Do people who blame worker shortage on lazy workers have it backward?

Good counterpoint from Barry Ritholtz on why workers aren’t coming back to hospitality jobs as fast as expected.

An endless series of articles have been discussing America’s Labor shortages, especially in foodservice and hospitality. Blame has been spasmodically assigned to everything from too generous unemployment benefits, fear of Covid, lack of childcare, skills mismatch.

I have a different theory: Waitstaff, bartenders, hotel maids, busboys, dishwashers (and others) used the year of lockdown to level up, gain new skills, find not new jobs, but new careers. They have exited difficult, thankless, dead-end jobs for a chance at the American Dream.