[HN Gopher] Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?
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Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?
Author : gixo
Score : 180 points
Date : 2021-07-31 10:12 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| golergka wrote:
| Sound exactly like what brexit campaigners said would happen:
| borders close, supply of labour goes down, local wages go up.
| fundad wrote:
| This the painful in-between time when citizens realize they
| have to take those jobs
| paulpauper wrote:
| It's evident we're transitioning to a post-labor society. The
| labor force participation rate keeps falling. More and more
| people are on sort for of welfare, assistance, or are homeless or
| incarcerated. Tent cities everywhere all across the country, in
| poor and rich areas alike. Each crisis, from 2008 to Covid, only
| hastens this transition.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| There is no "employee shortage". I don't know the reason why the
| main stream press started to roll with that narrative but this is
| a blatant lie. However unlike before the pandemic, some
| candidates might refuse a job that only offers a pittance,
| especially given the high inflation in most of the west.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > unlike before the pandemic, some candidates might refuse a
| job
|
| I don't understand this one, wouldn't a pandemic (entire
| industries had to cut back on costs) cause more people to be
| looking for work and thus tip the supply and demand balance
| towards people being _less_ picky?
| freeone3000 wrote:
| The US instituted an unemployment benefit actually large
| enough to pay the expenses of the unemployed. This cut
| poverty by half, with a corresponding decrease in demand for
| minimum wage jobs.
| michaelbrave wrote:
| "Essential workers" weren't treated well during the pandemic,
| even now with arguments about masks it's pretty much awful.
| Consider also how many were laid off initially (showing how
| their job sees them as disposable on top of that) and combine
| that with how they were barely scraping by before but now
| inflation of essentials like food have gone up to the point
| that it wouldn't scrape by as easily anymore and most aren't
| willing to put up with it for a pittance anymore.
|
| I actually think the bigger picture is that with
| schools/daycare/camps closed there is no affordable way for
| kids to be watched while at work which has caused multi
| income families to go back to single income families and in
| many cases this causes them to have more money than they
| would have with daycare, especially if they are utilizing
| unemployment benefits in place of one of those multi incomes.
| I'm not sure how this is working with single parents but my
| guess would be that a lot of them moved back with parents
| when they got laid off at first, thus also causing an
| imbalance.
|
| It's also worth mentioning that a lot of people died from
| covid and if you look at it outside of political leanings a
| lot of those who didn't get vaccinated are the less educated
| and less wealthy, so I'm sure that's at least a part of
| what's going on.
| jessaustin wrote:
| The idea is that the disruption has shown workers they have a
| wider range of options than they considered before. Maybe
| they have changed to a different field, maybe they have
| started their own business, maybe they have moved. In any
| case, they aren't looking to get rehired at their old
| position and compensation.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| At least where I live (PNW USA) there's a growing concern from
| businesses that another lockdown is coming. They just started
| requiring masks again this week. If I'm an employee of one of
| those businesses, or was previously, I'm staying home. Why would
| I go back when it seems that yet another lockdown is imminent,
| and I'll be laid off again. Many of these workers have had wold
| cried to them for a year and half. The whiplash of non masks, now
| wear a mask, lockdown, now no lockdown, to lockdown again is more
| than people can handle.
| calltrak wrote:
| I am an unemployed programmer. I am 50 years old. I have 15 years
| of C#, 15 years of sql server, two years of golang, two years of
| node.js, vue.js, svelte, css, html, postgress, rabbitmq, etc etc
| etc.... My skills list is about 10 times this short list I just
| threw up.
|
| They tell me there is a skills and labor shortage in tech. That's
| complete bullshit
|
| I am UNEMPLOYED for a year. I don't believe one dam word the
| government or the media says anymore. Not one word. Not about the
| cough. Not about the labor shortage.
|
| They will tell you the economy is booming meanwhile they are
| boarding up New York City and there is homeless everywhere. It's
| the same thing right across america. We are being lied to at an
| awesome level.
| [deleted]
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| As a programmer if you're not working for a year it's safe to
| say you're not actively looking and thus by definition excluded
| from unemployment statistics.
| asah wrote:
| FYI the contact info (URL) in your HN account is 404ing...
| [deleted]
| hattmall wrote:
| Are you looking for remote work? Where do you live? In the
| south, everywhere is hiring.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| Have you tried remote-only positions? I'd assume they tend to
| care less about age, if that's the problem.
|
| I employ freelancers and pay competitive fees by European
| standards. I would hire someone with your experience without
| thinking too much about it (provided you had a modicum of
| people skills) since I only care about people being courteous
| and getting the job done, and not about "culture"...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| As noted elsewhere, it seems Europe may be a better place for
| older folks. I know that some nations have some fairly strict
| laws about discrimination.
|
| In the US, we have the same laws. It's flat-out illegal to
| discriminate by age, as it is by race, religion, gender,
| pregnancy, marital status, etc.
|
| Out of that list, if a company tries anything other than age
| discrimination, they are pilloried and investigated.
|
| However, in the IT industry, age discrimination is actively
| encouraged. Companies write job ads that basically say "Bros
| only."
|
| The story I hear, is that older folks are "just waiting for
| retirement, and won't be loyal." That's rich, in an industry
| that has been completely formed around the idea that
| engineers will stay at a company for no more than two years.
|
| In my case, I had my retirement set, years ago, and would
| have been willing to work for half of what a lot of younger
| folks would demand, if the work was motivating, and the work
| environment was good.
|
| I have an _enormous_ portfolio of exemplary work. My skills
| are "five minutes old." I'm not some old duffer, sitting on
| COBOL skills (which, I understand, would actually have made
| me more attractive).
|
| It's been my experience that no one ever bothers to look at
| the portfolio. They've already made up their mind, and the
| only reason they are talking to me, is to tick off an EEOC
| checkbox.
| royallineage wrote:
| > I have an enormous portfolio of exemplary work
|
| Lol
| BlissWaves wrote:
| I don't see any evidence Europe being better for older
| folks. On top of that salaries are really really low in
| Europe.
|
| Unless you are in the US and are going to graduate
| university at 22-23 best to forget about a career in STEM.
| Not worth the effort and time. Milk has a longer expiry
| date than a STEM worker who's perceived over the hill late-
| twenties or early thirties.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Many things in those sentences are plainly not true. In
| Europe, you can get very rich (by say western european
| standards) if you do 1-man consulting well. I mean in top
| 0.01% salary bracket for some countries while having
| fairly standard current skillset (soft and hard skills).
| Switzerland and Luxembourg have very high permanent
| salaries - not SV levels, but definitely fine ones and
| affording a great lifestyle.
|
| Quality of life, say in Switzerland, (and I know this can
| be a hot topic that depends on personal preferences) is
| way better than basically anything US can offer for
| similar wealth bracket. That's my personal view, based on
| my personal opinions, evaluations and wish to give my
| kids the best and healthiest environment to grow up in so
| obviously not universally true.
|
| Older dudes are definitely very supported here, but this
| is specific per sector/company. Average age of my
| coworkers (banking en Suisse) is around 45-50, all devs,
| admins, devops. We wanted to hire one 55 year old guy for
| dev position last week, we made him (a generous) offer
| already but he chose a different position. He didn't have
| the skillset list much bigger than what is flying around
| by OP (maybe some crypto stuff but we don't do it yet).
|
| What you describe are mostly startups full of folks who
| want to get rich quickly, mostly fail, have attention
| span shorter than tick of second hand on my watch. You
| can find those everywhere. But that's a relatively small
| part of the market and at least here definitely not the
| best paying one.
| BlissWaves wrote:
| Luxemburg junior salary average is 36K, take home around
| 2300. 1300 for rent and food you are left with 1000
| euros.
|
| Germany is where startups valued at $25bn and $45bn
| (Zalando and Klarna) are paying less than $100k for 10
| YoE with >40% income tax.
|
| Please let's not discuss already obvious things though I
| agree that Switzerland is better in terms of salary and
| taxes.
|
| As per your own company you are using anecdotal evidence.
| Ageism in tech is very well-known and pretending it does
| not exist is not going to fix antyhing.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| Since you mention banking (and I don't want to be ageist
| here, greyhair here as well) is the prototype of an old,
| crusty and backwards environment where nothing changes
| and nothing gets done at a reasonable pace. Unless you
| think of crazy deadlines being given as reasonable pace.
| Speaking from experience. I never want to work in a bank
| ever again.
| bachmeier wrote:
| > In the US, we have the same laws. It's flat-out illegal
| to discriminate by age, as it is by race, religion, gender,
| pregnancy, marital status, etc.
|
| This is true, sort of. Age discrimination is different
| where it matters - the threshold to prove age
| discrimination is so high that the law could just as well
| not exist.
| cvhashim wrote:
| > They will tell you the economy is booming meanwhile they are
| boarding up New York City
|
| > and there is homeless everywhere
|
| Both of these can be true. The economy is great for all the
| people at the top rungs of society while the rest may not be
| seeing any of those prosperities.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > I don't believe one dam word the government or the media says
| anymore. Not one word. Not about the cough.
|
| If you really mean this, if you really think the pandemic is
| all a big conspiracy created by your government... makes me
| genuinely curious how you come across in interviews.
|
| I don't think you're wrong about the labor shortage thing.
| Similar story here: quite a bit of trouble finding a job as a
| 25 year old tech person while you hear left and right that
| nobody can seem to find any employees anymore. But that one
| statistic is skewed, or perhaps that companies and employees
| aren't properly being matched, doesn't mean "the cough" (and
| what many people that contracted the virus describe as the
| worst week in their life) is all a big hoax.
| temphnaccount wrote:
| I am curious as to how did you jump from not believing the
| government to pandemic being a conspiracy? Pandemic is real
| and governments have lied to their people, more so in last
| one and a half year - both of these statements can be true.
|
| Also you should not question someone's capability to come
| across in the interviews based on their venting on online
| anonymous platform. Humans can have vastly different emotions
| depending on the situation.
| bloopernova wrote:
| Over the past 18 months or so, since the COVID-19 pandemic
| has been foremost in our minds, a group of people have
| espoused certain opinions or viewpoints. Namely:
| The pandemic is a hoax It doesn't kill people
| Those that did die, died from other causes That
| they won't wear a mask That they won't get a
| vaccine That the vaccine modifies DNA
|
| The person who referred to the COVID-19 pandemic as "the
| cough" may or may not hold any or all of those views. But
| 18 months of hearing that group of people espouse those
| views leads many of us to learn that if they support one of
| the views above, they support them all.
|
| Again, that may or may not be correct or ethical. It's just
| our experience.
| op00to wrote:
| No, they are not "boarding up New York City", but conservative
| trolls do seem to be invading this post, maybe we should board
| the post up instead.
| phenkdo wrote:
| It stretches credulity that you have that many skills and still
| unemployed. Employers are hiring just about anyone in tech
| these days. Where are you located?
|
| You can kvetch about the media all you want, but the job market
| is the best it has ever been, and unlikely to get any better.
| Sorry to be harsh here, but if you can't find a job in this
| market, you ought to reconsider your professional choices.
| goodpoint wrote:
| In may English-speaking countries ageism is the norm. You
| don't get any offer after 45 unless you are famous.
| thedream wrote:
| > It stretches credulity that you [...]
|
| vs
|
| > You can kvetch about the media all you want [...]
|
| Why engage with a primary source when you can have your
| worldview spoonfed to you by a thinly-veiled Pharma ad
| masquerading as news?
|
| Yeah, let's keep kvetching.
| kikiakaki wrote:
| "Hey, it's so awesome for me!!! You must be a liar, because
| for me it's all cool."
|
| Is this all your argument or did you also want to say
| something meaningful?
| Roritharr wrote:
| My father-in-law is in a similar position, just ten years
| older than parent. He always gets rejections based on "lack
| of cultural fit". Ageism is real in tech.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > but if you can't find a job in this market, you ought to
| reconsider your professional choices.
|
| There is enough literature out there about the racist, sexist
| or ageist hiring practices in the tech sector that you might
| as well rethink your comment here. How old are you?
| umanwizard wrote:
| For what it's worth: I live in NYC. It is not boarded up.
| dbattaglia wrote:
| I was puzzled by this as well. There was of course instances
| of this during the George Floyd protests (over a year ago),
| and a bit right around the election, but that was just
| companies protecting their property from some of the rowdier
| protesters.
| forz877 wrote:
| That's the narrative a lot of these people living in the
| flyover states are fed on repeat 24/7.
|
| You'd think NYC , SF, LA were third world countries according
| to them. You can tell right from his comment why he likely
| doesn't have a job.
| dbattaglia wrote:
| My wife and I have both been hearing this narrative from
| coworkers outside of where we live (in NYC), asking if
| we're living in a ghost town or warzone. It feels strange.
|
| By the way I think the term "flyover state" is probably a
| bit offensive to folks that happen to live outside of
| coastal cities.
| forz877 wrote:
| It's bizarre but if you see the content they are watching
| and are fed it begins to make sense. They're never
| exposed to these places so they never have an opportunity
| to think for themselves.
|
| Often times when I've gone to more rural/southern areas
| it's amazing how kind the people are - I think on both
| sides people just forget that there are just regular folk
| everywhere. The politics attempts to dehumanize.
| bachmeier wrote:
| > By the way I think the term "flyover state" is probably
| a bit offensive to folks that happen to live outside of
| coastal cities.
|
| It's not. It is, however, a certain way to get us to
| ignore anything you have to say.
| forz877 wrote:
| That's already happening anyway.
| varjag wrote:
| I'm sure the GP reserves his charming side for the
| interviews.
| BlissWaves wrote:
| Yup, on top of it ageism in tech can appear as early as late
| twenties!
| beebeepka wrote:
| That's nuts but I can believe it. My own experience is that
| if I am being interviewed by a 20 something, I am not getting
| the job no matter what. Not a single exception in a decade
| now lol. It's real
| 100-xyz wrote:
| Strongly agree. Has been my experience as well.
| poisonborz wrote:
| If you do, stop including your birthdate on CV-s, and don't
| answer questions regarding your afe.
| BossingAround wrote:
| Might also be an attitude problem on your side. If you're
| serious about getting a job, consider coaching.
|
| This "nobody is hiring, everything sucks, and I'm the victim
| here" narrative isn't really helping you.
|
| Also, bringing up stuff like "lies about the cough" (which I
| assume is OP talking about COVID) absolutely undermines your
| credibility as an individual capable of critical thinking,
| which is necessary for software engineering.
| ajb wrote:
| Would you rather , on this site, people post what they
| honestly think, or what they would say in a job interview
| situation? Because if the latter, you might be better off not
| assuming that the OP is dumb enough to let out their
| unvarnished thoughts in an interview.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| > _you might be better off not assuming that the OP is dumb
| enough to let out their unvarnished thoughts in an
| interview._
|
| After a glance at Calltrak's recent comment history, I
| think that might actually be an ok assumption.
| umanwizard wrote:
| It's true though, the media has massively distorted the truth
| about covid over and over since the beginning.
|
| For the most recent egregious example, see this exchange: htt
| ps://mobile.twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/142122951874...
| loopz wrote:
| After some searching I found both old recommendations, and
| new ones about this explicitly [0].
|
| The problem here is that nobody knows for sure, and someone
| must decide based on precautions and ongoing research. It
| is expected that new knowledge will make old information
| obsolete. An ongoing situation will also change during its
| course. Media just reflects this and there's no
| expectations of perfection.
|
| It's _on what basis_ opinions are formed that truly matter.
| Anyone can make thousands of bets and congratulate
| themselves on 50% of them.
|
| [0] https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-says-fully-vaccinated-
| people-2015...
| peakaboo wrote:
| People started noticing during covid but it's been going on
| for a very long time. I think it's awesome to see so many
| people realize this now though. We need that to happen.
| [deleted]
| BossingAround wrote:
| OP's statement leads straight to "they're out to get me,"
| which is absolutely not helpful, and it's absolutely an
| indicator of a difficult hire.
|
| If I'm interviewing someone and the person is demonstrating
| a victim narrative, that is a huge red flag.
|
| Similarly, the inability to see shades of gray (e.g. "using
| MySQL is always utterly stupid, you should never use it in
| favor of Postgres") which OP demonstrates with their COVID
| statements, makes a person virtually non-employable in my
| book.
| fallenspec wrote:
| > OP's statement leads straight to "they're out to get
| me," which is absolutely not helpful, and it's absolutely
| an indicator of a difficult hire.
|
| Not at all. If you've been out of work for a year and
| seeing your savings (if you have any) dwindle and vent on
| what is an internet comment sections, doesn't indicate
| how you are in person at all.
|
| > If I'm interviewing someone and the person is
| demonstrating a victim narrative, that is a huge red
| flag.
|
| You are ignoring the present situation entirely.
| Governments have put everyone's life on hold for well
| over a year now (we are in month 17). Statements from
| authorities have been contradictory, non-sensical, they
| have lied in some cases and some have broken their own
| lockdown rules (e.g. in the UK Matt Hancock which was in
| charge of public health IIRC was exposed as having an
| affair during COVID, which BTW was illegal under the
| lockdown rules).
|
| So many people can see it for what it is. One rule for
| them and one rule for the plebs.
|
| > Similarly, the inability to see shades of gray (e.g.
| "using MySQL is always utterly stupid, you should never
| use it in favor of Postgres") which OP demonstrates with
| their COVID statements, makes a person virtually non-
| employable in my book
|
| You are reading far too much into comments around COVID
| due to your personal bias (which btw is obvious here).
| Because you disagree on a particular issue doesn't not
| indicate someone's thinking in a different field of
| expertise. e.g. there are many great scientists that
| believe very deeply in Religion. Which as a non-believer
| I would think would be at odds with one another.
|
| I have personally found it very difficult to find a job
| during COVID as well. I am almost 40 now and it worries
| me that I might experience the same in the future.
| heurisko wrote:
| In addition to Matt Hancock, there was also the case of
| exemptions from quarantine for UEFA football VIPs. [1]
|
| I think it's right the UK is returning to personal
| responsibility, especially as many of the rules haven't
| seemed to be science-based e.g. you must wear a mask
| entering a pub, but you are allowed to remove the mask
| while eating seated.
|
| It's health-theatre, rather than virus prevention.
|
| [1]
| https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jun/18/vips-to-
| be-...
| fallenspec wrote:
| There were many notable people who were exposed as to
| exposing that we all should be lockdown while breaking
| the rules themselves. It is quite frustrating when I live
| in an area where almost everyone followed the rules.
|
| Yes there is a quite an element to theatre to the whole
| thing, which makes sensible discussion about the issue
| impossible. Which I believe is somewhat by design.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| > _Which I believe is somewhat by design._
|
| That's a really interesting thought that had never
| occurred to me. Maybe somewhat akin to Steve Bannon's
| "flood the zone with shit" strategy.
| fallenspec wrote:
| There is a short by Adam Curtis called "Oh Dear". You may
| have seen it.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcy8uLjRHPM
|
| The basic takeaway is that you make it impossible for the
| average person to keep up the thread of events and they
| become apathetic to it. I've also watched Adam Curtis's
| "Hypernormalisation". It is well worth a watch.
