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Here's Why Wages Might Rise Despite Millions Of Unemployed Being Available For Work
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
Tragically, the inability of our institutions to impart the skills required by the emerging economy hobble not just the unemployed but employers.
A reader recently offered a compelling reason why total compensation costs (wages plus benefits/payroll taxes) could rise even in a stagnant economy with millions available for work: many of those who have been out of work for a long time (or have yet to hold a formal job) are unqualified by experience and professionalism to perform the work that is available.
This is a complex topic, so let's separate the key issues.
1. Inability to perform the available work successfully on a sustained basis is a problem across the entire spectrum from low-skill to high skill. On the face of it, just about anyone who isn't disabled should be able to do low-skill farm labor such as harvesting fruits and vegetables, etc.
But anecdotal evidence suggests many unemployed Americans are incapable of doing this kind of demanding physical labor on a sustained basis: stories abound of native-born Americans working in the fields for a few hours or days and then giving up.
At the higher-skill end of the spectrum, those who have been out of work for years may find that their skillset has been leapfrogged by technology, and it's cheaper/more efficient for employers to poach workers from competitors than it is to train workers who lack the specific skills needed.
The American Model of "Growth": Overbuilding and Poaching (November 19, 2013)
Though it may seem counter-intuitive to non-employers, it's actually cheaper and lower risk to pay a higher salary to poach a competitor's employee because you can be confident the employee can start producing value on Day One, where if you hire a long-unemployed worker, you are taking the risk the person has lost the ability to perform at a high level, and you're taking on the expense and time required to retrain them.
Training takes time and investment, and it's easier to hire employees from competitors than invest the time/money in training new employees.
2. Ageism. Ageism cuts both ways: Baby Boomers are clinging on to their jobs rather than retiring because they need the higher income. In jobs with tenure (such as virtually every government or union job), this trend ties employers into paying the highest wage scale and healthcare costs because it's generally illegal to force someone to retire against their will.
On the other end of the scale, older workers often find employers prefer younger employees--not just because they will accept lower wages (and lower healthcare costs) but because the employers may assume their skills are more up to date.
Anecdotally, sectors dominated by tenure/union contracts will experience higher total compensation costs as their workforce clings to their jobs as they age.
3. Work is more demanding than ever. The pool of people claiming to want work appears large, but the demands made on employees is rising constantly as corporate employers seek higher productivity. A significant number of people are simply unable to perform the work at the sustained level of productivity required nowadays.
An employee who could keep up 20 years ago or even 10 years ago may fall behind in today's work environment.
We might recall the 80/20 Pareto Distribution here: as a rule of thumb, 20% of employees are responsible for 80% of the department's output/sales (this is not exact, but it is nonetheless remarkably accurate).
Employers are willing to bid up compensation for the top 20% who generate the majority of the output/sales, etc.
4. Healthcare costs are still soaring for employers. While a few data points suggest total healthcare spending has leveled off, this is likely the result of ObamaCare pushing the first $5,000 of expenses onto the "insured" with Bronze Plans.
(If "healthcare" requires ponying up $5,000 in deductibles, how is that even "insurance"? In my view, is it a simulacrum of insurance.)
In other words, now that they have to pay the first $5,000 for care in cash, people are not going to the doctor.
Meanwhile, employers are getting stiffed by much higher premiums. Using my own bare-bones coverage as a baseline, my monthly healthcare insurance fee has shot up about 20% in the past two years. Plans with better coverage increased even more.
Unknown to most employees, there is a tax in ObamaCare paid by employers. That raises total compensation costs even though employees don't see it in their paychecks.
5. Slashing head count has reached marginal returns. The majority of corporate employers have already outsourced/automated the low-hanging fruit of their labor force, and what's left in the U.S. remains for a reason: it serves the U.S. market or does work that produces high value (for example, managing overseas divisions, designing products made overseas, etc.)
So we have a diminishing number of jobs that can be outsourced and a diminishing number of qualified people who can do the work.
6. Minimum wages are rising in many locales as higher costs outstrip entry-level earnings. Rather than engage in the debate over whether higher minimum wages are good or bad, let's stipulate that minimum wages are rising a a number of communities, and in aggregate, this pushes compensation costs up.
It's un-PC to say out loud than many of the unemployed are unhireable because they lack the basic "people skills" of professional manners, the desire or ability to learn, the willingness to persevere and prove their worth to employers, etc.
This pressure to be politically correct inhibits an honest discussion of the disconnect between graduates from high school and college and the skills, values and professionalism needed by employers.
I have listed what I consider the eight essential skills of professionalism in my book Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy, based on my own experience as a employer and as a managing employee.
Those without these basic skills have a tough time qualifying for any job, even an entry job in retail or fast-food service.
I fault our dysfunctional, disconnected education system for this failure to teach the basic skills of being employable. Fortunately, anyone can learn these skills on their own, but this is a process that demands a lot of potential employees: self-awareness, perseverance, a willingness to seek out mentors and community-based (often unpaid) work to acquire skills and connections, etc.
To sum up: let's say there are 15 million people who say they want work. But maybe only a few million actually have the skills, values and experience in hand to qualify for the jobs that are available.
That mismatch--in addition to the other factors listed above--could push total labor compensation costs higher even in an economy that appears to have a lot of slack in its labor market.
Personally, I don't see how any small-business employer could afford to hire anyone but those in the top 20% of work ethic, accountability, honesty, willingness to learn new skills, communication skills, etc.
Despite an abundance of lip-service paid to entrepreneurial skills, it seems our educational institutions have largely failed to pass on these skills, which are alien to protected bureaucracies such as those of institutionalized education. To ask a bureaucrat who is forced to adhere to a bunch of disconnected-from-the-real-world guidelines to "teach" entrepreneurism is to ask the impossible.
Tragically, this inability of our institutions to impart the skills required by the emerging economy hobble not just the unemployed but employers. As a result, I see labor costs rising in the years ahead despite an apparent surplus of people willing to work.
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Our institutions are on death row, so they won't be of much help soon.
Iraqi PM Maliki may soon be joining the ranks of the unemployed.
(WSJ) BAGHDAD—Iraq's brewing political crisis headed toward confrontation on Monday afternoon after the country's largest political bloc named Haider Al Abadi as its nominee to replace the prime minister.
The choice of who to nominate as Iraq's next prime minister now rests with recently elected President Fuad Marsum, who is obliged by the country's constitution to charge the leader of the largest political bloc with forming a new government.
