Extremely good point WRT losing 700k people. Some estimates I've heard of (just skimmed headlines) claim it's well over a million who've died from COVID in the US alone, and that's just so far - sadly, that number is only going to go up, and even moreso with states like Texas outright banning vaccine mandates.

Also, consider the "domino effects" of that million+ loss: people losing a spouse, sibling, child, parent, etc. now may be in an even further economically disadvantaged position than they already were, thanks to losing that person and therefore that income source they provided. Some may have moved in with friends and are still grieving, not able to interview well for a job; some have been able to co-habitate and make ends meet with increased unemployment help from the government (especially when combined with eviction moratoriums that we're now seeing aren't valid legally anymore). And for professionals, "remote" is becoming the new norm despite corporate tyrants/sociopaths/control freaks trying to kill it.

Mix that economic disadvantage situation in with credit reports being a piece of the background check process in some jobs (which I think should be illegal as hell but I digress...), combine that with "remote is the new norm" emerging, rapidly increasing inflation and unrealistic employer expectations with laughably low pay, and yeah you start to see why nobody wants to go back to a lot of jobs, especially the shit ones.

Also...

> Inflation is increasing as well so people need higher pay [...] the capitalism mantra of always higher returns means [employers] won't pay more until they meet [higher revenue objectives] for a quarter or two.

Not at all disagreeing here, just wanted to point out a few things about this (as it's a complicated kind of thing.)

1. For-profit companies have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to generate those higher returns. This is literally the entire reason for a profit-driven company to exist, "doing good for the world" bullshit be damned.

2. Human beings are always, by far, the largest cost for any company, so increasing wages, benefits or hiring is the last thing you want to do from a profit perspective, at least in the short term (which is all the vast majority cares about, especially publicly traded companies).

3. My only very minor nitpick with that statement isn't about them being able to "afford" higher wages, but that it'll never happen until they're FORCED to pay higher wages, either by government action (minimum wage increase, etc.) or market conditions (can't hire? try paying better - it works!)

4. As soon as that happens though, they'll increase prices to their customers as much as possible in excess of their cost to pay higher wages because they can blame the increased margin beyond that wage compensation on said wage increase. For example, if I have to raise prices 10% to compensate for paying employees better, it would make sense to aim for ~15% and pocket that +5% margin, and if anybody gives me any flack over it I just blame it on the cost of rising wages. (Issues of public balance sheets etc. withstanding; not an accountant so I don't know if this level of visibility is realistic or not, assume it isn't.)

5. The only thing that'll keep those price increases under control is free market competition or the consumer's ability to forego that product/service. In some cases you can do this (movies, streaming services, etc.) and in some cases you can't (electricity, fuel, rent, food, internet, phone, etc.).

So the moral of the story is: competition keeps prices under control, and inflation just breeds more inflation, with as little as possible going to "the little guy" because it's the company's responsibility to increase returns for investors; employees are just an "expendable" means to an end, a necessary fiduciary "evil", so why pay them more unless you have to?

(I don't at all agree with this thinking, but this is how the world works, unfortunately. Capitalism is NOT the problem here, lack of competition is.)