Lhe President of the Republic, as he is now accustomed to, has once again set the pendulums of our social and economic life. Bars and restaurants now have no more in mind than May 19, date of the reopening of the terraces. Until then, it is necessary to clean the house, renew the stocks of beer and… call the dispersed troops back to work. Those who were lucky enough to benefit from partial unemployment will come back. For the others, independent, seasonal, and all those who have found another occupation, it will be more difficult. Still hardly noticeable in France, it is already a reality in the United States or in Great Britain: the shortage of labor threatens the recovery.
On April 5, the airline company Delta announced that it had been forced to cancel 100 flights for lack of personnel. Weekly The Economist says that some McDonald’s restaurants in the United States have gone so far as to give a check for 50 dollars (41 euros) to all candidates who would like to appear for a job interview. Job vacancies in the country are said to be at their highest level in twenty years.
The same goes for Great Britain. The Pizza Express group has not reopened its 1,000 restaurants, but it is already struggling to recruit the 1,000 employees it needs. In London, pubs are looking for missing servers. However, the sector lost 355,000 jobs in the health crisis, half of which were under 25. This is the reason why the British government launched its “kickstart scheme”, an employment aid which finances six months of wages of a young person hired, provided that he is between 16 and 24 years old. Restaurant owners have flocked to this bargain and the offers have exploded.
The evil has spread
But where did these armies of docile waiters, divers and cooks go? Many foreigners have returned to their country, others have changed jobs. We are therefore not at the end of our surprises on this famous world after, strangely marked with the seal of shortages of all kinds.
The car manufacturers were the first to sound the alarm when they noticed that they were no longer able to provide themselves with electronic chips to drive their cars. Then the evil spread. The industrial machine, gaining strength, began to run out of everything, components and raw materials, and now labor. Blocking the Suez Canal for a week in March did not help. Ford announced on Thursday April 29 that it expected to lose 50% of its production due to chip shortages.
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