Yeah, that’s right: you fire a whole bunch of qualified workers because of some (unjustified) panic, and now you (unexpectedly!) have a skills shortage:
How much of this labor shortage is a direct result of Biden’s vaccine mandates and the airline industry’s reliance on the federal government to stay in business during the pandemic is not certain. What is certain is that government mandated firing of pilots, crew and ground personnel over their vaccination status contributed to the chaos we are witnessing.
What we do know is that according to a report by Cowen and Company, airline pilot retirements are projected to accelerate through the mid-2020’s with 24.7 percent of pilots subjected to mandatory retirements between 2022 and 2026. These 13,000 forced retirements are up about 70 percent from the previous five years as baby boomers age out of the cockpit.
Self-created problems do not engender sympathy.
No but they do engender more bailouts.
Don’t get me started…
and where did a majority of those pilots get their training on multi-engine jets.? But let’s go ahead and turn the Airforce into an all drone fleet and de fund all those eeeevile people with guns.
That should work well for the future of air travel.
Get ready for fleets of drone airliners.
I read yesterday (Insty link, I think) that the Army is getting rid of 22,000 Guard and reservists… amid an enlistment slump.
Great ideas abound, eh?
I’m going to need a backup breakfast gin.
The way this is going Kim, you’ll need an I-V!
Nursing has done this to themselves for decades. They closed diploma schools, they’re rejectoLPNs for hospital jobs in many areas, they’re going after associate degree programs for Registered Nurses, demanding Masters degrees for various positions and the degrees are just checking a box etc then they whine about a shortage of nurses.
JQ
A friend of ours is an airline pilot, flying dreamliners. He worked throughout he covid idiocy and is now working a lot – to the maximum allowed. He and his fellow remaining pilots were able to put the squeeze on their airline for whopping pay increases, because a lot of pilots who were laid off because they were covid refuseniks or there was no work took early retirement which they now enjoy, or other jobs which they prefer to the high pressure of airline piloting, and they’re not coming back.
And perks, he’s got perks you’d hate him for. He and his wife have no kids and they travel all over the world literally monthly, or more often for short hops. Calgary to Palm Springs for a golf game or two, sure honey let’s go.
My boy the retired Navy pilot is now a commercial pilot and just got an 87% raise. This was a reaction to pilots jumping ship for better pay and work schedules. They were mostly paid by the flight hour, but received no compensation for sometimes days away from home. The airline might schedule them for a 1.5 hour trip today, then hotel overnight, a 1 hour hop late tomorrow, overnight there, then a 1.5 hour flight home late the next day. Gone from home 50-60 hours, they were paid for just 4 hours flight time, Yet even with that crappy scheduling, they were a still logging FAA max allowable flight hours over the course of a month because of the shortage of pilots.
They could do better than that for time spent waiting tables at a good restaurant and be home every day. Their new contract had not only more pay per flight hour, but also compensation for airline caused time away from home.
My little 5′ high daughter-in-law had two college degrees, working for the corporate office of a specialty grocery chain buying beers and wines and when the chain got gobbled up by Whole Foods she said she wanted a profession and not a position so she went back to college and in her 30’s maxed out the grades for her class and got to be a commissioned office int he Public Health Service with veterans benefits and most of her college paid for after working two years for the Federal govt. Since then she and my son live in a nice small town in Colorado where they raise their nine year old daughter but daughter-in-law kept at it with college and became a certified Mid-wife and a few years ago got her Phd. I thought she was kind of nuts but she is ultra smart and never wanted to get bumped out again. Her husband, my son turns 50 in August, he runs marathons and she ran a Marathon once years ago but now just does the half marathons. I think there is opportunity for folks who want to put all of the work and effort to rise to the top of the heap making themselves actually valuable rather than having degrees in how to have deep thoughts about things and what’s wrong with every one else.
I missed saying her nursing degree was RN when she went back to college. I miss the edit thingy. I always type to fast and don’t do enough editing before hitting post.
The fascinating wrinkle in all of this is demographics – we’re simply not having enough kids (in the west) to replace skilled (or any other) jobs. Sure, the covidiocy didn’t help, but it effectively sped up the drain in pilots (and nurses, Starbucks drones, whatever). Add in the excess deaths that occurred for various reasons over the past 2 years, massive decrease in fertility due to the vaks (as much as 25% in some countries) and we’re in for a *VERY* interesting ride in the next decade or 2.