Labor supply is behaving strangely

In an unusual job posting on Facebook, a pizzeria in Alabama has offered to “literally hire anyone,” a sign of how restaurants are still struggling to attract workers.

“We will literally hire anyone,” Dave’s Pizza, in the Birmingham suburb of Homewood, said in a Facebook post Wednesday. “If you’re on unemployment and can’t find a job, call us; we’ll hire you.”

What if they gave a job and nobody came?  Here is the story, via the excellent Samir Varma.  And elsewhere, via Heather Long:

Face masks are required again in major US auto factories and, according to Ford CEO Jim Farley, that has some workers deciding not to show up for work. In some factories, absentee rates can exceed 20%, he said in an interview with CNN Business.

“When a fifth of your workforce isn’t coming in, in a manufacturing operation where everyone has their job and you don’t know who’s going to be missing every day, man, it’s really challenging,” Farley said.

Labor supply is…behaving strangely. And here is a very good Scott Sumner post on unemployment insurance.  Might one of the simpler lessons here be that when job circumstances and working conditions remain uncertain, it is much harder for markets to make good job matches?