[HN Gopher] A record 4.5M workers quit their jobs in November
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A record 4.5M workers quit their jobs in November
Author : doppp
Score : 193 points
Date : 2022-01-05 17:13 UTC (5 hours ago)
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| apalmer wrote:
| I am only perplexed by this in regards to how workers are
| surviving without jobs? Usually many brackets of workers live
| check to check to the degree they have no choice but to continue
| working despite all other concerns.
|
| Is it the gig economy setting a bottom line 'might as well do
| Uber' level? I am not so sure but it's the only major change in
| the last couple years ago I can think of?
|
| From a straight economic perspective REAL compensation of lower
| skill workers has been sliding for decades so not really
| surprising it eventually reached a'might as well quit' point.
| munk-a wrote:
| The headline is extremely misleading. 4.5M workers _changed_
| jobs in November.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > From a straight economic perspective REAL compensation of
| lower skill workers has been sliding for decades
|
| Has it? I've seen that claim a lot, but every time I look at
| the data, it shows growth across all quintiles.
|
| https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2021/10/2...
| pashamur wrote:
| Note that this is showing household incomes, not individual
| incomes. Household used to mean 1 working family member, now
| it's closer to 2 due in large part by more women joining the
| workforce. If you had a traditional family with one working
| spouse, they would definitely be falling behind.
|
| If you look at the source below for men's wages (for
| example), the real wage has fallen by 3% for the median male
| since 1979 (and by 10% real decline for the bottom 10%).
| That's not even accounting for the fact that housing should
| make up a higher % of the consumption basket for the lowest-
| paid workers (as compared to CPI).
|
| https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R45090.pdf
| sokoloff wrote:
| That link appears to be great data (based on reading the
| summary). Bookmarked to read in more detail later, but
| saying "thanks!" now.
|
| It appears that the 10th percentile male income has
| decreased by 7.7% [rather than 10%] in the 40 year period
| from 1979-2019, if I'm reading the page 4 content
| correctly.
| iso1210 wrote:
| Figure 1 is facsinating - it shows the 80s were awful for
| everyone, especially the bottom 10%. Male workers dropped
| 16.3% from 1979-1990, and Hispanic dropped 20.9%!
|
| 2010-2019 was the best real income growth for all groups
| apart from top 10% hispanics, and the growth is fairly
| evenly spread across demographics.
| aaomidi wrote:
| This graph has a weird starting position. If this graph
| started, maybe 30-40 years before that, you'd see it telling
| a very different story.
|
| The reason it's sliding for decades is that the purchasing
| power of that same money has gone down. Why? Housing. Housing
| is not calculated in inflation rates, annnnd everyone needs a
| house.
|
| So yeah, the REAL compensation has been sliding down due to
| no real growth there while housing has skyrocketed. AND that
| before 1965, we actually did have significant wage growth.
|
| So, this is one of those cases where the data is misleading.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > Housing is not calculated in inflation rates
|
| False. https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/owners-
| equivalent-rent-an...
|
| Shelter (the service that a house provides) is included as
| a consumption item in the CPI figures (and, as any adult
| would expect, has the largest weight of any of the 211
| items that constitute the CPI basket).
|
| You can see the significant changes to the calculation
| methods detailed here: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/research-
| series/r-cpi-u-rs-changes.h... The rent equivalent method
| for owned property has been in use since 1983. (Prior to
| that, housing was included in CPI, just with a different
| method.)
| aaomidi wrote:
| I mean, this is assuming the living standards (how many
| people to one house) has remained the same. That also has
| changed.
| convolvatron wrote:
| I just looked at this and while there is no sliding, the
| bottom 3 have been really quite flat
| sokoloff wrote:
| Yes, my main point is that very modest growth over decades
| is quite different qualitatively from "been sliding for
| decades".
| cheriot wrote:
| The data you link to shows 3 out of 5 quintiles of incomes
| have been flat. Meanwhile, the cost of healthcare and child
| care have increased faster than inflation[1]. It's nice that
| TVs are cheaper for better quality, but if the essentials are
| more expensive the people with lower (and middle!) incomes
| have tighter budgets than ever.
|
| [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Kxcc
| sokoloff wrote:
| That article contains a "real income growth since 1967"
| table (about halfway down, on the right).
|
| All quintiles show growth, with the 4th quintile (20-40th
| percentile) showing the lowest growth at +31.1% and the 5th
| quintile (lowest 20%) showing a similar +34.2% across that
| period of multiple decades.
|
| That's indeed "essentially flat, but still slight growth".
| fundad wrote:
| "real income growth" does not account for health care and
| housing costs (except for people who own their home)
| cheriot wrote:
| Their incomes are growing slower than essential expenses
| like childcare and healthcare...
| pavlov wrote:
| Here's a well-researched story on how real workers in Georgia
| are surviving after quitting:
|
| _" In Liberty County, workers who quit feel liberated, but the
| community discovers a powerful downside"_
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/12/12/quitting-...
| darkwater wrote:
| The solution to many of those employers problems is simple:
| pay better wages.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| Or shut doors because they can't.
| darkwater wrote:
| Yeah, that's another option, or clean the hotel by
| themselves like in the linked article. The risks of
| entrepreneurship.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| This is a weird article. It seems to cast the people who live
| in a place as collectively feeling pain, instead of
| specifically the owners/workers at a place of business that
| has lost employees. It sets up a false premise that the
| workers who are making choices for themselves are then
| suffering, when they are not part of the group experiencing
| the downside.
| cheriot wrote:
| Total employment is up so I don't think they're surviving
| without jobs. Most quit one job to take another.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I don't believe they are quitting their jobs without having
| other jobs. They are just moving jobs.
| notreallyserio wrote:
| Some are also quitting to take care of kids, because
| childcare is expensive, or they can't get consistent hours. I
| can't imagine working if I didn't know my schedule week over
| week and I had a kid to take care of.
| jurassic wrote:
| For a lot of lower wage people, the ~$3k stimulus checks they
| got last year was the first time in their lives they've had
| enough financial breathing room to quit abusive jobs and have a
| break without having another job immediately lined up. To
| someone who historically made on the order of ~$10/hr, $3k in
| helicopter money is a significant cushion. And jobs are
| abundant at every level of the economy, so risk of quitting is
| minimal when they can probably quickly land a better job than
| what they had before.
|
| I think the coverage of this is a bit confusing though. The
| focus on "quitting" makes it sound like these people are all
| done working which I don't think is true.
| swarnie wrote:
| This weekend i watched a podgy McDonalds shift manager shout at a
| teenage Wagie until he cried.
|
| The conditions are poor and the compensation isn't adequate, no
| wonder people are leaving their roles and the younger generations
| don't fancy it.
| smm11 wrote:
| Might be retiring early this summer, a few years ahead of
| schedule. The math is looking good.
|
| Two open jobs for all you who can't find one.
