Three days before Labor Day, President Joe Biden's Labor Department had bad news to share. The economy created a mere 235,000 jobs, which falls a whopping 70% below the 720,000 new jobs economists predicted in a Dow Jones survey.

It is not as if the economy lacks a need for labor. ZipRecruiter, Indeed, and other major employment firms estimate more than 10 million job openings remain unfilled. To create a job, the economy needs an employer and employee to agree on mutually beneficial terms.

Consumers see the labor shortage anecdotally each time they hear a frustrated retail manager say, "no one will work," see a restaurant sign apologizing for short staffing, or hear a friend talk about working double shifts for days on end to make up for unfilled positions.

Experts are quick to offer explanations.

We've heard about excessive unemployment benefits and pandemic financial support reducing the need to work and making people "lazy." We've heard moratoriums on foreclosures and evictions reduce the incentive to work. We've heard people are afraid of working on-site jobs because of COVID-19 and the delta variant. Closed schools and day care centers keep parents from returning to their jobs. And, of course, pandemic-related supply chain disruptions are in the mix.

In truth, the reasons for a labor shortage and unfilled jobs are mixed, nuanced and anything other than simple. Most people wake up in the morning wanting good lives for themselves, their families, their friends, and their greater communities.

Humanity's standard of living relates directly to the amount of work each person is willing to do for others. If each person makes two pies and consumes only one, we'll always have enough pie.

The United States and the world will not awake one morning to a declaration that COVID-19 is dead, and all things are normal again. Our return to something resembling normalcy will be an organic process in which people return to work when doing so improves the quality of their lives.

As surely as ants build anthills and beavers build dams, we will see employment numbers improve because work is natural to humanity.

Most people want to work, and every major religion in the world views work as a gift essential to human welfare and happiness. We've never seen a politician lose an election for promising to create more jobs.

The Quran mentions work in 360 verses. It teaches Muslims that God made the day as a way for humans to seek sustenance.

"Allah likes a worker to be perfect in his work," says the Quran. And "The employee who performs his duty to his employer and Allah in the right manner, Allah will give him a double reward."

Hindu leaders teach their flocks that work and worship are the same. "Work is worship," declares the headline of an article explaining the philosophy in Hinduism Today.

The Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament are full of wisdom that explain work as a means of worship and a gift from God.

"All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty," says Proverbs 14:23.

"The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops," says 2 Timothy 2:6.

Like all good things, work can be viewed as a burden. We each can be led by negative messaging to consider work nothing other than a means to an end, which usually means a paycheck eroded by taxes.

If work is merely a paycheck, we can replace it by signing up for and receiving charity or government assistance. If it is nothing more than a means of financial survival, then profitable acts of thievery can easily replace it. Although crime might transfer wealth, it provides none of the priceless satisfaction that comes with working to make things good around us.

Nothing can replace the value of work because nothing can replicate the personal satisfaction of doing something that makes life better for others. The Uber driver's work improves life for someone who needs a ride and lacks access to a car. The doctor who transplants a heart gives someone else another chapter of life. The driver might need the surgeon, the surgeon might need the driver.

All work involves one person giving of self for the benefit of others. Labor matters. That's why we celebrate Labor Day this weekend and all it stands for.

REPRINTED FROM THE COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE

Photo credit: 3844328 at Pixabay