If Mr. Marsum nominates Mr. Abadi, it could set the presidency on a collision course with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is vying for his third four-year term. Mr. Al Abadi, a spokesperson for Mr. Maliki's own Dawa Party, was elected as the deputy speaker of Parliament in July.
"Despite an abundance of lip-service paid to entrepreneurial skills, it seems our educational institutions have largely failed to pass on these skills, which are alien to protected bureaucracies such as those of institutionalized education"
The "Education System" is working exactly as intended, unfortunately.
When all conservative ideas were lost within our education system, they were lost everywhere else by default. We're just now seeing the long term effects of that come to fruition.
This is a mess the employers created on their own. They do not want to spend the money and time to train employees and enough perks to keep them within the job. It is their own fault. When the Baby Boomers start to retire or die the work place is going to collapse due to incompetence at the management levels.
"They do not want to spend the money and time to train employees and enough perks to keep them within the job"
Why should employers, who already fork over a paycheck also pay to educate workers that will probably leave to seek better pay after training is completed? The issue isn't with the employers, its with the employees that rather seek money for nothing or simply collect a gov't check.
"When the Baby Boomers start to retire or die the work place is going to collapse due to incompetence at the management levels"
So basically your damning Gen X,Y for poor work ethics.
Wages can go up to US$100 an hour for starters as $ go WORTHLESS.
At every interview I've had I ask to be paid in real money. They look so puzzled when I make that request. when I tell them I do not wish to be paid in dollars...their heads explode. Yeah, just finished my 10th job interview for the year today. It's a real hoot to play this game! :)
I take it you really don't want the work?
Yeah, not so much. I enjoy messing with "future potential employers". They've got theirs coming.
"I fault our dysfunctional, disconnected education system for this failure to teach the basic skills of being employable."
Are there no jobs left in the 'education' field for those who can not 'do'?
My daughter works in an old industry for a very large multi-naitonal company that I won't mention. About 6 years ago they realized that 85% of their technical staff retires in 8-10 years. They started hiring the best of the best, fortunately my daughter was one of them. She graduated at the top of her engineering class. Three years out of school and she's earning in the mid to high 70's!
Most of her classmates earn about 25% less and a least two she knows, who never took their studies seriously, never landed a job. Companies are willing to pay when they see a return on their investment. That's the real bottom line. If you aren't adding value to your company, they aren't going to hire you.
Have you ever hired? Fired? Had to make payroll? I’ve been doing it for 20 years now. I provide good pay, and benefits, including 100% company sponsored health insurance, although the 100% coverage may be ending soon (our premiums just went up 65% in one year). Companies don’t mind training someone that has basic skill sets, that have critical thinking skills, and a decent work ethic. They are tough to find, believe me. I own a mechanical engineering firm that designs pressure vessels. I recently hired a mechanical engineer, 6 months from his bachelor of science in a 5 year program, and, after three days of training, his eyes glazed over and he said “You know, I can’t do this”. So much for 5 years of college. When he finishes he’s going…drum roll please…INTO THE MILITARY!!! I guess we need that blood and treasure out there fighting for our <sic> freedom.
You may have something there. I'm a GenXer and we're more of the lone-survivor type. We've been abused and we just endure. Like cockroaches. Few of us have skills to lead others or have the moral compass needed to do so. The group I fear most however is the Millennials. They're awful. They love team environments, and cliques. The less accountable the better. The vitriol pours out of them when they have to work with someone different from themselves. They love attention. Individual feedback (negative) is terrifying. They can't psychologically handle being in the wrong. In their world everyone should get a pat on the back. When they become managers, expect to see higher turnover, increased bullying complaints, and low morale as they have no clue how to deal with problems. They'll rove in packs in the cafeteria. They will reamain clueless as long as Upper Mgmt or their job allows.
I wanted to be an entrepreneur but I never got around to saving up some start-up capital. So I was beaten by any entrepreneurs who simply borrowed some start-up capital. There's that risk-reward thingy that everyone keeps talking about. The savers will always be outbid by the borrowers. I'm still contemplating that one.
You didn't have enough confidence in your idea to take out a loan? Sometimes you just need to jump in with both feet...
Loans aren't inherently bad. Too bad that statement seems so nostalgic now.
How about a car? Should someone have to compete on price with someone who has no money saved? Still think debt is good? Just what exactly are you racing toward?
So true. For 20 years we put $200/ month away until we could afford to buy a new car. We never took out a loan. Then we eventually noticed the janitors at our both of our jobs were driving nice cars and we couldn't afford a base model Honda. Then inflation started chewing away at it as well and we finally started to face the fact we were playing a losing game. Others utilizing cheap financing have changed the game.
Miffed;-)
Entrepreneurs are risk takers. At some point they just roll the dice and step out in faith. That's where you and me go wrong. We can't tolerate the thought of losing our shirts. We spend our waking time fretting about the possibility. The Entrepreneur hates the thought of losing too, he just spends every waking moment making sure it doesn't happen.
My nephew quit his job of 17 years, mortgaged his house and with some creative seller financing, bought an ailing veterinary business! He's not a vet. His background is logistics. He knows nothing about animal care, but he does understand cash flow. That was in 2009. He bought his second vet business in 2012 and has gross sales of just under $2M. He's doing very well.
... and now we know why 80% go bankrupt in their first year.
The other 20% have found someone to pick up the tab.
Here's Why Wages Might RiseThe cost of having employees should rise......but monetary benefit to said employee? Put me in the skeptic column.
Bring in millions of illegal aliens.....and that whole bet is off.
The reason wages HAVE to rise is because the banksters lent too much money to idiots. The only way they'll be able to hide their incompetence is by inflating away the debt. Of course, this will ONLY work if the banksters STOP lending TOO MUCH money to idiots. If people bought and sold real estate for a price that they could AFFORD, then the real estate market would crash and a lot of "rich" people would be underwater. A lot of other rich people will suddenly be worth a lot less than they currently claim to be worth. A lot of collateral would suddenly be devalued and a lot of loans exposed as being backed by a poofteenth of fuck all.
Roughly speaking, the economy was guaranteed fucked the instant the majority of "wealth" originated from loans that relied on capital gains for "repayment" instead of dividends and rental streams. "Rich" people want to keep valuations high while keeping incomes low. It works for a little while but not forever. Either valuations have to come down to match incomes, or incomes have to rise to match valuations. Who is in charge? "Rich" people. What is less painful for those in charge? At the moment, QE. They can keep their pretend high valuations while incomes stay low. How long? Until people have to take out 25 year loans on a week's worth of groceries and roll over each week's debt. Hopefully the peope will wake up BEFORE that happens.