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| I'm one of them. The remote grind was getting to me. I was doing
| very little actual work, but when I had to do something it was
| such a pain. The company was experiencing massive turnover with
| new employees being clueless oh how things got done. Everything
| started to be 10x as difficult as it used to be. Taking time off
| now to work on a startup. Already got my first two paying
| customers.
| athrowawayguy wrote:
| voz_ wrote:
| This article, sadly, is rather shallow. That being said, the link
| within the article:
| https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm is full of
| somewhat difficult to parse (not the best presentation) but
| overall interesting information.
|
| Googling the name of some of the tables led me to this site,
| which appears to use the same terms but plots them to show
| trends. ex:
|
| https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_quits_rate_total_nonfarm
| trizic wrote:
| It is clear that higher salaries isn't necessarily helping
| companies hire. I wonder for things to go back to normal if
| companies need to start offering extremely generous 6-12 weeks of
| vacation.
| dfdz wrote:
| I really dislike how this data is presented. Trying to imagine
| 4.5M workers quitting their job is really difficult since it such
| a big number and lacks context.
|
| I think it would be better to say
|
| "about 3% of US workers quit their jobs in November"
|
| For context, from Jan-2000 to Jan-2020 the average monthly
| percentage of workers quitting was x%"
|
| Can anyone find a reference for x? I am having trouble.
| yalogin wrote:
| It's unfortunate that they did not just say "changed jobs" in the
| title.
|
| However, as someone who doesn't know how employees leaving is
| handled by the HR, can someone tell me what happens when an
| employee leaves or joins? Does the company report it to the
| government, if so which branch of the government and why? Also
| how quickly after an employee leaves will the reporting to the
| government happen?
| lettergram wrote:
| Wait until they see December...
|
| There's a lot of things going on, I think a large part of it is
| regulations. Another part has to do with politics and yet another
| has to do with inflation.
|
| - switching jobs means more pay; it's a workers market.
| Particularly with the governments current policies causing
| inflation.
|
| - The jobs aren't evenly distributed, there are job shortages in
| many states (particularly states implementing vaccine mandates)
|
| - there are many factories and in person jobs moving to non-
| mandate states
|
| - after years of being remote, people are switching to remote
| first companies and / or refusing to return to offices
|
| - others are moving to states / regions where they can be in
| person
|
| - I know a lot of nurses, firefighters, etc who were fired / quit
| hospitals and went into smaller practices or moved cities.
| mcguire wrote:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/12/29/job-marke...
|
| Demand for workers has recovered, but the number of willing
| workers has not.
|
| The 2020 recession had one of the fastest (the unemployment rate)
| and slowest (labor force participation) recoveries of any
| recession since World War II.
|
| Government payments helped build and sustain savings, especially
| for lower-income people.
|
| Personal consumption spending rebounds past pre-pandemic high.
|
| Main reason for not working in the last seven days, among
| respondents under 75. (Retired is up, Other is up, the pandemic
| is way down.)
|
| Over 1.5 million more people are retired than would have been
| expected before the pandemic.
|
| Wage growth rises among low-income workers (5.1%).
| jabej wrote:
| What % of this was caused by the jab mandate that was introduced
| around that time?
| aenis wrote:
| Unrelated. Its for better pay/less miserable jobs.
|
| I work for an HR company. There hasnt been such a crazy market
| in modern, recorded history of our industry. Want to change
| jobs? Now is the time.
| shadowbanned9 wrote:
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Prob not as much as the pandemic as a whole causing stress and
| other issues where people are re-evaluating their careers. I
| can't imagine what it must be like to be a slave to a rich
| asshole boss who says things like, "Tesla is restarting
| production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the
| line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it
| only be me."
| nebula8804 wrote:
| From what I can tell, I don't think he has any problem
| finding people. From what I can see after watching teardowns
| of his products, the best of the best are working on his
| teams. Maybe the low level grunts are swapped in and out like
| disposable cogs but the rest of the org? I mean look at what
| they do compared to the competition. The engineering on their
| products is truly next level. Their workers are probably
| sacrificing a ton of their sanity and energy but still stick
| around.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Regardless of your opinion of musk, this quote doesn't seem
| especially awful? Like, the obvious evil boss quote here is
| "get to work". Not "I'm going to be there with you and if
| there's any problems I'll take the fall personally"
| tuckerpo wrote:
| Article doesn't seem to differentiate between people resigning
| and getting let go due to medical mandates. It'd be interesting
| to see those numbers.
| obviousreason wrote:
| smt88 wrote:
| Why ask when you can easily find out the answer? I suspect
| because the answer is "very, very few" and it doesn't fit with
| a certain narrative.
|
| > _Just 5% of unvaccinated workers--and 1% of all workers
| overall--said they left a job because of a COVID-19 vaccine
| mandate from their employer, more evidence that a feared exodus
| of workers due to mandates isn't as severe as some predicted._
| [1]
|
| 1. https://hrexecutive.com/how-many-unvaccinated-workers-
| have-q...
| PhoenixReborn wrote:
| Unlikely that it's related. For example, here's a report about
| the September quit rate:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/12/a-record-4point4-million-peo...
|
| That was 4.4 million people, even before the vaccine mandate
| was around.
| nevinera wrote:
| I get tired of headlines talking about 'record numbers' of people
| - a record number of people _existed_ this year, so talking about
| any other metrics in those terms is kind of pointless. Any time I
| see a headline of this form, my first thought is always "what
| narrative are they trying to sell?".
| ravedave5 wrote:
| It's not like box office returns where nearly every year they
| are broken. This is a new trend. Check out the graph here -
| https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/live-markets-pmi-jolts-...
| themanmaran wrote:
| > "It's not understood in the broader public discussion, people
| aren't quitting their jobs to leave the labor force they are
| quitting their jobs to take other jobs"
|
| Well maybe it would be more well understood if you didn't run
| titles like "A record 4.5M workers quit their jobs".
|
| The linked BLS report gives some more useful statistics:
|
| > "Over the 12 months ending in November 2021, hires totaled 74.5
| million and separations totaled 68.7 million, yielding a net
| employment gain of 5.9 million."[1]
|
| [1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm
| jacobolus wrote:
| Yes, this is a good thing.
|
| Better headline: "Record number of workers switch to jobs with
| better working conditions, pay, and benefits." We might also
| add "Employers forced to raise wages for others who remain."
| wiremine wrote:
| Agreed. The emphasis on the "quitting" part always seemed odd
| to me. I guess it is catchier to say "The Great Resignation"?
| But that sounds like all these people are leaving their jobs
| and hiking the Appalachian Trail or something.
|
| But the long-term impact for workers is positive in most
| ways. "The Great Realignment" feels more truthful.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| We're also undergoing "The Great Reshuffling", coined by
| Zillow CEO Rich Barton, regarding the physical movement of
| (mostly remote) workers, creating booms in places like
| Boise and Bozeman and lowering rents in places like SF and
| NYC. That isn't quite leaving your job to hike the
| Appalachian Trail, but for some people it means an
| opportunity to prioritize living near one's preferred
| recreational opportunities rather than prioritizing living
| near one's job. Or others might prioritize living near
| family, or in a low-tax state, or somewhere they can afford
| a big yard or a pool, etc.
| vikingerik wrote:
| Right. And a fair amount of it is also pent-up demand for job
| switching that didn't happen during the pandemic.
|
| The media is deliberately misrepresenting these stories for
| the click-bait. People want to read stories about quitting
| work because they dream of doing that themselves. But the
| reality is they're not quitting the work force, they're just
| changing jobs.
| GordonS wrote:
| > The media is deliberately misrepresenting these stories
| for the click-bait.