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| You've got cause and effect flipped here. It's not the
| bitterness that causes one to be not hired, its not being
| hired that causes bitterness. I experienced the same when
| trying to get in the field. The narrative at the time was
| that there was a labor shortage, and they were trying to push
| for more H1B visa holders. Yet there were very very few entry
| level positions, nobody was training, and the company that
| hired me paid horribly($12/hr) and didn't teach me anything.
| Keep in mind, I had recently graduated from university in the
| field.
|
| For decades, employers had far more leverage than employees.
| Now that that's eroded a bit, everyone is panicking. But this
| is exactly what is needed to employers to actually train and
| care about their workers.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| > _It 's not the bitterness that causes one to be not
| hired, its not being hired that causes bitterness._
|
| That's a pretty absolutist statement. Is it not possible
| that both are sometimes present, and lead to a downward
| spiral of poor attitude and unemployablility?
| the-dude wrote:
| > The narrative at the time was that there was a labor
| shortage
|
| Not unique to the particular time or place : Dutch
| employers are complaining about a lack of technical workers
| for decades, think welders / metal workers / machine
| operators etc.
|
| Except they pay sh*t. Somehow the statement about the lack
| of workers gets printed in the media everytime.
|
| Now we have the 'free transfer of people' in the EU. The EU
| is not there for you, but for the employers ( just like HR
| ).
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| I don't know. I am fifty one years old, last year I was sent
| packing. I found that it is increasingly more difficult for
| me to find a new job as a programmer, as the years go by. I
| am very grateful that I found a job, eventually.
|
| Dear Calltrack, don't get too upset by the reactions in this
| thread, some people here are, well, not very compassionate,
| to say the least.
| fishmaster wrote:
| It's not about 'compassion', it's about denying the Covid
| pandemic being real and calling it 'the cough'.
| op00to wrote:
| This guy wouldn't make it past a first phone screen with that
| attitude thank goodness.
| kikiakaki wrote:
| Yeah, because we all know that people tend to behave the
| same online when commenting anonymously and during a phone
| interview. If that's what you think, I think it's you who
| should spend some time polishing those interviewing skills.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| The guy is frustrated and people say things like that when
| they're frustrated, it's understandable, though he certainly
| isn't helping himself by expressing such thoughts.
|
| The "lies" he's talking about, I think, are a side-effect of
| the dichotomy of having an investor class that is doing
| better than ever and a working class that's in a downward
| spiral. Sadly, economic performance is measured strictly for
| the benefit of the investor class. So yeah, when someone
| who's involuntarily unemployed sees booming market numbers
| and talking heads on TV are calling out an economy that's
| "bounced back", it looks like a lie (and honestly I believe
| it is a kind of lie too).
| m0llusk wrote:
| This sounds like a complete misunderstanding of the
| situation. In a thread about employers having trouble with
| hiring someone posted their honest frustrations as a
| potential employee looking for work. It is extremely unlikely
| that any cover letter, resume, or job interview is in any way
| similar because that context is completely different.
|
| Just to pick one common idea among recruiters, it often takes
| about a month of job seeking per year of experience to get a
| position that is a solid match. That means that the people
| posting here with decades of experience can expect years of
| leetcode interviews before getting hired. Recruiters seem
| like a better source of information than currently employed
| and in demand coders.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| These aren't honest frustrations, lol, this person
| basically called covid a hoax and said all the official
| labor numbers are made up.
|
| And idk what recruiters say this about experience but
| that's not even a claim that could be substantiated. What
| even is a "solid match"? Sure, if you have crazy specific
| requirements to be willing to take a job it will take you
| longer to search. That applies regardless of age. Maybe on
| average older candidates tend to me more rigid in their
| expectations and are less open to working with new
| industries or programming languages or something, but
| that's their choice.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Sure tech companies generally are generally on your political
| side and not on his but he's most likely not getting hired
| because of ageism and because people don't really need people
| with tons of experience. A kid with some basic knowledge who
| will comply to whatever bs is being told is good enough. Plus
| they can easily convince him to care about the company, do
| overtime, etc. Good luck trying that crap with a 50yo.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| The media downplayed covid until some places started closing.
| Then they kicked it into full on "zombie virus everyone is
| gonna die" mode real quick. On top of that, they (meaning
| social media as well) tried to circumvent the CDC numerous
| times by flagging things they've said because the media
| doesn't want COVID to die now that Trump is out of office.
| Trump was a damn goldmine and they're trying to force COVID
| to be another one.
| beerandt wrote:
| >absolutely undermines your credibility as an individual
| capable of critical thinking
|
| Nothing says "critical thinking" like believing everything
| you're told by government and msm.
| SonOfKyuss wrote:
| It's more about believing unfounded conspiracy theories
| over mountains of evidence regardless of the source.
| matwood wrote:
| > Might also be an attitude problem on your side.
|
| I don't know about the OP, but I think sometimes people
| forget that getting hired is only part skill list match. The
| other part is likability. I've worked with enough smart
| assholes to never want to do that again if I can avoid it. I
| also frequently reflect to make sure _I 'm_ not being an
| asshole.
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| Being able to be picky about employees is the opposite of a
| labor shortage.
| fallenspec wrote:
| I was unemployed for 9 months in the UK. I was a
| contractor/consultant and had to take a full time position.
|
| When Lockdowns started I was literally finishing a contract and
| was happy to have some time off. After month 7 of not having
| any work and eating into savings and constantly lockdowns meant
| I had to go full time.
|
| Interview process was frustrating to say the least. Lots of
| pre-screen "tests" which some were two to 3 hours of asking
| computer science style questions that are irrelevant for web
| development.
|
| It was a frustrating process that was exasperated by COVID.
| jen20 wrote:
| > Not about the cough
|
| I\m going to go ahead and guess that this is an attitude
| problem, not a skill problem.
|
| Further - do you _really_ have 15 years of experience of C# and
| SQL Server, or (as is very common in that space) do you
| actually have one year of experience 15 times?
| mgh2 wrote:
| Can't you hide your age for remote jobs? At least initially,
| when interviewing (they are not allowed to ask)
| goodpoint wrote:
| He probably gets the "no culture fit" euphemism after each
| video interview.
| [deleted]
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I know you're not trying to interview right here and now, but
| listing tools doesn't move the needle. That's not what
| employability in tech is measured by.
|
| I'm trying to hire for a number of software positions and
| that's a common issue I see in resumes.
|
| I don't want to hear that you're a wizard with a hammer. I want
| to know about the times you lead a team in building a house
| from start to finish.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > I want to know about the times you lead a team in building
| a house from start to finish.
|
| What if that's not something I can do? If I'm really good at
| tech, am really good in terms of writing code fast, correct,
| and readable, but management just isn't for me? Would you not
| hire me for a software position, also not at a lower salary
| or with a junior label or something?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| It isn't unreasonable to want to hire people that will be
| able to grow into senior positions. If you are
| demonstrating that you'll never do that, this is a red flag
| for hiring.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| We're not interested in hiring "perpetual juniors". The
| increased oversight of junior employees is an investment in
| them becoming senior in a 2-3 year timeframe. The skills
| listed above are for independent action, follow-through,
| communication, and teamwork, in a tech lead position, which
| are _more important_ than writing code. If you haven 't
| acquired those skills by now, it's unlikely any amount of
| mentorship will teach them to you, so it's going to be a
| pass.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| > The increased oversight of junior employees is an
| investment in them becoming senior in a 2-3 year
| timeframe.
|
| So in your mind, they go straight from junior to senior?
| I've been developing software for 8 years now, and still
| call myself intermediate. Senior is for people with
| incredibly deep knowledge of multiple technologies and
| how they work together, in my mind.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| We don't have an intermediate role, the step after
| Software Development Expert II is Senior Software
| Development Expert. This is pretty consistent among peer
| companies. Your description of senior isn't inaccurate,
| but, after many years of schooling, personal development
| experience, and on-the-job training, it's expected that
| people will gain that level of expertise in at least one
| domain -- maybe not to the same degree you're expecting,
| but career progression does not necessarily stop at SSDE.
| grosswait wrote:
| Have you considered that this model is perhaps only a
| current trend and that it isn't necessarily the "correct"
| model?
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Sure, but, we're already well over capacity as it is.
| Feel free to experiment at your company.
| [deleted]
| 100-xyz wrote:
| We are looking for SW engineers in the USA. Can you drop me an
| email leisenming AT protonmail DOT com? Thanks and good luck.
| joeblau wrote:
| Just a side note. I'm actually working on building a remote
| team and when I went to your profile, the link in there was
| dead. How do people casually browsing your profile discover
| what you've worked on and learn more about you?
| saiya-jin wrote:
| There must be something more to your story. Some slight mental
| issues, way too high expectation from work/salary/special
| requirements etc. A lot of folks think of themselves as
| perfectly fine, but on interviews they come as hard-to-work-
| with introverted weirdos. Applying for a very senior
| lead/managerial position. And so on.
|
| A year must mean tons of applications and at least some
| interviews. Do you have any idea/feedback from failed
| interviews on why they failed?
| ostenning wrote:
| Exactly why I am sidestepping out of software into embedded and
| hardware development. You could never make a 6 week boot camp
| for EE.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| I agree with the other commenters, you sound completely
| detached from reality and I would never even make it far enough
| to evaluate your skills before declining to work with you.
|
| The best thing you can do is probably to get some therapy. Yes,
| there are some legitimate scandals and lies in the media and
| government. Most other people are able to take this in stride
| and still live happy, productive lives. Standards of living are
| higher now than they ever have been in history. Things aren't
| all bad. If you shift your attitude and stop conveying that you
| think you are not getting what you deserve and everyone is out
| to get you, and become nicer and more humble, I think you'll
| have much better luck.
| mynameishere wrote:
| You armchair psychiatrists work fast! Why would he need a
| therapist when he's got you telling him he's a lunatic based
| upon his venting on the internet?
| ramphastidae wrote:
| No one gets a job because of how long they've been alive or how
| frustrated they are. I suggest changing your attitude and I'd
| also suggest avoiding rants about the government and media, as
| well as spreading misinformation about "the cough" and NYC
| during your job search.
| BlissWaves wrote:
| This is actually part of the problem. Did you conveniently
| ignore that they mentioned years of experience in particular
| technologies?
| ramphastidae wrote:
| Absolutely. YOE != value or skill.
| kikiakaki wrote:
| You are pretty much wrong about that. And you seem to
| have a real attitude problem. Unless you can prove that
| the OP is bad at his job, the only thing that we can
| assume is that he is good at it, since he has been doing
| it for years.
| 127 wrote:
| As a (potential) employer, I wouldn't really care about age.
| It's all about how much you make money for me. What your
| performance to cost ratio? People can be cats or dogs for all I
| care.
|
| Young have the advantage that they usually drastically
| undervalue themselves and thus provide an unbeatable
| proposition. They're usually more energetic, positive and
| optimistic, which is more pleasant to be around and thus makes
| the work environment more productive.
|
| In an ideal system: if employers fail to hire workforce that
| benefits their company more, they will fall behind the
| competition. There most definitely are preconceived notions
| about people on how they look, but that should be a competitive
| advantage to a company that can leverage it.
| notpachet wrote:
| > Young have the advantage that they usually drastically
| undervalue themselves and thus provide an unbeatable
| proposition. They're usually more energetic, positive and
| optimistic, which is more pleasant to be around and thus
| makes the work environment more productive.
|
| This feels myopic. It cuts both ways. Young employees are
| often much more susceptible to conflating their personal
| identity with their work identity, which can lead to serious
| emotional and psychological issues down the road. Even if
| we're looking at it purely from an extract-value-from-
| employee angle, I don't want a team that's running purely on
| misplaced idealism and ramen cups, because that's not
| sustainable.
|
| So the counterpoint to your comment would be: older employees
| have the advantage of serving as an example to younger ones
| for how to better manage work/life balance, which yields a
| healthier team in aggregate.
|
| Only a Sith hires in absolutes.
|
| [edit: grammatical typo]
| peakaboo wrote:
| The media is shit. Its becoming worse and worse, to the point
| where nothing can be trusted.
| marcinzm wrote:
| We reject more senior candidates for soft skill issues than we
| do for technical issues. Most common one is them aggressively
| saying "why did you do it this way, you should have done it
| this way" during interviews without knowing any context.
|
| >boarding up New York City
|
| Not really, we're doing rather well over here.
|
| >there is homeless everywhere
|
| There have been homeless everywhere for decades, if you think
| this is new then you haven't been paying attention.
|
| edit: Also believing covid isn't real indicates that you have
| overall issues with rational understanding of complex topics or
| processing third party information. That underlying mental
| model tends to leak in interviews and is definitely a massive
| red flag.
| m0llusk wrote:
| It is strange that the top known factors for this are not even
| mentioned in this or other similar news stories. First, closing
| of schools caused large numbers of women to leave the workforce
| in order to care for children. Until schools are fully open and
| day care is available those women will probably not be going back
| to work. Second, all markets are cultivated things. Employers in
| the most troubled sectors have recently spent roughly a year and
| a half telling desperate workers they have nothing for them. Now
| that there are openings it should be no surprise that workers
| have moved on and have little interest in transitioning back.
|
| All of this stuff about workers disappearing and people
| reconsidering their lives is pretty much a sideshow of projected
| narrative that is detached from what is really going on.
| silexia wrote:
| Another element is that the government now pays people to stay
| at home and not work. That is the number one factor. If people
| did not have money, they would work.
| beambot wrote:
| Plus mortgage forbearance and eviction moratoriums... So you
| have more money in monthly unemployment and a pause on
| peoples' #1 expenses. Until these programs end, I wouldn't
| even speculate about the future state of labor markets.
| lumost wrote:
| It's funny, I hear a ton about worker productivity and similar
| worker centric views of production, labor, and wages. But, as
| any Walmart, warehouse, or even pizza shop worker will tell you
| - their ability to negotiate wages, change production
| practices, or make any difference in the workplace amounts to a
| suggestion box and a 25 cent raise.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| It's propaganda to justify cutting social welfare programs.
| tzs wrote:
| > It is strange that the top known factors for this are not
| even mentioned in this or other similar news stories. First,
| closing of schools caused large numbers of women to leave the
| workforce in order to care for children.
|
| I'm a bit skeptical of that explanation in the US because
| schools close for 3 months every summer, without an
| accompanying large number of women quitting their jobs.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| In many families, summers are typically full of "summer
| camps" that are actually "themed daycare for older kids".
| Those were mostly closed as well during the pandemic lockdown
| phase, and some still haven't come back (in the US, anyway).
| bluedino wrote:
| What rich bubble do you live in where kids go to summer
| camp?
| coryrc wrote:
| "summer camp" is also "day care outside during the
| summer" not only "sleepaway camp".
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Well in most cases losing one of two incomes in the
| household costs a lot more. In the US, anyway, it is a
| lot more common to have a stay-at-home mom in the upper
| incomes; the working class is mostly every-adult-must-
| get-a-job (or two or three). Occasionally there are
| grandparents available, but in some cases they're in
| another town, and in some cases they are deceased. Summer
| "camps" are definitely not a rich thing (in the US,
| anyway).
| jnwatson wrote:
| Summer camp is even a working class thing. The YMCA runs
| day camps for way cheaper than day care.
| tolbish wrote:
| Definitely not just a rich kid thing. The camps are
| usually run by small-ish organizations like the local
| church. And considering the point is to bring in
| children, there are often options for those who need
| financial assistance.
|
| Besides, rich kids go on overseas vacations during the
| summer.
| Already__Taken wrote:
| There's a lot of international volunteers that go to help
| run those camps too as a holiday. Any of that was obviously
| gone too.
| x0x0 wrote:
| And even for those that are open, there's now some ugly
| decisions to be made by parents given you can't vaccinate
| under 12s yet.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Between summer camps and the weather being nice enough to
| just go outside and entertain oneself, the 3-month summer
| vacation is a notably different effect on the economy than
| the year-long covid isolation with indeterminate future
| horizon.
|
| What you find when you look at the numbers is an awful lot of
| White collar firms simply get less done during the summer
| months. "We expect to move forward on that project, but we're
| blocked on the report from the ads team, and 2/3 of the ads
| team just took a week-long vacation with their families" is a
| common pattern in summer.
| bumby wrote:
| To echo this, a previous employer has scheduled downtime
| that coincides with spring break because they recognized so
| many parents take time off because of having school-aged
| children.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| As many others have said, there are programs in the summer
| and folks can plan - and these programs have been in place
| for years. Unfortunately, these programs mostly stopped and
| on top of school closing, there wasn't enough day care space.
| And for the school age children, not all of them could do
| online schooling themselves, needing someone to help them
| with the computer.
|
| Schooling at home is a lot of work for someone, and it is
| work daycares aren't prepared nor staffed for.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Those months can be planned for well ahead of time, and
| there's generally plenty of child caring activities (camps,
| schools offering day sessions, etc). This was... very
| different, and a lot more difficult for most people.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| > people reconsidering their lives is pretty much a sideshow of
| projected narrative that is detached from what is really going
| on
|
| I disagree... COVID-19 made a lot of people reconsider their
| priorities. If you only had limited time left with a family
| member, would you really want to spend your time working a
| crappy job while struggling to pay rent?
|
| Pretty soon I imagine the government will start doing something
| like what they did to people who went on strike.. they'll find
| ways to start punishing people that don't want to work certain
| jobs anymore and changing careers will rarely be an option.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| If only there was a better way to get people to work shitty
| jobs... like maybe paying them more...
| dazc wrote:
| I agree but I think a lot of the problem also is that there
| were/are many businesses that are not finacially viable and
| cheap labour has carried them along thus far. Now the tide
| has gone out they are facing reality.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > would you really want to spend your time working a crappy
| job while struggling to pay rent?
|
| Nobody ever wanted this, they did this because they had to.
| There's nothing to reconsider. They would have always
| preferred doing something else.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > All of this stuff about workers disappearing and people
| reconsidering their lives is pretty much a sideshow of
| projected narrative that is detached from what is really going
| on.