Are "rich" people suddenly going to say, "Hang on a minute. This million dollar house only rents out at $400 per week but the mortgage is $1600 per week. Perhaps it is really worth less than $250 grand. Oh but now I have to put up another 750 grand collateral on my business investments"? Or will they say, "I'll keep it off market, get some rich foreigners to put in an offer on it and use the new valuation to borrow more money"?
You're dreaming.
The "rich" bastard will try and rent it for $1600 per week and if that means that 4 illegal alien families and their extension have to get crammed into 4 bedrooms! Rich don't care. That's why they're rich.
Who is constantly pushing for more amnesty and more cheap illegal alien workers? Are you "rich" enough to afford a cheap gardener, nanny, housekeeper, maid, driver and so on?
You give the "rich" too much credit in terms of their ability to think about the consequences of their greed. In the end they'll be happy to get out alive when SHTF. Are you going to raid the cupboards of your poor neighbours or taking a group of friends to the wealthy hoods where the pantries are stacked?
IME that is a false assumption. Rich people don't cook, they go out, or order in. Maybe if you are talking really rich and they have a paid chef who stocks a kitchen for them.
"Bring in millions of illegal aliens.....and that whole bet is off."
Not really since these are essential no skill workers. They can do simple labor intesive jobs, but very few can performed skilled labor. That said, a lot of skilled labor jobs have been outsources to India (Information workers) and China (Manufacturing).
FWIW: I think the reason of opening the floodgates at the border is to flood the country with more DNC votes, as well as import more gang violence in order to pass full gun control. After all, gun control has worked very well in latin America. /sarc
Would you consider building houses non-skilled labor? It seems to me that just about every housing development being built (in Boise ID atleast, Im sure its the same in the border states) is done by a whole gang of Mexicans. This may not be your idea of skilled labor but for my family that is how food was put on the table. Now you have to compete (And new houses arn't actually booming like they used to). They may not be rocket scientists pouring in, just plumbers and masons and framers and concrete workers finish carpenters etc. taking away what used to be decent/respectable living. Who needs the middle class anyway?
Here in jersey the only Americans on a construction site are the plumbers and maybe half the electricians.
Also, they like to shit/piss in basement and leave half eaten food in the walls and attic.
Enjoy your brand new McMansion!
It is sad to see in our area with so many illegals, construction jobs (which were good high paying jobs) now hard to come by. A friend of mine used to manage large building projects in LA ( pulled in around 200-300k/ year) is now surviving as a handy man at 62. He told me it's hard to find a cement company for small projects. When he finally found a guy to deliver a load, he was shocked the man driving the truck also had to run the office and schedule the jobs, not even a secretary available. He was booked weeks in advance and worked 6 days a week 12hrs/day.
As a professional, illegal workers don't directly affect me and they can't outsource medical so they are stuck with buying high tech instrumentation as a means to eliminate jobs. I guess the hope is to get instrumentation engineered properly so an uneducated person can operate it.
Well, I guess I won't be a tax slave any more when that is achieved. So, the next step would be the knacker.
Miffed;-)
Unfortunately, many of them are high skilled. Let's just say I know a bartended for was a lawyer in Argentina, a guy who buffs floors who used to be a pilot for a large foreign airline, and a janitor who used to repair helicopters.
Wages will rise in real terms eventually...
Right after ___________ <insert civil unrest/conflict/crime/virus as appropriate> (my money is on virus) has killed off 40-60% of the global population.
This is a really simple concept. Despite all of the stuff listed in this article, which isn't bad by the way, all it comes down to is the (collective) bargaining power of the labor force versus the collective bargaining power of the management/hierarchy and that is mostly a function of available labor force for the job. Sounds Marxian, or socialist mostly, it probably is, but it really is that simple.
Note: available labor force = labor force with adequate intelligence/training/skill levels for the job.
This used to be the case when markets were local or domestic. Now that the entire factory can leave the country, the corporate profits can leave the country, and goods will still be available to those that want to buy them (when was the last time you saw a strike of any kind that made any difference?). Labor will be squeezed regardless of what collective bargaining power it has, because while you can be collective locally, maybe even domesticly (doubtful), it ain't gonna happen globally. Manufacturing and finance globalized, labor did not. We can ship manufacturing jobs South and prop up the Mexican peso and no one complains ... but let humans try to indiscriminantly cross the border and it's a national crisis (I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it IS ...). We're in an incredibly dynamic time, where things have changed so rapidly on one front while remaining the same on another that crisis and illogical results are inevitable.
Charles is right in a very specific sense: some people will actually see the demand for their labor rise. But "some people" does not a national trend make. And the global trend is that there is way too much labor given the world's demand. Dismiss the bs unemployment statistics spouted by the government, we're at 15% or better in the US. And the remaining 85% probably are more and more underemployed each year. Look at how many cars the automobile companies turn out with fewer workers, how much food is produced with fewer workers, how many widgets are made with fewer workers; more gets done with fewer people doing it every year. Face it, if you don't think about your career and plan accordingly for the current economy, you won't be needed and you can draw your disability and food stamps with the rest of the unnecessary. That's the feeling I get, and the whole system isn't going to change due to revolution... there's going to have to be ground-level changes in how the global economy works for any hope of stability. And that won't happen peacefully or because of a Google/Facebook Think-tank initiative. I weep for our children ....
Yeah, there is no doubt that you have to take the labor force as global aggregate, rather than national. Hence real wages rising after a big global population collapse. Even as a high-skilled worker these days you're not competing against just John and Jimmy from the next town over. You're competing with Indians, Chinese, Russians, Eastern Europeans etc. (you get the idea.) How quaint it must have been in 1950s USA to have two working arms and legs and sleepwalk into a job. No doubt life was tough emerging from two world wars, but at least people had hope for a brighter future.
National might hold once the bond markets collapse and politicians start building maginot lines all over the global map. Hard to say how that will play out really.
Don't overlook the power of Nationalism. Bad times could start a protectionist movement like Hitler's Germany.
@getzeegold Not to mention, once the illegals are amnestied and get work permits, they will seek better jobs. Then the low-wage employers will hire new illegals to regain the cost advantages that they have when the employee can't complain. The employers are the siphon that draws more illegals into the American labor pool and they will simply continue to do so unless something changes.
