every major structural social problem right now is basically "we don't have enough skilled workers on the ground" and the reason is always "well we've been intentionally underpaying and understaffng them for decades to increase corporate profits" and somehow the news always just mentions the "shortage" without digging into the cause
air travel is a mess? shortage of air traffic controllers - for some mysterious reason
logistics a mess? shortage of truck drivers - for some mysterious reason
public transit can't meet demand? shortage of bus drivers - for some mysterious reason
We even mysteriously have shortages of doctors, nurses, teachers... FOR SOME MYSTERIOUS REASON
FUCKING PAY PEOPLE AND HIRE ENOUGH STAFF
We need a sort of "six sigma no-blame" process, except taught to journalists. Report not just the immediate failure, but what sort of systemic causes allowed the failure. "This person fucked up" means the system failed to prevent the error, and that's still on the system - it usually means management is pushing the human component past spec.
Or failing journalists, some meta-organization above them better than "supernatural memes on Tumblr" would still be nice...
We have a shortage of doctors not because doctors aren't being paid enough but because doctors have successfully lobbied the government to prevent the shortage from being filled, in order to increase their wages.
I think that was actually one of the examples I had in mind when I wrote my reply - there are known causes for a lot of this, and it would probably be vastly easier to fix if we could just get journalists to actually dig in a few layers, instead of stopping at the superficial surfaces.
Teachers genuinely seem underpaid and over-administrated (and watching the administration bloat has got to make the underpaid thing hurt more) Air Traffic Controls are under the most absolutely insane obligations and working conditions ever. I cannot fathom why anyone would do it, unless it was funding their coke habit.
Doctors are an artificial shortage by strangling one part of the pipeline, and it would be so incredibly easy to fix that one. People still want to be doctors!
I'd imagine truckers are underpaid and under-appreciated, alongside facing a fairly clear threat of automation at some unspecified point in the future. But they also have a really strong union, and it's doing some solid work fighting against automation. But also it's social isolation for weeks on end, with nothing but music and podcasts to keep you company.
I have no clue what's up with bus drivers, honestly.
And a lot of times corporations are just firing salary-lowering gunshots when they complain: they can get as many workers as they want, they just resent paying a living wage.
Teaching is also a job where being understaffed can very quickly spiral into the job becoming unbearable/impossible.
Like understaffing means bigger classes.
Understaffing means you might end up having to teach a subject you know nothing about (shout out to my nemesis GEOGRAPHY), with minimal support.
Understaffing means that the kid who desperately needs a 1:1 support for their obvious severe SEN needs instead gets shoved into your lesson with no support except “you deal with it”. And you then have to try and explain that to their parents at parents evening in a way that makes your employers look good (or at least isn't going to get you labelled a troublemaker) whilst at the same time fielding their, honestly justified, anger at how their child is being failed by the system.
Understaffing means that you can't easily get support with behaviour issues because there just aren't enough staff to support.
Like if a school is already understaffed, then chances are any new staff they hire are going to be thrown into a nightmare scenario where they're being set up to fail and, worse, where they can see that the kids they work with are being set up to fail.
What are those staff going to do? Leave. Possibly leave teaching in general, because this sort of thing can also very quickly lead to burnout.
