‘Help Wanted” is the sign of the times.

There are 1.7 jobs per every unemployed person, and more than 11.3 million job openings across the country, according to last month’s Labor Department data.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell called the labor market “tight to an unhealthy level,” reports Marketplace.org, and hiring plights make headlines as businesses close — not for lack of customers but for workers.

Employers are upping wages, benefits and perks like pet insurance to attract prospective employees.

One such perk — energized by COVID-19 conditions — is remote, or work-from-home.

But as the waves of COVID-19 cases receded, WFH stayed put, as employees liked the flexibility and savings in commute, time and day care costs.

Workplaces reaped benefits, too, in savings in bricks and mortar and pre-pandemic human resources woes and found it didn’t dent productivity.

Today’s job postings are seasoned liberally with words like “remote,” “WFH,” “flexible” and “hybrid.”

If, however, you work for the State of Michigan, many lawmakers want you back in the office by Oct. 1. Any of the state’s 48,000 employees who weren’t remote pre-pandemic need to be back in play by the start of the new budget year, according to a proposal made by Republican majority members of the House subcommittee on appropriations, which ties funding to the remote ban, according to Bridge Michigan.

Representative Thomas Albert (R-Lovell) said the move better serves taxpayers and that government functions better in-person.

We don’t disagree that some work functions better in-person than remote — but each job needs to be assessed individually.

Painting with a broad brush won’t fill the state’s 600-plus vacancies, and seems to us that our leaders have better things to do than legislating bureaucratic job descriptions.

Also, isn’t government better when it’s more efficient? When it saves taxpayer dollars?

Work from home is allowing the state to save 300,000 square feet of leased space, just between two departments — Environment, Great Lakes and Energy; and Technology, Management and Budget. And Bridge Michigan cites an April 1 report submitted to the Legislature that said the state will vacate 564,290 square feet of leased offices by 2024, which is a 12% reduction from 2019.

It’s hard to turn back the clock to pre-COVID-19 times. The impacts of the pandemic will manifest itself in ways we haven’t yet imagined. But change often forces growth, and WFH is a part of that — as it seesaws with the massive wave of baby boomer retirements and a squeezed labor market.

Our government will work better if it’s staffed and responsive to today’s reality. If help is wanted for the state, the state will need to get butts in seats, be they in an office or dining room.

— Traverse City Record-Eagle