"....and it's cheaper/more efficient for employers to poach workers from competitors than it is to train workers who lack the specific skills needed...."
nonsense as a general statement
The emerging economy doesn't have full employment (well not unless we start rationing work). Education can change fuck all about that.
"It's not a matter of money of course. It's because the nation-state should be destroyed as the elementary mechanism required to protect the rights of the majority. Until then, the state will be used to distribute a minimum subvention to the armies of unemployed, so that the big banks and corporations not to be threatened by sudden and massive uncontrolled riots of totally desperate people."
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/08/the-dominant-elite-ready-to-b...
Backward. The "evil corporations" and banks etc. enjoy their great success only because they have the protection of government. Get government out of the picture and they will be exposed to the cold wind of market forces.
Indeed, "bankrupcy, what's that? The politician we bought says that we don't need to worry about that."
I say execute all people who are a party to the FRAUD.
I don't think so. Many still believe in the myth of the free market. They have an ideal situation in mind where everyone will be free from the state suppression and the free market will drive societies and individuals to balance and prosperity. It's just an illusion because in reality the game is more rigged than ever. We are not talking about capitalism, not even neoliberalism. We are talking about the new global, brutal feudalism!
This is already old news - it has already been happening. And now minimum wage jobs are being displaced too. You don't need an army of kids taking orders at Mickey D's - you need 1 kid at each store and 1 well paid kiosk repair guy covering 10 stores. Check out at Walmart? There are now more self-check-out stations than there are cash register lines with humans. That ain't helping the minimum wage crowd. And as for those well paid kiosk programmers - why are US IT companies trying to bring in more foreign programming/networking staff? It's not because they want to pay those workers higher wages!
"But anecdotal evidence suggests many unemployed Americans are incapable of doing this kind of demanding physical labor on a sustained basis: stories abound of native-born Americans working in the fields for a few hours or days and then giving up."
These are not just stories. In my neck of the woods, the unemployed don't make it to lunch on the first day. Some make it 3 days. None have made it a week. But we keep advertising in the local rag (the feds say we have to, before we can import labor), but its a total joke. Even Unemployment laughs when they call us on the phone to send a few over.
Look for guys with the name Manule Labor, they will provide the human capital as you drink the kool aid and smile as your profits rise.
I'll keep reading here, and leave the kool-aid to you. You seem thirsty.
We're creating millions and millions of new indivisuals who are incapable of ever performing work, They are physically unfit or obese, commit crimes and go to jail, cannot take an order, cannot read or write functionally, lack attention, are unruly or disruptive, have no skills, and are angry or argumentative. They lack the brains to do little more than feed themselves. What do we do with this group?
Employee Boot Camp!
Apparently, the answer is, we give them EBT, Section 8, WIC, and SSDI. Their "job" is to vote Democrat.
Getting them to do even that "job" is difficult, so we blow the borders open and import more of these "employees" from the world. When your bucket has a hole in it, you just put more water in the bucket!
I've only ever worked in an office. My ability to bend, reach, and lift puts me on the level of olympic athletes amongst all these "disabled" people who can't sit in a chair in an air conditioned ofice without filing a claim
Lower profit margins and coming bottom-line and cash flow pressures will mean that the protected high-wage senior employees will soon have to go too.
Fortunately, for the rest of us...!
'protected'? Only ones 'protected' are either politically connected in an organization or have a union which is about 8-12% of the workforce. Just wait till a worker has a family and buys a house, ten years go by fairly quickly then 'all of a sudden' a worker finds themselves in a 'oh shit I'm considered old and making a good wage' scenario ... no job stability and little ones running around the house asking Daddy why do we have to move into an apartment and get rid of spot. Be careful what you wish for
Currently having a nightmarish time hiring full stack web developers in DC. All the govt contractors are incompetent.
Like two peas in a pod, they never know the difference of flavor cause they like the one they have.
When there is no consequence to being an idiot and doing a crappy job, a la union/government work, there is no motivation or effort to do better.
Besides, I am sure they all graduated with high self-esteem which is all you really need,
And if there were no worker unions, we'd be in a slavery pattern.
It's bad enough as it is for the executives, whose capacities are stretched to their limits by insane contracts that require each employee to do the work of three (two salaries saved by the boss, plus he can threaten with firing you if you complain. "Not happy? They're queuing up in the street for your job position").
Thanks, but no thanks.
I have noticed that over and over at both the state level and federal. And the contracts are for huge amounts of money for an f'ging website. If my job wasn't outsourced, I might actually be doing that stuff still .. as it was getting twelve websites for banks running perfectly to contract requirements took less than 24 months... then the unemployment started... goodbye IT work
saddest thing about this is that it will slow our transition to a third world economy, and complete control of a peasant population -- you will still have a segment of the population with enough money to educate themselves and their children and collect an asset base. The real third world level of poverty that is the goal for the mass of the American population will not come as quickly as hoped.
Sigh.
If it weren't for government-supplied union protection, their employers' government-granted access to natural resources and mandatory employer contributions to healthcare, pensions etc., I would outbid these $40-$50-$70/hour longshore grunts and have a chance at a job. I mean, how much "training" does that NEED???
THAT'S why I blame government meddling!
saddest thing about this is that it will slow our transition to a third world economy, and complete control of a peasant population -- you will still have a segment of the population with enough money to educate themselves and their children and collect an asset base. The real third world level of poverty that is the goal for the mass of the American population will not come as quickly as hoped.
Sigh.
In the past the main benefit of unions has been to better distribute labor the rewards of labor. This gives more people a path to finding real and fulfilling work. The cost of inequality is taking a toll on our culture. Robots and new technology have streamlined and increased productivity and at the same time eliminated many jobs.
Big business is good for big business but not necessarily for the masses. Consolidation often means a gain in efficiency, but this often comes at the cost of losing diversity and a "robustness" to both society and the economy. The benefits of efficiency sometimes have a huge hidden cost. How the fruits of labor are divided is important, this includes not just the wage deserved by a common laborer, but how much those in management, top CEO's, and those that can't, or choose not to work, receive. The article below delves into this important and complex world wide issue of jobs in the future.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/04/society-must-better-divide-labor....
My experience says something different. I was hired with a 90 day period until actual permanent position and review. This typical story line of take our original offer or go fuck yourself. I decided to go fuck off. Even with skills the corporation with its infinite knowledge uses this pool of unemployed as their leverage! Call bullshit to above theory! Good try Carlos. Tell me the last time you looked for a job?
Tell me the last time you looked for a job?
Uh-huh......we're waiting. Take all the time you need.
