Though I have no hard evidence I feel like a lot of the labor shortage is really a skills mis-match. Anyone who says last years stimulus payments account for millions not wanting to work now is living in a different world. That money has long been spent. The jobs are mostly in the gateway cities and to a certain extent the increase in housing costs has ejected some folks from those places to other less costly places.

In the news today SD actually lost population this year! It didn’t help RE prices though. Probably because the vast majority of the emigrants couldn’t afford to buy houses and that’s why they left.
Josh