Obviously there is some ludicrous threshold of pay where more people will decide to do some job. But for practical purposes the pay needs to be in line with still being able to price your products competitively in a global marketplace.
Even $10,000/yr more might not be enough to move the needle all that much on a job that’s backbreaking, monotonous, and with little prospects for career growth. Especially if you have a limited pool of applicants due to your location.
Obviously there is some ludicrous threshold of pay where more people will decide to do some job
Ludicrous only from the perspective of the employer. Everyone wants something for nothing.
The fact is that regular Americans (i.e. not exploited, immigrant labor, or oppressed out-groups) used to do manual labor and manufacturing in the United States. They took pride in their labor. People haven't changed, the economics have.
As for your last paragraph, the oil fields have been able to meet their need for employees for the most part, and that ticks every one of your undesirable factors. So what gets workers there? Pay.
You used to be able to buy a nice house in the suburbs with car in the garage and a white picket fence, support a stay-at-home wife with three kids, put them all through college, and take annual vacations to Disneyland or the Caribbean, and cover the healthcare needs of the whole family, all on the salary of a high school educated factory worker. Now all that sounds impossible. You’d have to pay factory workers well into six figures for a lifestyle like that.
What happened? Cost disease [1]. All of the big ticket things in that lifestyle (except for the car) skyrocketed in price relative to inflation.
Pay, plus a willingness to hire workers who might not be tolerated in other jobs due to background check issues or HR policy violations. (I am not claiming this is necessarily a bad thing.)
Theoretically, an utterly horrible job with great pay would attract a lot of workers who do it for some time to get a financial boost before moving on.
Obviously there is some ludicrous threshold of pay where more people will decide to do some job. But for practical purposes the pay needs to be in line with still being able to price your products competitively in a global marketplace.
Even $10,000/yr more might not be enough to move the needle all that much on a job that’s backbreaking, monotonous, and with little prospects for career growth. Especially if you have a limited pool of applicants due to your location.
Obviously there is some ludicrous threshold of pay where more people will decide to do some job
Ludicrous only from the perspective of the employer. Everyone wants something for nothing.
The fact is that regular Americans (i.e. not exploited, immigrant labor, or oppressed out-groups) used to do manual labor and manufacturing in the United States. They took pride in their labor. People haven't changed, the economics have.
As for your last paragraph, the oil fields have been able to meet their need for employees for the most part, and that ticks every one of your undesirable factors. So what gets workers there? Pay.
You used to be able to buy a nice house in the suburbs with car in the garage and a white picket fence, support a stay-at-home wife with three kids, put them all through college, and take annual vacations to Disneyland or the Caribbean, and cover the healthcare needs of the whole family, all on the salary of a high school educated factory worker. Now all that sounds impossible. You’d have to pay factory workers well into six figures for a lifestyle like that.
What happened? Cost disease [1]. All of the big ticket things in that lifestyle (except for the car) skyrocketed in price relative to inflation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect
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Pay, plus a willingness to hire workers who might not be tolerated in other jobs due to background check issues or HR policy violations. (I am not claiming this is necessarily a bad thing.)
Theoretically, an utterly horrible job with great pay would attract a lot of workers who do it for some time to get a financial boost before moving on.