A couple of notes:
Bosses want to hire someone exactly like the guy that just quit. But why did he quit?
It doesn't matter how simple the job is, there is ALWAYS a knack. It may take days, it may take weeks, it may take years, but, depending on the job, the guy with the experience can easily be 5 times faster than the new guy because he has the knack. There is no substitute for experience.
There is NO substitute for on-the-job learning ESPECIALLY when the employer has PROPRIETARY SYSTEMS that one can not learn about through doing courses. "Sure, I'll fix your oil rig. I got one just like it at home that I practice on on the weekends." "I learnt 80286 machine code so it'll be nothing for me to get up to speed on your 68000 series (what are they up to now? 68050? 68060? I'm out of date). Just gimme a memory map and a firmware guide. Likewise I can sort out the problem with your Allen Bradley PLC - they're all microprocessors, right?!"
In a similar vein, you have to give people time to adapt to a new worksite (depending on how large it is and how different it is from the rest of the world).
Re: "But anecdotal evidence suggests many unemployed Americans are incapable of doing this kind of demanding physical labor on a sustained basis: stories abound of native-born Americans working in the fields for a few hours or days and then giving up." :
Years ago I had an assistant that quit after ONE HOUR. But in hindsight I don't blame him. It was a minimum wage job to nowheresville. The sooner you quit the sooner you can get on with the rest of your life. I was there over five years before I "managed to escape". Who's the idiot now?
Training is always a game of chicken between the boss and the potential worker. If the boss is desperate then he will pay for you to learn your job. If the worker is desperate then he will pay to do courses so he can look useful to the employer. The first one to chicken out pays.
Education and courses in your own time and with your own money does not guarantee that you get a job. It does not guarantee that any potential bosses will get everything they are looking for. It doesn't even guarantee a "Thanks for meeting me half way" from a boss. But plenty of people will whinge "Oh he has all the tickets but he doesn't know anything." No shit! If I had the experience then I wouldn't need a boss. I'd already have one. And as I mentioned before, you can't expect new employees to know all your trade secrets. If you're the only one who knows the equipment, then you are the one who has to teach the newbies.
Excellent post, still call bullshit to a newbie with 10 years experience - your still an immigrant! Trust me, I experienced it first hand working for the same wage! Call it the slow burn, fortunately I have a stash of cash and could say good fucking bye bye...
yep, that sums it up fairly well. My favorite is the job description that lists that they want years of in-depth experience (3 to 5 usually... but not too much experience) in a number of specialized areas that it is impossbile for one person to have due to exactly what you mention..... like a candidate has 8 of the 12 things they wanted when employer expectation of finding someone with exactly those 12 things is essentially an insane expectation and completely unrealistic.
" "I learnt 80286 machine code so it'll be nothing for me to get up to speed on your 68000 series (what are they up to now? 68050? 68060? I'm out of date). Just gimme a memory map and a firmware guide. Likewise I can sort out the problem with your Allen Bradley PLC "
I'm unemployed right now, and funny thing is, I CAN do that - and have. Programmed in assembly on Z80/64180, 68000, PowerPC860, Pic16, plus C programming, and ladder, script, and function block on Idec and ControlLogix. Back in the day, the willingness and ability to learn was more important than credentials, because the courses didn't teach the specifics - they couldn't. I'm having a bitch of a time getting past HR now because it's all buzzword based. No buzzword or wrong buzzword, they ignore you.
A lot of older guys knew how to solve problems. Now it seems less about solving problems that "applying technology".
It's easy to go from 80286 to 68040 if you have an opcode sheet and a little explanation of the registers on the new chip. It's not so easy if you had no documentation what-so-ever. And that is the point I was trying to make. If you were called in to program a new XYZ chip, could you do it without any other explanation? You don't know how many registers the new chip has, you don't know how many data and address lines it has, you don't know anything about its instruction set? No, it'll take you forever to figure it out.
I don't actually program for a living. I only do it for fun (despite having PLC qualifications and a excellent machine code background). I was using programming as a metaphor for all jobs where you are expected to know everything from day one, but not given even the most basic of tools to help you get started. It's like when backyard mechanics complain that they can't fix modern cars. With a little instruction they could easily do it. But without that little instruction, it'll take forever for them to figure it out for themselves.
In my opionion/experience it not necessary which specific skills you have, but your ability to solve problems and do it with minimal hand holding. If you have the ability to solve problems is usually not difficult to learn something new. because the majority of workers lack self-initative and real problem solving skills, its a big risk for an employer to hire a worker that doesn't have the specific skills needed for the job. I think the people that possess self-initiative and problem solving skills end up starting their own businesses instead. So employers now just try to find employees that already have the exact skils needed.
The opcode 201 is the instruction "Return", mnemonic "RET", for a Z80. Knowing this, what are the equivalents for 6809? For the 80x86 series? For the 68000 series? For the RISC chips? If that is what you need to know, then you need the piece of paper that tells you. No piece of paper? Sure you might be able to figure it out eventually, maybe before your centenary. That's the point I was trying to make. Sometimes you don't need much information in order to be productive but you must have that little piece of information.
Don't know about the USA, but for the UK in the EU it doesn't work. The disparity in wages through the EU means that any UK employer has cheap, good, workers on tap. An almost never ending list of applicants.
That's why Corporations love the EU, and our sold out politicians promote it. That's why I'm eurosceptic (amongst other reasons) and why if ever given a vote any UK worker would be mad not to vote OUT.
Well have fun going to a trade balance if you try to upset the applecart ...
Oil is what keeps us beholden to globalization, toe the line and you too are allowed to run a trade deficit with the ME.
It's all about never ending pursuit of the cheapest possible labor - you offshore jobs - factories and all - whenever possible or bring in cheaper labor - legally via H1b's for high end help or illegally for low end help.
Our society continues to minimize the value of labor. It views views 'money' as something that can be created out of thin air instead of representing expended labor, a store of 'value'. Even the highly skilled are treated with contemot - as 'costs' to be 'contained' instead of assets that produce profit. Yes we have a society that puts more demands on its workers BUT it does NOT want ot pay for those skills. You know what companys want to pay a skilled CNC programmer? CRAP. The first few programmers at Microsoft made a fortune - now they employ H1B's or ship the work overseas.
Welcome to the new serfdom - where 99.9% of us are serfs.
Those making their money off money - instead of their own labor - view those that actually 'wok' with little more than contempt - replaceable pieces in some large machine they control.
Agreed. Problematic software or cheaper tools, and lower quality ALSO seems to be something the buying public is willing to accept as well in off-shore or cheaper imports.