|
| Well said. We've been bombarded with news articles and thought
| pieces about how COVID has forever changed the workforce, how
| people are refusing to work jobs they don't like, how people
| are quitting en masse because their employers won't allow
| remote work, and how companies are abandoning office spaces in
| favor of full remote for months now.
|
| Yet every time I dig for the actual numbers it turns out little
| has changed on the whole. It's usually journalists taking
| isolated stories or small changes in certain statistics and re-
| casting them as society-wide social movements.
|
| Many of these articles are simple clickbait so the reader can
| think "Duh, pay more!" But it doesn't make sense that people
| would choose no job at all over a job that doesn't pay the wage
| they want. People are obviously either getting other jobs
| somewhere, waiting for enhanced unemployment to end, or waiting
| for other life circumstances to allow them to return to work.
|
| And like you said, many of these situations are the result of
| parents having to leave the workforce to care for children
| while their schools and daycares were closed down. People
| without kids may not realize how disruptive that was to
| families that had planned routines and jobs around kids
| attending schools and daycares. I suspect we'll see sharper
| increases in employment when school is back in session and
| enhanced unemployment ends this fall.
|
| There isn't some large movement of low-wage people simply
| refusing to work because without other sources of income. The
| logic in that narrative just doesn't make any sense.
|
| This problem is temporary while the economy, market, and
| extended unemployment benefits transition back to normalcy.
| Journalists are seizing on the narrow window of change to try
| to insert more dramatic narratives, but those too will fade.
| heurisko wrote:
| One of the stories I often hear, is that people have decided
| to move house to the countryside, as they are now able to
| work remotely.
|
| I don't know how true this is: are these people not concerned
| if their employer decides to reopen offices and require
| employees to work in the office again when the pandemic
| inevitably ends?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > One of the stories I often hear, is that people have
| decided to move house to the countryside, as they are now
| able to work remotely.
|
| This is the primary trick that journalists use in these
| stories: They find a couple examples of people doing
| something, interview them, and then pretend those people
| are a sample of a much larger movement. They don't cite
| statistics or numbers, however easy to find, because
| putting a number on these movements would make the reader
| realize they're nowhere near as large as the author wants
| you to think.
|
| Using the "people moved to the countryside" example: Did we
| have a surplus of empty houses in the countryside before
| the pandemic? As far as I'm aware, we did not have huge
| numbers of empty houses just waiting for a pandemic for
| people to fill them up (except maybe Detroit, but I'm
| pretty sure people didn't flock to Detroit).
|
| Also, home prices and rents in cities didn't fall
| dramatically during this period, which would be expected
| during an exodus event.
|
| Even the stories about San Francisco population declines
| have been overblown, with many of the people leaving being
| quickly replaced by people looking for an opportunity to
| move in.
|
| Journalists played up the countryside exodus stories
| because they're romantic and people like to believe
| fantasies about people leaving the concrete jungle behind
| and living idyllic countryside lives, separated from their
| employers by miles of broadband connectivity. Yet none of
| the numbers support such supposed exoduses. Obviously a few
| people did it here and there, but pretending it was a
| common event and writing dramatic articles is dishonest.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| Before COVID there were between thirteen and seventeen
| million empty homes in he US, many due to foreclosure.
| There were (and likely still are) enough homes to house
| everyone, including the homeless, only the distribution
| is skewed so that there are few empty houses where jobs
| are (cities).
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| A counterpoint from France: media did report that for the
| first time in a very long time, home prices did slightly
| drop in Paris proper, while suburbs and "smaller cities"
| have seen a bigger rise than usual.
|
| This means there must be more than just a handful of
| people leaving.
|
| However, I do agree with GP's point about companies
| ending the WFH arrangements, especially given France's
| work culture. But then again, I've always found people
| around here to have a tendency of thinking fairly short-
| term.
| njfgyjnc wrote:
| > Using the "people moved to the countryside" example:
| Did we have a surplus of empty houses in the countryside
| before the pandemic?
|
| Actually yes. Before the pandemic, in the area I grew up
| in (Southern Appalachians) it was common for a house sale
| to take years, because there was indeed a surplus.
|
| Remember ten years ago all the articles about
| urbanization and the young people leaving the country and
| suburbs to live in the city? That was real and the more
| remote places did in fact have a surplus of housing stock
|
| I've personally seen one family move to the absolute
| boonies from a large metro and they just guessed that the
| breadwinner would be able to stay remote or find a new
| remote friendly employer if forced to move back. The
| latter happens
|
| I'd probably have more anecdotes if I knew more than like
| five people
| closeparen wrote:
| Judging by my coworkers and my company's Blind: lots of
| people did this; they're anxious but cautiously optimistic
| that the company will cave. If it doesn't, they think it's
| likely enough that they'll find different remote jobs.
| Pokepokalypse wrote:
| In my case; I found a job that was specified as "100%
| remote, even after COVID" - so I'm not super-concerned
| about that. Yes, employers lie, and in 1 year or so, they
| could easily come back and tell me I'm fired because I
| can't come on-site. (there is also a component of my job
| which could require me to go on customer site and work
| there; which I'm willing to do as long as they pay travel
| expenses).
|
| I get that I'm very lucky to have landed such a gig. I hope
| many more do. Because when a worker has to bear the
| personal cost of sitting in traffic for 2+ hrs per day
| (burning gasoline and polluting the world while doing so),
| because his boss is uncomfortable with not being able to
| physically scrutinize his underlings - that's bullshit.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Maybe some people are so desperate to escape cities and
| endless commutes that they are willing to take the risk. My
| anecdata is that I spent 17 years with one megacorp because
| they allowed me to WFH back when there were very few places
| I could jump ship to and not have to move back to the Bay
| Area.
|
| The small town I live in has seen a large influx of Bay
| Area remote workers as well. Again - all anecdata, but it
| is noticeable.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I imagine a lit of these people have gotten permission and
| made arrangements with their employers in advance.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| That being said, this is not necessarily easy even for
| large employers, because until now there wasn't a need to
| clarify if workers were subject to the income, payroll
| etc. taxes and employee protection, health insurance
| contracts of their working or resident state. It is
| totally possible to be a large Fortune 500 company in the
| US and not be set up to do paperwork in, I don't know,
| Alaska or Wyoming or Idaho.
| LurkerAtTheGate wrote:
| As someone navigating this right now - it's a mess.
| Business is in a no-income-tax state, I moved to 4%
| state, and it was deemed easiest to be personally
| responsible for paying quarterly estimates so the
| business isn't on the hook for paying business taxes to a
| state it doesn't do any business in. Some states,
| however, decided now was a good time to declare a single
| remote worker in their state means that company has a
| nexus there, and thus owes all corporate taxes to that
| state.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I guess that's an issue if you move states. I'm in the
| UK, and I know someone who moved 8 hours away to a
| different part of the UK. Would never have even been
| considered pre-covid, but the evidence that they could
| work productively from home was there: they'd been doing
| it for a year already! They're a manager too, so regular
| collaboration is a given. It's just all online now.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Keep in mind that 11 US states by themselves are larger
| than the entirety of the UK; Oregon, for example. I don't
| know if tax is assessed differently for say Scottish
| rather than English residents, and 32 US states are
| larger than England.
|
| This is going to be an issue if you move anywhere within
| a country with a federal system of government. For EU
| residents I imagine this also gets tricky for people who
| decide to WFH from other countries.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Yeah, that was kind of my point. There's plenty of room
| to move within a US state without running into these
| issues. FWIW I believe the income tax system is the same
| across the UK. There might be different local taxes in
| Scotland, but your employer wouldn't need to concern
| themselves with those.
| jfk13 wrote:
| No, Scottish income tax is different, so the employer
| does need to deal with it. (Though I imagine most UK
| payroll systems have such options.)
| davidgay wrote:
| Scotland has a different legal system than England. It
| seems unlikely that wouldn't have an effect on remote
| work?
| lumost wrote:
| anecdotally, I think there is a fairly widespread belief
| that people can move to the country side for X years during
| covid then switch the property to AirBnB afterwords.
|
| I'd also bet that many individuals are making long-term
| bets that they can continue working remote even if it means
| (slightly) less pay.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| I can't speak to statistics at large, but anecdotally, my
| wife was laid off and we needed someone with our son during
| "home schooling" anyway, so she just continued on to get her
| degree since many universities have an online option at the
| moment (which should continue and expand). With the variant,
| we have this same option next year, though no unemployment
| and we'll just be a single income while she finishes up her
| last half year or so.
|
| In our case, it wasn't the "refusing to go back to work to
| make a better life" narrative that's getting pushed; it's
| more the, she had to stay home with our son while he's in
| school, but what does she do while he's in school all day?
| You only have to be sort of involved. You might as well be
| productive, but you have trouble being productive enough to
| really work.
| willyt wrote:
| I walked down through the financial district of London on a
| Tuesday morning recently and I did not see one single office
| worker sat at a desk in any office I passed. Just empty
| buildings with lights on and bored receptionists sat at front
| desks.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| I wonder how significant the booming stock market is? Maybe
| people are neglecting to work because their Tesla stock is up
| some absurd amount over 5 years or whatever. Same for crypto.
| But when these people start treating such capital gains as
| disposeable income then it will cause inflation.
| whall6 wrote:
| Right. Why would I seek a job if the unemployment benefits
| pay me nearly as much to do nothing?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| And the employer perspective: Why would I try to compete
| with unemployment benefits that are ending in a few months?
|
| The situation is temporary and has obviously causal factors
| that are coming to an end soon (unemployment benefits,
| school out for summer).
|
| Journalists seem to be going out of their way to ignore
| these and pretend that something else is happening.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| The only shitty thing here is, that many companies will
| fail and close down in the meantime, meaning less jobs
| openings for people who just lost unemployment benefits.
| varjag wrote:
| If there is still demand for their services, other more
| successful franchises will step in.
| ryanobjc wrote:
| Are you sure?
|
| Those states that cut people off unemployment didn't see
| a boost in employment rates. Sooo now what?
| nuker wrote:
| > with unemployment benefits that are ending in a few
| months?
|
| I don't think so. Zeta variant is coming.
| eropple wrote:
| I hadn't heard of this, but the WHO seems to have
| indicated that this is no longer a variant of interest,
| let alone a variant of concern.
| wallacoloo wrote:
| I believe it was a joke that, as emergency covid policies
| are extended a couple months as each new variant arises,
| and since there will be no end of variants for an endemic
| virus, that means the policies are actually permanent.
|
| Or maybe I misunderstood.
| dazc wrote:
| One of the UK employers currently moaning about a lack of
| workers had a policy of only employing people for 16 hours
| a week since this was the optimum hours a person could work
| whilst still receiving tax credits and housing benefit.
|
| Around 10 years ago I was in the labour market willing to
| do pretty much anything and these kinds of jobs accounted
| for most of what was available.
|
| Since I wasn't 'on benefits' I was at the other end of the
| equation. What I really wanted was a chance to work my way
| out of financial trouble - these kind of jobs only offered
| the opposite of this.
| gwright wrote:
| This is a great example of perversive incentives driven
| by ill-conceived benefit rules.
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| In some states in the USA a lot of service jobs will cap
| your work at 31 hours, to get around their own corporate
| policies of giving benefits to anyone who worked 32 hours
| or more.
| adaml_623 wrote:
| And any company that has done this might see it coming
| back and biting them even though they would never admit
| that they brought it on themselves
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| Probably not. USA is a capitalist-first, worker-5th
| nation.
| cbozeman wrote:
| Because you have self-respect and shouldn't be taking
| handouts if you're capable of working?
|
| No one capable of working should be taking unemployment,
| ever.
|
| This is how social safety nets get demonized by
| politicians, and it works. A factory worker and mother of
| three who was making car parts from the start of COVID-19
| until now and was never laid off and who never had the
| option of quitting work, fucking hates someone who sits on
| their ass collecting unemployment playing Xbox games all
| day. That's the relatively young Hispanic woman who lives
| down the road from me. I was fortunate; I already work
| remote so the only thing COVID did for me was restrict my
| dining choices temporarily here in Texas.
|
| The answer to every problem we seem to face in America
| always ends up being, "Just throw some fucking money at
| it!"
|
| I'm sick of it. Many of our problems couldn't be solved if
| we had literally quadrillions of dollars of cash. Sometimes
| - many times - it takes a lot of good old fashioned hard
| work, in the arenas of careful thinking, and then careful
| doing. Neither of which it seems either political party is
| particularly interested.
| User23 wrote:
| Unemployment is one of the few ways government has ever
| done anything for me personally as opposed to general
| social goods. As a net payer into the system for the
| overwhelming majority of my working life I have
| absolutely no objection to getting a little of that money
| back when I hit a rough patch.
| pillefitz wrote:
| Lacking self-respect for refusing to slave away in
| bullshit jobs that destroy our environment directly or
| indirectly, make some rich guy even richer or take place
| in a toxic work environment you mean?
| [deleted]
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| Breaking news: rich libertarian tech bro from a
| republican has harsh opinion on poor people.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I mostly agree with you.
|
| However, it may not (always) be that simple. The media
| here in France reports that some industries, in
| particular restaurants, are having a hard time finding
| employees, with not enough people applying and even
| employees who were there before Covid hit leaving.
|
| I don't know how actually true this is, but when they
| (the media) ask people why they won't go back, the main
| reason doesn't seem to be a preference for sitting on
| ass, but rather a realization that given the wages, those
| jobs were a terrible proposition. They claim instead to
| be looking at how they can improve their situation, like
| looking for work in other industries, going back to
| school, etc. Which I think is a good thing. How many
| random empty bars does a country really need?
|
| Now maybe I'm being too optimistic, but I hope that
| that's true and that this will at least increase wages
| for those jobs.
|
| But I can't help but think that all this soul-searching
| is helped by government aid and that, sooner or later,
| when that runs out, the people will have to get back to
| those jobs and then, whatever rise there might have been,
| will be swept away.
| secondcoming wrote:
| > The media here in France reports that some industries,
| in particular restaurants, are having a hard time finding
| employees
|
| It's the same in the UK. Farmers cannot harvest some
| crops because the cheap EU labour is no longer present
| and locals won't do it.
| effingwewt wrote:
| Here in California _every_ restaurant /fast food place is
| hiring. They all list the things they offer (PTO, 401k-no
| matching what you put in, and that's it). What they _don
| 't_ put on the signs is what they pay (minimum wage every
| single time), or the hours (always part time, always
| weekends, mostly if not always nights.
|
| But obviously it's just that no one wants to work, it
| couldn't possibly be because no one wants part-time
| (especially because they change your days/hours and wait
| till the last minute to give you the next week's schedule
| so you can't plan around it and get another job). It
| couldn't possibly be because part-time minimum wage day-
| shifting jobs are literally worthless as these places are
| finding out.
|
| I keep hearing owners whine and bemoan their lack of
| workers. What I have never heard of, not once, is an
| owner making less profit to pay their workers better to
| get the loyalty and hard work they want but refuse to pay
| for.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > I keep hearing owners whine and bemoan their lack of
| workers. What I have never heard of, not once, is an
| owner making less profit to pay their workers better to
| get the loyalty and hard work they want but refuse to pay
| for.
|
| I agree with you, but do those places actually make a lot
| of profit? Over here they seem to be pretty fragile
| operations, so I don't think there's that much they can
| shave off their profit and give to the workers.
|
| I'm wondering whether, maybe, there are simply too many
| of those restaurants?
|
| The reasoning goes "yeah, but if I raise my prices,
| people will go next door". Which is probably true for
| your random restaurant. But then maybe the issue is
| there's too many of them?
|
| But of course, up until now, this was workable because
| many people were willing to put up with the bad
| conditions you've described for a low wage.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| It tells me we need a higher minimum wage. No individual
| can raise prices without losing competitiveness, but
| clearly higher prices would fix some of these serious
| issues. A higher minimum wage would prevent the "they'll
| just go next door" issue.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > No individual can raise prices without losing
| competitiveness, but clearly higher prices would fix some
| of these serious issues. A higher minimum wage would
| prevent the "they'll just go next door" issue.
|
| That seems right on the face of it. But then there's
| another issue: are you sure that the same number of
| people would continue eating out? Personally, I wouldn't
| bet on it.
|
| I don't often eat out, mostly because it's not something
| I particularly enjoy, but also because I find it
| expensive for what it is. If the prices were to rise, I
| would eat out even less. I doubt I'm the only one
| thinking like this.
|
| It's not clear to me that raising the minimum wage, and
| therefore the price of a restaurant meal, would not have
| less people go out. And by less people I mean a drop high
| enough such that the sum of money spent eating out would
| drop. Which would mean there would be less restaurants
| which could afford to stay in business.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It tells me the upper deciles of wealth have been
| enjoying life on account of the bottom deciles drawing
| shitty hand.
|
| Less entertainment, vacations, eating out for many who
| previously enjoyed it will be the result.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| You may be right.
|
| But then, the question becomes: what will become of these
| employees? Less eating out means less restaurant staff.
| But said staff are people who need to eat. Will they all
| go on social security?
|
| Maybe, maybe not. But it's a question we should ask, as a
| society.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Counterexample: https://mobile.twitter.com/auren/status/1
| 419149796284145667/...
|
| I see hiring signs with dollar amounts on them all the
| time.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Without trying to counteract your points about the
| pay/work/parttime/etc.... It's worth noting that a large
| number of restaurant owners make very little money. The
| margins/profits in that industry are razor thin. So the
| owner making less wouldn't be helpful, or even an option
| for many of them.
| toofy wrote:
| I think there's some merit in what you say, I'm just not
| sure we would agree on how to define "...large number of
| restaurant owners..."
|
| This is completely anecdotal, but I know three different
| restaurant owners and all three of them live very very
| comfortably. Again, that's just anecdotal so probably not
| worth much.
|
| While I don't think anyone would suggest that a
| restaurant owner should live in poverty, at the same time
| I don't think we would suggest a restaurant worker should
| be poverty levels of poor to ensure the owner lives the
| high life.
|
| If a business cant supply both its owner and workers a
| livable wage, then we should expect the business to go
| under rather than expect (or demand) the workers descend
| into poverty.
| eropple wrote:
| Then shouldn't they be working more personally? Or
| shouldn't they no longer be in business? (And yeah, I'm
| well aware how much many small restaurant owners work.
| See door number two.)
|
| People around here talk a lot about unsustainable
| business models. I don't think it's really any better if
| it's offloading its unsustainability onto its workforce,
| which is what's being described here.
|
| From where I stand, as somebody whose career can be
| described (cynically but not incorrectly) as largely
| rendering people unemployed, there's a tension here
| that's only going to be resolved through the
| acknowledgement that there isn't actually a need for
| everyone to work to make the whole thing "go", and
| unsustainably poor work with poverty as the retribution
| for refusing to participate (as well as the reward _for_
| participating) is not a politically stable position.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| People need work to keep them occupied. It's built in to
| our psychology by evolution. We know that idle people
| cause most of the problems in society. So I do think
| there is a need for everyone to work to make the whole
| thing "go", if by "go" you mean have a peaceful,
| civilized way of living.
| eropple wrote:
| This sounds teleological. I can find plenty of things to
| do, many probably more personally fulfilling as well as
| societally beneficial, than flipping burgers would be.
| briefcomment wrote:
| Taking the handouts is the most rational thing to do. Why
| would you expect people to do otherwise? Relying on
| unspoken normative rules is maybe possible in a society
| with well defined and perpetuated values, but in our
| current society, utility far outweighs values in decision
| making.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Actually we solved a ton of problems by throwing money at
| it: poverty dropped significantly.
|
| https://www.urban.org/research/publication/2021-poverty-
| proj...
| charlesu wrote:
| Who said these people aren't working? I see a lot of
| people retraining, pivoting, and taking care of others.
| That's work. Just because it doesn't pay doesn't mean it
| isn't work or valuable. Being a stay at home parent
| doesn't pay, but it's clearly valuable.
|
| Employment is a means to an end: basic survival. We do it
| because we're forced to by forced scarcity. There may be
| virtue in work, but there's no inherent virtue in
| employment.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I just head this same rap from a blowhard senator who's
| state is loaded with Covid.
|
| "The self-respect that comes with working." Read this
| like you are nursing a hangover.
|
| Americans are fed up with lousy jobs that treat them like
| crap.
