In a country in the middle of the “Great Resignation”, Holz thought it might be easy to pick up a job and show the data for how much employers were hiring.
After applying for 60 jobs, he only got an interview request from 1 employer.
The method for the experiment was simple. He would apply to 2 jobs every day, for 30 days, and then record the responses that he received from the employers he applied to. RELATED: Here’s What You Can Be Doing If Coronavirus Took Away Your Job The jobs he applied to paid between minimum wage — recently upped to $10 an hour in Florida — and $12 an hour, and was a source of income he didn’t actually need. “Let’s do 30 days, 2 jobs a day. If I pick something up on the side, great. I’m already employed," said an enthusiastic Holz. According to recent research from Microsoft, more than 40 percent of the global workforce are considering leaving their employers this year. Many are attributing these numbers to the growing dissatisfaction of potential employees who don’t want to work for “slave wages” and would struggle to make ends meet at a job that doesn’t offer them many benefits. Holz recalled his first conversation with someone about the labor shortage going on in the country when he called to donate convalescent plasma at a clinic near Fort Myers, Florida last year. “The guy went on this rant about how he can’t find help and he can’t keep anybody in his medical facility because they all quit over the stimulus checks,” Holz told Insider. “And I’m like, ‘Your medical professionals quit over $1,200 checks? That’s weird.’” Since COVID-19 hit and the country went into lockdown, businesses suffered the losses of their workers and incomes due to increased efforts to “flatten the curve” of the virus. The U.S. government issued an increase in assistance to those whose jobs were affected by the virus by boosting unemployment benefits and giving stimulus checks to workers and families. RELATED: I Work In The Restaurant Industry — Gov’t Handouts Aren’t The Reason People Don’t Want To Work Here As months passed, the vaccines were approved, and things slowly returned to a more normal state, businesses complained that the government allotments were still hurting employment rates. The 37-year-old found it hard to believe that the government money was keeping people out of the labor force, especially when federal unemployment benefits were ended during the summer. The experiment contradicts employers complaints about people being unwilling to work. “16 of them responded to me, 4 of those went on to a phone call after an email exchange, and then 1 of those turned into an interview. 0 of them turned into a job that was actually desperate for help," said Holz at the end of the study. He emphasized that the jobs he applied for weren’t experience-based or required anything exceptional, and that “most of them either said ‘willing to train’ or ‘minimum experience.’” A lot of these jobs he applied to were places that claimed they were desperately looking for help and that they were suffering massive labor shortages, but apparently things weren’t bad enough. Because the jobs were local to him, Holz acknowledged that the experiment might not represent the country as a whole, but he hoped that the experiment could open up conversations about the problems that do affect the country as a whole. He also mentioned that even though all these places seemed to complain about the lack of workers, his boss had no problems hiring anyone throughout the pandemic. “It’s not that nobody wants to work. It’s that nobody wants to work for slave wages anymore," said Holz. “Nobody leaves those positions because he takes care of his people.” RELATED: 6 Guidelines For Finding Flexible Hours & Rewarding Work So You Can Stay Away From Awful Jobs Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Follow him on Twitter here.