What you describe was actually defined by Adam Smith and David Hume, the brits that are often heralded as inventors of capitalism. More like purveyors of the British East Indies Company methodology - fascist merger of business-government.
When the US and particularly IC and chip manufacturers went off shore in mid 80's our first crash was right around the corner '87. We have been living off a bubble economy ever since. No income or production then no real economy. And it will NOT come back within the next few decades or maybe century.
1. There are actually public US Labor documents that actually tout how they can boost economic output by off-shoring "skilled" US labor. This is why you can conclude it is not ignorance but intentional.
Alan S. Blinder, “How Many US Jobs Might be Offshorable?,” World Economics
2. USAID actually taught English to Phillipines, India and some African nations via the USAID JOBS program to offshore all call centers. YES, US Tax Payers PAID to lose their own jobs to the the third world as US GOV support USAID, with their own tax dollars. What a SCAM.
Charles, all you've done is made a case that existing labor who can get the job done (and be more productive as the future requires) will be worth more. The problem with the thesis is that your comments only address individual level pay, but your thesis makes a universal/aggregate statement about wages. I propose that higher wage pressures for a few will be more than offset by decreased jobs (e.g. mechanization, outsourcing, etc.) and exacerbated margin compression for virtually every market (no consumers that can afford the product of labor), leading to an aggregate stagnation/decrease in wages.
I believe that excess unemployment will keep wages down. But the banksters themselves may initiate forced increases in the minimum wage purely to allow debts to be repaid. Some idiot earns $500 per week. You let him buy a house with a mortgage of $500 per week. How does he eat? He defaults, you repossess the house and put it on the market for a price that translates to a mortgage repayment for $600 per week. Some idiot buys it ... till the whole market is full of idiots, and now you can't sell the houses for your asking price because it is too, ludicrously high. So you hold houses off market, invite some foreign idiots to buy ... eventually you have a choice: Let house prices go down or wages go up. What's it going to be?
But the banksters themselves may initiate forced increases in the minimum wage purely to allow debts to be repaid. Some idiot earns $500 per week. You let him buy a house with a mortgage of $500 per week. How does he eat? He defaults, you repossess the house and put it on the market for a price that translates to a mortgage repayment for $600 per week. Some idiot buys it ... till the whole market is full of idiots, and now you can't sell the houses for your asking price because it is too, ludicrously high. So you hold houses off market, invite some foreign idiots to buy ... eventually you have a choice: Let house prices go down or wages go up. What's it going to be?
The banksters are already being made whole... this is why you get to dip at the discount window for nothing and a make a spread on whatever asset you buy. Further, without getting into another debate, there is a very real likelihood that they've already been made whole on any default hedges (and then some).
Why would you choose to have your debtors repay you with inflated money when you can dine at the spigot, get ahead of any prospective losses, AND still hold the debt on your books? Worst case scenario, a pseudo governmental entity buys all your worst debt for a premium. So long as the assets aren't required to be marked to market and the banks can get their scratch from the printing press, what incentive do they have to demand wage increases? If our handlers actually gave a shit, then they would have doled out the money to J6P to repay to the banks and decreased the debt at the same time they propped up the banks. Nope, they'll eat their cake and have it too. (not that any bailouts should have happened, regardless of the payee)
Think about it from the bank's perspective, as a general matter of strategy, would you ever allow your debts to be repaid to you in monopoly money?
If there are going to be wage increases, then why wouldn't the banks have already sold the notes to the government and the government would then garnish your wages to the extent of your debts...
"I believe that excess unemployment will keep wages down."
Lack of consumption will keep wages down. While there is an abundant number of unskilled out/dated workers, there is a shortage of skilled, up-to-date workers. The unemployed will mostly remain locked out of the labor pool until they can offer skills that are in demand. Few unemployeed will take self-initiative to update themselves.
Its the lack of consumption and rising material/energy costs that is going to prevent wages from rising, as business need revenue to increase wages. Most US companies have already outsource manufacturing and aren't interested in increasing their labor pool. Most are using cheap debt to buy back company stock since most corp. boards are rewarded on stock valuations not corp. earnings or long term growth.
You let the banks go bankrupt and transition to a rentier society.
A real world experience might help. Maybe, even a million RWE s....
Wages will never rise fast enough to match inflation caused by money creation. Inflation via wages is a completely debunked theory. It was not high wages that caused the problems in Weimar or Zimbabwe. Rising wages did not allow people to buy what they needed. Wages are a lagging non indicator. We will have inflation. You will be unable to buy enough food no matter how much fiat you get paid. Wage inflation is a lie that keynesians and politicians need to allow them to justify their monetary tinkering and printing.
Best point of the morning. This is why a growing minority are learning how to grow and raise food, fix things and getting out of debt. Once you know you can't outrun the inflation tsunami headed our way, it is best to start heading for the high ground of self-sufficiency.
A growing minority of people who got rich enough in one of the bubbles to buy some nice land with good water resources are learning to grow and raise food.
People slaving away at city jobs (ie. most jobs) don't really have the time or land for it even if they do their best to get out of debt.
Find me a kid who's got a decent attitude, half a brain, AND is willing to get his hands dirty and we'll hire him on the spot. He plays his cards right he'll be making $100K in 5 years as a journeyman wireman. We are hurting for skilled tradepeople, it's not the sexy career choice anymore. Kids walk right by our booth at job fairs.
I have a daughter entering Juilliard in the Fall (dance) and a 16 year old son who is on his second auto / motorcycle mechanic apprenticeship. I have no doubt that my son will make 3-4 times the money my daughter will make and he will be doing it before she graduates college.
I'm proud of your son and feel bad for your daughter. Not becasue she's a dancer, but becasue the classic arts make our communities places worth caring about and are never given their deserved respect. You don't have to like ballet or the symphony to appreciate it and what it does for society. I'm sure you still get chills when you see her dance. If she loves it that much she will have a rich life even if the riches aren't fiat. Besides, hacks don't get into Julliard so she must have SOME tallent!
They probably walk past your booth because they have no training and know there's no way you're willing to train, even for a committed long-term, reliable potential employee.
That's not it either. The booth is for the IBEW apprenticeship program, not our company. We are inviting them TO BE TRAINED!!!!!
Would be nice. But what are the prerequisites?
