[HN Gopher] No One Wants to Pay Anymore
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No One Wants to Pay Anymore
Author : underlipton
Score : 60 points
Date : 2023-11-19 20:30 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medium.com)
| noodlesUK wrote:
| There's more to this than simple supply and demand economics.
| People take into account significantly more factors than raw pay
| when deciding to pick a job (and especially when leaving one).
|
| Working conditions are especially horrible in pretty much all the
| cases of "nobody wants to work anymore" that I have seen. Even if
| you paid me a good wage, I might not want to work at a terrible
| employer. It doesn't help that the terrible employers also
| usually pay below-market wages.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Working condition are factored in demand and supply, unless the
| market is very small. Every position is hire-able if the you
| pay for it.
| noodlesUK wrote:
| > Every position is hire-able if the you pay for it.
|
| I completely disagree with this. I have a friend who recently
| turned down a job that would have been a significant pay
| increase because he didn't like the sound of the working
| conditions (which would have also included relocation to a
| new place).
|
| Many of the times that I recall when friends have left their
| jobs, the reason they left is not necessarily because they
| weren't being paid enough, but because they became tired of
| their job, or something changed at their employer that made
| working there less tolerable.
| vidanay wrote:
| The reductionist reply to this is that the employment offer
| didn't meet your friend's threshold for "pays enough".
| Theoretically, if they offered your friend $1,000,000 USD
| per year, he would have accepted the job. The economic
| viability of that pay is a different topic.
| noodlesUK wrote:
| I'm not sure about this. I think it easily met the
| threshold for "pays enough" in an absolute sense, but so
| often the whole sentiment of "pays enough for what
| they're asking from me" goes unsaid. And sometimes people
| value whatever personal thing they might be giving up
| (like being able to live with their loved ones) more than
| even a very large amount of money.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| I'm sure there are plenty of people who would not take
| $1M/yr in blood money to work for companies they see as
| immoral (Google, Facebook, Raytheon, Philip Morris,
| etc.). Obviously you can find plenty of people who will,
| but money isn't everything to everyone. Especially people
| with in-demand skills who can find good jobs elsewhere.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Some years ago, when my name and association with amzn
| were still sort of hot, a wall st. company offered me "7
| figures+" to go work for them for a year or so. I lived
| in Philadelphia at the time, was just starting up a new
| relationship, was raising my daughter as a stay-at-home
| parent by choice ... I said no. I think there was no
| amount of money you could have offered me at that point
| in time which would have been enough to make me say yes.
|
| To generalize: I think there are situations where no
| amount of compensation will make the offer worth taking.
| How common they are ... that's a different story.
| layer8 wrote:
| I think the argument is that there is a salary at which
| there would be _someone_ taking the job, assuming the
| market is large enough. That someone doesn't need to be
| specifically you in your situation.
|
| Of course, it's still conditioned on the mentioned
| assumption.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I was a manager, at a very cheap company that paid
| "competitive" wages _(i.e., below market)_.
|
| I had to work quite hard to make the team a pleasure to
| work at.
|
| It seemed to have worked. When they finally rolled up US
| engineering, 27 years after I joined, the employee with the
| _least_ tenure had a decade.
|
| These weren't losers. They were highly experienced C++
| image processing pipeline engineers.
|
| Good managers make a difference.
| noodlesUK wrote:
| 100% this.
|
| People want to be happy. Once a person's financial needs
| are more-or-less met, it will be very hard to convince
| them to leave, even for substantially more pay, if they
| know their new job will make their lives materially worse
| for ~8h/day.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| He factored in the cost right. Different people factors it
| in differently. And that is how market rate is decided. I
| refuse to believe that the company can't find another
| candidate who is willing to take the job if the pay is
| good.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| Assuming you need some level of competence, if you have
| sufficiently bad working conditions and wanted to rely solely
| on pay, then at some point you'd have to pay enough that
| someone could quickly retire, which means it'd be impossible
| to find experienced hires.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Average wage of drain cleaner in US is $52,930[1] and for
| mining machine operator which is among the riskiest job it
| is $81,741[2], not exactly a quickly retiring wage.
|
| [2]: https://www.salary.com/research/salary/hiring/mining-
| machine... [1]:
| https://www.talent.com/salary?job=drain+cleaner
| ndriscoll wrote:
| Sure, there's a supply component as you say. If you need
| some level of competence (i.e. you can't just hire
| whomever), that strategy isn't going to work.