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| Most likely that senator is from a net-taker state like
| kentucky or arkansas, one that would be bankrupt without
| california and new york overpaying the fed to subsidize
| poor republican states.
| bigbob2 wrote:
| There is also more affluence in California and the
| Northeast vs Middle America. Regardless of politics
| Middle America is not going to be granted the same
| economic opportunities as coastal regions.
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| So, why should we subsidize them? I'm Californian and my
| taxes should go to help my home state, not those who hate
| me and my home?
|
| Kentucky and the rest of those moocher states should pull
| themselves up by their boot straps, stand on their own
| two feet and sink or swim.
| cmmeur01 wrote:
| Why stop at taxes? Let's talk about water, why should all
| these states be subsidizing California's water use? Why
| aren't they bootstrapping desalination plants? Quit
| mooching.
| bigbob2 wrote:
| Because we live in a Union? The idea is that your state
| will be helped if the table is ever turned. Not everyone
| in Kentucky hates California and the people who live
| there. What you're essentially promoting is reducing the
| role of federal government, which is the same thing
| current Kentucky senators want. I'm sorry to be so blunt
| but to be honest your comment sounds hateful and
| ignorant.
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| Americans cant even wear masks or get vaccinated to save
| their fellow citizens, man.
|
| i was in grand rapids when covid hit. At some point a
| group of people in a restaurant heard i was from
| california, friends of my family, and before I knew it i
| was a "pinko commie faggot" that they wanted to "skull
| fuck" and "curb stomp".
|
| My brother in law pulled a gun on them and we high tailed
| it out of there. The midwest and the south does NOT have
| California's back.
|
| They would starve without us, but we would do just fine
| without them.
|
| Again, I am Californian, not American.
| 8note wrote:
| I don't think it's likely that the Kentuckians would help
| out if the tables were turned
| bigbob2 wrote:
| This is just baseless speculation. Also that's a great
| reason why the federal government exists.
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| Kentucky senators do not want to reduce the size of the
| federal government. They just want to keep sucking the
| prosperous states dry while demonizing us.
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| I never agreed to any union. Show me the paperwork where
| I agrees to be united with inbred rednecks who would
| happily slit my throat for being gay.
| notpachet wrote:
| This is a bit too reductionist for my liking.
|
| Imagine, as a kind of empathetic thought exercise, that
| instead of someone taking handouts and playing Xbox all
| day, they were taking handouts and then doing online
| coursework to try and learn a new skill to make
| themselves more employable in the future. Does that still
| imply a lack of self-respect?
|
| We're all effectively taking handouts to some degree or
| another just by participating in collective society. It's
| just a question of how much we're contributing back, and
| how. I try not to judge people too aggressively in terms
| of how they are contributing back; they may be doing so
| in ways that I cannot see.
| bumby wrote:
| > _Because you have self-respect and shouldn 't be taking
| handouts if you're capable of working?_
|
| FWIW, I agree with you. But this is a moral take, not an
| economist's. I think most economists would say people act
| to maximize utility. In the real world I think it's both
| but it's very hard to regulate/incentivize morals
| jonathanlb wrote:
| It might be important to distiguish doing "nothing" from
| not being on the job market.
|
| It's possible to contribute to society by making art,
| writing, cooking, spending time with family, caring for
| others, etc. as well as self-actualizing via exercise,
| reading, meditation, and so on.
| varjag wrote:
| Meditation is very much doing nothing.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Not at all.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Not sure how self-actualizing is contributing to society.
| goodpoint wrote:
| "Self-actualization is the complete realization of one's
| potential, and the full development of one's abilities
| and appreciation for life"
|
| From most classical philosophers, to Einstein, Maxwell,
| Darwin and countless other, their work was nothing else
| than an act of self-actualization.
|
| And because this is HN, shall I include Torvalds? The
| FLOSS movement started from volunteers.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I appreciate my life. I don't see how that contributes to
| society.
| Closi wrote:
| Also, when I hear about people struggling to recruit, it's
| often minimum wage jobs on awful conditions.
|
| People don't want to work for absolute minimum wage on a
| temporary contract picking fruit? Colour me surprised!
| throwawayboise wrote:
| IDK about everywhere but I'm not seeing anyone still paying
| minimum wage. McDonalds is paying $12.50/hr for day, $15/hr
| for night work. That's $30k/year FTE for a job that you can
| learn in a week and that requires zero prior experience or
| education. And they are still begging.
| mjevans wrote:
| Bad bosses, unstable schedules / hours, not a career.
| Probably doesn't have "benefits", which everyone should
| have for a level playing field (so medicare for all, get
| value for our taxes).
|
| Also, have you seen inflation lately?
| mgkimsal wrote:
| there's still an issue of consistency. if you can get
| "regular" hours... say, 6am-11am, M-T-W-Th, for example,
| you can schedule your life around it.
|
| 30 years ago, I managed a Burger King, and even then,
| they had us send people home if it got really slow, or..
| call up people and cancel their shift an hour before,
| because of bad weather, etc. Someone's already arranged
| childcare or transportation for their shift, then
| cancelling it same day is just not a way to work.
|
| I would imagine that a lot of places are still like that
| today.
|
| $15/hr sounds great, but if it's 20 hrs one week, then 7
| the next, then 24, then 4... that's still a bit unstable
| for a lot of folks. For someone who has no dependents, or
| has a stable partner... it's probably doable.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| One of my dream labor reforms would be something like
| classifying any shifts that aren't scheduled at least two
| weeks in advance as overtime. It won't guarantee a steady
| number of hours but it will definitely help smooth things
| out and allow better planning.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Will you also commit to buying a Big Mac and Fries
| between 12:00 and 1:00pm on Tuesday two weeks hence?
|
| Also, I used to manage a McDonalds. Paying a bonus to
| have people come in on short notice to cover no-shows,
| sick calls, or unexpected business volume was not
| uncommon.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| That's a nice idea (short-notice bonus). 30 years ago, no
| one had cell phones, so even trying to get ahold of
| someone on 'short notice' wasn't really possible. But it
| would have been a nice gesture to balance out the times
| we'd send people home early.
| e12e wrote:
| That is essentially the law in Norway - the work schedule
| need to be posted minimum two weeks in advance - and
| extra shifts should generally be considered overtime.
| Unfortunately it's probably one of the regulations that
| are most frequently broken.
|
| Norwegian link: https://www.arbeidstilsynet.no/regelverk/
| lover/arbeidsmiljol...
| adaml_623 wrote:
| So just to be clear if a company is not paying an
| employee the money they should be it is called wage
| theft.
|
| So if Norway were having the same issues with employee
| shortages you could add the reason that maybe the
| employees are tired of having the company steal from
| them.
|
| And maybe that's a factor common to other countries
| scolby33 wrote:
| Just this week in Pittsburgh, I saw an official corporate
| poster up in a McDonald's advertising a "competitive
| starting wage" with an 8.5''x11'' sheet taped to it
| reading "STARTING RATE UP TO 10$/HR." I doubt they'll
| have much luck at <=$10/hour. Sure, it's more than the
| minimum ($7.25/hour), but the "up to" weasel words don't
| give me confidence.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > companies are abandoning office spaces in favor of full
| remote for months now
|
| On the other hand, traffic during rush hour seems to have
| returned to as bad as it ever was.
| [deleted]
| RobertKerans wrote:
| [UK specifically] not _seems_ , it _has_ gone back to
| normal (as in pre-pandemic).
| dv_dt wrote:
| I think hn has a little bit of forgetful bias that their
| industry has probably the most amenable situation for
| remote work.
| mjevans wrote:
| All those new and used cars are now PPE bubbles and added
| freedom for people that previously took the bus or
| carpooled. If they make work at the office mandatory now
| we're going to see even worse than pre-pandemic commutes.
| mylons wrote:
| I'm willing to bet a lot of money school is not in session
| this fall in many parts of the USA.
| nimbius wrote:
| Anecdotal but...can we mention burn-out? as a "blue collar"
| worker i dont think anyone mentions it enough.
|
| I have a coworker who left a 9-5 body shop making decent money
| as a painter for a medical billing job that was closer to her
| father in 2020. she came back to that body shop just two weeks
| ago because she was pulling non-stop mandatory overtime in a
| salary position that treated her like trash. she never even
| gave notice she was quitting, just stopped showing up.
|
| I have a friend who quit his bartending job to work at a
| grocery store and had the same experience. mandatory overtime,
| limited breaks, and the angriest customers. He quit about seven
| months into the pandemic and picked up a CDL position as a
| regional truck driver.
|
| these "hero" fields that exist as a sort of meat grinder during
| covid have chewed through all the social credit most people are
| willing to give them.
| kktkti9 wrote:
| Turns out a "services based" economy is a euphemism for
| austerity based economy.
|
| Adam Smith claimed that "...landlords' role in the economic
| process is passive. Their ability to reap a revenue solely
| from ownership of land tends to make them indolent and inept,
| and so they tend to be unable to even look after their own
| economic interests".
|
| Look at dollar rich rent seekers destabilizing their value
| store.
|
| Dead guys already had human economics figured out.
|
| Humans haven't literally evolved that much in 200 years.
| rcpt wrote:
| I think what he said still mostly applies to landlords.
| Maybe even more so as real estate enjoys several tax and
| policy advantages that other investments don't.
|
| Yes I get that economic rent seeking is huge and things
| like patent trolls financial lobbyists are problems but his
| comment fits traditional landlords best.
| rantwasp wrote:
| > Humans haven't literally evolved that much in 200 years.
|
| You're being generous. I would say we haven't evolved in
| thousands of years.
|
| I mean sure, the tech is better but we're the same self
| absorbed, careless bipeds we've always been.
| kktkti9 wrote:
| I still believe our social evolution is possible. We have
| to talk about those things and take a break on economics.
|
| We've seen the value of modern technology. There's no
| need to continue to obsessively speculate about the
| advantages they provide to daily life.
|
| Having beers with a grey haired VC yesterday, I couldn't
| help but think this guy really just wants to feel
| relevant. These guys are the real energy vampire; IMO.
| Constant reverence is exhausting. It started to feel like
| he was one of those guys who peaked on the high school
| football team. "Yes, I'd like to hear about your car
| collection. Again."
| antoniuschan99 wrote:
| I just watched the documentary on John Delorean on
| Netlfix. It's very interesting and reminds me of this.
| Check it out if you have a chance!
| rantwasp wrote:
| > I couldn't help but think this guy really just wants to
| feel relevant
|
| Great insight. Now apply it to everyone you know. We ALL
| want to feel relevant and we all want to feel like what
| we are doing matters.
|
| Everyone does and this is, in a twisted way, one way we
| are trying to achieve immortality. You do stuff, you make
| an impact, you leave your mark.
| antoniuschan99 wrote:
| I took a course on Plato's republic back in school. Our
| class conclusion was that nothing has changed in the last
| 2000 years in terms of society/issues since that book was
| written!
| [deleted]
| derefr wrote:
| > I would say we haven't evolved in thousands of years.
|
| We've become slightly more lactose-tolerant!
| DrewRWx wrote:
| And the appendix became seemingly useless.
| vmception wrote:
| There are a couple more up to date theories on its
| current utility
| robocat wrote:
| 1. If the appendix was both useless and deadly (before
| procreation), there would be a strong evolutionary
| pressure against it, so it likely is unobviously useful
|
| 2. Western diet possibly causes problems with the
| appendix - "Appendicitis is uncommon in rural Africa and
| Asia"
|
| 3. Anatomy involved with immune function or microbiome is
| hard to understand function.
|
| From links:
|
| The peak incidence occurs in the 15- to 24-year-old age
| group. However older individuals are more likely to have
| complications and die from the malady. Symptoms of
| appendicitis in older people frequently are not as clear-
| cut as are symptoms in younger people.
|
| People with acute appendicitis often think they would
| feel better if they just could move their bowels. To
| encourage a bowel movement, they take a laxative. This is
| a serious mistake, one that may lead to rupture of the
| appendix.
|
| https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-
| xpm-1987-04-14-87012404...
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-
| funct...
| monkeycantype wrote:
| Also interesting is the idea that the appendix is a local
| optimisation. If a smaller appendix was more likely to
| get appendicitis, it might remain a vestigial organ
| rather disappearing completely, even it the organ has no
| function, because there is an evolutionary advantage to
| having the current rather than the smaller size
| lostlogin wrote:
| Slightly off topic, the surgeon who had to remove his own
| appendix.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32481442
| granshaw wrote:
| And with bowels 300% more irritable!
| rantwasp wrote:
| Lactose to the rescue!!!
| mellavora wrote:
| Both you and the parent seem to assume that 'evolution'
| means 'improvement'
|
| Humanity has clearly evolved, even in the last 200 years.
|
| Doesn't mean we are getting better
| rantwasp wrote:
| I think there is an individual and a meta/society level.
| I think both me and GP were referring to the
| individual/micro level.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| And I think the person you are responding to was
| acknowledging that evolution didn't just stop...as long
| as there are babies there are mutations, and the
| environment will select for some qualities over others.
|
| If you meant _super_ micro, then the same can be said of
| your immune system / gut flora, though I'm not certain
| of the relevance.
|
| The point is that "evolution" doesn't magically direct to
| some better outcome, or even towards a more sustainable
| local maxima.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Our software has improved since the domestication of
| animals and crops.
|
| Our hardware has not changed and we are still on H.
| Sapiens 1.0.
| monkeycantype wrote:
| I hope you're correct. All our domesticated animals have
| smaller brains than their wild cousins. If the
| phrenologists hadn't been so focussed on proving their
| racist fantasies, would they have found our skulls a few
| marbles smaller than our ancient (modern human)
| ancestors?
| fakedang wrote:
| Isn't it the other way? Hardware has changed as massive
| inventions have augmented our living standards. While at
| the same time, the software (IE human mentality) hasn't
| over 1000s of years, except for maybe hard disk usage
| (which is human knowledge).
| mint2 wrote:
| The hardware they were referring to is the human body.
| All that's changed is we know how to maintain it better
| and can fix more types of premature breakdowns. It's
| essentially the same hardware, just better maintained.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| Quote: "...hospitality and catering had gone up 18% ..."
|
| Let's spin up the inflation calculator for UK:
| https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/in...
|
| and you get that the year is 2013. 100 pounds in 2013 are the
| same buying power as 117.20 pounds in 2020, which can safely be
| assumed is around 118 today. So people want to live just a little
| bit better, something like only 8 years ago and these kind of
| articles are wondering why employers can't find workers?
|
| How about less control and even better payment? Then you'll see
| there is no "workers shortage" for your business.
| lkrubner wrote:
| Let's set aside, for a moment, the very poorest people, who are
| just struggling to survive. Let's talk about every family
| (emphasis on family and not individual) that is above poverty.
|
| The people in the family work to achieve a certain standard of
| living. If they want to afford 2 weeks in Bermuda every summer
| and 2 weeks at Vale every winter, then maybe they work a little
| extra to afford those things. Maybe they work longer hours, or
| pick up an extra job.
|
| Indeed, consider that in the USA male wages were stagnant or
| declining for most of the period 1973-2000 and yet family income
| rose steadily until 2000. That's because women were entering the
| work force, and their additional income more than made up for
| their husband's losses.
|
| We just had 18 months where people's standard of living was
| reduced by government edict. Some people have grown used to the
| new, lower standard of living. Others plan to raise their
| standard of living, but plan to be strategic about it.
|
| It is well known that the lockdown affected women more than men.
| But as things get back to something like normal, there will be no
| repeat of the somewhat casual way that women picked up low-wage
| work during the period 1973-2000. To the extent that women rejoin
| the workforce, they are going to be more strategic about it.
| jmrm wrote:
| In addition to the article and to other comments and in relation
| to expat workers in UK, AFAIK, Spaniards who worked in UK came
| here when COVID started to be a big issue, and most of them,
| won't go again.
|
| They won't come mainly due to BREXIT and other difficulties of
| being an expat working in UK, but also because the price of the
| GBP dropped since when they started going there more massively,
| about 2010, and with that they don't earn the same quantity of
| euros, and because the conditions weren't usually the greatest.
|
| Most of who worked on children care even have online groups to
| keep updated list of "bad families", who did not behave or even
| threaten or hurt a worker. And working having this in mind isn't
| healthy at all.
| [deleted]
| infogulch wrote:
| The value exchanged by employment is more than just a paycheck,
| it's a _regular_ paycheck. It 's like an implicit insurance of
| future pay. Once the government and businesses labeled and
| straight dumped 'non-essential' workers, they send a message that
| the 'ensured future pay'-value of employment is empty and
| meaningless. (Don't @ me with an argument about how it's always
| been this way without acknowledging that recent developments
| represent a step change in the employment relationship.)
|
| "Just pay more" is not caused by greedy workers demanding more
| money, it's caused by employers reneging on the important but
| implicit consideration that is the stability of keeping a job. If
| you demonstrate your unwillingness (or inability, no difference)
| to fulfill your contractual considerations (even the implicit
| ones), don't be surprised if the other party wants to adjust the
| contract to compensate.