|
| This is a prime example of one of the main reasons I
| stopped reading/watching news some years back - the media
| thrives on click-bait and negativity, and I just don't need
| that in my life.
|
| Here we have something happening that many would think is
| _good_ - huge numbers of people switching jobs. Instead,
| all the focus is on only one side of the job switch, which
| exactly as you said is purposely misrepresenting the facts
| with the express purpose of driving traffic.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| "Media" doesn't do this because they have a hidden
| agenda.* They are just following the profit motive.
| Click-bait gets clicks, which makes their ad-supported
| model work. I think the line in that Bond movie is, "Give
| the people what they want."
|
| The way to fix this issue isn't to stop consuming news,
| it's to pay for the news that doesn't use click bait.
|
| Obviously it's worse in the Internet age but honestly I
| don't think it's new. You think back to the sensational
| headlines that the newsies were shouting out on street
| corners and it's really the same thing.
|
| * well, of course some do, but I'm talking 'real' news
| here
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| The same phenomenon seems to happen in nearly every
| industry. Optimizing for profit at the expense of just
| about everything else.
|
| Kinda seems to me like profit being at the center of
| everything is the problem
| timeon wrote:
| > Click-bait gets clicks
|
| Power of analytics optimizing for the metrics.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| Some are quitting the work force. We have an aging
| population and a decent amount of baby boomers
| (capitalized?) are retiring. Media outlets are also
| misrepresenting the number of boomers who have reached an
| age where retirement is not just an option, but expected.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The data source here notionally separates quits from
| retirements, though I am not sure how well it does so (as
| this is not particularly straightforward for say, an
| employer survey for people without employer pensions,
| which are increasingly rare for private sector retirees.
| My employer has no reliable way to tell if I'm quitting
| to live off my private retirement savings and social
| security or quitting for another job or quitting to take
| a few months to deal with burnout and then consider my
| options.)
| quitit wrote:
| I think a lot of people held on on account of so many
| people being laid off and many companies instigating hiring
| freezes. This very much feels like the exhale.
|
| It also seems to time well with the antiwork movement,
| which in my opinion exists as a "correction", like we'd see
| in other economic paradigms, sure it's probably heightened
| by current inflationary pressures, but it seems worker pay,
| especially service-jobs, is deeply needing a steep
| increase.
| parkingrift wrote:
| >And a fair amount of it is also pent-up demand for job
| switching that didn't happen during the pandemic.
|
| Is this actually true? I've seen this numerous times over
| the last 8-12 months and it's always stated as if it's
| obviously true. But, why? Why would people have put off
| switching jobs until November 2021? Covid has been about
| the same in 95% of America since June 2020.
|
| I think there has to be some other explanation, or at least
| some data to support the idea that this is all just pent-up
| demand being released.
| Cd00d wrote:
| In my personal case I did not job search during the time
| you mentioned because the job I had was super flexible
| and I had kids at home with no child care - I put off any
| hunting until school was back in person (and looked
| stable at that).
| dpark wrote:
| > _Why would people have put off switching jobs until
| November 2021?_
|
| A ton of people have had well over year of working
| remotely while slowly losing personal connections with
| their teams. At the same time, people are generally
| reluctant to entertain a job switch in a time of
| uncertainty. It's not a stretch to believe that as people
| accept the "new normal" they finally decide to move on.
|
| Anecdotally, I've seen some of this. Voluntary attrition
| at work tanked during the first year of COVID and then
| started to uptick in late summer and fall of last year.
| d82nsjk9 wrote:
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| A lot of folks are also reflexively drawn by the negativity
| of the headline (myself included)... "how is society going
| to handle no one working?!" was my initial thought, before
| my conscious brain caught up with my instinctive thoughts.
| etchalon wrote:
| People fantasize about quitting their job for a better job
| too.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| I'm sure a ton of people do both or neither, since
| "people" is a pretty vague category. But based on those
| I've talked to myself, and the popularity of reddit's
| antiwork sub, along with the rumblings in social
| discourse for the past, I dunno, 30 years or more, there
| are a lot of PEOPLE out there who really just want to not
| work at all. There's some argument about the definition
| of "work", since many of them might wish to do something
| that would be defined as work if they were paid for it by
| an employer. Still, others would be perfectly content
| becoming characters from WALL-E. I don't know how to feel
| about those types yet.
| sjtindell wrote:
| You would be hard pressed I think to produce someone who
| truly wanted to do nothing all day. People just want to
| do something they enjoy, not the meaningless drivel of
| most jobs. Just my anecdata.
| throwaway75787 wrote:
| I want to work a professional job on a reduced schedule,
| so that I can prioritise my personal life. 20-32 hours
| per week, and that can be divided a number of ways.
| Judging anecdotally from interviewing the past month or
| two (I took a year off to hone my expertise at my hobby),
| HR/recruiters are not exactly coping with the collective
| power shift to employees. I think either side is waiting
| to see who blinks first. It's too bad it has to be that
| way, but our system does pit us against each other.
|
| The way forward is to hire more people, pay people more,
| and give them more time off.
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| You mind if I ask what your hobby is?
|
| I've been thinking about making a similar move.
| moate wrote:
| >>Still, others would be perfectly content becoming
| characters from WALL-E. I don't know how to feel about
| those types yet.
|
| As someone who does know how to feel about those types,
| let me make a suggestion: Don't. That is to say, why does
| it matter to you?
|
| Is it because you need their labor for your happiness
| ("who will make my fries/clothes/things I'm incapable of
| making myself")? Then it's not their fault you feel that
| way, and they don't owe that to you.
|
| Is it because "work = a moral good"? Then you're wrong
| work is a thing people do because they have to in order
| to be able to acquire currency for the things they
| actually want to do. It has no inherent morality.
|
| Is it because "Mindless consumption is a moral bad"? Of
| course, but only because there's no ethical consumption
| under capitalism.
|
| The long and short of it is you don't lose much by people
| opting out of working. By that I mean the type of person
| who was going to put in the years of work dedicated to
| trying to cure cancer (or advance society in whatever way
| you personally feel would be the most valuable) is very
| unlikely to also be the type of person who is only
| interested in doing it because they "needed a job".
|
| TL-dr: Hang the jerk who invented work on the Big Rock
| Candy Mountain.
|
| (Edited for formatting/grammar)
| SubuSS wrote:
| What if it is because I want to live in a productive
| society?
|
| I believe innovations come only from a productive
| society. The day we become wall-E characters is the day
| either AI has taken over or an Alien overlord has taken
| over. Then humans will go the way horses did - become
| pets and vanity objects. This also means the number of
| humans will go down the same way inevitably.
|
| I am not going to take up the socialist vs capitalist
| fight, I am very wary of the impacts of a huge
| consumption only society.
| moate wrote:
| The existence of a pure-consumer class (makes nothing,
| takes what they want/need) doesn't prevent a "productive
| society" from existing. If anything, is presupposes the
| existence of production (otherwise, where the hell are
| you finding things to consume while sitting in your comfy
| chair and slurping down nutrients)
|
| From your previous post:
|
| >>There's some argument about the definition of "work",
| since many of them might wish to do something that would
| be defined as work if they were paid for it by an
| employer.