|
| If someone can make six figures already as an electrical
| engineer or programmer or something, then even if you
| offer $1M/yr for your totally crappy job like another
| poster said, the best you'll get is that they'll do it
| for 6-12 months and quit. Try to put golden handcuffs on,
| and they'll just start coasting once they've gotten
| enough. Try to prevent that (e.g. have a clawback if you
| fire them), and they won't take the deal because they
| don't trust you not to screw them.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| This is assuming that all the people have equal grounds to
| negotiate on. There are also seasonal workers, illegal
| immigrants, slaves, etc
| ddingus wrote:
| Nope.
|
| There are bad condition scenarios that would require far more
| compensation than filling the position delivers value.
|
| "Not worth it" is a very real thing.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Recently went to get a vaccine shot. Making talk with the
| pharmacist she let the mask slip, working conditions are
| horrible. The problem with supply and demand is like everything
| from economics[1] it acts as if only money is important. And
| discounts things like being able to hold up psychologically.
| When your pharmacists are at the breaking point where they're
| going to up and quit at the first opportunity because they
| can't stand the job anymore, your system is sick indeed.
|
| [1] First rule of economics, humans are robots obsessed with
| money.
| fullshark wrote:
| Some businesses' economics simply don't make sense if their labor
| costs grow X%. Maybe they can charge more to make up for it, but
| it's actually not as simple as "this business owner is being
| cheap."
| Jaygles wrote:
| Yeah, the larger symptom is there is less money to go around
| after buying necessities. Inflation stings twice, cost savings
| on necessities will include shifting purchases from less-
| efficient local businesses to more-efficient global mega corps.
| And the slice of income that goes to desires will shrink which
| also reduces spend on local businesses.
|
| So the local businesses get hurt from both ends. Their costs of
| inputs also rise, and the demand for the services decrease. The
| only businesses who can keep or lower prices and also pay more
| for labor are one's that have large profit margins.
|
| And then even if there's enough profit margin to survive the
| hair cut, that may lead to a situation where the business
| owner's time and effort could be better spent on other
| opportunities. So even profitable businesses may close if the
| owner thinks they could do better.
| pbjtime wrote:
| Business: "I'd like to buy paper."
|
| Wholesaler: "That's $x per team."
|
| Business: "The market price has gone up. That means people don't
| want to sell paper anymore!"
|
| THAT'S HOW YOU SOUND, OUT OF TOUCH WHINERS
| jjoonathan wrote:
| "There's a shortage of $30k Lamborghinis!"
| gambiting wrote:
| Ah the good old "no one wants to work anymore":
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobody-wants-to-work-anymo...
| gedy wrote:
| The article ignores the step after paying people more - they
| usually need to raise prices too, and customers balk and don't
| want to pay either.
|
| That said, my opinion is if rent was cheaper, a lot more people
| would be willing to do these service jobs of it meant they could
| live independently.
| rcarr wrote:
| > my opinion is if rent was cheaper, a lot more people would be
| willing to do these service jobs of it meant they could live
| independently.
|
| This is 100% it. The housing market in the Anglosphere is the
| root of all problems. At least in the UK, I'm anticipating a
| single issue party to form in the coming years, like UKIP but
| solely for housing and renting reform. It would have the
| potential to steal votes from both the left and right and
| become a formidable power.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| ... until BricksIt (TM) passes and like UKIP it fades away
| into irrelevance.
|
| Hopefully, unlike UKIP, not into disgrace.
| schrectacular wrote:
| And would make it easier for business to make ends meet too.
| oddevan wrote:
| I think you hit the nail on the head here: "if rent was
| cheaper"
|
| The jobs that that people "don't want to work anymore" no
| longer pay a living wage. Between rent hikes squeezing the low
| end, high interest rates squeezing the middle class, and every
| major company from oil down to Kellog's raising prices but not
| wages, people can't _afford_ to take menial, minimum-wage jobs
| anymore.
|
| Oh, and a bunch of people died because of COVID, so supply has
| been affected too.
| slyall wrote:
| "I interviewed a Japanese bespoke shoemaker last month and
| asked why are there so many craft-based businesses in japan,
| like bespoke tailors. He said rent is relatively low in Tokyo,
| so if you have a passion for making suits and you only have a
| few customers, you're fine"
|
| https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1725234349111721992
|
| Low rent was both commercial and housing.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Isn't Japan's population decreasing dramatically, so the
| demand for housing is not increasing like in USA? They also
| have a very strict immigration policy, opposite of USA.
| cbhl wrote:
| That's at the country level, but _Tokyo_ was also seeing a
| rural-to-urban migration that ran from the 1950s to a peak
| in 2019 or so, and maintained relatively low rents between
| housing and transportation policies compared to major US
| cities.
