The case of the missing workers
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2023
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Despite recent headlines about layoffs, the story of many industries is still too many jobs and not enough workers. Today on “Post Reports,” we do a deep dive into the restaurant industry and ask – where did all the workers go?
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A little over a year ago, “Post Reports” Executive Producer Maggie Penman reported on quitters – the millions of Americans who left their jobs during the pandemic. Now, more than a year later, she’s puzzled by the continued worker shortages and “help wanted” signs across so many industries. If workers aren’t staffing restaurants, shops or daycares – then where did they go?
The answer is complicated – it takes us from a restaurant in Massachusetts to a children’s museum in Maine – and tied to big economic trends that long predate the pandemic.
Today on “Post Reports,” we go on a search for the missing worker and uncover years of declining immigration, an aging workforce, a continued lack of child care and the surprising decline of men in the labor force.
Check out the music you heard at the top of the show from Mosaic Mirrors here.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's L.I.A. |
| 0:02.8 | You might have seen some headlines lately about layoffs. |
| 0:05.8 | A lot of the biggest tech and media companies seem to be saying, we have too many workers, |
| 0:10.8 | we need to cut back. |
| 0:12.4 | And yet, in a lot of other industries, it's just the opposite. |
| 0:16.5 | Employers are saying, they don't have enough workers. |
| 0:19.9 | This trend has been puzzling to our executive producer Maggie Penman. |
| 0:24.2 | Back in 2021, she reported on the phenomenon of people quitting their jobs. |
| 0:29.7 | But things have changed in the economy since then. |
| 0:32.7 | And so more than a year later, it was confusing to Maggie that so many industries were still |
| 0:37.7 | desperate for workers. |
| 0:39.6 | Okay, Maggie will take it from here. |
| 0:45.3 | On a recent Friday night, I was at Atwood's Tavern in Cambridge, Massachusetts, around 10 |
| 0:51.1 | p.m. |
| 0:52.1 | The bar was buzzing, live music was just getting started. |
| 0:57.8 | And the restaurant seemed like a well-oiled machine. |
| 1:01.8 | Servers had pushed the tables aside after the dinner rush, staff behind the bar were filling |
| 1:06.0 | drink orders. |
| 1:07.3 | The place was packed with a new young crowd and some of the regulars too. |
| 1:12.4 | I had my first date here with this guy. |
| 1:14.6 | Which is a good first date spot? |
| 1:16.2 | Oh, an amazing first date spot. |
... |
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