As high-speed internet spreads, fiber-optic installers are in much demand and thus command high wages, even if their job does not require a college degree or lengthy training. Entry-level jobs pay (with overtime) as much as the US median wage. The jobs attract workers from other industries, including from white-collar occupations. As an indication, the annual median wage of telecommunications line installers and repairers is $70,500, or 40 percent more than the average for all US wage earners. Site superintendents of fiber-optic installers can earn six-figure wages.

The WSJ story is sound except for the word “shortage” because high prices or wages are not the same thing as a shortage, at least if one wants to speak technically and unconfusingly. A shortage happens when the quantity demanded (of a good or service, of labor, or of capital for that matter) is higher than the quantity supplied and you can’t get it on the market (allowing time for market prices to adjust). For examples of real shortages, think of chronically empty grocery shelves, or of goods that are price-capped during emergencies (in American states with so-called “price gouging” laws). The WSJ confuses high prices with shortages. High prices—whether for diamonds or the services of fiber-optic workers—just mean high prices: You can get the good if you are willing to pay the price or, if you bring a large new demand, by bidding up the price.

There can only be a shortage when the price (wage, in this case) is capped—that is, when it cannot be bid up legally. A higher price or wage, when not forbidden, is precisely the mechanism that prevents a shortage. In free countries (or more-free-than-unfree countries), labor wages are seldom capped by government, so we seldom observe a labor shortage. (On the contrary, some wages are subject to a floor by government-imposed minimum wages or by government-privileged unions.)

Prices and Shortages

We need two expressions for the two different phenomena: high price on one hand and unavailability at any price (except on black markets) on the other. That’s what economists do by specifically calling the latter a shortage.

This modeling explains why fiber-optic workers are so expensive—that is, so well remunerated. Employers have bid up, or continue to bid up, their wages. One way they contribute to the bidding is by poaching their competitors’ workers with better offers.

It is true that the growth of high-speed internet in peripheral areas, which increases the demand for fiber-optic installers, is mostly generated by federal subsidies from the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. One could argue that the demand for broadband extension is an artificial political demand as opposed to a true consumer demand. But even if one thinks so, it still means that the workers’ wages are higher than they would otherwise be, not that there is a shortage. High wages and a labor shortage are two different things.

With or without underlying government subsidies, the reasoning is the same for virtually any free-market labor “shortage” that some employer somewhere complains of. (Workers seldom complain that their wages are too high.) There is no shortage of fiber-optic workers; their wages are high because they are much in demand.

Consider another example: the supposed “shortage” of mechanics at car dealerships, which Ford Motor Company president Jim Farley recently complained about (Wall Street Journal 2025). “As of this morning,” Farley said in a podcast last November, “we had 5,000 openings, a bay with a lift and tools, and no one to work in it.” (By “we,” he meant Ford’s franchised dealerships in America.)

Why don’t the dealerships offer more money for the mechanics they “need”? Presumably because they don’t really need them: They believe that many consumers wouldn’t want to pay a higher price for servicing and repairing their cars. But this, in turn, means that there is no shortage of mechanics; it is simply that paying higher wages would not be profitable. The mechanics are already paid the maximum compatible with the dealership making a normal return on capital. (If a dealership earns more than that, expect more competitors to enter the market through new car dealerships and compete away the excess.)

Conspiracy against the Public

Speaking of shortages only muddies the water or serves special interests looking for government-granted privileges, or both.

A very interesting and more recent WSJ article (Otts 2026) suggests that Farley, if he understands well the special interests he represents, probably does not know much about the economic way of thinking. The article shows that the remuneration of mechanics in car dealerships is not, after all, so extraordinarily attractive. These mechanics are as much independent subcontractors as employees. They work under a piece-rate system whereby a particular repair job pays them a fixed amount, whatever time they spend completing it. Mechanics also must buy their own expensive tools, or at least some of them (despite the impression left by Farley). Except for a few stars, in this field as elsewhere these mechanics don’t make fortunes with their eyes shut.

There is thus no need to invoke the “shortage” deus ex machina to explain why thousands more mechanics don’t flock to car dealerships. The remuneration they get is the equilibrium remuneration in that market. Although the WSJ reporter does not put it that way, it appears that what Ford would like is for the public education system to train more car mechanics, thus indirectly subsidizing the company.

Car dealerships don’t deserve pity (nor do their manufacturers’ CEOs). If the customers were willing to pay more for servicing and repairing their cars, the dealerships would bid up the mechanics’ remuneration, and the manufacturers would be happy to pay more for warranty repairs. If they don’t think that would be profitable, they should stop whining about a shortage that does not exist.

Some politicians as well as other people (not to mention, in another country, the Chinese Communist Party [The Economist 2005]) want the education system to offer more vocational training and less abstract education about the fascinating adventure of mankind. It would not be surprising if the largely public education system responded more to political and bureaucratic requirements than to consumer demand (from students and parents). But even if that is true, there is still no shortage on the labor market. Perhaps “we” need more fiber-optic installers and car mechanics, at the cost of fewer economists, philosophers, or Regulation writers. I am not persuaded of that, but only free markets can—or could—provide a non-arbitrary response.

At least, this is the proper way to look at resource allocation in a free society. The wrong way is the Chinese way: to focus on achieving the objectives of the latest five-year plan. And to think clearly about such matters, non-confused language is a minimum requirement.

Readings:

• Haggin, Patience, 2026, “High-Speed Internet Boom Hits Low-Tech Snag: A Labor Shortage,” Wall Street Journal, January 31.
• Otts, Christopher, 2026, “The $160,000 Mechanic Job That Ford Can’t Fill,” Wall Street Journal, January 6.
• The Economist, 2025, “China Has Too Many University Graduates and Too Few Jobs for Them: It Wants to Push Youngsters Towards Vocational Colleges Instead,” November 9.
• Wall Street Journal, 2025, “Why Ford Can’t Find Mechanics,” editorial, November 17.