WORK

Here’s What They Really Mean When They Say Nobody Wants To Work Anymore

Take note of who keeps saying this

This is what unemployed people do all day long, you know. They just lie on the floor and let the hard-working taxpayers support them. Photo by James Forbes on Unsplash

I keep hearing people tell me nobody wants to work anymore. The people who say this, however, are invariably people who have had the same good jobs for years — or are retired.

I have yet to hear this claim from anybody who has dealt with a bout of unemployment in the last few years.

The unemployment rate is under 4 percent.

There aren’t a lot of people on the unemployment rolls, but this is a bit misleading. People whose unemployment has run out are not included in that statistic. Neither are people who settled for a part-time job or who switched to gig work or self-employment.

That would include people like me. I thought I’d work full-time until I was around 70, but it’s tough to land a job when you’re older than 40. Almost every woman my age I know is unemployed, underemployed or doing some kind of gig or freelance work.

I’m sure there are exceptions, especially people who have highly specialized skills. I imagine 50-something doctors, for example, are much better off than people in non-tech fields.