| adaml_623 wrote:
| I think you raise a very good point. It's only logical to
| minimise long term risk
| jackson1442 wrote:
| The position low wage workers are in extends beyond what they
| make, too. Most part-time hourly jobs, especially those that
| pay less than $15, have extremely unpredictable schedules and
| have to deal with aggressive and rude customers day in and day
| out, while being treated as "less than" by management.
|
| Fortunately, when I worked for near-minimum wage, I was a
| lifeguard so I had the authority to tell off and kick out bad
| patrons. I still got treated like shit, with 10-12 hour
| workdays in 100+deg weather, inconsistent scheduling, and once
| even being told I had to stay after my shift when I had plans
| or lose my job (I called their bluff and decided to quit
| anyways).
|
| I have a software job now and it's better than food service,
| retail, and lifeguarding by a WIDE margin. I think a lot of
| people here take for granted the stability and consistency
| offered by their (typically) office jobs, as well as the
| significantly better physical and mental conditions.
| stiray wrote:
| I think that people started to realize, that they can live much
| better with lower amount of money.
|
| What corona crisis did to me was suddenly figuring out that just,
| from the pure fact of not leaving home much (or I would rather
| say, not going into the consumers world any more - I rather went
| to a forest, hills, rivers, lakes,...), there was an overhead of
| 500 euros left on my bank account each month. Same life but the
| unneeded expenses were cut off and interestingly - I didn't miss
| them at all.
|
| This would (in case I wouldn't love software development) mean
| that I could go for 500 euros lower wage with a fairly decent
| life and with far more time for myself.
|
| As time is the only commodity that you cant buy, this seems like
| a very reasonable way to change my life for the better.
|
| But I am not the one who doesn't like my job. There is probably
| more than a half of people that don't want to do what they are
| doing for the wage they get. And with corona, they got out of the
| system that calls for more money.
|
| Surely they would return back but not under the same conditions.
| Pay them relevantly more and there will no longer be employee
| shortages but you will earn less. And it is debatable if this is
| not what needed to happen.
| gruez wrote:
| > I think that people started to realize, that they can live
| much better with lower amount of money.
|
| I might be able to buy this argument if the person in question
| is making 6 figures, but what about the median person making
| $36k/year? If you can barely make rent, reducing your working
| hours because "can live much better with lower amount of money"
| isn't really an option.
| grecy wrote:
| I quit my software engineering job to drive from Alaska to
| Argentina for 2 years and then to drive around Africa for
| three years. I have not worked at a desk for 6 years now, and
| I live on about $20k - $25k.
|
| I've never been happier. I have so much free time to spend
| how I please, and I just don't buy crap I don't need. Yes,
| I've got house mates and I can't afford to live in some
| expensive city and eat out every night, but those things have
| never made me happy anyway.
|
| I ride my bike, I throw the Frisbee and I snowboarded 97 days
| this past winter (a luxury, for sure) My dollars per day
| spent is extremely low.
| incone123 wrote:
| The talk about ageism reminded me of picking up Filipino in-laws
| at Heathrow airport a few years ago. My brother in law commented
| it was nice to see the airport employing some older people. In
| Philippines it used to be pretty normal to get rid of service
| sector workers at 30. The country has changed the law recently to
| mitigate this.
| simonCGN wrote:
| In contrast to the article, I rather believe that Brexit is more
| responsible for the shortage than Covid-19
| nikkinana wrote:
| You can work for yourself. Why work for someone else? They just
| take a cut and give you scraps, look at china for example. I
| can't wait to move out of here.
| throwtheacctawy wrote:
| I believe there are more types of jobs, and jobs that allow
| people to set their own terms.
|
| Uber, Lyft, Instacart, Rover, Wag, Onlyfans, YouTube, Twitch,
| Instagram, TikTok, Etsy, Amazon FLex, drop-shipping with a
| Shopify storefront - there are countless (new) ways for kids to
| make money now. And many of these jobs allow people to define
| when they work and how they approach work.
|
| They simply don't have to work the same type of entry level jobs
| we all had available to us. Plus the proliferation of jobs
| involved in the supply chain & warehousing has to be mentioned.
| What wants to interact with fussy and aggravating customers all
| day in a hot and smelly fast food restaurant?
|
| We can't forget - population growth is leveling off in many
| developed economies, while service sector job growth continues.
|
| Toss an aging population, reduce immigration, and it is a recipe
| for the current situation.
| Zerverus wrote:
| Onlyfans
| okareaman wrote:
| When these articles are about the US they never mention the
| brutal policies of ICE (Immigration Control and Enforcement)
| which discourage seasonal workers from Mexico, who are already
| hesitant due to the pandemic. I mean, if you're going to deport
| Mexicans who served honorably in the military it's a big FU to
| Mexicans. I wouldn't come here either.
| fundad wrote:
| Yeah and letting ICE run wild was supposed to make labor more
| scarce and more valuable.
|
| Thank immigration hawks for the wage inflation they promised.
| RustyConsul wrote:
| When i was in the Air Force, people got citizenship for
| serving... How are they being deported?
| treis wrote:
| Generally speaking they commit serious crimes before they
| complete the naturalization process.
| okareaman wrote:
| > Under the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration
| Responsibility Act, "aggravated felonies" are a basis for
| automatic deportation. Struggles with post-traumatic stress
| disorder and substance abuse put veterans at greater risk
| of incarceration than the general population. In 2017,
| nearly 28% of minority veterans - that's 1,315,989 people -
| reported a service-connected disability, principally PTSD.
|
| I worked with citizen veterans who ended up in jail for
| crimes committed while distressed from PTSD. The VA treats
| these veterans. It's inhuman to deport them imho
|
| https://theconversation.com/deported-veterans-stranded-
| far-f...
| skuhn wrote:
| This NYT article [1] has some quotes from Sen. Duckworth that
| outlines the problem as she sees it.
|
| One in particular: "People don't even know that we are
| deporting veterans. I think most Americans assume that when
| somebody serves, they gain American citizenship. They don't
| realize that we are actually deporting people who served
| honorably."
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/us/politics/veterans-
| depo...
| bawana wrote:
| Handouts and ubi are bad. Raising minimum wage is good. Consider
| iceland. Most of their lower pay workers were immigrants who
| returned to their countries when covid hit. And they are still in
| debt from the 2008 crash. Unlike the US, they cannot print more
| dollars to bail themselves out. Yet Iceland's minimum wage is
| $19/hr and healthcare is free. How can they manage to treat their
| people so much better than we treat ours??
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| Meanwhile:
|
| > Tech CEO Says Workers Get Too Much Pay and Benefits
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28010718
| fishmaster wrote:
| "Sla- I mean, workers get too much pay and benefits, they
| should be happy to work. Why can't I find any workers?!"
| geogra4 wrote:
| Is it controversial to state that many died?
| wpasc wrote:
| I don't think it's controversial, but I don't think it's true.
| The job vacancies in the U.S. compared to the total deaths
| don't really match up. Even more so if you factor in that the
| age group with the highest death rate (elderly people) weren't
| in the workforce pre pandemic.
| dsgnr wrote:
| We all went remote to good companies with higher salaries. Stop
| trying to control our lives so much and pay better, it is that
| simple.
| apeace wrote:
| Is it worth considering whether increased/extended unemployment
| benefits are a factor in the employee shortage?
|
| The article mentions employees on "furlough" who are "biding
| their time". I'm not from the UK, but this appears to mean the
| government is paying much of their wage while they are not
| working.
|
| Anecdotally (in the U.S.) I know several people who have remained
| on unemployment as long as they possibly can, despite the fact
| that their job would've hired them back by now. Technically this
| is breaking the rules of unemployment benefits, but there are
| several easy ways around it.
|
| Not that the increased/extended unemployment benefits have been a
| bad thing. They were quite necessary, especially early on in the
| pandemic when there was so much uncertainty. Perhaps they're
| still necessary. But it seems to me that if you allow people not
| to work and still have money, many people simply won't work.
| Mystery solved.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| People who are furloughed are still employed. They are not
| contributing to these statistics.
| lugged wrote:
| Pretty much.
|
| I was sceptical of that they did in Aus but it sort of worked.
|
| Instead of just giving everyone unemployment they,
|
| Doubled unemployment for those that needed it
|
| Created a new system that injected money into businesses, but
| only if they kept you employed, i.e. subsidized wages.
|
| This let things snap back really quickly. Though there is still
| a lot of damage and the new lock down in Sydney is hurting
| without the same measures again.
|
| The thing were finding is those that left jobs are just hard to
| get back into jobs, it takes time to hire negotiate and train
| people
| thechao wrote:
| If labor is a market, laborers are at a fundamental
| disadvantage compared to employers when it comes to clearance:
| the employer has an asymmetric advantage in its ability to
| _wait_ to hire someone; laborers are a lot less capable.
|
| I don't know that unemployment is a good solution, but I think
| it speaks volumes that people might be using it to balance the
| standard inequity.
| bottled_poe wrote:
| Can you explain this further? It sounds like you may be
| assuming employers are able to simply not hire and bear the
| opportunity cost. How are you weighing that up against
| employee urgency?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Not GP, but forgoing opportunity does not carry the same
| urgency as forgoing food, utilities, and housing.
|
| Both are important. One is urgent.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Employers need employees, and employees need employers. If
| you have orders to fill, and noone to do the work, you're
| just as fscked, as if you have bills to pay, and no money to
| do it. Employers get an added benefit of being able to wait
| it out a bit, since they generally have more money than
| workers, and workers have unemployment benefits, which means
| that they can wait it out (until the benefits stop).
|
| The problems will be more apparent when the benefits stop,
| poorer employers will close down in the meantime, and when
| people have to go back to work, there will be fewer
| workplaces for them available, bringing the wages down.
| achenatx wrote:
| assuming the demand is still there, other employers will
| take up the slack and potentially be in a position to hire
| the employees.
| agumonkey wrote:
| that's only partially true, as a company you have
| infinitely more leverage in society than an individual
|
| you weigh more, you're worth more, it doesn't last forever
| but the difference is staggering
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| You also have product to sell/deliver, and no
| unemployment benefits.
|
| Many, many businesses have failed during the current
| plague situation... maybe not amazon and walmart, but a
| lot of small and middle sized businesses.
| fundad wrote:
| The business owner can close up and file for unemployment
| if that pays more than they'd make paying prevailing
| wages.
| agumonkey wrote:
| yes but depending on the state / size of your company,
| you can reallocate people in emergency mode, work more
| yourself (if you're the boss), ask for loans at the bank,
| you can absorb a lot more than a single individual can
| bjornsing wrote:
| > Employers need employees, and employees need employers.
| If you have orders to fill, and noone to do the work,
| you're just as fscked, as if you have bills to pay, and no
| money to do it.
|
| Na, not really. An employer can just raise their prices
| until incoming orders and delivery capacity align. That's a
| sustainable situation for the employer. There may be some
| opportunity cost, but they're doing okay.
|
| An employee on the dole on the other hand is not in a
| sustainable situation. They have to find a job before they
| run out of benefits and savings, or the consequences will
| be dire...
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| https://twitter.com/DevitaDavison/status/1391415254710632
| 448
|
| Yeah, good luck raising prices prices.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| Only in monopolistic situations or situations causing
| everyone to raise prices at the same time would the
| possibility of "just raise their prices" be workable.
|
| If the price gets too high people will seek alternate
| suppliers or do without.
|
| Example: We pay a private company to haul trash to the
| dump. There's many such companies, so if my company
| raises it's prices, I'll switch to another. We had one
| company raise its prices recently and everyone switched
| to another. I'm not sure this company is still around.
|
| Example: Comcast kept raising my cable TV bill. I
| eventually just ditched it and went Internet only.
| $200/month for TV isn't worth it.
| bjornsing wrote:
| > If the price gets too high people will seek alternate
| suppliers or do without.
|
| That's exactly the desired effect. I didn't say raise
| prices to make more money. I said raise prices until
| incoming orders and delivery capacity align. The purpose
| is to get less orders.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > An employer can just raise their prices until incoming
| orders and delivery capacity align. That's a sustainable
| situation for the employer.
|
| In practice, this will reduce incoming orders so much
| that the total profits from them won't be enough to cover
| the company's fixed costs anymore.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| This is a common refrain, but I doubt many who say have
| actually actual experience as an employer. In many businesses
| the inability to staff leads to existential threat to the
| entire business.
|
| If you're a restaurant and can't seat customers or a SaaS
| startup and can't keep your service uptime, you'll go out of
| business very quickly. That represents millions in enterprise
| value. In contrast an employer who gets fired, but is
| otherwise competent, might be looking at a few weeks of
| unemployment and a couple thousand in lost income.
| csa wrote:
| I have seen many employers who look for unicorns rather
| than using optimal stopping
| (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_stopping) for
| positions that are more flywheel multiplier positions
| rather than existential positions.
|
| In the long term, it rarely leads to the death of their
| business, but it substantially lowers the quality of life
| of most/all of those working in the business.
| civilized wrote:
| If the business is run sensibly and isn't hemorrhaging a
| large percentage of its workers, not hiring just means
| delayed growth, not an existential threat.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Governmental meddling since last March has caused a lot
| of businesses to hemorrhage a large percentage of their
| workers even though they were run sensibly.
| neilwilson wrote:
| A business has no right to exist.
|
| If you want staff, pay the rate or close.
|
| Or automate/improve your processes.
|
| We need businesses in an economy, not any particular
| business.
| xwdv wrote:
| Don't know about UK but in the US former employees are sitting at
| home collecting juiced up unemployment benefits thanks to COVID
| and not paying rents.
|
| But the free ride is finally coming to an end and the evictions
| are starting soon. These people will be living on the street for
| the foreseeable future. Many companies do not hire homeless.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| This massive destabilization/bubble you are describing is not a
| good thing by the way.
| bumby wrote:
| I know the commenter you're referring to may come across as
| venting but I'll try to be generous to their take:
|
| In my laymans understanding of game theory, one of the things
| that becomes apparent is that the best outcomes come from
| cooperation but only when freeloading can be kept below some
| threshold. Once freeloading reaches some tipping point, the
| system destabilizes and collapses.
| xwdv wrote:
| Don't care, I'm sick and tired of kicking this can down the
| road. Let the bodies pile up in the streets, in the end
| they'll beg us to save them.
| fundad wrote:
| That also means housed workers will be in more demand,
| command higher wages and increase cost of living for
| everyone. So I agree it's good for worker power if that's
| the point you're trying to make.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| They won't beg. They'll vote.
| jessaustin wrote:
| You must be pretty sure you're in the "us" camp and not the
| "them" camp... one hopes it works out for you.
| shams93 wrote:
| It's not a worker shortage it's an affordable housing crisis
| nobody can afford to live where the jobs are.
| Havoc wrote:
| I find it more interesting how the BBC is putting the absolute
| minimum required mention of brexit in the article.
|
| Meanwhile if you actually look at the job seeker
| numbers...strongly suggests that it's a major if not primary
| contributor. Non-EU is back to pre-pandemic levels even.
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/17/number-
| of-e...
| plibither8 wrote:
| It's funny how this post is juxtapositioned on the frontpage with
| the article[1] stating that 1 in every 153 American workers is an
| Amazon employee.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28009868
| bserge wrote:
| I literally can't find a job in any kind of engineering. Applied
| for dozens of cleaning and production positions and couldn't get
| a job.
|
| You know what the media has become? A cesspool of bullshit
| unworthy of any trust. No wonder so many people mistrust actual
| experts, it's hard to even tell who they are.
| ianai wrote:
| I think the shortage is in positions companies don't want to
| pay much. At least anecdotally, I've seen and heard a lot about
| restaurants having cook shortages. This doesn't negate your
| point. I'd say it just bolsters your point.
| randomdata wrote:
| Someone who isn't willing to pay enough does not qualify as
| demand, thus is not considered a participant in the market,
| and therefore would not impact a shortage situation. A
| shortage occurs when an external mechanism prevents price
| from rising. Choosing to not pay more is internal.
| benou wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear that but keep in mind the job market is very
| different from one location to another and from one sector to
| another.
|
| The BBC is talking about truck drivers in the UK and it is
| hardly a surprise: UK used to rely heavily on eastern Europe
| workers in that area, and they vote (Brexit) to prevent exactly
| that. They got what they asked for.
|
| If anything, we can complain that the BBC article title is too
| general and not precise enough, but your particular experience
| does not necessarily match the experience elsewhere
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, I get it, I just keep reading these "there are no
| workers" articles and scratching my head. Ironically, I work
| in delivery now heh
| bko wrote:
| In a market economy there is no such thing as a "shortage" of
| workers. You just don't want to meet the market price of the
| workers with that skill set. You could imagine a widget
| factory whose economics rely on paying employees < X. And if
| the market rate for those workers is > X, it doesn't mean
| there's a "shortage" of workers, but the workers demand a
| wage that makes your work unprofitable.
|
| The fact is a lot of people are paid not to work through
| generous covid-related safety net measures. That are supply
| of workers has been restricted through immigration policies.
| But it's not a shortage.
| bumby wrote:
| > _In a market economy there is no such thing as a
| "shortage" of workers._
|
| Certainly there can be a lag effect though. If there is a
| shortage of doctors that won't be remedied overnight by
| simply increasing incentives because of the amount of time
| to gain the necessary skills, licensing, etc.
|
| Unless you are willing to lower quality substantially,
| there absolutely can be worker shortages in a real
| pragmatic sense
| x0x0 wrote:
| Except the discussion here is truck drivers (lag: 60
| days) and restaurant workers (lag: ~ 0 days).
| bumby wrote:
| The comment I replied to didn't mention truck drivers.
| They brought up a hypothetical widget factory as an
| analogy for the economy at large
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > In a market economy there is no such thing as a
| "shortage" of workers
|
| That's...not true. If you make a bunch of Econ 101-level
| simplifying assumptions, like that supply and demand curves
| are continuous, of infinite range, and monotonically
| increasing and decreasing, respectively, with price, it is
| a natural conclusion, but those "assume a cow is a
| perfectly thermoconducting sphere" kind of assumptions
| don't hold in real market economies.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| Using this logic, in a market economy there can never be a
| shortage of anything.
| gruez wrote:
| Yep, no housing shortage, just millennials who "don't
| want to meet the market price"!
|
| /s
| jen20 wrote:
| > In a market economy there is no such thing as a
| "shortage" of workers
|
| You need a license to drive a truck in the UK (the actual
| subject of the article). It takes a minimum of two months
| acquire [1]. Even paying a thousand dollars an hour does
| not magic more qualified candidates into existence at short
| notice as you appear to propose. The reason for the
| shortage is the trivially foreseeable effects of idiotic
| hard-line immigration policies, not market economics or
| "generous" safety nets.
