Even though Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida lawmakers have championed a slew of anti-LGBTQ+ laws spurring the most prominent gay rights group in the U.S. and other civil rights organizations to issue warnings that the Sunshine State may no longer be safe Gay Days organizers are still encouraging visitors from around the world to come to one of Floridas largest gay and lesbian celebrations.

They say a large turnout will send a message that LGBTQ+ people arent going away in Florida, which is continually one of the most popular states for tourists to visit. If the hoped-for 150,000 or more visitors come to the half-week of pool parties, drag bingo and thrill rides at Orlandos theme parks and hotels, then thats the point, said Joseph Clark, CEO of Gay Days Inc.

Right now is not the time to run. Its not the time to go away, Clark said. Its time to show we are here, we are queer and we arent going anywhere.

Unlike most of the country, which celebrates Pride in June, Orlando holds its Pride in October. Gay Days is a bonus celebration.

Its not lost on the organizers that the highlight of the weekend will be a Saturday meetup of LGBTQ+ visitors at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, where the first Gay Days started as a single-day celebration in 1991. Traditionally, participants wear red shirts to identify themselves, and they meet for the afternoon parade in front of Cinderellas Castle.

Currently Disney is embroiled in a legal fight with DeSantis over the governor and Republican lawmakers takeover of Disney Worlds governing district after Disney officials publicly opposed legislation that critics have dubbed Dont Say Gay.

At first, the law banned classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity up to third grade, but this year it was expanded to apply to all grades. On top of that, Florida lawmakers recently passed bills making it a felony to provide gender-affirming health care to transgender minors, as well as banning people from entering bathrooms other than their sex assigned at birth, and prohibiting children from some performances, which takes aim at drag shows.

The administration of DeSantis, who launched a campaign for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination last week, also moved to revoke the liquor licenses of a Miami hotel and a performing arts center owned by the Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation after they hosted drag shows where investigators claim minors were present.

In response, some Florida cities, including St. Cloud near Orlando, have canceled Pride events altogether.

These laws have created a climate of fear and hostility for LGBTQIA+ people in Florida, organizers for St. Clouds Pride events wrote to announce the cancellation. We believe that holding an LGBTQIA+ event in this environment would put our community at risk.

Responding to Floridas new laws and policies, the Human Rights Campaign the largest LGBTQ+ rights organization in the U.S.  recently issued a travel and relocation warning for the state, joining the NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Florida Immigrant Coalition and Equality Florida.

While the LGBTQ+ advocacy group said it wasnt calling for a boycott of all travel to Florida, it said it wanted to highlight new laws passed by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature that they said are hostile to the LGBTQ+ community and restrict abortion access, as well as make the state unsafe for many by allowing people to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

Even before these travel advisories were issued, some regular Florida visitors were reconsidering their plans. Sara Haynes, who lives in metro Atlanta with her husband, decided not to visit the state after lawmakers started planning legislation to restrict treatment options for trans people.

Its less a crusade and more like, Im not going to spend my money where bad things are going on, Haynes said.

But the organizers of Gay Days and their supporters say that Orlando is as gay-friendly a city as they come, earning a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign index, which measures how inclusive cities are of LGBTQ+ residents and visitors. They say that tourists can support the LGBTQ+ community by visiting cities like Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and St. Petersburg, which also received perfect scores.

We live in a bubble here in Orlando, where even with the chaos in Florida, we feel safe here, said Jeremy Williams, editor-in-chief of Watermark Publishing Group Inc., a Florida-based media company that is one of the sponsors of Gay Days.

Gay Days has survived past challenges, including in the early years when Disney posted signs at the Magic Kingdoms entrance warning visitors there was a large gathering of gays and lesbians and offering passes to other parks for guests who might be offended. Over the last three decades, though, the theme parks and resorts have thrown down the welcome mats as Gay Days has become a profitable bounce between the spring break and out-of-school summer crowds. SeaWorlds water park, Aquatica, is a sponsor this year.

Other groups have adopted hostile attitudes in the past. During Gay Days in the 1990s, hundreds of anti-abortion activists with Operation Rescue protested outside Walt Disney World, and the Southern Baptist Convention cited the gathering in calling for a boycott of all things Disney. Some Christian groups tried to buy air time during Gay Days in the late 1990s to pressure people to renounce their sexual orientation, but mainstream TV stations in Orlando rejected the ads.

If Clark, the CEO of the Gay Days business, had his wish, DeSantis would accept an open invitation to see one of the drag shows during this years festivities.

