Need a job?
It was a bitter cold winter day… at least by St Louis standards. An incredible line of people queued up, hoping against hope to land a job with General Electric. To work remanufacturing huge train locomotive traction motors. Three hundred people in line that day, for two or three jobs. My coworker was recounting his story. How he landed a manufacturing job in desperate times.
Times have changed. In our community, everywhere you look, manufacturers are begging for workers. Not just restaurants and retailers. Signs everywhere. It seems no one wants to work. Why should they? Unlimited unemployment with an extra $300 per week courtesy of future generations of taxpayers.
People making economic decisions. Why both to work when you can watch Netflix and get paid? The work ethic slowly unravels. Souls infected.
The good news? The best summer job market in decades for high school kids, college kids. Anyone without unemployment gravy. For them, money and a lesson in the value of hard work.
Times have changed… for now.
Someday, perhaps soon, jobs will be hard to find again. And many Americans will have lost their tenacity to stand in line, fighting for one against all odds.