Labor Shortage in Detroit and Michigan Driving Wages Higher?

[emu steve]

Depends on the driving force behind the underlying increase. If it's demand due to shortage, then wages should naturally rise to meet demand. If it's mandated by buerocrats, robots come in and actually drive labour out eventually lowering wages. Watch this.

https://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU

Government and unions always lose in the face of free market driven productivity HOWEVER, when behemoths or monopolies conspire with government [[healthcare, agriculture, insurance, banks etc) to fix prices, that's called crony capitalism and always hurts the market.

One thing about labor markets is that they are dynamic and ever changing.

How many manufacturing jobs were there 100 years ago?

How many computer jobs were there 100 years ago?

So we see demand for certain types of labor decrease because of technology or globalization or whatever BUT other occupations are created and grow.

One real world example is the decrease in mining and extraction jobs. Coal mining is a nearly dead occupation yet 100 years ago it was thriving [[my maternal grandfather was a coal miner in Pa.).

Now we may have thousands and thousands working in say the wind and solar energy fields. Jobs lost in the coal mines of Pa., W.Va., etc may show up in Nevada in Musk's battery factory.

Maybe the best example I can think of where technology has killed an entire industry: Travel agents. Before the Internet everyone went to a travel agent and had them book a trip.

Don't most travelers today go online and make their own plane, lodging, etc. plans?