Picture used for illustrative purposes only.

Now that COVID-19 has substantially gone, although not completely, everything should be getting back to normal but it isn’t, as the media reports, we seem to have run out of workers.

Despite the number of people who died during the COVID epidemic, there are more people on the planet now than then. Why can’t I get a builder to fix my roof, why does it take longer to get my coffee from the remaining baristas, why do I have to wait longer to see my doctor, and why is there such a shortage of teachers, although from what my ex-colleagues have told me about the current teaching environment this one might be obvious?

It is admittedly a ‘first world’ problem but now that the shortage of workers is hitting the medical, teaching and police fields it might be time to start worrying and look for solutions at a societal level.

Dennis Fitzgerald,

Melbourne, Australia