|
| So let's start asking questions about your perception:
| How many people who want to opt out of work fall into
| your 2 categories of "doing 'work'" vs "Wall-E
| Characters" and how many fall into the 3rd category
| (which you seem to be) of people who want "jobs"?
| Further, how many innovations do you believe only exist
| because people were forced to partake the a system that
| involves jobs and work? My best guess is that there are
| enough people who have the ego to believe themselves
| capable of creating and innovating to take care of the
| rest by doing so, even everyone had all their basic needs
| met and people could opt out.
|
| I'm not arguing that everyone plug into the Matrix and
| let "big alien brother" keep us as pets. But if it's an
| option and people want to take it (while still allowing
| people like you to produce things), why is that bad? And
| why is innovation itself a moral good? Improvement =/=
| innovation.
| willcipriano wrote:
| I hope everyone opts out of working, the more people that
| do the higher the price I command climbs. "Why aren't you
| competing with me?" is a silly notion to have.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> "Record number of workers switch to jobs with better
| working conditions, pay, and benefits."_
|
| I don't see why that has to be necessarily the case from that
| data.
|
| 2021 also saw the introduction of vaccine mandates for many
| jobs, we saw sectors like healthcare, accommodations&food
| services, and logistics struggle to fill their labor demand
| due to the pandemic;
|
| _> Quits increased in several industries with the largest
| increases in accommodation and food services (+159,000);
| health care and social assistance (+52,000); and
| transportation, warehousing, and utilities (+33,000)._
|
| +159,000 people quit accommodations and food services, yet;
|
| _> Job openings decreased in several industries with the
| largest decreases in accommodation and food services
| (-261,000) _
|
| The sector lost more jobs than people quit, which points into
| the direction of people not willingly quitting for a better
| job, but people not finding jobs in the sector, at least with
| the terms they want, due to lost jobs in the sector.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| > We might also add "Employers forced to raise wages for
| others who remain."
|
| Is this part happening? Are those who remain getting raises
| or just the new people hired as replacements? Heard a lot
| about that.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Most definitely is happening at business that employ the
| lowest wage workers.
| dudus wrote:
| In my circle people are leaving eng jobs as seniors where
| they make 200k to offers of 400k-600k. People who remained
| got little to no raises and are looking around for other
| opportunities. It's crazy, to me it feels like a bubble
| waiting to burst.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| In my circle I know a lot of people making 400-600k, but
| the 1 senior person that went job hunting, after about 6
| months, ended up at a startup making 150k.
| decafninja wrote:
| Software engineers specifically probably benefited a lot
| from WFHing in 2020-2021 by being able to grind leetcode
| during downtime within working hours.
|
| Office workers (including SWEs) in general benefited a
| lot because WFHing made the logistics of interviewing
| around significantly easier.
|
| A lot of my old department at my previous company jumped
| ship for places that offered significantly more pay
| (specifically, tech companies) or better WFH policies.
| More people left in the span of a few months during the
| summer of 2021 than I recall leaving during my entire
| tenure there (7 years).
| Cederfjard wrote:
| Is this at FAANG? Or smaller companies?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I am placing my bets on the USD losing purchasing power
| rather than nominal wages declining again. It would not
| be good for either political party to let nominal wages
| go down, at least for the bottom 50% of earners.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| Agree with this. For the "bubble" in high-end SWE comp to
| burst, the "bubble" in VC would have to burst. And VC
| isn't a liquid asset class that's likely to crash on a
| Black Tuesday like event.
|
| The explosion in VC capital has been primarily driven by
| a reach for yield among institutions, endowments,
| pensions and sovereign wealth funds. All of this money is
| extremely sticky, and once allocated will take 10+ years
| to de-allocate. So really the only way we see private
| equity funding collapse is if public equities quickly
| crater, forcing endowments to rebalance to stay in their
| allocation mandate.
|
| And that could possibly happen, given how rich public
| equity valuations are. But the reality is the modern Fed
| is never again in our lifetime going to let nominal stock
| prices fall by 35% or more like they did in 2008. The
| traumas from the GFC are simply too ingrained in the
| current generation of central bankers and policy makers.
|
| If push comes to shove and equities hit a bear market
| (20% drawdown), the Fed is going to turn the liquidity
| faucet to max. The forever war against Covid gives them a
| convenient excuse. In the scenario, you'll probably just
| see the Fed let inflation run hot at 10%+ for a few
| years. Again the Covid transitory narrative gives the
| cover.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| Can you elaborate on the bubble bursting part? I don't
| have much knowledge about how this works. If companies
| couldn't afford those salaries, why would they be paying
| them? I'm probably misunderstanding.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| 1. Afford is a weird concept when you can go to a multi
| billion dollar company without ever making a profit with
| VC investment. A lot of tech jobs are in businesses that
| may not be able to make money.
|
| 2. It could lead to companies re-evaluating whether all
| their projects are worth it. Anecdotally, I have heard of
| some automation projects being cancelled as manual
| workers in other countries are cheaper.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| Thanks for the explanation. This makes sense.
| dudus wrote:
| That is a very personal opinion, I have very low risk
| apetite when it comes to investing. And the bubble i
| mention is me translating that to the job market.
|
| If you look at the job market as a commodity where
| companies are on the buy side and workers are on the sell
| side you could say that the price of the commodity spiked
| suddenly. Whenever that happens I'm usually wary of the
| corrections that surely follow.
|
| That could mean mass layoffs in the future when companies
| realize the commodity isn't worth that much. It could
| mean business closings due to lack of purchase power to
| compete. It could mean inflation to adjust the purchase
| power.
|
| Again it's all speculation. And it's derived from risk
| tolerance. If you like risky investments it makes sense
| to try to capitalize and sell your labor for the most you
| can. I can't blame you.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| Thanks for explaining. This makes a lot of sense.
| cj wrote:
| (20 person company here) We've been giving raises above
| what we normally would do simply because it's not fair to
| have a developer who's 1 week on the job, same skillset,
| making $15-20k more than someone who's been working with us
| for 2 years.
|
| When giving the raises, I've been saying "This raise is to
| keep our pay competitive with the market, and will not
| affect your regular annual review" (we also give raises to
| people annually)
| mcguire wrote:
| What's fairness got to do with it?
|
| I get that some employers, particularly in small
| businesses like you describe, might be committed to such
| fairness, but most employers in my experience have been
| perfectly content and even fight back (as in, "well, if
| you had a competing offer...") if the employees start
| comparing numbers.
| cj wrote:
| > What's fairness got to do with it?
|
| Fairness itself has nothing to do with it.
|
| It has everything to do with avoiding employees getting
| mad when they here the new guy makes significantly more,
| which leads to conflict, which leads to unhappy
| employees, which leads to poor productivity.
|
| Perhaps "fairness" is the wrong thing to call it. More
| like "do things to retain good employees". Usually "being
| fair" falls into the "do things to retain good employees"
| category.
| abeyer wrote:
| And the businesses that thought that way were able to
| maintain the status quo by forbidding or at least
| strongly discouraging employees sharing compensation
| info. That's no longer legal in the US, and people are
| still playing catch up, but I think this is on its way
| out. As soon as it's easy for employees to _know_ that
| they've gotten the short stick they aren't going to stay
| quiet about it.
| sndean wrote:
| Might have to wait for real numbers? I can only find
| reports about companies _planning_ to give raises.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/12/08/wages-20
| 2...
