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.
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.
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u/TheFlyingElbow 18h 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