The Wall Street Journal had a great article on Walmart’s struggle to hire managers for their stores.
Many managers leading the company’s roughly 4,700 U.S. stores have been in their roles for at least a decade, and Walmart executives say they need to find a new generation to replace them. The tight labor market and competition for workers create another challenge—even for a job that often pays more than $200,000 a year.
WSJ
Interestingly, nowhere in the article does is say why Walmart is struggling to find workers or why they need them to begin with but Econonaut readers know. In, It’s The Boomer Stupid! we outlined the case for what is happening across America. There are 60 MILLION people that will be reaching age 65 in 2030 and many are already there. The 60 million boomers retiring will leave a gigantic hole in the labor force and a giant hole in productivity. Those same 60 million boomers are still going to be demanding goods and services along with 8 billion people on the planet. The boomers will consume but they won’t be producing much.
Ironically, it comes at a time when de-globalization is happening and reliance on cheap foreign labor to manufacture goods is waning so the problem will be many fold times harder than anyone expects.
Walmart is one of the largest corporations on the planet with deep pockets and if they are struggling to find and hire people, what do you think that means for smaller and medium sized businesses?
We are just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to labor shortages. There aren’t enough pilots, nurses, construction workers, doctors, lawyers, and anything else you can think of and the problem is just starting.
A prudent investor will be taking all of this in and planning accordingly. Stay tuned and stay solvent…