| prophesi wrote:
| I would also add that the jobs people are leaving are in
| the service industry. I know it's also difficult to hire in
| the tech industry currently, but it's already offset by
| higher wages and remote work. The service industry is
| reluctant to do the former and literally can't do the
| latter.
| sytelus wrote:
| This was the part I am also confused. Anacdotely, I
| haven't seen mass exodus in big tech yet.
| mcguire wrote:
| I have. A large number of our senior developers left last
| fall.
| munk-a wrote:
| A slightly worse headline: "The standard of modern employment
| is to pay a premium for new unskilled employees you need to
| train up on your system and then stagnate their wages so
| they're force to go elsewhere."
|
| This is the new norm and it's extremely short sighted and
| inefficient for _most_ employers. If your cost of living
| increase (or combined "merit increase") is below inflation
| your company is doing something wrong.
| walshemj wrote:
| Or Women quit to take on more childcaring duties.
| soperj wrote:
| Based on the fact that there are 129.32 million full-time
| employees in the United States (as of Nov 2021), that means 57%
| of people who are working are new to that job within the last
| 12 months? and only 54.82 million have actually stayed in their
| job the last 12 months. That seems like a really high turn
| over.
| Wohlf wrote:
| You're assuming every person who took a new job is staying
| there, but there could be a large number of people switching
| several times.
| themanmaran wrote:
| The BLS report mentions: "These totals include workers who
| may have been hired and separated more than once during the
| year."
| specialist wrote:
| Thanks.
|
| I've been reading about innumeracy and lame press coverage my
| entire adult life. Ditto how to lie with stats, charts, maps.
|
| Clearly, shaming and scolding from the sidelines hasn't
| compelled anyone to improve.
|
| It's almost as though there's another force at work, silently
| undermining reason, relentlessly overwhelming rational
| discourse. Like some nefarious hidden incentive structures
| which reward attention getting over honest discourse. But every
| time I've broached the topic, I get ridiculed. (One actual
| quote is "sweaty, paranoid kook". True story.)
|
| Since I just yell at the TV and shriek at the newspaper, which
| helps no one, I've mostly opted out.
|
| I'm eager for any and all notions, no matter how blue sky, for
| how to do better. Because I'm completely fresh out of ideas.
| And exhausted.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| > It's almost as though there's another force at work,
| silently undermining reason, relentlessly overwhelming
| rational discourse.
|
| There is - it's called the profit motive, and in journalism
| produces the incentive to write clickbait.
|
| This is pretty well established, I don't understand why you
| have had negative experiences broaching this as discussions
| of clickbait happen all the time online.
| specialist wrote:
| Generally, criticizing the people profiting from the
| racket, to their faces, is poorly received. And they buy
| ink by the gallon, as the cliche goes.
| content_sesh wrote:
| > It's almost as though there's another force at work,
| silently undermining reason, relentlessly overwhelming
| rational discourse. Like some nefarious hidden incentive
| structures which reward attention getting over honest
| discourse. But every time I've broached the topic, I get
| ridiculed. (One actual quote is "sweaty, paranoid kook". True
| story.)
|
| The term you're looking for is "manufacturing consent". I
| highly recommend Herman and Chomsky's book by the same name.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
| vannevar wrote:
| Sorry, off topic...but I have to ask: "Sweaty?"
| specialist wrote:
| Editorial interview. Summer time. 95F. Inadequate A/C in
| old warehouse converted to offices. Us candidates wearing
| suites and ties. Snarky hipster douchebags in shorts and
| t-shirts.
| guelo wrote:
| I don't get this complaint. 4.5M people did quit, that's the
| fact they're reporting on. You are the one that seems to want
| editorializing about what people did after they quit, in their
| headline, to push your agenda.
| capableweb wrote:
| Well, the title was not "A record 4.5 million workers stopped
| working" but instead "quit their jobs". That most people get
| new jobs after quitting is fairly obvious I think, while if
| they wrote "stopped/refuses to work", the other point would
| have been obvious.
| munk-a wrote:
| That title was pretty needlessly misleading. A much fairer
| title would be "4.5 million workers changed jobs" - look it's
| even shorter than "quit their jobs".
|
| I think it's extremely fair to consider that title
| unnecessarily click-bait-y.
| admax88qqq wrote:
| That's more nuance than most readers will apply. Especially
| with the popular conception of "nobody wants to work."
|
| If you're in the "nobody wants to work anymore" camp, this
| headline will confirm your belief as it is easily taken as
| "look at how many people don't want to work!"
|
| It's negligent reporting.
| vikingerik wrote:
| It's not negligent. It's deliberately misleading for the
| click-bait. They know exactly what they're doing.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _That 's more nuance than most readers will apply._"
|
| Certainly more than what's seen here in this thread.
| [deleted]
| neom wrote:
| DW the German public broadcaster did a really interesting 15
| minute mini doc on this "great resignation" thing:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR5XaparSAo&ab_channel=DWNew...
| bluedino wrote:
| If I leave for a new job making 30% more, and my company pays my
| replacement 30% more, he has to be replaced for 30% more...
|
| Nobody new is entering the job market. Nobody's leaving. Just
| shuffling around. We're still all doing the same work. These
| companies are paying 30% more for labor. Aren't prices just going
| to go up and we're basically in the exact same spot?
| pantulis wrote:
| Looking at the demand side, I feel that there are not that many
| new jobs created, not even by a long shot. So mostly everyone
| is shuffling their chairs, and getting a raise. Employers lose
| here.
|
| If I am right, I'm curious to know _why_ this is happening
| _now_. The pandemic should have something to say: people would
| prefer remote jobs now that most companies have been forced to
| allow for that job model. But is this enough?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >If I am right, I'm curious to know why this is happening
| now.
|
| Sometimes, you need a shock to the system to precipitate
| change. In the US, I was seeing labor supply was getting
| tight throughout the 2010s, and labor prices were rising for
| years, but the pandemic shutdown and benefits provided a
| great catalyst to spur the change that needed to happen to
| force a change in the price negotiations of labor sellers and
| labor buyers.
|
| I can only hope this change continues and we see more labor
| price transparency, and more movement in labor markets
| eventually resulting in reduction of income/wealth gaps.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| Part of it might be transfer payments, part of it might be
| the wealth effect (stocks, house prices etc and everything
| bubble might have pushed people into retirement earlier).
| Probably affects behavior on the margin and has people pull
| away from the work force (and I think the Federal Reserve
| might be starting to realize that).
|
| Also about half of the boomers have / are hitting retirement
| age and are retiring en masse, which will shrink the
| available labor supply quite drastically (especially since
| they were very productive workers in late career stage)
| ravedave5 wrote:
| If a company has a 40% profit margin and employees ask for
| raises they have two choices. Lower profit margin or raise
| prices. If they are in a competitive market then raising prices
| is a risk because their competitor may chose not to.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| No, a bunch of people are going to stay put making ~25% less
| than their peers because they don't have the ability or
| inclination to change jobs.
| Cypher wrote:
| I want to quit, don't know how to get an income and support
| myself though
| seaman1921 wrote:
| by finding a new job..
