January 29, 2017
Wow, things just keep getting worse. Automation is taking all the jobs, and the aging of the population means we won’t have any workers. Yes, these are completely contradictory concerns, but no one ever said that our policy elite had a clue. (No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump’s gang here.)
Anyhow, the Washington Post had a front page story telling us how older people are now working at retirement homes in Japan as a result of the aging of its population. The piece includes this great line:
“That means authorities need to think about ways to keep seniors healthy and active for longer, but also about how to augment the workforce to cope with labor shortages.”
You sort of have to love the first part, since folks might have thought authorities would have always been trying to think about ways to keep seniors healthy and active longer. After all, isn’t this a main focus of public health policy?
The part about labor shortages is also interesting. When there is a shortage of oil or wheat the price rises. If there were a labor shortage in Japan then we should be seeing rapidly rising wages. We aren’t. Wages have been virtually flat in recent years. That would seem to indicate that Japan doesn’t have a labor shortage — or alternatively, it has economically ignorant managers who don’t realize that the way to attract workers is to offer higher pay.
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