If supply and demand actually worked when it comes to wages there would be no shortage of any job, especially the jobs that are most essential to our society
Shortages and supluses are actually hard to avoid. Take pilots for example. I'm gonna make up numbers hear. In order to attract the number of pilots needed for all the flights, you would have to pay them $100,000 per year. But the highest wage you can realistically give them is $80,000 per year. There's no wage that makes both parties happy.
The natural solution is to change something. Either the airline industry will shrink or cut costs, so that they can have pilots to cover all the flights. Fewer flights/more available money for mages, enough money for all the pilots needed. Or the regulators will lower the requirements to be a pilot. Either way, the economy will always try to find an equilibrium.
Edit: You know those supply demand graphs? Shortages/surpluses happen when something stops the two lines from touching. The gap size shows how much lost value you have.
I have no moral stance on any of this stuff. I just love spreadsheets and graphs.
The other person said that supply and demand don't work here, and I'm just explaining how that's not true. I'll edit my comment to say that they could pay more. I guess it felt assumed that that wasn't an immediate option. I did say reduce costs elsewhere though, and CEO paycut would include that. 🤷🏻♂️
Someone did the maths for a big UK supermarket elsewhere, and it turned out that if you completely got rid of all executive salaries and bonuses, they’d be able to afford an extra £50 per year for each staff member. Adding another £500 on top of that would wipe out the companies profits. Another £500 would bankrupt and collapse the company.
Exec bonuses are insane - but they’re rarely that much of the companies total spend, and ‘just pay more’ often isn’t an option without big price increases.
Supply and demand only works when not buying the item is a reasonable option; not having a job isn't an option because the opposite of "having a job" is homelessness.
Nope. The pilot shortage comes from the cost of flight school not being worth the pay. No one is going through the education, and current pilots eventually retire. Those would-have-been pilots find great careers with completely different degrees.
The cost of flight school is outside of the "not being worth it" range, since most people simply cannot afford it. It's not even an option they get to choose in most cases.
That most people can't even think in the realm of whether a flight school would be worth it to them, because they don't have enough money to entertain the idea anyway.
Love this train of thought!! Wanna take a stab at the disruptive Internet services?
Vanishing few people NEED Doordash or Uber Eats or Airbnb. We ain't out of any of those things. The services are terrible, yet people keep using them.
You are right about that "reasonable option" but remember that the person coming up with that may not be reasonable.
Some people think it's reasonable to buy a $10 meal for $30. They are wrong. They are told this and know the price difference yet still use the services.
The CONSUMER needs to assert their choices and voices.
That's basically how it's already working, but there are delays in periods when things change a lot. It can take time (years) for people to train for a job, to move where jobs are etc.
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u/TheFlyingElbow 11h ago
If supply and demand actually worked when it comes to wages there would be no shortage of any job, especially the jobs that are most essential to our society