Did laid-off workers go find better jobs?

Over the last decade, one of the most popular comments coming from the Right concerned people in the tourist service industry who hated their low wage, minimal benefits, demanding jobs, with comments such as, “If they don’t like their jobs, they need to get off of their lazy, no-good, worthless backsides and get better ones, then!”

We’re now about a year or so after the COVID-19 pandemic hit our local economy with a near knock-out punch, and we’re now seeing many tourist service industry businesses wondering why they can’t get people to work for them, in spite of a somewhat high unemployment rate.

While there are many legitimate reasons for unemployed people not applying for those jobs, I think that one of the biggest reasons is that there are plenty of workers laid off over the past year who decided to take that advice from the right-wingers and look for better jobs rather than return to the low-wage drudgery that they knew for far too long.

Russell J. Mitchell Orlando