Come on out and see that not everything you hear out there is reality, said Clark, as if he were directly addressing DeSantis. Theres a part of me that hopes that if he were to see a show, maybe his mind would change, or maybe he would see the people his actions are affecting.

Sitting down with LinkedIn editor-in-chief Dan Roth, Obama described how Studs Terkels famous 1970s book Working, which explored the meaning of work among American employees, inspired him to give a window into peoples lives in his new Netflix show, Working: What We Do All Day. Obama touched upon restructuring the way we distribute wages and our education system so that more people have a greater sense of agency in their work, how we can better achieve work-life balance, and his best advice for helping young workers rise above the noise.

He said he and Michelle tell his children all the time that work is sometimes just a grind thats all part of being an adult. Nodding to Gen Zs push for better pay, he noted that its spot on for Gen Z to want fair compensation and recognition for work that will hopefully give them more satisfaction and agency as they move up the career ladder.

But, weve become so money obsessed and work obsessed and status obsessed, that so much of whats important in life may not come through your work, he said, explaining that young workers should strike a balance that finds meaning in volunteering, family, friendships, and civic-engagement. Young people should look for interesting work they can throw themselves into without it becoming a substitute for other aspects of their lives. Thats exactly what Gen Z wantstheyre known for wanting to make work-life balance a top priority, even if they are struggling to achieve it.

Obamas most important advice to young people though, is to just learn how to get stuff done. He explained to Roth that while many people are good at describing a problem or where things went wrong, there arent as many people who are good at just tackling the issue. What Im always looking for is, no matter how small the problem or how big it is, somebody who says, let me take care of that, he said, adding that its about projecting a can-do attitude that he promises employers will notice. 

Its also about bringing that energy to the small projects rather than jonesing for the plum assignment, he continued, explaining that sometimes acing the assigned projects is a better way of getting noticed if youre killing it.

If youre a young worker who wants to be both successful and happy, he added, you should worry more about what you want to do rather than what you want to be instead of having goal posts like being a congressman by 20 or having a certain amount of money by a certain age.

Of course, that might be easier said than done for a millionaire like Obama; sometimes, new grads choose fields that pay well but dont cater to their interests just so they can afford the cost of living or their student debt. But Obama noted that the most successful people often follow their interests and end up having an extraordinary career because theyre just interested in the thing itself, citing Bill Gates pursuing his interest in computers as an example (although Gates recently advised Gen Z to relax more than he ever did).

If you are absorbed by what youre doing, one of two things is going to happen, Obama said. Youre going to get really good at it, and whether youre rewarded, recognized, you get the positions that you want or not, the journey will have been a good one.

As some of the students began nudging each other, Bandoh realized that perhaps not every one of them had already been hired.

Who doesnt have a job? Bandoh demanded, surveying the 15 graduates before him at the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics training facility in Hagerstown, Maryland. Who doesnt? Because I have a job for you.

The crowd of about 70 friends and relatives, gathered in a hangar where the students had been trained, laughed appreciatively. Fourteen of the 15 graduates did have jobs, and the only one who didnt had an interview lined up for the next day.

As happy as the moment was for the graduates, it epitomized the struggles of recruiters like Bandoh, who are desperately seeking mechanics for the airlines, plane manufacturers and repair shops that need them. Most of their existing mechanics are aging, and demand for travel is growing.

Across the U.S. economy, other industries, too, face the same formidable challenge: Replenishing a workforce diminished by a surge of retirements that began during the pandemic and has continued since. Its a growing problem in such fields as construction, manufacturing, nursing and some professional industries like accounting.

Since 2019, the proportion of retirees in the U.S. population has risen from 18% to nearly 20%, according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York equivalent to about 3.5 million fewer workers. And the trend seems sure to accelerate: The percentage of workers who are 55 or older is nearly 24%, up from only about 15% two decades ago.

The surge of retirements, along with a slowdown in immigration that began during the pandemic, are the primary factors behind the labor shortages that continue to bedevil some employers.

The aging workforce also helps explain the confounding nature of the economy right now. Even as the Federal Reserve has relentlessly pumped up interest rates to fight high inflation, hiring has remained surprisingly robust. Regardless of where interest rates are, many employers simply need to replace people who have left.

Job growth has been stronger, in fact, than economic growth would suggest. The economy expanded at a mediocre 1.3% annual rate in the first three months of 2023. Yet hiring was robust, averaging nearly 300,000 jobs a month. In April, the unemployment rate reached a half-century low of 3.4%. On Friday, the government will issue the May employment report, which economists predict will show another solid gain of about 190,000 jobs.

