A Statement on the U.S. Labor Shortage

The following is a brief public statement on the current labor shortage in the United States, prepared for the Fall 2021 Theology in the Public Sphere seminar (ET863) at Fuller Theological Seminary under the supervision of Sebastian Kim, modeled after his public statement on the 2017 military tension on the Korean Peninsula.

Assumptions that increased vaccination rates and the reopening of many segments of the country would lead to the rapid return of Americans to the workforce have been met with the rise in job openings and a shortage of job seekers. Help wanted signs proliferate as the appreciation for the so-called essential workers has become a disdain for a lazy, entitled, and self-centered generation of people demanding better wages, better benefits, better work-life balance, and better working conditions. Calls for higher minimum wage are met with calls for an end to federal and state unemployment assistance, to force people back into the workforce rather than to evaluate the reasons why people are reluctant to return to employment in the aftermath of a global health crisis.

I recognize that there are many reasons for not working and no simple answer will suffice. It is undeniable, for instance, that the coronavirus deaths in excess of 700,000 contribute to the labor shortage—that there are just less available laborers than would have been projected two years ago. But besides this, the relationship between Americans and work is complex. It is not enough to raise the minimum wage, and a four day work week will not solve our problems. Even granting that such measures would be steps in the right direction, a deeper reconceiving of work is in order. In light of this, I make the following statements.

First, when God created the world, he created it for life, flourishing, goodness, and blessing; this, the Bible calls work, and so the first time we meet God in Scripture, we meet God as a worker. Humanity was meant to reflect and represent the nature of the Triune God in dominion over creation by working and keeping the garden—in a broader sense, serving God by caring for what he had given to them. Being made in the Image of God, the labor that humanity went about was meant to mirror the nature of God’s work—harmonious cooperation, joyful participation, and loving contribution to the flourishing, goodness, and blessedness of creation and community. So work is a major way that human communities bear the Image of God. This work was not a curse but a blessing, a way that human beings lived and contributed out of their uniqueness, affirming their dignity as being made in God’s Image. Though the curse of sin and death has made work toilsome, it remains one of the primary dimensions of what it means to be human; more than that, it remains one of the primary dimensions of how humanity bears the Image of God, serves the Creator, and contributes to community. In light of this biblical and theological foundation, I call for the reimagining of all conversations on work and labor on the basis of our mutual createdness in the Image of God.

Second, in light of the foundation of vocation as bearing the Image of God by serving God through caring for what he has given to us, I call upon employers to reconceive of their function as servants of God and of their employees, charged with the sacred task of bearing the Image of God by contributing to the life, flourishing, goodness, and blessing of creation by their role as employers. In light of this vocation, no longer can the question be how much one can get out of their employees, but how much one can give to, serve, and bless their employees. In doing so, employers would better live in consonance with the Image of a God whose work is marked by such things.

This call is for all employers – whether affected by the labor shortage or not – to see their role not as providing jobs but as participating with God in pursuing shalomic communities. The community does not owe you employees; you owe the community contribution out of your vocation. Work that prioritizes profit and self at the expense of others and to the detriment of the community is unfaithful, un-biblical, un-Christian, and un-human. This new vocational foundation will mean that they will structure their teams, their workplaces, their management, their benefits, and their wages not in pursuit of profit and job retention but in pursuit of serving those who are also made with dignity in the Image of God by providing work that is a blessing—fulfilling, satisfying, and commensurate with their dignity and worth.

Third, I call upon workers and work-seekers to continue – as long as circumstances will allow – to demand working conditions and environments that are honoring of the dignity with which you are created. You are worth wages, rest, respect, and value. Feel no shame in this demand, for you are made in the Image of God and your work is a participation in the work of God. Continue to seek work that will contribute to your life and flourishing as you contribute to the life and flourishing of your community. When you are employed, continue to demand that your employers bear the Image of God in their vocation as you bear the Image of God with them.

Fourth, I call upon the church to repent of the ways that it has forsaken its prophetic role and failed to adequately denounce consumerism, materialism, labor exploitation, and individualist accumulation. In order to have a credible, relevant, and effective ministry in the world, the church must return to the call to pursue a community of shalom. Much would change if all Christians repented of the ways that they have contributed to the problem and then reimagined their own vocations in terms of partnering with God in the pursuit the blessing and flourishing of others in all that we do, seeing our work – within and outside the church – as ministry and worship of the Lord.

Fifth, I call upon all to focus on and prioritize the thriving of their local communities. It does little good to “solve” the labor shortage if we continue the dangerous and foolish tradition of extracting all the resources, human and otherwise, from local communities in order to consolidate wealth in the hands of a few, leading to increasingly weaker communities that support the luxurious living of those who have no stake in their neighborhoods or in their land.