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Its hard to tell for sure, but everyone I know is now working harder than before to keep things at baseline. Like, longer hours, or multiple jobs, and still falling behind.
And I'm talking almost all industries. Actuary buddy, senior pharmacist buddy, construction foreman buddy, IT buddies, and all my friends who are even tangentially connected to the medical field.
People in my circle seem to have less free time. It fits with the apparent stats that show more people dropping out of the labor force, the increase in people drawing on welfare/disability programs, and, of course, the silver wave of boomer retirees. They still consume services, demand products, but aren't on the productive side of the equation any longer.
Oh, and its possible deportations are causing issues too.
Most sit-down restaurants seem understaffed. Hospitals are teeming with patients. Any services you need to set appointments for are pushed out for weeks. Municipal governments seem to be struggling to perform their core functions in a timely manner. One symptom I've noticed is that most 24 hour Wal-Marts (and fast food places) went away after Covid and haven't come back. Every service I have availed myself of seems to be more expensive and less flexible/available due to sheer demand.
Just more work to be done, everywhere, than there are people available to do it, and yet tons and tons of people also consuming services, many of whom don't seem to be working, themselves?
The forbidden question.
I can't say for sure, I assume there's a group of people who just quietly and diligently do their work (competently) and collect their paycheck and go home and do whatever they do or raise their families without posting about it online and they are generally content.
The thing I do notice is that businesses that do keep things flowing and keep their prices reasonable often have some form of "slave labor" they draw on. Maybe its their kids, maybe its some barely-sober recovering druggie, or illegal immigrant, or a dude with clear mental deficiency who is nonetheless very functional once trained.
That is, people who are able to do basic labor day in and day out and aren't prone to demanding better pay, and may have some specific incapacity (maybe physical, maybe social) that makes them unlikely to quit.
That's not universal, I've seen the flip side, where an employer treats his people so well and compensates them generously enough that they're extraordinarily loyal and productive.
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