Posted by: Stuminator
Maybe get your glasses. I did not knock teh CERB. I said he made it way too easy for people who didn't need it, to collect it. There were also lots of people who should have went back to work once it was possible to do so.
Not everything I'm posting here is relevant to your post but it's a good jumping off point.
In my industry aprox. 250,000 people nationally have left the industry and are unlikely to return. As well, we've had numerous people start for day shifts and then realize that their childcare situation won't allow them to be reliable and they've had to quit. Childcare is a fucking mess right now; personally any other employer would have fired me or I would have had quit by now due to how unreliable childcare is right now. I know nurses that can't afford to work because flexible childcare is unavailable or far too expensive.
In my experience being open the entire pandemic aside from the first two months; hiring the entire time, is that the incentive to stay on CERB was gone by the end of summer 2020, and even that was just for the lowest quality employee. Anyone worth hiring makes far more working than they can on CERB, even when you could work and collect at the same time. All my returning staff were keen to return to work and keep working as soon as we were allowed to by law. (Except for the ones who decided they were done with the shitty public; I lost some very good people because of this.)
The labour shortage is not as simple as "people just don't want to work" or "you just don't pay enough". People have moved on from certain jobs. Folks don't want to deal with the shitty public (they're shitty, some asshole put a ping pong table through my front glass the other day because we couldn't serve him without his vax pass). People have to care for their kids. Some people are at risk if they work in public.
In my experience, quickly shoving money out the door in the form of the combination of CERB, rent and wage subsidies (once they got that directly to the renters) is what's kept my family business alive, my staff working, and my families lifestyle intact Expensive yes, but very necessary and based on what I see in rich countries that have let their people basically go it alone (America) probably better for the economy and public health. I'm fine with some waste. It's basically applying the argument that it's cheaper to pay welfare to keep someone from totally hitting the skids than it is to save that welfare money and make them rebuild to the entire population.