|
| [1]: https://www.get-licensed.co.uk/licence/hgv
| rapind wrote:
| I doubt it. If the pay was high enough and the term was
| long enough, you'd see interest from retired licensed
| drivers and licensed driver's who'd changed jobs. Then
| you have 2 months to train up and license new drivers.
| op00to wrote:
| Plus you can outbid others who are contracting owned and
| operator drivers.
| nradov wrote:
| There are people with commercial driving licenses who
| aren't currently working as truck drivers. They could be
| recruited if employers raised wages.
|
| And a regular truck driver can be trained in a few
| months. It's not rocket science.
| rjsw wrote:
| > And a regular truck driver can be trained in a few
| months. It's not rocket science.
|
| They still need to pass the tests, there is a backlog of
| people waiting to take them.
| RobertKerans wrote:
| > And a regular truck driver can be trained in a few
| months. It's not rocket science.
|
| I get why you've said this, but I'm not sure this kind of
| flippant remark is helpful -- what _exactly_ isn 't
| rocket science? Is it the actual act of training a truck
| driver? Is it the act of writing down the things needed
| to get more truck drivers?
|
| Actual process is non-trivial, expensive ( _you need to
| persuade people to leave their families_ ), time
| consuming and involves a chain of other non-trivial time-
| consuming tasks that currently doesn't really exist (or
| is at least regionally bottlenecked).
|
| Sure the market will probably _eventually_ sort it out,
| but that seems neither a quick nor an efficient way of
| doing things in this case, where this was widely
| predicted years previous + is now critically required
| dazc wrote:
| There are currently many more licensed UK drivers not
| working in the industry than there are vacancies.
|
| Maybe ask why so many people have chosen to do other
| things such as amazon delivery or other such jobs that
| pay better, have better conditions and don't require
| regular medicals and certification, etc paid from one's
| own pocket?
| aix1 wrote:
| > There are currently many more licensed UK drivers not
| working in the industry than there are vacancies.
|
| Do you have data to back this up (specifically for HGV-
| licensed drivers, which is what the post you replied to
| was talking about)?
|
| I briefly looked for stats around valid HGV licences out
| there, but couldn't find any recent figures.
| kd0amg wrote:
| Raising prices doesn't only move toward equilibrium by
| increasing the quantity supplied -- it also decreases the
| quantity demanded.
| jansommer wrote:
| If the pay is good, demand is high and all you need is to
| go on a two month course, I'd bet a lot of unemployed
| people would be eager to do that. The "shortage" is
| indeed because of Brexit, but paying a thousand dollars
| an hour will most certainly magically summon workers en
| mass in a few months.
| dd36 wrote:
| Unless people see through it as a short term gimmick in
| an unstable industry.
| varjag wrote:
| Given the example of last two years, what are the chances
| people see through anything.
| bombcar wrote:
| There can be practical shortages - there can just literally
| not be enough people in the area to do the jobs. Saying
| "it's not a shortage because you could buy the Yankees and
| pay the players $millions to assemble widgets" isn't very
| informative.
| ipaddr wrote:
| It is.. it speaks to wages not raising enough to meet the
| demand. You wouldn't need the Yankees a lot of people
| would do it for a million, half a million, 100,000
| pounds.
|
| There always seems to be a shortage of people willing to
| work for little never a shortage of people wanting the
| CEO's jobs
| username90 wrote:
| There is definitely a shortage of decent CEO's, which is
| why companies are forced to hire and try to work with the
| charlatans they have today. That is also why the salaries
| are increasing, they try to get one of the few good ones.
| ipaddr wrote:
| There is a huge supply of people who want to be CEOS so
| much in fact most places will not hire you unless you
| have been a CEO before or have risen through external
| ranks.
|
| If you take what unemployment defines are qualification..
| many able body people could perform those tasks if all
| CEOs decided to move to other careers.
|
| Salaries increase because qualifications increase
| creating scarcity which benefit the people who create
| scarcity. If the hiring guidelines say only CEOs can be
| CEO prices goes up for CEOs, VPs and anyone in charge of
| making the rules.
| treis wrote:
| >It is.. it speaks to wages not raising enough to meet
| the demand.
|
| That doesn't really cover the current situation. In the
| US 7 million or so fewer people are employed than pre-
| covid. Wages haven't gone down so they can't explain the
| change.
|
| Something else has changed for these 7 million people.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > In a market economy there is no such thing as a
| "shortage" of workers
|
| You can't meet the demand by producing more workers per
| hour in some plant though
|
| If you need X doctors and only have X/2, no matter how much
| you pay them, they won't be enough.
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| Sure you can, skills based immigration. Poach from other
| countries.
|
| In the 1970s the USA had a crippling shortage of nurses
| and doctors which was filled by relaxing skills based
| immigration laws and importing trained medical talent
| from the Phillipines en masse.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| You could say the same thing about unemployment. There is
| no such thing as an unemployment problem in an economy,
| just workers who want too much and think too highly of
| their skills.
| nradov wrote:
| That's one of the problems with minimum wage laws: they
| prevent the labor market from clearing. Some people want
| to work but due to lack of skills their labor is worth
| less than the minimum and thus no employer will hire
| them.
|
| I understand that people can't live on less than the
| minimum wage. But the solution to that is a proper social
| safety net, not imposing arbitrary minimum wage limits.
| bottled_poe wrote:
| Ugh, gross. That's just slavery with extra steps.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| The problem with this idea is that, beneath some wage
| floor, workers lose money by working, and would be better
| off growing food somewhere. The minimum wage is often
| _below_ this floor, actually - people working minimum
| wage are often overall paying to work.
| nradov wrote:
| Growing food where? Someone owns all the productive
| farmland and they aren't giving it away. But people who
| are willing to work hard and get dirty can certainly find
| jobs in agriculture.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Maybe growing food is a bad example, especially since you
| may be homeless, though if you do own a house, you can do
| subsistence farming in almlst any soil, raise a few
| chicken etc.
|
| A better example could be that rather than working below
| minimum age in NYC you would be better off moving to a
| rural area and working there.
| bumby wrote:
| > _But the solution to that is a proper social safety
| net_
|
| Playing devils advocate with your logic, how is this
| different from preventing the market from "clearing" non-
| viable businesses? I.e., don't many safety net programs
| essentially subsidize business profits by allowing
| employers to lower wages?
| nradov wrote:
| It's different because allowing people to work for low
| wages gives them a chance to improve their skills and
| move up to higher wage jobs rather than perpetually
| living off welfare.
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| Do you understand that most peoppe on welfare and/or
| section 8 housing also are required to work shitty jobs
| in order to receive those "handouts"?
|
| Very few people leave poverty in the usa because of many
| factors that have nothing to do with welfare.
| bumby wrote:
| Or it traps them in a cycle of poverty where there's
| never enough time or money to make the skills necessary
| to advance. When I worked as a dishwasher or landscaper,
| I wasn't building valuable skills to progress my career.
| Maybe your point holds for some careers, but I'm doubtful
| it's relevant to most low-wage (especially non-skilled)
| labor. I think the point is also diluted when considering
| there's almost always more people at the lower end of
| these jobs than the higher, meaning everybody can't
| always be advancing. There will always be more
| dishwashers than restauranteurs (ignoring automation)
| nradov wrote:
| For some people the skills they need to develop first are
| really basic, like showing up on time and sober, and
| following basic instructions. We're talking about the
| lowest tier of the workforce here where the concept of a
| "career" is kind of alien. Many of them have never been
| formally employed before and need an opportunity to learn
| really simple things that most of us take for granted. I
| think most HN users are disconnected from that reality.
| nicoffeine wrote:
| > like showing up on time and sober, and following basic
| instructions
|
| Poor people are not stupid, or unambitious, and have the
| same addiction rates as the rich. Of course, rich addicts
| go to rehab, and poor addicts are imprisoned.
|
| When they try to work their way up at places like
| Walmart, and get fucked over again and again even when
| they are taking time off to serve in the military[1],
| they recognize that the system is rigged and there is no
| point in pretending otherwise.
|
| There is not a single state where working full time at
| one minimum wage job is enough to pay for an apartment.
| [2] That's why more than 5 million people work more than
| one job. They are trying to beat the system. They want an
| education and a career. But our society does not provide
| a realistic path for them to achieve any of those goals.
|
| [1] https://www.militarytimes.com/pay-
| benefits/2021/01/05/walmar...
|
| [2] http://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/oor/2012-OOR.pdf
| bumby wrote:
| This comes across as one of those talking points where an
| employer exploits a worker under the guise they are
| almost doing them a favor. (See: NCAA athletes or unpaid
| interns).
|
| I think this take is a caricature of low wage employees.
| It's kinda similar to the talk I occasionally hear about
| the enlisted ranks in the military. "That's just for
| losers and dropouts" or to that effect.
|
| My experience is that those low wage jobs can just as
| easily be filled with every segment of the spectrum from
| incredibly smart and competent to those who struggle with
| basic life tasks. The commonality seems to be they were
| all disadvantaged in some way. Maybe it was a strained
| family life or disability or sick relative but the
| necessity of them taking the job couldn't be boiled down
| to something as simple as they couldn't get their shit
| together
| ipaddr wrote:
| Minimum wage limits is one of the best tools we have to
| act as a safety net. What would you replace it with 1
| dollar an hour workers with a bigger food stamp budget?
|
| If you can't afford to pay someone the minimum prices you
| can't afford your business. A minimum wage creates a
| floor. Allowing low wages means pushing the burden to
| everyone else not that business.. raise your prices or
| move to a lower cost country.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Our local pizza places have raised prices dramatically in
| the last 6 months (16" pizza went from ~$10 to ~$15).
|
| Based on observation during the far fewer times I visit
| them, they appear _dramatically_ less busy than they used
| to be. It's not clear that "just raise your prices and
| pay workers more" is going to work out for them.
| veltas wrote:
| What you actually need to do is keep your prices the same
| while everyone else raises their prices and collect all
| their business, then you can afford to pay your workers
| more. But the end effect is the same, less work for
| people.
| RobertKerans wrote:
| Is this a joke comment? I'm starting to lose the ability
| to see sarcasm I think. Why would you have expected them
| to have been busy in the last six months?
| bumby wrote:
| Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment, but why does the
| expectation of growth in a pizza parlor come across as
| absurd? Dominoes had 13-14% Q1 same store sales growth
| over 2020 numbers.
|
| https://ir.dominos.com/news-releases/news-release-
| details/do...
| RobertKerans wrote:
| sorry, it just seemed a bizarre comment: you said it was
| less busy when you visited it, at a point in time when
| _everywhere_ was less busy, nothing to do with overall
| sales
|
| Edit: sorry not OP
| bumby wrote:
| I'm not the original poster, but I would expect sales to
| correlate with "busy-ness". To your point though, I guess
| if everyone was doing takeout, sales could still go up
| and the place could be empty. Where I'm located though,
| it seems like businesses have been open for dine in for
| months and people are filling the dining rooms
| RobertKerans wrote:
| Yeah, fair as does depend on country (and region)
| sokoloff wrote:
| They were busier (for pickup) this winter than this
| summer. I checked my own order history at our previously
| favorite pizza place. We ordered about 5x/month from Nov
| '20-Mar '21 when large cheeses were $9+tax and there was
| often a line for pickup. We now order around 1x/month (at
| $13+tax) and walk directly to the counter.
|
| If anything, CV19 is much less a safety concern now than
| before.
| RobertKerans wrote:
| sorry, it just seemed a bizarre thing to comment on:
| _yes_ the sales may have been higher, and anecdotally you
| may have seen longer pickup lines ( _at what times?_ ),
| but you gotta understand why it reads as a joke, because
| regardless of above, in-person business is almost
| universally likely to have been lower, restricted to
| pickups clustered at specific times
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| As a VP does that $4 difference really mean anything to
| you?
| sokoloff wrote:
| We've switched many of our family's Friday night pizza
| nights to "make pizza at home". Can I afford $4 more? Of
| course. Do I see the same level of value in a ~50% more
| expensive pizza? Of course not.
| f0xytr0xy wrote:
| The struggle is real.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Covid has shifted demand. Covid in some areas means
| limited seating and increased prep costs. Pizza is more
| popular in the winter. 10 to 15 sounds like a Covid
| related increase. This is the summer of the gauge where
| everyone is making back the profits they lost.
|
| If think it's because minimum wage workers are making
| $50.00 more a week then this would only apply if the shop
| was selling less than 10 pizzas a day and had about 10
| employees which sounds overstaffed and in an area with no
| demand.
|
| A pizza shop with 1 - 3 employees working making 80
| pizzas a day would only need to raise prices by pennies.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Minimum wage limits is one of the best tools we have to
| act as a safety net
|
| Minimum wage isn't a safety net at all. Minimum wage is a
| mitigation of the problem of low bargaining power of
| unskilled labor; it basically raises but narrows the
| tightrope above the safety net.
|
| > If you can't afford to pay someone the minimum prices
| you can't afford your business. A minimum wage creates a
| floor.
|
| Yes, it creates a floor for the value of labor you must
| be able to provide before you can be sustainably
| employed. (It also, simultaneously, sets a floor for what
| businesses will offer for labor even in conditions of
| labor oversupply; set at the right level, this makes it a
| net win even given the safety net problems it can
| exacerbate, but it is not the same as and does not remove
| the need for a safety net.)
|
| > Allowing low wages means pushing the burden to everyone
| else not that business.
|
| Only for the employees in fields affected by labor
| oversupply that would be employed in any case, and which
| are employed at lower wages.
|
| Conversely, it also means lifting some of the burden
| _off_ everyone else for the people who would _not_ be
| employed with a minimum wage but who are employed without
| one.
|
| > raise your prices or move to a lower cost country.
|
| Unless you take the workers with you, "move to a lower
| cost country" means more people unemployed that are fully
| reliant on social support in the country that squeezed
| you out. Which is why minimum wage isn't a safety net.
| chalst wrote:
| The relationship between minimum wage and employment is
| profoundly complex and the empirical data is inconsistent
| with the simple supply and demand model many believe in.
| There are many documented cases of increases in minimum
| wage resulting in reduced unemployment.
| honkdaddy wrote:
| What would you call it if we had 5 positions at the widget
| factory, but only 4 prospective employees looking for work?
| Wouldn't that constitute a worker shortage, as no matter
| how high I make my wages as a widget foreman, there are
| still less workers than there are open positions?
|
| Or is that not something that could really happen outside
| of a textbook problem?
| Retric wrote:
| Offer people enough money and they will move. Offer even
| more and they will train specifically to do the job.
|
| Jobs that require lots of training can have short term
| global shortages of skilled workers. But, that quickly
| self corrects as long as salaries increase.
| sundaeofshock wrote:
| That does not necessarily follow. It's very difficult to
| put food on the table while going to school in hopes of
| landing a job in a new field.
|
| Pay living wages and provide paid, on-the-job training.
| That will get prospective employees through the door.
| Retric wrote:
| It does at a high enough salary. Some people are unable
| to pay for their own training but you don't need everyone
| you simply need enough people. Start offering Doctor
| money and people will jump through insane hoops, but it
| scales down so even 20$ an hour will motivate some people
| to do a specialized training course on their own dime.
| x0x0 wrote:
| If it's that important to employers, they'll pay them
| during the training period.
|
| This used to be standard practice. It's a modern
| development (80s on) that businesses demanded workers
| come pre trained.
| cogman10 wrote:
| What are your requirements for the widget employees? Are
| you willing to train or educate? How effective has your
| advertisement for the job/wage been?
|
| On a microlevel, a worker shortage is a reflection of
| lack of wage and too strict requirements. You can't find
| a worker because your potential workers are happily doing
| a different jobs. You've not incentivized them enough to
| come work for you. You might say "But we are offering
| $15/hour!" and that's fine, but that's what a lot of
| other companies are now offering. You make balk at the
| idea of going up further as being "too much" but that
| just underscores the problem.
|
| Now if it truly is a labor shortage, SOMEONE is going to
| be left with not enough workers. That'll always be the
| person that wants "15 years of experience! We pay
| $30k/year!".
|
| Just do the extreme. Do you think you'd struggle to find
| someone if the offering was "$200k/year!"? Hell no, you'd
| have people moving to live in your widget city for that
| job.
| djbebs wrote:
| Thats not something that happens in real life, because
| you will run out of resources to pay the prospective
| workers with before the total supply of prospective
| workers is exhausted.
|
| Realistically, you can even hire people to manufacture
| additional workers, if you have the financial and time
| resources required.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| pay more money or any other incentive that would cause
| more people to be interested in the job. Why do you think
| FAANG has hundreds of applications for each job while
| startups struggle to hire?
| ericd wrote:
| Paying more is relatively easy to do when your company
| makes a few million per employee. The vast majority of
| companies aren't blessed with pseudo-monopolies that
| allow them to do that.
| rapind wrote:
| Not really. You'd have to add some very contrived
| constraints, like:
|
| 1) There's no one currently employed elsewhere that can
| make widgets who you could poach for enough money.
|
| 2) Widget making is so specialized and / or time is so
| short that you can't train up another worker to fill the
| role.
|
| If #1 and #2 aren't possible because your margin can't
| cover it, then you have a failed business, not a labour
| shortage.
|
| So basically "labour shortage" in a market economy is a
| myth, usually circulated to suppress wages. Anyone who
| says "labour shortage" really means "not enough cheap
| labour".
| randomdata wrote:
| The other employees will catch wind of your million
| dollar per hour offers thrown out in an desperate attempt
| to find someone, demand that you pay them that much as
| well, and you'll be bankrupt by Friday. At that point you
| will have no open positions and everything is corrected
| for. Or, to avoid bankruptcy, you won't increase your
| offer and therefore will be removed from the market as a
| buyer for that position.
|
| A shortage occurs when an external force prevents price
| from rising. Medical doctors in some jurisdictions, for
| example, are often legally prevented from accepting
| higher offers to prioritize patients. Instead their
| service fees are fixed and they have to accept patients
| on system that is usually a mix of first come, first
| serve and needs-based priority. Therefore a doctor
| shortage, in said jurisdictions, is quite possible. But
| you generally won't find such restrictions in the general
| labour pool.
| bulletsvshumans wrote:
| Advertise a higher than expected wage, and you will see
| more people coming out of the woodwork.
| pydry wrote:
| The BBC has for a long long time been more sensitive to the
| concerns of employers and investors rather than employees or
| the unemployed.
|
| This has mostly been as a result of aping the trends followed
| by the rest of the private media in the UK since the 1970s.
|
| They already had a business section and even rolled out a new
| capital section a few years ago. No word yet on when theyll
| get a section dedicated to worker news.
