years or so. Higher labor cost is also a very good motivator for firms to raise productivity. Many restaurants now have online menu and ordering system for dine-in. And many fast-food restaurants should probably just shut down their dine-in business and concentrate 100% on drive-thru.
Long term, inflation in the 2.5 to 3 range is healthier than the sub-2 we have been getting.
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I feel the wage increases are not distributed evenly across the country.
Fav chicken sandwich price is up by 10%.
They’re also going with younger less experienced workers who they might not have taken the time to train in the past. Recently I’ve been served by kids who don’t even look like they’ve entered puberty yet.
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The is great for employees and also inflationary. It’ll increase the cost of labor. All this government argument about free tuition, and they can’t agree on anything. Now corporations are doing something about it. Wait, I thought corporations were evil and greedy.
Inflation is everywhere even if liberals deny it.
My haircut place raised their prices 50%.
Inflation is not a conservative hoax. But it sure is bullish for RE owners.
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Wage inflation. Shortage of labor for almost every jobs.
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Wage inflation is they key to inflation. Once started, hard to stop. Wages have been held down for thirty years due to automation, imports, immigration and digital technology. No longer. Low end workers are refusing to work and all the stimulus money has emboldened them. Hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
Inflation is back for at least the next 5 years.
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Do not worry. Borders are open again and workers are coming in. Give them some time to pick up some skills.
But for trades like plumbing, In 2011, market rate for changing a faucet was $60. A friend of mine paid $150 a week ago for same job.
It will take years to develop skills. Plumbers, HVAC and Electricians take 7 years to be journeyman. Carpenters five years. Tile, Sheetrock tapers masons 4-5 years. Labors and Painters need at least a year to be any good.
Unskilled non English speaking day labor at Home Depot want $30/hr. Carpenters want $75 in Tahoe and charge $65/hr for their unskilled help they pay a lot less.
Big problem is a population training on texting and googling is incapable of doing hard physical labor.
Immigrants are need to do farm labor and hard physical work that Americans won’t do
i don’t think they are incapable, I think they do the math for themselves, and don’t want to break their back or their bodies by the time they are 45. Especially in a world with crappy health care once you don’t have a W2 wage job. the trades are tough jobs, while skilled. I’d rather sit comfortably behind a computer, though I enjoy going to home depot and doing stuff myself. So if I have the option to break my back by the age of 45 or sit comfortably inside and extend my life, it makes sense.
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This where you and millennials are totally wrong. We now have two generations of fat feeble people than aren’t even qualified to be drafted. I learned trades at Lick Wilmerding HS and all of us went to college. The idea that tradesmen are less intelligent than college grads has been part of media propaganda.
In reality it takes as long to be a good electrician as a lawyer.
Nobody wants their daughter to marry a blue collar guy. But the satisfaction of building and fixing things makes people a lot healthier and happier than sitting behind a computer.
Electricians are not only smarter than most lawyers, many make more money and can work forever. My friend is 72 and still is an SF Union electrician.
Trades people are now getting there due. Hopefully some young people will join and make a lot more money than baristas with liberal arts degrees
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I cannot make out what are you trying to say. Are you saying the motivation to work does not exist? Or there are many ways to carry on without working?
Electrician is different - it requires a lot of smarts and is also not as physically demanding.
- the motivation to work exists.
- people do the “math” - is it worth the impact to my health and wellness to work construction/plumbing/HVAC? some make the decision yes, others say, na, I’d rather work on something less negatively impactful to my health or train for something else.
- there are many ways to have a job outside of doing the trades, hence the shortage of trades. people make decision that it doesn’t make sense for them, and these days, there are lot of other options to work or make money.
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If you have nothing to do during weekends, change yourself. Plenty of YouTube videos on all kinds of plumbing jobs. Current products are much more easy to maintain and replace. So even if your faucets, sinks, pipes are not damaged, you might want to consider replacing them with new parts… DIY.
Also get two snakes, one for sink and one for toilet bowl.
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Sitting at a desk is probably worse for your health in the long run. 50 years ago when people didn’t have desk jobs we were a far healthier society as a whole. Obesity rates were much lower back then. America is consuming 80% of the prescription drugs in the world, and we have more people working at desks than ever. The fact people think moving around for work is “bad for you” is exactly what’s wrong with America. People pretend standing at a desk is some how better for them. We need electronic devices with alarms to remind us to get up and move around.
Trades actually pay more than the average college grad makes, so most people evaluating that aren’t very good at math.
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It makes sense to me to be in the trades. I was a structural engineer for a long time nothing but headaches. Nightmare regulations lawsuits and people that wouldn’t pay. I would rather be a plumber. In fact I am thinking about starting a plumbing company. Pay employees a $50/hr and bill them out at $180. Money making machine. People pay on the spot with a credit card. Think $100 profit per hour times 10 employees, if I could just find them.
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