It’s a popular refrain from a certain segment of the online population on social media and comment-sections of articles about staffing shortages. “People just don’t want to work nowadays.”
But Guy Williams, president of Gulf Coast Bank and Trust, told Newell Normand on WWL Radio that it’s not as simple as a lack of work ethic. He said the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a number of changes to the makeup of the workforce that aren’t going away.
“Baby boomers that were close to retirement retired early,” Williams said. “Those folks are unlikely to go back to work. Some of them will go back to Walmart as greeters or do community work or something part-time, but most of them retired, and they’re just not going back. So a certain segment of the population is gone.”
He said there’s also a number of households who have figured out how to make the old-school, single breadwinner model work for their families.
“There are a measurable number of couples who discovered that their life was better when only one person worked,” Williams said. “And it didn’t matter if it was the husband or the wife. But if one person worked and one stayed home with the children, their contentment and their family life was better, and the delta was not that significant. And they just felt like, you know what? We’re not going back to both of us working. That was too hectic and too stressful.”
Williams also cited a segment of the workforce who have decided that “they can sort of live a bohemian lifestyle with not much money.” Williams said this includes younger workers who don’t want to be full-time employees and prioritize the time they have for leisure activities over a larger salary.
Williams believes these to be “systemic changes” that businesses will have to adapt to as they look to hire more staff.
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