You sound like a great person to work with. In my technical world, when I have been tasked with interviewing candidates, I look for someone to have the basic skills needed but also the attitude needed. The technology always is changing so ability and desire to adapt and dig in is more sorely needed as certain skills are only temporary. I always had to adapt, last 4 years been crawling around in fuel and noisy engines despite being essentially a techno nerd for 25.
You DO sound like a decent guy. And I'm sure you are, and that a kid would do well to consider your offer.
But what you guys (the smaller employers) need to do is separate yourselves from what passes as the business community today. The awful behaviors of corporate America, and the unions, have really poisoned the attitudes of many people, especially the young, against anyone who seems to be like them. It has pitted labor against management, and too many people approach a job today with a "You aren't gonna screw ME" attitude, expecting to be mistreated.
Guys like you need to emphasize how you AREN'T like those jokers, and that you DON'T see your workers as something to exploit. That you want people who can be partners in success with you, and that you will share the fruits with them, not kick them to the curb to enhance 'shareholder value'.
If smaller businesses DID that, you all could begin to poach the better workers from those big corps, many of who would PREFER to work for someone like you, even for a smaller paycheck.
Then the WalMarts and Microsofts of the world can be stuck with the losers with the piercings and face tattoos and bad attitudes.
These people may be willing to work, just not for you.
Wages will go up as people with skills get sick and tired of selling them to 'employers' for nickels and dimes. Maybe technology will enable workers to sever their ties to 'employers', and find markets for their own skills directly.
Then those 'employers' will find out what a tight labor force really looks like.
I get it for some of them. There are some smart kids out there who really do have opportunities, but what blows my mind is someone who would rather flip burgers and bitch about no work than enter an apprenticeship for a skilled trade.
I agree in principal with what you say regarding being self employed. The foundations of this country were destroyed by our education system creating a bunch of "employees" and crushing free thinking entrepreneurial spirit. Carnegie, Ford, et. al. led the charge and gave the tools to people like Dewey. But your implying that I somehow take advantage of my guys is completely off base.
Don't misunderstand, when I say "you" in this context, I don't mean YOU personally. I mean the employer-class in general, which has been manipulated by big corporations into thinking of their employees as merely another 'cost' that can be cut.
This attitude has served those big corporations well, but it has exacerbated tensions between labor and management. And while the big guys can weather this without too much difficulty, smaller employers have a harder time, as they tend to be lumped in with the cold-blooded mega-corps in the eyes of workers.
Just think of how fast the cost of maintaining the SNAP program is going to rise.
"winning"
"based on my own experience as a employer and as a managing employee"
You mean "based on my own experience trying to avoid working"
My manager I haven't seen in 6 weeks
A significant number of people are simply unable to perform the work at the sustained level of productivity.
How can you read ZH and be productive at the same time?
If a 25-year-old doesn’t have initiative, why would someone expect the person to suddenly get initiative at 50 years old?
Young losers who didn’t have a grasp turn into old losers who don’t have a grasp.
What’s to see here?
I'm tired of these "not enough skilled" people available stories....
Here is my example. I have two skills, two jobs; I do data management and I am also a paramedic.
Last year I applied to a cardiac device company for a role that had been open for months. It took everything I could do just to get the inteview. They wanted someone to do data work but who also understood cardiac anatomy and phyisology, cardiac rhythms, etc. Where are you going to find that person? I understood both and thought I was qualified. In the interview, they asked, "have you ever used Oracle Clinical Data Management". Nope, but I can learn in in two days. Well they didn't think I was qualified so I didn't get the job. I monitored it and it stayed open for a few more months.
If they would have hired me and had the outgoing person train me over the next month they would have been fine. I've seen this quite a bit. Basically companies want the perfect candidate, which doesn't exist, and they do not wish to do any training what soever. They do not want to invest in their workforce. Instead they want someone who can come in that day and be fully up to speed.
In such a specialized world, I don't seen how that happens any more. Or else it means that as workers, we are now able to ever only do one specifc job and have no fungability and no transferable skills.
So, yes, I do disagree with a lot of this article.
Nail head: Meet hammer.
Yes. I see it all the time too.
Yep. The same jobs posted over and over and over again. I am bilingual and have 5 years of experience with health insurance. I thought working at the front desk or billing for a doctor's office would be perfect. Applied to hundreds of jobs for more than a year and only got 1 interview.
Agree 100%. I have seen the same thing over and over and over again for about 12 years straight. When I worked primarily as a programmer (now I do 4 different jobs along with programming) prospective employers wanted a dozen skills that each by themselves is a specialized skill that any other employer MIGHT use somewhere in their orgranization. You struck a chord with your example because I have in-depth experience (but not expert....I wasn't a database administrator... ) in 4 different types of databases but just not Oracle and I got shot down because of it. Its insane, I fixed shit database administrator were supposed to do because they were never available and I had to get my stuff running... but no... I'm not 'qualified'.. such bullshit
Agreed. Too many employers are always looking for that "perfect fit". They think they have the upper hand in this market and demand that your skills, shoe size, hair color, and choice of deli meat match exactly what they want. What happens is really good people get passed over and jobs don't get filled. We just hired a guy to do 3D modeling. He was a graduate of the local tech college civil engineering program and didn't know shit about the electrical industry, but he was familiar with 3D terrain modeling software and was a gearhead, rebuilding old Subaru's and reselling them and working part time at a local auto shop. We knew we could teach this guy how to use Revit, and being handy with a wrench we knew we could teach him enough about the electrical industry to do his job. Great move on our part. If we'd have held out for an electrician who knows BIM the chair would still be empty.
CF - I agree overall, but you aren't learning OC in 2 days. I'm in the same business and have learned the hard way that I won't hire anybody who hasn't already used a CDMS and can prove proficiency. But maybe I misunderstand - if you're already using similar software and can show me that you know it, then you're hired.
This business - data management within the clinical drug research business - we sure do get a lot of incompetent people. It's a niche job without a corresponding university degree. So people just fall into it.
We un- and under-employed, lacking skills but willing to work, can't compete.
There are so many, many restrictions, unions, seniority rules, minimum wages, hiring & firing rules, taxes, deductions, paperwork, risk of legal action, etc., etc. protecting existing employees that without a truly free labour market we don't stand a chance of underbidding them.
Pure bullshit!!! This nonsense about our dysfunctional education system is either intellectual laziness or Oligarchial water carrying. The math, science and technological curriculum taught today is more complex and comprehensive than ever before. And yes, that was true even before the corporate Common Core State Standards were jammed down our student's throats by the heavily corporate and Wall Street driven Obama (he's no socialist fools) administration.