| loopz wrote:
| Why wouldn't they? Workers are generally _not allowed_ to
| talk about specifics of work to media.
| switch007 wrote:
| I think that's a really poor excuse. People can discuss
| anonymously and about recent prior jobs (being slightly
| less bound by contractual gagging, or under less threat
| of being sued)
|
| Journalists can apply for jobs and do an expose too.
| loopz wrote:
| The sources will be criticized for being anonymous or
| ousted. Some journalists cover workplace too. However,
| corporate tactics optimize away most of what is possible
| in that regard.
|
| All for a public who can't give a damn (gimme the
| cheapest).
| dazc wrote:
| The shortage of lorry drivers in the USA is caused by Brexit
| too then?
|
| I think you have fallen victim to journalism?
| DethNinja wrote:
| Mechanical Engineering is a very saturated field and it is very
| hard to open your own company. If you want to become self
| employed in that field then you need good connections more than
| talent. I would recommend switching to software engineering.
| Not that software engineering is much better but at least self
| employment will be a bit easier.
| lightning19 wrote:
| Agreed, I'm a mech engineer by education. Saw the writing on
| the wall half way through my degree and learnt how to code in
| my spare time. I'm an SWE now, it has literally changed the
| course of my life, had I stuck with engineering my household
| would not have an income worthy enough to pay for basic needs
| + internet. Some of my friends from university are still
| unemployed, it's so bad that I know someone with a MSc in
| Engineering working in a mall as a salesman.
| yhoneycomb wrote:
| The worst is when they say "experts say" and then just say
| whatever their own opinion was.
|
| Sure, you can find "experts" to say anything. I'm more
| interested in who exactly you're talking about, or what data
| you're referring to. "Experts say" is just such a lazy and
| often misleading statement.
|
| I've seen way too more articles that claimed "experts said"
| something which was NOT at all the consensus opinion.
| release-object wrote:
| Really sorry to hear that.
|
| My personal experience, of hiring software engineers in London,
| aligns with this article. We have seen a drop in supply this
| year.
|
| If you are looking in the South of England I would recommend
| finding a specialist tech recruitment agency.
| dbetteridge wrote:
| Supply in London is fine, companies just need to raise their
| salaries tbh.
|
| I personally moved companies during covid and got a more
| flexible role and a 90% increase.
|
| Recruiters are going nuts on LinkedIn atm for anyone with
| skills and the salaries are rising from there.
| rossmohax wrote:
| With IR35 reform in full swing, I'd expect quality supply to
| incease as contractors start to seek full time positions.
| mattlondon wrote:
| As a counter point in London, I've found supply to be pretty
| good.
|
| Multiple actually good and talented candidates to basically
| pick the best from, and not just dregs with "this person will
| do I guess - 50% is better than nothing" type sentiment.
| mercy_dude wrote:
| > You know what the media has become? A cesspool of bullshit
| unworthy of any trust.
|
| I wouldn't label all media outlets under the same but
| mainstream media (think of what we grew up watching - CNN, NYT,
| BBC etc) is increasingly becoming what you described, opinion
| driven activism fueled journalism rather than reporting facts.
| It's a sad state of affairs but across the world it is the same
| norm, journalists have turned into crowd pleasing (many have
| their own tweeter world where they are not shy to be an
| ideologue) click rate seeking media professional rather. My
| sense is that this type of journalism and their wide coverage
| under libel protection for example in US only polarizes further
| the people and as you mentioned make people mistrust _all_
| experts. Which is not a good place to be for a society.
|
| Good news is more and more independent journalism (ones not
| behind under mainstream umbrella or with brands of their own)
| are doing works in real journalism. People such as Glenn
| Greenwald are using platforms such as substack which is far
| better imo than any news you read these days to cover and
| report a nuanced topic.
| bserge wrote:
| Sorry, I'm pretty emotional these days on account of not
| getting any help from a healthcare system I'm paying into. My
| medication _is right there on the shelves_ , alas there are
| no doctors available to prescribe it. Even though I am
| literally forced to pay for it.
|
| Would anyone be interested in me documenting this, btw? It
| just seems like there's _a whole lot_ of people that are
| ignored or shafted by universal healthcare and yet everyone
| seems to be singing praises about it.
| stevewodil wrote:
| In having a similarly hard time finding something. It seems
| like every job I apply to has 50-100 other candidates that also
| applied. I'm not sure how many of them are actually qualified,
| but based on how many times I've been passed up, some of them
| clearly are. This is also compounded by the fact that a lot of
| the jobs are remote now, so anyone across the country can
| apply.
|
| My friend who is a recruiter says it's a talent driven market
| right now. So, I'm not sure what to make of any of it. It
| certainly depends on the specific type of work you're looking
| for.
| WJW wrote:
| > any kind of engineering
|
| > Applied for dozens of cleaning (...) positions
|
| Is this a common thing to do when applying for engineering
| jobs? What kind of qualifications do you even get where you
|
| 1. Are not specialized in a specific type of engineering
| (chemical, electrical, software, etc)? All these fields needs
| massive amounts of technical knowledge and I'm pretty sure I
| shouldn't be hired as a chemical engineer even though I know a
| lot about electronics design and software.
|
| 2. Want to get in as a cleaner rather than (say) a junior
| engineer? How much extra on-the-job experience that would be
| relevant to engineering do you hope to get from a position as a
| cleaner?
| atrettel wrote:
| I'm a mechanical engineer and I believe I can answer your
| first question. My take is that many engineering employers
| value the ability of entry-level employees to learn new
| things rather than what they know (their expertise). They
| want blank slates many times, to be honest, to be molded into
| the kind of employee that they need at the moment. As long as
| you have the most basic relevant engineering knowledge and a
| degree you are good enough. For example, my first engineering
| job was actually in chemical engineering largely (chemical
| kinetics), and I got it despite knowing very little about
| chemical engineering.
|
| This is both good and bad for the employees in my view. It is
| good in the sense that you could (potentially) change subject
| matter easily, but it is bad in the sense that you are very
| much replaceable. That said, many employers do want and need
| specialized knowledge and experience even for entry-level
| engineering positions (not just for experienced positions),
| and any entry-level candidates with that specialized
| knowledge and experience will do better in the hiring process
| (as far as I know!).
|
| That said, my recent experience in the job market actually
| matches bserge's experience. There are far too few open
| positions in my observations, and I too had to apply to way
| too many jobs, and it took far too long to hear back [1].
| That is of course just another anecdote but it has been my
| experience as an engineer. I'm gonna be fine and will start a
| new position soon, but I think the narrative that there is an
| employee shortage only applies to low wage and unskilled
| workers and not to engineering professionals.
|
| [1] I recently started collecting data on this from my own
| job applications. For example, the median number of days to a
| final decision for me was 55 days. The mean was 112 days.
| This appears to follow an exponential distribution. I only
| started looking into this data recently when I questioned why
| it took 4 months for an employer to request an interview with
| me.
| cwbrandsma wrote:
| I've been hiring a lot lately (software development), two
| senior level positions (5 years or more experience) and one
| mid, three hires so far, two more roles to fill. These are
| all remote positions in a full remote team. Just be living
| the continental USA.
|
| For the senior level positions we had maybe 10 applicants.
| Only two met the requirements (5 years experience with
| Asp.Net and C#, and be able to legally work in the USA). We
| hired both of them. Both had multiple offers within a week
| or two.
|
| For the mid level position (2-3 years, had done web
| development, we prefer .Net but will take Java, Rube, Node,
| etc) we had 150 applicants. 140 of them were fresh grad
| school grad with no work experience, all needed visa help.
| OK, threw those out, now down to 10, found 1 of those with
| decent web development. Hired.
|
| Really, I don't think I'm being crazy with the
| requirements, but we just are not seeing applicants.
| atrettel wrote:
| Thank you for giving an employer's perspective here. I
| can see how finding qualified applicants can be
| difficult, and I hope you find qualified people for your
| other open positions. Nonetheless, I think the hiring
| process you describe could be improved. As I had stated
| in my previous comment, it might be helpful to consider
| whether an applicant _can_ do the work rather than just
| whether they _have_ done the work before. I admit that is
| difficult to gauge, but that perspective may help you see
| more potential applicants.
| Off wrote:
| >For the mid level position (2-3 years, had done web
| development, we prefer .Net but will take Java, Rube,
| Node, etc) we had 150 applicants. 140 of them were fresh
| grad school grad with no work experience, all needed visa
| help. OK, threw those out, now down to 10, found 1 of
| those with decent web development. Hired.
|
| Mind sharing the reasons why you refuse applicants who
| need visa help? I live a in third world country (It's
| been the worst, especially with Covid) and I'm 30 now and
| I'm planning to grind interviews to land a a job in tech
| in the US, so i was curious why is it so hard to get a
| work visa.
|
| Thanks!
| bserge wrote:
| I'm an electronics engineer by education. Sadly I've not
| worked in the domain (lol), but I have years of experience in
| electrical design and maintenance, digital marketing and
| sales, electronics repairs and maintenance, and construction.
|
| But I won't complain about cleaning floors, working in a
| warehouse or as a delivery driver. It's a last resort type of
| job, but work is work.
|
| My CV must be confusing as hell tbh, I just never understood
| why I should stay in one place for more than a few years.
| There's just nothing more to learn. But the real world
| disagrees.
|
| Then again, one apparently needs years of education to set up
| a CCTV system or Wifi network in an office building in the
| real world, and you also have to be a smug asshole about it,
| an art that I have yet to master.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| "Any kind of engineering" is a bit broad. Loation matters a lot
| with available jobs. Take a look at London and a 30 mile radius
| around it(or so). You can't find enough skilled (not talking
| about diplomas here) electricians, PLC/automation controller
| programmers, Security system engineers, Maintenance engineers
| and I could go on with the list.
|
| I would suggest going straight to companies(managers and such)
| with your CV. Most(if not all) recruitment agencies have staff
| that are not exactly qualified to assess skill sets. If it's
| not a 1:1 match on at least 50-75% of the requirements for the
| role they won't put you forward.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| I work at a massive, well-known tech company, nearly 5 year
| tenure, and I apply to jobs on LinkedIn, directly through the
| company website, to government jobs (via USAJOBS), about 5
| per week. I live in a major U.S. city. I'm willing to
| relocate anywhere, or work remote. Full-stack developer. I
| never get contacted back. Am I just not good enough?
|
| I know the discourse is around London, but I think this is an
| issue happening in many places, and seeing the "where are the
| workers?" articles is really troubling for me.
| dehrmann wrote:
| There's something weird about this. You should be getting
| recruiters on Linkedin reaching out.
|
| What's your job title at the well-known tech company? I
| assume it's more like FAANG than a consulting firm? How
| many years of experience do you have? Have you reached out
| to people you've worked with in the past to see if their
| current employer is hiring? Are you in a major tech city or
| a major city with no tech presence?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Hey, try being over 50.
|
| I just gave up, and retired early. Best decision I ever made.
| I'm working for free, with NPOs, and it's been a joy.
|
| The worst part, for me, has been the naked contempt and
| disrespect. I don't expect to be worshipped, but raw insults
| are beyond the pale. It's -literally- like a hazing ritual.
| With all the news about "frat boy culture," I think I see where
| it comes from.
|
| I don't think it's just us older folks. It seems as if the
| entire industry has gone down the bog. My guess is that younger
| folks are getting similar treatment, but are more willing to
| shrug it off, and power through.
| bottled_poe wrote:
| That doesn't sound liveable. How do you pay for rent?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I worked for over 30 years, lived frugally, avoided debt,
| and saved a significant chunk of my salary.
|
| As a result, I reached the point, where I don't need to
| work, if I don't want to.
|
| I want to work. I love what I do. I don't need to make
| money at it. I also like to help people, so I found people
| that want to help people, and can't afford much.
|
| It really is a shame. I have a fairly significant set of
| skills and experience. Pretty much what a startup would
| need, to make a new product a reality. I know how to make
| very high-quality software that _ships_. I did it for my
| entire career. I also do quite well on teams, and have been
| a problem-solver, all my life.
|
| The folks I'm working with now, pinch themselves, every
| day.
| DantesKite wrote:
| Have you thought about building small projects that could
| earn you a little bit of income on the side?
|
| Doesn't necessarily have to be an overwhelming product,
| but just a way of practicing and exploring work.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I prefer doing them for free.
|
| Most of the work I do, is self-education. I love to
| learn, and I have been maintaining my competency in
| _shipping_ work for decades (Which often means that I am
| not right at the "bleeding edge." Shipping is usually a
| couple of steps back from that).
|
| If you check out my SO Story[0], you'll see a whole
| boatload of published modules. They are -each and every
| one- totally "ship-ready." I produce them as if they are
| to be commercial-grade products, with the appearance of a
| major-league brand _-even the experimental projects_.
|
| There are also complete source code bases for a number of
| published (and many, since, deprecated) apps on the Apple
| App Store. I've been shipping apps continuously, since
| 2012. I've provided full source code for all of them.
|
| I don't promote them at all. I don't really care. I have
| no idea if anyone uses them. I have a few stars, and a
| couple of forks, but I've not seen my stuff appear
| anywhere (It's MIT, so I assume I'd be noted in the
| README -HAH!).
|
| Many of these are 1-source-file development utilities,
| with dozens of files of testing code, wrapped around
| them.
|
| I like Quality.
|
| I'm my own best customer. I tend to be pretty skeptical
| of most of the available dependencies, out there, so I
| like to write my own.
|
| The project I'm working on now, is non-trivial. It's the
| kind of thing that normally takes a team of at least five
| engineers, running 24/7 on Red Bull, to do. I do well at
| these kinds of things. It's coming along nicely, and will
| be ready in a few months. I also wrote two of the servers
| I use.
|
| It is not (currently) open-source, but I may, sometimes,
| spin an open-source module out of it. I just did one, a
| couple of weeks ago (LGV_Cleantime).
|
| [0] https://stackoverflow.com/story/chrismarshall
| paganel wrote:
| > The worst part, for me, has been the naked contempt and
| disrespect.
|
| If you don't mind and if it's not sensitive do you mind to
| share some examples? I've just gone past the 40 year
| threshold myself and I think I'm starting to see/notice some
| of the same things you noticed, i.e. less "camaraderie" (for
| lack of a better word) and more "getting on top of the
| other", a feeling I didn't have when I entered this industry
| 15 years ago.
|
| Just yesterday I happened to sit in a coffee shop close to a
| table where an IT lead (or something like that) was
| interviewing (I think it was an interview) a younger
| potential hire (it was a woman, if it counts), and I found
| his tone and remarks and general demeanor quite off-putting,
| I was one step way of telling the guy "why the heck are you
| spewing such bullshit?", but then again I didn't want to ruin
| said young lady's job interview.
| peakaboo wrote:
| I think tech attracts a certain type of person... People
| with high iq but very low scores in compassion and care.
| ipnon wrote:
| All high achievement types are like this, because high
| achievement[a] requires selfishness. Compare the law firm
| partner who works until midnight everyday while his wife
| and children languish at home, with the priest who
| volunteers at the food kitchen and adopts orphans. Both
| add some value to society, arguably, but one of them
| lives in a mansion and one in subsidized housing. Highly
| prosocial behavior is not always incentivized in American
| society[a]. This gives us benefits like iPhones and
| Amazon Prime, and detriments like homelessness and deaths
| of despair.
|
| [a] In a material sense, excluding moral and ethical
| achievements. "Mad Men"-style success, not Buddha-style
| success.
|
| [b] Although Americans on average are extraordinarily
| charitable in terms of dollars donated
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| "High Achievement" is probably in the eye of the
| beholder.
|
| I've written a fairly massive infrastructure system that
| is used throughout the world, and has, undoubtedly, saved
| lives. It will probably continue to do so, in some form
| or another, long after I take my dirt nap. It has formed
| the nucleus of an entire Service structure; not just one
| application.
|
| Did I do it to be considered a "hero"? Did I do it for
| financial reward?
|
| The answer to both is "No." I have stepped away from the
| project, and it has taken on a life of its own.
|
| I developed the system over a period of a couple of
| years, at first, and refined it for a decade, before
| finding a team willing to take the reins. That required
| that I step away from the project, and cede total
| control: technical, IP, legal, etc., to the new team.
|
| Before long, I'll be nothing more than a footnote in the
| historical record.
|
| Thousands of people, around the world, use the system,
| every day. During the COVID impact on the users, it was
| rapidly adapted to serve a very new environment. It has
| always been completely localizable, and has a simple,
| powerful semantic interface that allowed all sorts of
| cool adapters that I only vaguely predicted, in 2008,
| when I started it.
|
| I never charged a dime for it. In fact, it cost me
| thousands to maintain and evangelize it.
|
| I'll probably never get credit for most of the work and
| planning that I did, and I'm fine with that.
|
| I consider that "high achievement." I did a lot of it,
| because I needed to keep my tech chops up, and saw a need
| that could be filled. I enjoyed the process of
| envisioning the project's lifecycle, planning its
| genesis, and implementing it. It allowed me to do stuff
| that my employers would not let me do.
|
| It wasn't because I'm some kind of saint, or martyr. In
| fact, a lot of folks, during its early years, thought
| that I was a cantankerous, dictatorial, controlling
| bastard. I needed to keep the project on task, and in
| focus. That often meant being a real dick (I'm good at
| that).
|
| When I finally encountered some tech people that were
| qualified to handle it, and take it to the next level, it
| was important for me to turn it over completely, and get
| the hell out of the way. By that time, I was sick of it.
| I wanted to learn new tech, and work on different stuff.
| I basically slowed down the car, pushed it out onto the
| sidewalk, and went screeching off into the distance.
|
| Most of the work that I've done, in the last four years,
| has been stuff that I _wanted_ to do, for fun. I had a
| number of theories about developing high-quality
| software, I wanted to really get down and dirty with
| Swift, I wanted to develop applications that made me
| proud, and I wanted to work my ass off. I _like_ working.
| You won 't find me on a golf course. The coroner is gonna
| have to rub "YTREWQ" off my cheek, because I'll faceplant
| on my keyboard, when I pop my clogs.
|
| I'm no saint, but I also consider myself to have a very
| high degree of Integrity. I have absolutely no desire at
| all to sacrifice that for money.
| ipnon wrote:
| Yes, I included the footnote because I am defining high
| achievement as dominance of the social hierarchy.
| royallineage wrote:
| No, Chris Marshall NY is just nuts. Please dig more and
| look at this person's experience. Some day he and mz will
| have a kid and HN will cower in fear.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| I dunno. I get the same vibe from medicine. MDs in
| particular. Less so the further down the food chain you
| go. (Part of that is culture. The bottom is composed of
| immigrants who still act like normal human beings.) I
| think it's something that's more broadly acculturated
| among the highly educated and high-achieving. Or just
| selected for whenever competition is fierce.
