[HN Gopher] Workers are stuck in place because everyone is too a...
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       Workers are stuck in place because everyone is too afraid of a
       recession to quit
        
       Author : paulpauper
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2024-08-12 21:36 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (boredbat.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (boredbat.com)
        
       | throwuxiytayq wrote:
       | > "I feel trapped here," Amanda said. "I'm financially screwed if
       | I leave, and that's why I don't, or can't leave."
       | 
       | This is so common. People are afraid of and unprepared for income
       | and status setbacks. Sometimes you need to take a couple steps
       | back to get back on track. (I'm currently taking a step back and
       | I'm intimately familiar with the uncertainty of it.)
        
       | bix6 wrote:
       | Which companies have great training programs and happy lifetime
       | employees?
       | 
       | The main one that comes to mind is Costco.
        
         | lotsofpulp wrote:
         | If you read /r/costco, supposedly the new bosses have changed a
         | lot of things for the worse, especially for the non floor
         | employees.
        
         | Spastche wrote:
         | the only thing I can think of is the military and that's only
         | in some circumstances
        
         | silisili wrote:
         | Anymore, it's rare to find. UPS used to create lifers because
         | their benefits were so good, including free education and a
         | stipend for an apartment even. That's all gone, I think, as
         | they were paring it back in the late 90s already.
         | 
         | And nearly everyone has gotten rid of pensions, sadly.
        
       | fundad wrote:
       | It seems like the employers have a lot to gain by spreading the
       | fear of a recession to make the job market to be more favorable
       | to them.
       | 
       | Didn't the Treasury secretary quip "The enemy keeps postponing
       | when the recession's going to come... They are dying to have a
       | recession. They can't bear going into next year's election with
       | the economy the way that it is."
       | 
       | https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/wilbur-ross-democrat...
       | 
       | Wait, that's the former Treasury secretary, they sure knew how to
       | do petty.
        
       | prewett wrote:
       | And now the wheel turns... Two or three years ago everyone was
       | quitting.
        
         | robotnikman wrote:
         | Just one part of a cycle that keeps repeating, hopefully.
        
       | rachofsunshine wrote:
       | We hear this from candidates pretty often (it's the second most
       | common specific reason for a candidate to turn down outreach for
       | a job, after "please don't match me with crypto companies"),
       | although we're new enough that I can't make an apples-to-apples
       | comparison for how common it was prior to the current
       | environment.
       | 
       | What's odd is that, on paper and for the engineering jobs we work
       | with specifically, it doesn't seem like that's actually more
       | justified now than it was a year or two ago. The tech hiring
       | market seems to have bottomed out and to be (unsteadily) on its
       | way back up. Two years ago, prediction markets [1] were pretty
       | confident a recession would occur by this point, but it hasn't.
       | They're now down to about 25% that it'll occur by the end of this
       | year, although the fact that the percentage has stayed flat even
       | as time has run out suggests markets are a bit more bearish now
       | than they were six months ago. And they think [2] that large
       | interest rate cuts are coming.
       | 
       | But perhaps a few years of frustration and seeing others struggle
       | has taken its toll in ways that go beyond object-level economic
       | predictions. Experience with rough conditions might've made
       | people more risk averse, or make them feel more secure in the job
       | they do have (after all, there's a good chance they've survived
       | some layoffs at this point), both of which could (rationally)
       | make them stick where they are even if their opinions of the
       | broader economy were the same or better.
       | 
       | [1] https://manifold.markets/chrisjbillington/will-the-us-
       | enter-... [2] https://manifold.markets/barak/by-how-much-will-
       | the-fed-cut-...
        
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       (page generated 2024-08-12 23:00 UTC)