“I Can’t Afford to Work Here!”
With everything going on in the world right now, I wanted to take some time to highlight the phrase "I can't afford to work here" because with looming labor shortages and changes in the modern workplace, it's a phrase that many people might be saying to their employers very soon.
What Does "I Can't Afford to Work Here" Mean?
Simply put, when the benefits of employment do not sufficiently outweigh the costs of living and employment, a person can no longer afford to work for their employer. Here are some of the standard costs and benefits to consider:
Costs of Living
Housing
Food
Healthcare
Childcare
Costs of Employment
Time spent working
Time and money spent commuting to work
Time spent learning to do the job
Time and money spent socializing with coworkers
Benefits of Employment
Wage / Salary
Insurance
Retirement benefits
The networking effects of employment
Skills learned on the job
Experience gained on the job
It’s important to remember that these benefits and costs will have different levels of importance depending on your priorities and personal situation. You may be willing to work extra hours in exchange for a higher salary, but someone else may not be prepared to make that same tradeoff. To give you an idea of how these things mix together, here are some examples:
Example #1 - A student looking for an internship would probably weigh the benefits of skills and experience gained on the job against the time commitment since the internship would take time away from their classes. In many cases, the internship is only worth it if it doesn't have a negative impact on the student's education and path to graduation. In some cases, a student can’t afford to take some internships because the pay is insufficient for someone working their way through college.
Example #2 - A first year associate at a public accounting firm would consider the benefits of the skills and experience gained from working busy season hours along with the salary they are paid against the cost of living and the extra hours spent working. For some people, those extra hours are worth it because they can move on to a better job with their experience after a couple of years. For others, the stress is simply not worth it.
But Why is This Important Now?
As a result of decades of a broken system and a global pandemic that exposed its flaws, people have realized two things:
For most people, wages and salaries have not kept up with some of the costs of living over the years (housing in particular)
There is more to life than work (working remotely allowed many people to see this)
Let’s focus on each of these factors separately.
The first factor of rising costs of living isn’t a bad thing by itself, but it can be a serious factor if wages and salaries don’t keep up with them. Now more than ever, potential employees may find themselves in a situation where they cannot afford to live within a reasonable distance of where they want to work because their job cannot reasonably pay the rent and grocery bills. If this is the case, the potential employee simply cannot afford to work for that company in that position. With expensive rents, housing shortages, and inflation hitting food costs hard in recent months, you may encounter a scenario where a position’s pay is simply not sufficient to survive. This factor is particularly important for those that are early on in their careers and don’t have other means to combat these costs outside of their own salaries.
The second factor has more to do with the amount of time an employee spends devoted to working relative to the time they can spend pursuing their own interests. Jobs like investment banking and public accounting are known for their long hours relative to the traditional 40-hour work week and offer an interesting value proposition for those who are willing to put in the time (especially early on). However, there may come a time when the hours take a toll on your mental health or other priorities. Jobs that require these long hours may start to face labor shortages because the potential employees cannot afford to work the excess hours at the expense of their health and relationships. Even if they pay slightly more, it just isn’t worth it to some people. While this dynamic has always been the case, the paradigm shift of remote working has added a layer of complexity. People don’t want to spend all of their time working or commuting, and any employer that forces an employee to commute to an office (in excess of what the employee would prefer) or log a certain number of hours may run the risk of losing an employee to a more flexible arrangement.
In Summary (TL:DR)
“I Can’t Afford to Work Here” may become a more common saying for those evaluating their next job opportunity. This saying fits into two fundamental scenarios:
I can’t afford to work here because the job isn’t paying enough to cover my basic needs like housing, food, and adequate savings.
I can’t afford to work here because the job is taking too much time from me and not giving back enough benefits to compensate.
Everyone’s situation is different, but the current landscape for jobs and their expectations combined with the inflation and high cost of living is making people reconsider applying to jobs that don’t meet certain expectations.