LABOR: Good riddance to cheap

Several factors are at work as to the lack of employees in the labor market.

COVID caused some people to retire and some people can’t go back to work because day cares closed. Also, Trump almost stopped immigration and many of these students who came to this country to go to college, stayed here on visas and filled jobs.

Coeur d’Alene has always paid starvation wages. In the 1970s, I worked for a company that hired single mothers because they couldn’t quit and they could be worked all hours. The CEO thought it was funny when he said to them, “If you quit there are 20 ready to take your job.” And that was true then.

Workers have stayed in this area because housing was relatively cheap. However, now that has changed. We have entered the “Ketchum” syndrome; laborers can’t afford to live here. In Ketchum the workers moved to Hailey, and when that became too expensive, they moved to Twin Falls and by then, it wasn’t worth the drive. So restaurants closed in Ketchum.

One more factor is the Florida factor. The people moving here are retirement age. They don’t have to work. When I was in Florida in the ’80s, I went to work and the business next door tried to hire me away the first day. I asked what they would pay me and they said, “whatever you want.”

Hooray, I say. Days of cheap labor may be gone.

DONNA HARVEY

Hayden