Companies that must fill jobs tend to raise pay to attract and keep workers a trend that can fuel inflation as those same employers typically raise their prices to cover their higher labor costs. That dynamic is complicating the Feds efforts to tame inflation.

In the airline industry, more than one-third of mechanics are between 55 and 64, according to government data. Fewer than one in 10 are under 30.

Everybodys getting ready to retire, and not enough people are coming in to take the jobs, said Mike Myers, a maintenance manager for Piedmont Airlines, in Hagerstown, a regional feeder for American Airlines.

The new graduates of the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics have been awed by how much theyre in demand. One of them, Will Gower, said he weighed multiple job offers at nearly twice the $15-an-hour wage he had earned at the retail job he held while in school.

It was almost overwhelming how many companies were throwing jobs at you, said Gower, 21. Anywhere theres an airport you can go work.

Next month, Gower will join Commute Air, Bandohs company, along with three of his classmates, and will receive further training in Houston.

In the past year, the air travel industry has hired roughly 45,000 people, enlarging its workforce by 9%, to more than a half-million. Thats triple the pace of the U.S. economys overall hiring.

United Airlines has said it plans to hire 15,000 workers this year and more in coming years. It expects to add 2,300 pilots, in part to offset about 500 retirements. Kate Gebo, Uniteds executive vice president of human resources, said she foresees a shortage of airplane mechanics, with up to half of Uniteds mechanics already eligible to retire.

In the construction industry, the proportion of workers ages 55 and older doubled from 2003 to 2020, to nearly one-quarter, according to the government.

Anirban Basu, chief economist for the Associated Builders and Contractors trade group, said that in addition to aging, industries like aviation maintenance and construction share another challenge: Fewer young people want to take jobs in what are often perceived as less-secure, blue-collar work.

When the now-retiring baby boomers began working, Basu said, there was the notion that being a blue-collar tradesperson was a solid and secure path to prosperity. But as factories shut down across the country, the notion increasingly became that for one to become part of the American middle class, one would likely need to have more formal education, namely, a bachelors degree.

The result, he said, is an economy short of factory workers, backhoe operators, welders, electricians and other skilled trade workers.

If theres one trend that might ease, if not solve, the problem its that Americans below retirement age have been re-entering the job market, likely drawn by steady hiring and higher pay levels. The proportion of these adults who either have a job or are looking for one now exceeds pre-pandemic levels.

Yet for now, an aging workforce remains a problem even for some white-collar jobs, particularly accounting. About three-quarters of accountants are nearing 60 and approaching retirement, according to the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants.

Tom Hood, an executive vice president of the association, said the industry is finding it hard to attract young college graduates. Many of them prefer data science or finance, while accounting struggles with a stuffier, more old-fashioned image.

Were getting squeezed from the older part and the younger part as well, Hood said.

Nela Richardson, chief economist at the payroll provider ADP, said research shows that countries that have many retirees who spend money and consume and have fewer people working typically face higher inflation. In those countries, demand for goods and services tends to exceed the supply.

This is the missing piece in terms of our dialogue about, can the Fed drive inflation back down to its 2% target? Richardson said.

Some economists have said they worry that the job markets resilience, and the resulting fear that inflation will remain high, will lead the Fed to send its benchmark rate even higher, which could derail the economy and cause a recession.

Gower, who is from Covington, Louisiana, near New Orleans, isnt exactly worried about a recession. His new job as a line mechanic at Commute Air will pay $30 an hour to start, plus higher wages for night shifts.

Weve all got great futures ahead of us, he said.

Brian Prentice, a partner at the OliverWyman consulting firm, estimates that the aviation industry will endure a shortage of up to 18,000 mechanics this year about 12% of current staffing levels. It will likely boost pay levels across the industry.

Mindy Pavlonis, associate director of career services for the aeronautics institute, noted that entry-level pay has jumped from about $18 an hour in 2018 to the upper-$20s an hour now.

More financial aid for young people to receive training can help address the worker shortfall, Prentice said, a benefit that some airlines are starting to provide. Myers, the manager at Piedmont, said his company now offers scholarships that pay full tuition to schools like the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics. In return, the student must work at Piedmont for two years.

They will even set up new students with a $6,500 tool box, he added.

Erik Hansen, a lobbyist for the U.S. Travel Association, says his group is pushing for more funding for a federal development program that would subsidize aviation maintenance training schools and support more outreach to high schools to promote the industry as a career.

Without more workers, he said, further flight delays will inevitably result.

You have an airplane that has a mechanical issue, and it needs to be fixed before its turned around, Hansen said. It takes longer for the mechanics to get to it. Theres going to be a flight delay. So its absolutely something we need to address.