The overwhelming view on HN is that labor shortages cannot exist but chip shortages can. The only difference between the two is whether HN users are buying or selling.
Care to explain what you mean? Of course you can switch jobs for a higher offer _if you can find it_ (and if you can "always" do it, it could mean there's a labor shortage), the same way with chips to buy.
Assuming there is an offer, nothing stops you from taking it. You can offer to pay more for chips, but your competitors aren't necessarily going to sell.
"assuming there's an offer" = "assuming there's someone willing to sell". Why can you assume it in one case but not in the other? If there's no offer, maybe you're asking for too much? As the top level comment said, the difference is your role in a transaction (when you're seeking employment, you're selling, when you're seeking chips, you're buying).
Because an employer doesn't need to agree to "sell" its employee, the employee is free to leave for a better offer.
The employee has no direct stake in which company employs it (bar stocks or something) other that compensation so is likely to take a high enough offer.
The "seller" in the case of chips might be some kind of broker holding out for a better offer - but during a shortage it's likely other companies that actually use those chips holding stock. Since the chips have value for them, and they might actually be your competitor, it's possible they might not sell to you for any price.
> The "seller" in the case of chips might be some kind of broker holding out for a better offer - but during a shortage it's likely other companies that actually use those chips holding stock. Since the chips have value for them, and they might actually be your competitor, it's possible they might not sell to you for any price.
I find it hard to believe that they will not send you chips for _any_ price - as long as you're able to cover what they'd have earned because of that chip, they would be losing money by not selling to you. Now, that may be hard to calculate (maybe market share has value in itself?), or more than you're willing to pay, but that's not really their problem.
Shortage is when demand exceeds supply. The way to control the demand would be to increase the price. So, there are no shortages, there are just mis-priced goods. The companies that supply chips should increase their prices as they're leaving money on the table, so I guess there must be some contractual obligations that come into play. Related: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/30/992528310/shortages-inflation....
Back to what I think was the original point of the top-level reply:
Declaring that there's a shortage in one market but not in another, especially if we have vested interest to prefer one thing ("I want to buy a GPU but cannot find one for the price I'm willing to pay, so there's GPU shortage"; "I'm switching jobs and employers are fighting over me & increasing wages, but there's no labor shortage") comes through as hypocritical to me. Let's not do that.
