Economies of Scale or Extortion and Blackmail?

Will we ever learn?  

As an entrepreneur who takes great joy in creating meaningful work for my team while at the same time providing excellent service to our clients, I will admit I am extremely disappointed with what is happening in the job market today.  For two years we have been hiring in one of the toughest markets for small businesses.

Employees are demanding wages that are more than what the position is worth in the marketplace. “They” are claiming that it is the cost of living or economies of scale that is driving this demand in the market. The big corporations are answering the demand because they can and are willing to do so for now. The short-sightedness of this on both sides is disappointing.  

I laughed out loud as I read the book The Sovereign Individual by James Davidson when he said that is like burning your living room furniture for a moment of warmth.

This book reviews the history of economies and the factors that drove/drive them. He reviews the growth from the Hunter Gatherer economies to the Information Age we are in now. It is truly eye-opening.  

In the last two years, we have seen businesses close their doors because they could not hire. We have watched the box stores and grocery stores put in self-checkout stands. If you have traveled at all you have experienced hotels that no longer clean your room because they cannot hire.

Small businesses used to employ most of the workforce. Work where you are in relationship with the owner and the customers.  Work where you could know the difference you were making because you were an integral part of the whole process.

Those are the companies that are closing their doors because the risk isn’t offset by the reward due to the imbalance between wages and what a widget can be sold for on the market. Either that or those companies are raising their prices to the degree that soon only the very wealthy will be able to buy them, diminishing the demand and resulting in fewer jobs. Either way, it’s a lose-lose.

This reminds me of the crash of 2008. Financial ignorance continues to plague us.

I will continue to maintain – it doesn’t have to be this way!

What will it take for personal responsibility and thinking about your neighbor as you think about yourself to be the norm again?

What will it take to think of future generations and not just today and what’s in it just for me now?

I worry about the prices that will be paid before we finally wake up to the truths of time and history.

I encourage each of us to stop and think about our part in all of this and how we can contribute to creating a different result.

In Abundance, 

Sue