|
| I also did _not_ get this feeling from other technology
| industries that weren 't "Tech". Places full of PhDs, but
| disconnected from the SV culture. And frankly, less
| motivated by money and more by lifestyle.
|
| Maybe it all boils down to money. There's too much money
| in Tech. It attracts the worst, and brings out the worst.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> There 's too much money in Tech. It attracts the
| worst, and brings out the worst._
|
| That is my thesis.
|
| In New York, we have the finance industry, which is just
| as bad (if not worse).
|
| It has also been like this for most of a century. That
| does not bode well for Tech improving.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Web dev, specifically.
|
| That's where ALL the money is, and it's where the worst
| culture (and worst tech) is, imo. :p
|
| I mean, hell, why else would anyone learn React? $$$$$$
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I will not give specific examples. Here, there be
| dragonnes...
|
| But I have been told "You know, because you're older,
| you'll need to ask for less" by recruiters (recruiters are
| the worst).
|
| I've had testers (silly tests), be quite disrespectful, and
| use tone and engagement (or lack, thereof), to make it
| clear that this is an annoyance for them, and I should just
| "get it over with," so they can do something "more
| important," I guess.
|
| I've had _numerous_ recruiters suddenly develop
| "connection problems" on the phone, moments after I've made
| it clear that I'm older. They promise to get back to me,
| and I never hear from them again (I believe that kids,
| these days, call that "ghosting").
|
| I've had initial screeners (I assume HR), do the same
| thing.
|
| One pleasant experience was actually Facebook. They have
| been polite, respectful, and cheerful. I have not felt
| discriminated by them. I don't think that I want to work
| there, but I feel as if they would be approachable. I have
| had other FAANG companies that were shockingly rude, and
| that surprised and disappointed me.
|
| Probably, the worst thing, for me, is the unwillingness to
| check my portfolio. It's friggin _huge_. Many years in the
| making, with lots of shipping products.
|
| I've actually been told that "I probably faked it," and
| given a stupid binary tree test.
| ipnon wrote:
| Working at startups has been my solution to this wide
| problem. No startup will turn away a domain expert in a
| field they need help with. A corporation over a certain
| size seems to glean all they need to know about me as
| soon as they see my bald head. Any social organization
| over a certain size seems to be allergic to people with
| much experience, I think because they cannot mold them
| into drones.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> No startup will turn away a domain expert in a field
| they need help with._
|
| This has not been my experience. Part of it may be that I
| don't really do the whole "self-promotion" thing so well.
|
| I'm pretty good at what I do. I have worked with many,
| many people that are much better than I am, so I don't
| let it get to my head.
|
| But whenever I mention what I'm good at, it's met with
| snorts of disbelief. That's crazy. I am not claiming to
| be Superman.
|
| I have a massive portfolio that proves what I claim. It
| has 30 or more (complete, documented, tested, and
| supported) repos, with over a decade of checkin history,
| and full source for a whole boatload of [mostly
| deprecated] shipping applications. Don't believe me?
| Clone the repo, and hit "Build." I have dozens of blog
| entries, articles, teaching series, etc.; all linked from
| my SO story. I even have the PDF manual for my very first
| engineering project, in 1987.
|
| What I can (and can't) do is not a matter for debate.
| Like I said, I have worked with many folks that make me
| look like a piker.
|
| Here's an example:
|
| About a month and a half ago, I responded to an article,
| where the author claimed we "never finished" anything.
| This was what I posted:
|
| _> > I dare you to list three finished software
| projects.
|
| > I can probably list 30, and point to the repos._
|
| It's 100% true. You don't need to take my word for it.
| Simply look at my SO story. I link to it in my HN handle.
|
| Someone that obviously did not bother to do exactly that,
| posted a challenge, basically calling me a liar. I
| responded by throwing the seed into the nest, and posting
| a link to my SO story[0]. They never responded, after
| that.
|
| Like I said, I know that I'm pretty good at what I do,
| but I spent my entire career around folks that made me
| look like a beginner.
|
| It's really, really sad that people seem to consider that
| kind of stuff to be a lie.
|
| [0] https://stackoverflow.com/story/chrismarshall
| hncurious wrote:
| Tech was once not that respected, & mostly full of nerds who
| were just way into tech. But then tech rose in status &
| income, & was invaded by top school kids seeking such things,
| who took over the top slots. These new kids didn't much
| respect older tech folks from wrong schools.
|
| https://twitter.com/robinhanson/status/1421212798881722368
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| The reduced standing (and compensation) of Finance
| post-2008 has something to do with it.
| bserge wrote:
| I've observed this and it's just appalling.
|
| It doesn't matter that 50 year olds can do the same work just
| as well, no, management seems to want freaking Energizer
| bunnies on their team.
|
| Nevermind that they don't actually get more work done (and
| more importantly, _better_ ), it's just about being
| "passionate" about doing the same shit every day. Wtf.
| foobiekr wrote:
| How do you find NPOs that aren't ego-driven sweatshops? I've
| been pondering doing this for a few years but the reality of
| many nonprofits is that they are quite exploitative of their
| employees and volunteers. I'd happily do net and server admin
| for a low overhead background task but not for a ceo ego org.
| oblio wrote:
| It will stop, at some point. IT is still growing but we're
| reaching the point where IT workers are a decent percentage
| of all workers, so they are starting to become representative
| of the population at large. Larger and larger cohorts of IT
| workers are aging and recent graduates will stop being enough
| even for the top companies.
|
| Also, salaries are lower in general but I get the impression
| Europe is better in this regard. I see older people in IT, at
| least in Western Europe (in Eastern Europe the field is too
| new).
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I could probably go to the Web sites of at least a dozen
| successful IT companies, and go to the "Meet the Team"
| page.
|
| They are invariably a large group of smiling -young- faces.
| There may be one or two greyhairs in the picture, but a
| quick shufti of the "Leadership" page often shows them to
| be C-suite or Board.
|
| Yeah, I'm a cynic.
| pydry wrote:
| This is certainly the case for newer VC funded companies.
| That isnt all of tech though.
| cbushko wrote:
| When you are old, everyone looks young. =)
|
| I see 35 year olds and think "that guy is just a kid"!
| bumby wrote:
| This made me chuckle as it reminded me of an older
| employee referring to another employee as "one of the
| good interns". Except the guy he was talking about was in
| his late 30s and had been with the company for over 5
| years :-)
| detaro wrote:
| I wonder if there's a corelation in the sense that the
| young-biased "startup-y" companies are more likely to
| even have something like a "meet the team" page. (I.e.
| you kind of need to be below a certain size, and even
| then plenty places don't have them)
| robertlagrant wrote:
| There's a fairly common ideal of what a team photo should
| look like, and so the people that contribute to that
| ideal will be in the photo.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Yes, being older and working in software doesn't seem to be
| big problem in Europe. A previous (European) employer of
| mine with a very geopraphically distributed workforce even
| employed some older Americans.
| Archelaos wrote:
| With regard to Germany, I have the same impression.
| Mature companies, at least, seem to have a mature
| workforce. Have a look at a picture of the SAP big band:
| https://image.jimcdn.com/app/cms/image/transf/dimension=2
| 060...
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| It's not that much of a problem either in the US outside
| of Silicon Valley and venture backed companies. Plenty of
| older guys in the not so cool industries.
| peakaboo wrote:
| Salaries may be lower but work/life balance seems much
| higher in Europe.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| It definitely is depending on the country!
| hibikir wrote:
| This is something that is very difficult to see at a
| distance: Just like in politics, it's very easy to get an
| unrepresentative picture of the world online.
|
| I am a Spaniard who was fortunate to qualify to a US
| visa, so I was able to come over. I have many friends who
| went into CS, but didn't have the chances to come over as
| I did. As far as Spain goes, what I am able to make in
| the American Midwest pays for an entire team of
| developers in my hometown, who don't get more vacations
| than I do, and often work far longer hours.
|
| And it's not just Spain. A local company here has started
| a Polish development center, because despite the language
| barriers, and the time difference, it's hard to pass up a
| total cost per employee of about 1/4th the equivalent
| developer in Missouri, and those Missouri developers get
| a month of vacation, and nobody works more than 40 hours
| a week.
|
| If the concern is just places with bad work/life balance,
| we can find them on both sides of the Atlantic. My
| brother in Spain works 60 hour weeks more often than not,
| just like some people I know at very large online
| retailers. Those kind of situations can happen anywhere:
| But in some cases someone gets to choose it because they
| like the RSUs that come with it, and in others, it's just
| that the local market really is that bad.
|
| So if I were you, I'd look in detail, as a generalization
| on work life balance might be very different than you
| think once you are on the ground. Take a look at "The
| trimodal nature of the European software market". There
| really are very few jobs in the top tier, the second tier
| is quite a bit worse than the US's second tier, for
| similar work/life balance, and the third tier is so far
| from the US, you might as well be comparing working
| conditions of Software developers with Uber drivers.
| reader_mode wrote:
| People on this forum say EU - but they mean "rich parts
| of EU". Reality is EU has way more inequality between
| member states than the US, ironic given the propaganda.
| the-dude wrote:
| > work/life balance seems much higher
|
| That doesn't sound too great. You probably mean _better_.
| peakaboo wrote:
| Indeed. :)
| info781 wrote:
| If you offer an American a choice between more money or
| more vacation, they will take the money, for the most
| part.
| stripline wrote:
| That's because American's can't afford vacations without
| more money.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| Americans have far more disposable incomes than
| Europeans. It's not even close. Average household
| consumption in the US is _65% higher_ than Germany.[1]
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hou
| sehold...
| robocat wrote:
| Hard to know where those figures come from, and the
| article itself says they divide household by capita,
| which is extremely weird.
|
| If we look at median wealth (don't use average because
| highly distorted by wealthy tail), the US comes below a
| lot of other countries:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_weal
| th_...
|
| i.e. cherry picking and using invalid metrics can tell
| whatever story you wish.
| username90 wrote:
| That measure is wrong, it was designed to make USA look
| better. Read this part about the measure, it misses
| government subsidised healthcare etc:
|
| > Household final consumption expenditure (HFCE) is not
| an exhaustive measure of the goods and services consumed
| by households. The general government and non-profit
| institutions serving households (NPISH) often provide
| goods and services to households for their individual
| consumption free of charge or at reduced prices. Examples
| are health services provided by governments or reimbursed
| by a social security fund, education services, the part
| of service provided by public museums, concert halls,
| operas, swimming pools that is not financed by entrance
| fees, aid for social housing etc. By adding the general
| government's and NPISHs' individual consumption
| expenditure to household final consumption expenditure
| one receives the actual final consumption of households.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_final_consumption
| _ex...
|
| Edit: Also another way to interpret that value is that is
| how much households has to spend to uphold decent way of
| life in that country. So it is really expensive to live
| in America so people have to work hard to survive. Of
| course you can't say for sure what is true, but if an
| American has to spend 50% more to live the same quality
| of life as a German person then of course he will be less
| willing to take vacation instead of the money.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| A lot of Americans I know seem to associate vacation with
| super luxury trips. They don't seem to understand the
| concept of just taking off and relax but instead want to
| do trips that go to five star hotels and spend 100
| dollars on dinners. No wonder they can't afford vacation.
| When I compare myself to colleagues I can often do a one
| week trip for what they are spending per day.
| refurb wrote:
| Money is typically not the issue with most US jobs
| compared to Europe.
| golergka wrote:
| I have just been on remote job hunt this past month, and have
| ended up with a lot of offers and maybe-offers (refused before
| getting the final letter, but things have been going this way)
| from US and Europe. And I'm not a native speaker, live in
| Eastern Europe and don't even have a degree, just work
| experience.
|
| Engineering labour market is extremely skewed towards the job
| seeker right now.
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, I should probably move back there.
| neilwilson wrote:
| There is no employee shortage.
|
| There is a decent pay and conditions shortage.
|
| There are still 3.45 million without work that want it and 1
| million short of work. Yet only 0.8 million vacancies.
|
| https://new-wayland.com/blog/uk-employment-stats/
| spiritplumber wrote:
| "The Last Of The Deliverers"
|
| Poul Anderson, "The Last of the Deliverers" IN Door To Anywhere,
| pp. 408-417.
|
| I read this story once before in an anthology a long time ago. An
| author's note explained that the story shows one of our present
| conflicts as history because it will become history.
|
| A future history is summarized:
|
| "'Technology made it possible for a few people and acres to feed
| the whole country, till millions of acres were lying idle; you
| could buy them for peanuts.'" (p. 415)
|
| A few people, yes, but a few acres?
|
| "'Meanwhile the cities were overtaxed, underrepresented, and
| choked by their own traffic. Along came the cheap sunpower unit
| and the high-capacity accumulator. Those let a man supply most of
| his own wants, not work his heart out for someone else to pay the
| inflated prices demanded by an economy where every single
| business was subsidized or protected at the taxpayer's expense.'"
| (ibid.)
|
| Living better on less work, people needed to earn so little that
| they paid nearly zero taxes, consumed little, thus causing a
| depression, and preferred to live in small country communities,
| despite rearguard action from both big business and trade unions.
| Individuals and families use town tractors as and when they need
| to and most grow garden vegetables. Land cannot be owned because
| it cannot be pocketed and carried around.
|
| "'And when we do work, we'd rather work for ourselves, not for
| somebody else, whether you call the somebody else a capitalist or
| the people. Now let's go sit down and take it easy before
| lunch.'" (p. 414)
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Many companies are becoming increasingly unpleasant to work for,
| largely because of the increasing political speech at work. I
| wish more companies would take a Coinbase or Basecamp type stance
| on avoiding politics at work, and downsize their HR departments
| so they focus on benefits, compensation, and so on, rather than
| acting like political commissars and social activists within the
| workplace.
| is_d4ng_erect wrote:
| simmer down there american
| peakaboo wrote:
| Couldn't it be that people don't want to commute to places
| anymore for hours every day? So they don't take those jobs where
| they have to suffer anymore.
|
| I read several article about how people realized during covid
| that they don't want a job they don't like anymore. Specially
| tech, since its very demanding.
| fundad wrote:
| Housing costs spiked pretty much everywhere too. There has been
| talk of a restaurant bubble for years and not enough was done
| about affordable housing.
|
| The other thing is during the restaurant bubble, it cost owners
| little to be open during slow times because it came at the cost
| of the workers' tips. That was good for convenience-obsessed
| customers who could easily get a table but it obviously wasn't
| sustainable.
| jesusthatsgreat wrote:
| The harsh reality is that there's not enough incentive to work
| for a lot of people through a combination of state supported
| welfare, lack of job security (i.e. short term contracts / zero
| hour contracts) and the financial and mental health cost involved
| in working (transport to and from work, paying for childcare
| etc.. it's a financial cost but also impacts work / life balance
| i.e. a lot of people realise they have none if they work).
|
| Remove all forms of welfare and you can bet people would be
| queuing up for jobs to keep a roof over their heads and buy food.
| The problem is, if you were to do that, the situation would be
| taken advantage of by the super wealthy - as has been the case
| time and time again in any sort of recession.
| peakaboo wrote:
| Hmm. That argument seems to be that instead of making tech fun
| to work in, we should make sure there are no other options so
| people have to work there.
| simonh wrote:
| I don't think there's a good argument the social security
| system in the UK is excessively generous. Our long term
| unemployment is only around 360,000 people. That's people
| unemployed for more than 12 months. The vast majority of our
| 1.7m unemployed, roughly 4/5 of them, are simply between jobs.
| I have no problem supporting these people through the
| transition.
| ithinkso wrote:
| And even those that are planning to live off of welfare...
| what else can you do. Welfare isn't that great and a vast
| majority (by a huge margin) has aspiration to have a better
| life so you only need to support those who can't work and
| those who will not work no matter what. You can force the
| latter by starvation but if they have such low needs anyway
| they will find the easiest way to sustain themselves and will
| be a bigger problem to others one way or another. Welfare is
| a cheap price to pay
|
| It's a strange way of thinking that I don't fully understand.
| Why would one choose to live with homelessness problem rather
| than pay to solve it and get them off the streets? Only
| because those paid 'don't deserve it' so now both parties
| live non-optimally. Some weird twist on a prisoner's dilemma
| minikites wrote:
| >a roof over their heads and buy food
|
| Why should death be a threat for not working?
| minikites wrote:
| >Add Brexit into the equation, and the old assumption that
| companies can just hire extra people from Eastern Europe to fill
| any gaps can no longer be taken for granted.
|
| Wild idea, but maybe companies should pay higher salaries. I bet
| they would find plenty of workers. If their business relies on
| paying people sub-standard wages, maybe their business deserves
| to fail to make room for someone else who is better at making a
| budget and paying their employees.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| That won't happen mate. At least not anytime soon. (Where I
| work) we have a few partner companies (service providers) that
| are paying a ton of money to train people that are not even in
| UK (most from India and Pakistan). After a chat with one of
| their managers: They want to buyild their skills up before
| bringing them here. It's a lot cheaper than hiring someone
| already in UK.
| fundad wrote:
| Wasn't this one of the stated motivations for Brexit? Fewer
| immigrants pressuring owners to raise wages for British
| citizens.
|
| It was the same here in the States with border wall
| construction, turning away asylum seekers instead of letting
| them work while their cases were processed, issuing fewer visas
| and detaining and deporting more people.
|
| Strange to see who is carrying water for owners instead of
| taking credit for what they've done for workers.
| pessimizer wrote:
| In the States, net immigration was negative before the border
| wall was proposed. It was an intentional distraction. It was
| also an intentional distraction when H. Clinton was lefty-
| punching over it at the same time the administration was
| doing NAFTA. No recent administration has earnestly cared
| about working-class wages. The reason working-class incomes
| have been rising recently is entirely due to public pressure
| and the need to pump cash into an economy that was on the
| verge of returning to a serious recession at a time when the
| two parties are absolutely even electorally.
|
| But since the administration is trying to avoid a big
| recession followed by endless recovery (i.e. learn from the
| mistakes of Obama), they're only interested in interventions
| that pour money into businesses. They're not interested in
| structural change; they're just taking advantage how absurdly
| slowly the USD inflates no matter how much of it you print.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| It was one of the motivations. BUT the people who voted for
| brexit were mostly not employed (too old, on various benefits
| etc). And as consumers they didn't want the immigrants THEY
| rely on sent away. So their wages remain unchanged and
| suddenly they have to wait longer in restaurants or the
| corner shop is shut early...
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