Why America Has a Long-Term Labor Crisis, in Six Charts
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The U.S. economy has been running, improbably, with an unemployment rate under 4% for nearly two years.
That isn’t just a holdover from pandemic bottlenecks, when employers let millions of people go and then struggled to find workers when demand roared back, economists and business leaders say. It is a storm that has been brewing for decades, flaring up most recently in the form of labor fights at automakers and airlines. Labor shortages are turning into a long-term labor crisis that could push wages and turnover higher.
Work experts have warned for years that the combination of baby boomer retirements, low birthrates, shifting immigration policies and changing worker preferences is leaving U.S. employers with too few workers to fill job openings. While the labor market is softening, none of those factors are expected to change dramatically in the coming years.
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