| injeolmi_love wrote:
| The supply for labor depends on the marginal benefits versus the
| marginal costs. If leisure gets cheaper, taxes go up, or jobs get
| worse, people on the margin will choose to work fewer hours or
| exit the workforce. There's nothing wrong about this! It's how a
| free market is supposed to work.
|
| Unfortunately, in our capitalist system, people are demonized for
| choosing to work less or not at all. It's viewed as immoral not
| to work, because the institutions view humans as cattle that must
| be milked to the maximum. I expect new policies will be created
| beyond the ones already in place to force people to work. We
| should resist this, so I support the sentiment of the blogpost
| even though it's misleading on a factual basis.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| What system do you propose to solve this problem?
| jongjong wrote:
| Well, I suspect many of the people who would normally work as
| waiters or blue collar jobs became rich on Dogecoin, dealing
| drugs or other social scheme. The social aspect of blue collar
| work has delivered financial opportunities.
|
| And many people who studied for years and used to work as honest
| engineers or scientists are now out of jobs don't want to work as
| waiters or do blue collar work, especially for such a corrupt
| system. Is it bad though? You want them to spit in your food?
| asylteltine wrote:
| Both camps are right. Some jobs don't pay enough, but also many
| jobs don't really deserve more pay... if the government didn't
| hand out cash like it was candy it wouldn't have been a problem
| and we wouldn't have had runaway inflation
| 303uru wrote:
| >many jobs don't really deserve more pay
|
| I love when people say this. Why do you get to decide what
| someones time is worth? Just because you like $2 cheeseburgers
| doesn't mean someone has to toil in the kitchen for $7 an hour
| for you.
|
| Trump handed out cash like candy to the already wealthy, not
| sure what that has to do with low wage workers. Or are you
| claiming that people getting $1200 once a few years ago is
| keeping them out of the workforce today, because that's
| hilarious.
| lancesells wrote:
| It's funny how the jobs that "don't deserve more pay" are the
| ones that make everyone else's life so much more convenient.
| Why do people eat fast food or get their groceries delivered?
| Because it saves them time, effort, and money.
|
| I would suggest getting a little perspective and more
| importantly, compassion for your fellow humans. Things like
| food are actually one of the things you need to stay alive.
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| Baumol's cost disease comes to mind here as well
| anotherhue wrote:
| Costs have risen. Odds are your salary offer isn't sensible
| anymore. Tiny violin plays.
| strangesmells06 wrote:
| Ive noticed the worst customer service offenders are companies in
| monopoly condition markets.
|
| Utility companies, cell phone companies, student loan servicers,
| finance companies (mortgage and house), government...,
|
| etcetera
|
| Once theres no competition a customer needing help becomes a
| burden. These companies then usually outsource customer service
| to the most clueless people and have extra long wait times.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Customer retention can cost as much as, if not more than,
| customer acquisition, depending on the market.
|
| If you're a monopoly, you can spend the absolute bare minimum
| on both.
| 303uru wrote:
| Keep out the immigrants. Stop any and all attempts at building
| affordable housing. Make it untenable for younger generations to
| have children. Saddle anyone capable of going to college with
| $100k in debt.
|
| Wonder why no one wants to make me a dollar menu burger for $5 an
| hour anymore!!!
| jldugger wrote:
| Can't readily find it but there was a pretty good Odd Lots
| podcast on the interaction between labor supply and restaurant
| design. California raises wages, and less labor intensive counter
| service measurably replace table service. As is typical for the
| show, it went into nuanced dynamics of the industry, wish I could
| find it again.
| treis wrote:
| This is one of those things people want to be true but is not.
| Labor participation is down significantly in those ages <25. 63
| -> 51 and 47 -> 30 for teenagers in 10 years. Wages are slightly
| up adjusted for inflation over that time.
|
| https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-particip...
| jchw wrote:
| Doesn't seem to conflict much at all with the sentiment of the
| article. Personally, I 100% understand why people are choosing
| not to work in this economy. I'm not sure I would either if I
| had the choice to not work and if I didn't already have a good
| career. In other words: looks an awful lot like two sides of
| supply and demand still. People choosing not to hire at higher
| wages is basically the same as people choosing not to work at
| lower wages.
|
| edit: also,
|
| > Wages are slightly up adjusted for inflation over that time.
|
| While this may very well be true it's probably worth pointing
| out that that does not mean wages are in good shape in general.
| I'm pretty sure they've still significantly stagnated if you
| start counting from a couple decades further back, no matter
| how you quantify it. Wage stagnation isn't exactly a
| controversial concept.
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