Employers Will Have to Raise Wages. They Just Don’t Know It Yet.
As the economy has gotten better the last five years, employers have had more and more job openings, but have been sorely reluctant to accept that it’s not 2009 anymore in terms of what workers they can hire and at what wage.
Yes, unemployment is still elevated, but workers aren’t in nearly as desperate a position as they were then. So to get the kind of talented people they want, employers are going to have to pay more (or offer better benefits or working conditions) than they would have not that long ago.
.. To see what that looks like on a micro level, I wrote this summer about the trucking industry: Companies are taking a financial hit because they don’t have enough truck drivers — an event that comes after a decade in which truckers’ inflation-adjusted wages have actually fallen slightly.
In effect, there is a standoff between Corporate America and America’s workers. Businesses see demand for their products and want to expand. After years of stagnant wages, workers aren’t prepared to accept these jobs on the terms they are being offered.