| yurishimo wrote:
| Apply to jobs and interview. No need to quit before you have a
| new job lined up.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| The thing is after you quit you have to have the drive to keep
| going on your own. I'm experiencing that now. Easy to just turn
| a game on/procrastinate. I don't have money saved so yeah...
| living on debt currently. Not ideal I'm aware.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/boomer-retirement-catastroph...
|
| boomers retiring and people switching job.
|
| there will be less money for start up when boomers money is going
| to retirement instead investment.
| rubiquity wrote:
| I'm not surprised to see three industries at the top of the list
| where interfacing with the general public is the main part of
| your job. I worked in retail as a full time job for five years on
| my way to becoming a programmer. The verbal abuse you can receive
| from people on a daily basis was rough. Nearly every interaction
| involves putting yourself in between a company's policy and the
| person in front of you. You're sort of being paid to be a
| sacrificial lamb for the company's policies. A decade or so later
| I imagine it's even worse given how emotionally charged people
| have become due to this era of politics and how everyone is
| coping with lack of leisure during COVID.
|
| I remember how nearly all of my friendships were with people I
| immediately worked with or who also worked in retail/restaurants
| and in hindsight it's obvious we were bonding over something
| other people couldn't relate to. Getting together typically
| involved a lot of alcohol.
| oramit wrote:
| "Nearly every interaction involves putting yourself in between
| a company's policy and the person in front of you. You're sort
| of being paid to be a sacrificial lamb for the company's
| policies."
|
| The grocery store near me has been bleeding workers the past
| few years and it's reached the point where there are
| consistently long checkout lines filled with annoyed shoppers
| even on non busy days. I could complain about the wait to the
| workers, but what would that do? I could complain to their
| shift manager, but so what, they don't do the hiring? Maybe I
| could find the grocery manager, he would probably want more
| help, but he doesn't control the budget. Now we're at 4 layers
| of management, the store director, who could increase hiring,
| but the regional manager wants to juice the numbers for his
| bonus so maybe I could reach out to the state director...
|
| What i'm getting at is it seems like corporate bureaucracy at
| so many places has reached a point where anybody with real
| power to make changes has been completely isolated from the
| public. It's just powerless workers being yelled at by a
| powerless public. I don't really know how we fix that.
| rubiquity wrote:
| > What i'm getting at is it seems like corporate bureaucracy
| at so many places has reached a point where anybody with real
| power to make changes has been completely isolated from the
| public
|
| Indeed. I'd even generalize further and say isolated from any
| of the details which would could lead to positive changes
| that are actually in line with their thinking. Whether that
| be they are too far removed from the details or for byzantine
| reasons the details never make it to them.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| You fix it by shopping elsewhere.
| munificent wrote:
| I follow a few subreddits dedicated to service industry jobs
| and the stories you hear there are just absolutely insane.
|
| COVID has taken a deep emotional toll on everyone. Then you
| factor in that the kind of people still going out to
| restaurants and such during the pandemic are also often the
| most entitled, least thoughtful segment of the population, and
| you get some real horror stories.
|
| It used to be "here's a story of a shitty tip I got". Now, it's
| like "I had to call the cops on someone who started throwing
| chairs when I told him he had to weak a mask."
|
| Healthcare is the same. Just story after story of burned out
| nurses having patients dying of COVID screaming in their face
| about it being a hoax.
|
| I feel so sorry for anyone who's job forces them to deal with
| people so decoupled from reality.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I assume many people also looked around at friends and family
| with computer friendly jobs and saw them be able to work from
| the comfort of their own home in the event of a public health
| emergency, while they had to still go out and deal with the
| public face to face.
|
| If I was in their position, I would be demanding a hefty
| premium for having to leave my house to earn money.
| djohnston wrote:
| Yeah but it's a labor supply issues, they don't have the
| leverage to make those demands, at least not yet although
| hopefully this is changing now.
| fundad wrote:
| The mass-formation-psychosis among anti-maskers and
| COVID-19-deniers is so far beyond what we're prepared for.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Because mass-formation-psychosis can't happen to people who
| obey.
| dexwiz wrote:
| My sister was a hostess for an upscale restaurant and had a
| gun pulled on her because she asked someone to wear a mask.
| The worst part, instead of calling the cops or asking them to
| leave, her managers still had her seat the party. She doesn't
| work there anymore.
| pavon wrote:
| Honestly, that is probably the best way to defuse the
| situation and prevent people from being shot. Collect
| license plates, credit card info, photos etc, and call the
| police after they have left the building.
| fundad wrote:
| I'm sure they did not do any of that
| cgriswald wrote:
| Even if that were the case, _the manager_ should be the
| one seating them. He shouldn 't be forcing his victimized
| employee to seat them.
| ekanes wrote:
| Yikes. Pulling a gun like that is a serious crime, isn't
| it?
| [deleted]
| boring_twenties wrote:
| Definitely. Simply displaying the firearm is a crime
| (usually "brandishing"). If he actually pointed the gun
| at another person, well, IANAL but that sounds like
| assault with a deadly weapon to me.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| I'm not saying that pulling a gun on anybody for this
| reason is in any way reasonable or proportional. What
| happened to your sister sounds horrific and her former-
| employer sounds awful beyond words.
|
| But I have to say, I understand why people asked to mask up
| in some cases flip out. Does it make sense to anybody that
| society has somehow decided that the way to be safe in
| restaurants is to put on a mask so a host can walk you
| 10-15 feet to your table for 10 seconds where you then
| proceed to take your mask off for over an hour? The mask
| ritual especially in this case is dehumanizing performative
| theater that doesn't make a lick of logical sense. Most
| people wouldn't be so uptight about the Covid rules when
| they make any sense: but many of them are beyond
| nonsensical.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| Theater or not, the reasonable thing to do in this
| situation is to understand that the host is not the
| person making the rules. You do the thing because that's
| the script, whether you agree with it or not. In fact
| maybe the host doesn't even agree with it, but they are
| also just doing their job.
|
| Now that said maybe there are valid reasons why it's
| riskier to have people walking around a restaurant
| unmasked, like say HVAC might pull air up from the
| tables, but you walking around past a bunch of tables
| spreads droplets into their airspace. I don't know, I'm
| not an expert, but I can think of reasons that seem to
| make sense.
| boring_twenties wrote:
| Sure, it's theater. So the proper response is obviously
| to flip out on the teenage girl making $7.50 an hour,
| obviously it's all her fault.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| Who said anything about flipping out on the teenage girl
| making minimum wage being the right thing to do? Is that
| how you interpreted my comment even though I very
| explicitly denounced what happened?
|
| I think actions such as politely voicing displeasure at
| the policy to the worker so they understand that many
| people think the policy is dumb, asking to speak to the
| manager or owner, and leaving so the restaurant doesn't
| get your business are the right thing to do in this case.
| outworlder wrote:
| > But I have to say, I understand why people asked to
| mask up in some cases flip out
|
| I do not.
|
| > Does it make sense to anybody that society has somehow
| decided that the way to be safe in restaurants is to put
| on a mask so a host can walk you 10-15 feet to your table
| for 10 seconds where you then proceed to take your mask
| off for over an hour
|
| Maybe. If the tables are spaced far apart and preferably
| outside. Packed in an enclosed space? No.
|
| However, eating out at a restaurant is not a right. Don't
| like the rules, go somewhere else. Similarly, businesses
| can refuse service.
|
| We are not toddlers. Not supposed to be, anyway.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| > I do not.
|
| I understand that there's some people who are thriving
| and happy wearing masks, but that's certainly not
| everybody. As for many people like me, they are not worth
| wearing. Masks are psychologically damaging and
| dehumanizing in many ways. Already imperfect human
| communication is further harmed with masks. They are
| unnatural and damaging. And outside of wearing an N95
| perfectly in one room for one task, I believe that the
| way they're used in practice is harmful to health (people
| are constantly adjusting and touching them, not washing
| them for ages between uses, etc)
|
| > Maybe. If the tables are spaced far apart and
| preferably outside. Packed in an enclosed space? No.
|
| If we can acknowledge that a rule doesn't make sense for
| health and safety in a certain context, then why follow
| it?
|
| > Don't like the rules, go somewhere else.
|
| There are plenty of people who would gladly do this but
| cannot when the rule is in place by Government edict.
|
| > Similarly, businesses can refuse service.
|
| I'm all for property owners deciding the rules on their
| property, but that's not exactly the system that's been
| built up and that authoritarians advocate for.
|
| > We are not toddlers. Not supposed to be, anyway.
|
| Toddlers don't have the capacity to fully understand
| their world and make rational risk-management decisions.
|
| Toddlers are the ones who are expected to comply with
| what they're told.
|
| I'd say that people who are using their own judgement are
| the opposite of toddlers here.
| anm89 wrote:
| Absolutely do not believe this. There is something in this
| story you arent saying.
| gaspard234 wrote:
| I live in Texas and this happens all the time. Here is a
| case that happened last month over a parking spot.
| https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-
| paso/news/20...
| detaro wrote:
| > _Absolutely do not believe this._
|
| Which part?
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| If I had the guess it would be the part that might make
| them rethink their view on things.
| lovich wrote:
| Have you worked shitty retail/food services jobs before?
| brink wrote:
| I switched jobs in November for a ginormous pay raise. I think
| this is the case for a lot of these people.
| pavlov wrote:
| Millions of Americans did not get a ginormous pay raise in
| November. Your perspective is skewed by the tech industry
| bubble.
| spoonjim wrote:
| A lot of people went from $10 to $12 or $22 to $26.
| brink wrote:
| Yeah - the sign at my local McDonald's is offering jobs at
| $16/hr - 2 years ago it was ~$10.
| Wohlf wrote:
| Where is this happening? Even fast food places in my area are
| starting at $15 an hour, and paying people to show up to
| interviews.
| tester756 wrote:
| I tripled my salary with one job change (but I've been
| underpaid, so probably doesn't count that much)
| diehunde wrote:
| Did you have to move to a higher cost of living area though?
| tester756 wrote:
| No, I told them that I cannot relocate because I have to
| complete master's,
|
| but I'm interested in doing it after that (+- 1.5yr), but
| time's gonna show
| fgweg4434 wrote:
| In Europe we still have the same micro-salaries as before
| pandemic. Nothing changed.
| irateswami wrote:
| Get while the gettin' is good, people!
|
| You now have power over that caviling, micromanaging boss of
| yours. Or the job that doesn't pay you enough. Or the gig that
| makes you come in the office when you can work perfectly fine
| from home.
|
| Remember that productivity in America has doubled in the last 40
| years, but wages have only risen by half. So sit on your ass a
| bit, get paid, then get a gig that respects your worth.
| jzig wrote:
| > You now have power over that caviling, micromanaging boss of
| yours. Or the job that doesn't pay you enough. Or the gig that
| makes you come in the office when you can work perfectly fine
| from home.
|
| What about when I have all those things and still hate my job?
| willcipriano wrote:
| Negotiate less job for the same pay.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Or even less job for less pay (as the declining utility of
| money [and maybe reduction of tax rates] will leave you
| better off than the linear reduction in income might
| suggest).
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Only as a last resort. Anchor high/shoot the moon, and
| only take less money for less work if you have to.
|
| In this job market, employers are likely to agree to
| demands versus churn a role (at least the forward
| thinking ones).
| mooreds wrote:
| Switch professions?
| ojl wrote:
| Yeah, I basically had those things but was very bored by my
| job, especially after starting working from home. Luckily I
| managed to find a job where I still have those things but
| within a domain which is more interesting to me. So the
| answer could be: Switch industry/company.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| Life? Who likes their job? I mean if I don't have to work,
| I'd prefer to be at the beach with a long island ice tea and
| a bikini model.
| astrea wrote:
| I feel as though the average HN user (CS cluster or adjacent)
| already had this luxury.
| orzig wrote:
| Sure, but few comments are useful to a full 50% of readers.
|
| Bottom Decile: This is your moment!
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Eh, even bootcamp grads are getting multiple offers these
| days. I wish I had graduated in this market.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| If you have less than 5 YoE the market is not nearly as hot
| as it is for seniors, not many teams want to onboard a
| junior remotely.
| groundhogday3 wrote:
| Just because productivity has doubled in 40 years doesn't mean
| that people have been twice as productive.
|
| Also salaries and wages aren't dependent on how hard you work.
| It is how much value you bring to a company (and how easily you
| can be replaced).
|
| About 15 years ago .NET programmers were getting much higher
| rates than they are today in the UK (at least in London). The
| last time I looked node, go, AWS and other things were much
| more highly paid.
| _jal wrote:
| The fact remains that the bargain has changed over the last
| 40 years, with the bulk of the benefits of technological
| change not reaching workers. Now it is becoming common for
| even well-paid jobs to move to an assumption of no annual
| raise.
|
| And employers currently whining about lack of employee
| loyalty just make me laugh.
|
| Fact remains, here we are. Employers do not hesitate to take
| ground when they have the advantage, which is usually. Use
| yours while you have it.
| groundhogday3 wrote:
| > The fact remains that the bargain has changed over the
| last 40 years, with the bulk of the benefits of
| technological change not reaching workers. Now it is
| becoming common for even well-paid jobs to move to an
| assumption of no annual raise.
|
| Tell me why should technological change benefit workers?
|
| > Fact remains, here we are. Employers do not hesitate to
| take ground when they have the advantage, which is usually.
| Use yours while you have it.
|
| Sure. I run my own business and I am a consultant \
| freelancer. I am my own employer.
| _jal wrote:
| > Tell me why should technological change benefit
| workers?
|
| Tell me why should the prior arrangement where there was
| what many feel was a more equitable arrangement not
| continue?
|
| > I am my own employer.
|
| Congrats. I was self-employed for over a decade, too. And
| none of this has anything to do with equitable employment
| arrangements.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| > Tell me why should technological change benefit
| workers?
|
| Because who else is technology for? What's the point of
| having technology if it doesn't benefit 99% of the
| population? What you're describing is the plot to
| Elysium.
| lloydgrossman wrote:
| >Tell me why should technological change benefit workers?
|
| Technological benefits make individual workers more
| productive, allowing them to be exploited for more
| profit. If you don't understand the economics or
| incentive of the situation, there's no reasoning you out
| of a box you didn't reason yourself into.
| groundhogday3 wrote:
| > Technological benefits make individual workers more
| productive, allowing them to be exploited for more
| profit.
|
| It also makes harder jobs easier and in some cases allows
| someone unskilled to perform a job that a only a more
| highly skilled person could do. Thus someone is easier to
| replace and thus cheaper.
|
| > If you don't understand the economics or incentive of
| the situation, there's no reasoning you out of a box you
| didn't reason yourself into.
|
| I understand it fine. Technological advances is a double
| edged sword with regards to Labour. It may create whole
| new industries while destroying old ones.
| babypuncher wrote:
| You are talking about people like they are commodities.
| That is your problem.
| rpowers wrote:
| You could bring a TON of value to a company and get paid
| peanuts. Let's not assume a just world here.
| zymhan wrote:
| Your comment is a total non-sequitur, you don't connect any
| of these points to substantiate your claim.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| You're missing the point: the world is producing twice as
| much now and employees are only getting 50% more. So business
| owners and shareholders are getting a disproportionate
| benefit of technological advancement. You might say: why do
| employees deserve to make more money because productivity
| went up when they're not working any harder? Well why do
| business owners deserve to make more when they're not working
| any harder either?
| dannyw wrote:
| And in a labour shortage, the value that someone brings to
| the company increases :)
|
| Demand a doubling of pay to match productivity increases. The
| power is in our collective hands.
| groundhogday3 wrote:
| > And in a labour shortage, the value that someone brings
| to the company increases :)
|
| Sure. However that won't last forever. It will drive
| companies to innovate away your job. I go for a McDonalds
| breakfast after my bike ride on a Saturday and the checkout
| staff are basically non-existent now. They instead have
| self service touch screens.
|
| > Demand a doubling of pay to match productivity increases.
| The power is in our collective hands.
|
| Why? The productivity increases might be for other reasons.
| Automation (many jobs have effectively been automated
| away), outsourcing to other countries.
|
| Also I am not a socialist so don't include me in that
| nonsense thankyou.
| [deleted]
| wyre wrote:
| > drive companies to innovate away your job
|
| Good. We need less bullshit jobs.
|
| >Why?
|
| Because workers have the right to negotiate wages and
| asking for increased pay is a very fair negotiation
| during a labor shortage caused by low wages.
|
| >I am not a socialist.
|
| It's very easy to tell by your complete lack of support
| of worker's rights.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| If jobs being automated or outsourced away explained it
| then you'd expect to see a similarly dramatic reduction
| in workers... but instead people are employed at a
| similar rate, are more productive, and are being paid
| less... so who's benefiting from automating and
| outsourcing exactly?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > It will drive companies to innovate away your job.
|
| This drive exists all the time, just like people like to
| save money when they go shopping.
| Rompect wrote:
| > Just because productivity has doubled in 40 years doesn't
| mean that people have been twice as productive.
|
| ???
| groundhogday3 wrote:
| Depends what they mean by Productivity. Other things can be
| productive other than Labour. Also it still doesn't mean
| you should be paid twice as much.
|
| If I can hire 3 unskilled workers for less than the price
| of a skilled worker that is twice as productive as a single
| unskilled worker. I would just hire 3 unskilled people.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| It's probably better to report this as "reshuffling" than
| quitting.
|
| People are quitting jobs for new ones. Better pay, less legacy,
| new opportunities, and more autonomy.
|
| Everyone is taking advantage of the market conditions. In the
| end, I think this will be a good step for humanity. More people
| will find their passion/calling and take risks they normally
| wouldn't.
| ravedave5 wrote:
| This is a giant hermit crab shell move (I get this boomers job,
| you get my job, next person get your job) spurred on by massive
| wave of boomers retiring. Hopefully this ends up helping those at
| the bottom of the ladder the most as the current minimum wage is
| not acceptable.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I have an unproven theory that the need for more workers stems
| from administrative bloat. There's not enough people doing actual
| work in companies anymore, everyone is a thinker/staff culture
| change agent/product|project manager/architect/"thought
| leader"/"I don't touch production, I'm researching new
| technology".
|
| This causes the people actually doing work to search for these
| positions because they're gravy compared to dealing with the
| schizophrenic requests of the admins, and the cycle continues.
| pphysch wrote:
| The Peter Principle: "Every employee tends to rise to their
| level of incompetence"
|
| In fact it's a consequence of individual interests trumping any
| collective/company interests. Selfishness trumping loyalty.
| Hey, it's the American way.
|
| A clearer and less snappy interpretation:
|
| "In companies/cultures with low cohesion, employees will tend
| to maximize their personal compensation at the expense of all
| other factors, including the aggregate performance of the
| company"
| robocat wrote:
| > Every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence
|
| In software development, you are expected to learn, to become
| competent. For example hires direct from university are
| usually incompetent at the time of their first employment.
|
| The most successful people I know are always at the edge of
| their competence or beyond the edge, but their competence
| envelope increases over time.
| pphysch wrote:
| There are definitely examples of innovation/mission-driven
| companies in any industry, but the entrenched, conservative
| ones (IBM, Oracle, Adobe?, etc) have a lot of Peter
| Principle going on. I have personal anecdotes about that.
|
| MBA- vs. Product-led orgs, <insert Steve Jobs quote>, and
| all that.
| willcipriano wrote:
| My experience in firms is that managers tend to create more
| managers and large firms buy up all the successful little ones.
| This leads me to believe that the final form of the economy
| will be a single worker surrounded by a few hundred million
| managers, who themselves have a series of managers. So on and
| so forth.
| mjklin wrote:
| The Onion once ran a headline: "All Corporations Merge Into
| OmniCorp"
| vsareto wrote:
| "Human species becomes oligarchic mega corporation on
| financial bet that undiscovered aliens also love
| capitalism" and other Stellaris playthroughs
| Apocryphon wrote:
| _Schismatrix_ by Bruce Sterling must 've been a best-
| seller in the future history of that play through
| timeline.
| boppo1 wrote:
| See my recent post history about low interest rates and price
| discovery. It seems like we're in a command economy that
| optimizes for employment more than meaningful work. This
| 'administrative expansion' is part of what I was talking
| about.
|
| Caveat: I have only barely studied economics.
| Clubber wrote:
| I was once in a meeting with 3 developers (me being the lead)
| and 12 managers and discussing how we were going to implement
| something we already implemented. It lasted 2 hours.
|
| In this same company, I had a meeting to discuss what we were
| going to discuss in another meeting of the same people.
|
| This was a company born of a merger of 5 different companies.
| jackcosgrove wrote:
| I also have an unproven theory that part of the productivity
| stagnation we've seen since 1973 is due to a spread of low/no-
| impact administrative jobs. In other words, productivity
| stagnated not because output stagnated, but because we're
| working too many hours.
| Clubber wrote:
| You mean wage stagnation? Productivity has shot through the
| roof since 1973.
|
| https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
| hotpotamus wrote:
| You and David Graeber both. His book about it is "Bullshit
| Jobs". Certainly seems like a valid theory to me.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Companies haven't given sizable COLA raises in decades, but with
| current inflation rates this will become more common again. Until
| COLA raises become standard, employees will be more likely to
| switch companies to get better pay pegged to today's buying
| power.
|
| Companies that start giving COLA raises quickly and assure their
| workers this will continue into the future will fare better.
| Employees will be less likely to jump to a new company if they
| understand that their current employer won't let inflation erode
| their real salary.
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