We all know why employers seek employees from third world hell holes, and it has nothing to do with skill level.
Teaching it is one thing, learning it is another. You can be schooled till hell freezes over, but you won't learn shit until you decide you want an "education". A number of people can't pass the basic math exam to get into the electrical apprenticeship. Maybe that's what scares them away. Once they realize that they will need to use that "bullshit that I'll never use a day in my life" (algebra everyday of their working career we lose them.
My focus is narrow and I can't speak for all industries. I know what I see is probably way off base for the rest of the world, these are just my observations from my little piece of it.
The math, science and technological curriculum taught today is more complex and comprehensive than ever before
Muahahahaha!
Yeah sure, all is great, that's why for example finding a programmer with some basic understanding of SQL is like searching a needle in a haystack.
Wages will rise when the rate of profit growth rises and the employee in question adds to that bottom line.
Hoping for some other magical set of circumstances that will give employees more compensation is a waste of time.
Do these guys even do the math for what the impact on the bottom line would be for a company that has a 3% profit margin and gives their employees a $1 an hour raise? Or adds another employee?
No. Instead they think there's something madical about where the funds come from to pay for these wage increases.
The corporations are laying off left, right and center to improve the bottom line and create shareholder "value". Why not lay off 50% of the workers so they can pay the other 50% that extra Dollar?
They don't do that because it would be a zero sum game. If I have ten employees and pay them $1 each, then decide to layoff five and pay them $2, it still costs me $10 (5 x $2). With that said, you are not so wrong in your thinking and that is what's happening to a small extent. I sell capital equipment. Many of my customers are vey slow and laying off as you say. They are also paying great wages to retain the best and brightest...and they expect more out of them. If you reread the article, that's one of the main points. Those that are left are many times being compensated very well. I know I am. So yes, much goes to the bottom line but a good deal is paid out in a survivor benefit of sorts.
Aside for the comments about government jobs and the unions involved...(which are accurate)....the rest of this article is misguided at best and off in the weeds at worst. Overall wages MAY rise, but the reasons given are all WRONG. A reasonably competent employer generally wants to KEEP his staff...and with rising inflation (thanks to the FED) he/she will have to raise salaries at least a little, to do that. The "Productivity Gains" refered to are almost always made by GETTING RID of people, offshoring, automating, etc. This too can result in slightly higher wages for the lucky few who are left.
The REAL PROBLEM remains the fact that the US is not creating "good jobs" nor is it creating a healthy economy. Microanalysis of irrelevant statistical blips such as "slight increase in wages" (for the lucky FEW with jobs)....simply contributes to the ongoing smoke screen.
No growth = compete for the remaining pie.
Capitalism worked really well until the bacteria filled the petri dish.
PEAK EMPLOYMENT has come and gone.
The article sucks wind. It hits on some true things such as there are unemployed and underemployed people out there that are not very educated and/or are unprofessional but overall it simply regurgitation of the same bullshit that has emanated from corporate sponsored MSM for years and used effectively ($ to campaign funds) to convince politicians to enable more foreign worker immigration and work outsourcing.
CHS doesn't seem to know squat about HR.
There are enough bad assumptions and ignorant statements in just the first section to take all day replying to. Stealing trained employees is "cheaper" than training your own? Sure, and stealing capital equipment is "cheaper" than paying for it. In fact, stealing finished product is "cheaper" than building your own. Great jumping catfish.
Americans "can't" pick crops? The story is they WON'T pick crops, and it *is* hard work and not everyone has the strong back to do it so you can't take just anyone to do it even though it is virtually the original low-requirements job.
We "can't train" enough people? It's called a market, friend. You mean you can't train enough basketball players to lower the average NBA salary? Well, let's "improve" all the schools. Modern employers are whiners and cry-babies, if they can't get everything for a penny they moan and groan about it. Hey pilgrim, EVERYTHING in this universe is in finite supply, and the more specific you get, the smaller the limit.
The problem seems to be that "management" wants the Fed to print an infinite number of genius monkeys who will work for peanuts. Come on CHS, tell us more about this plan you have to print genius monkeys, I hope they're flying monkeys. Great Caesar's ghost.
What are the skills required for the new economy?
What is the new economy?, because to me it looks a lot like the old economy just with less open positions.
The only difference from the new to old economy is, we are using smart phones instead of beepers, tablets instead of laptops, and everything consumes maybe 20% less electricity to run.
At the end of the day, the economy is made up of human needs and wants, those needs and wants are basic/static and usually don't change, as people will always need the same basic goods, food , shelter, transportation, energy, entertainment and technology, clothing, health and personal care.
There are no other real "new things" and there is no "new economy" its just a more efficient old economy, that needs less people to operate at the same output levels.
People just make up phrases like "the new economy" and "congress must get to work and do something" meanwhile they have no idea what the "new economy" is or "what they actually want congress to do"?
Yours is a million dollar question and a good one that nobody can answer.
I do however disagree with your there is "nothing new". When I first starting working real jobs in the early '80s, we had secretaries at work to type my quotes, take messages and keep me on track. Now 35 years later, not even the president of the company has a secretary. In my first sales job circa 1988 I had a pager, floor mounted cell phone in my car, a desktop computer on my desk, a notebook computer when I was on the road (sync'ing was a pain), dot matrix printer, fax, PO box for correspondance and a small library of maps. I had a small effeciency office away from home with two landline phones. One for me. One for the fax. Now all I have is a smartphone, notbook and all-in-one printer and I work from home. The secretary is gone since I do quotes using on online quote form and I type my own correspondance. The PO Box is gone because there's no mail. My smartphone replaced the maps. The pager is replaced with text messages and while my all-in-one printer has a fax, I've never used it.
I put about 35000 miles a year on my car which kept my mechanic well employed changing oil every 3,000 miles, replacing water pumps and other stuff. Somewhere around 90,000 the car was too worn to fix. Now I replace my oil every 7500 miles, tires easily go 50,000 and cars are fairly reliable. I don't consider buying a new car until it crests 150k miles My notebook does double duty. (triple duty if you consider I stream netflix moves in my hotel room!)
If you think through what I just said, you will see there are lots of jobs lost because I don't need their service anymore. No delivery man filling the PO Box. No secretary. Many unemployed mechanics because cars are more reliable. Fewer parts deliveries because cars are more reliable. Fewer tires produced because they actually last longer. etc. etc. Every individual gizmo I eliminated caused someone to possibly loose their job.
The only thing that hasn't changed in all that time is human nature. Everything else is nothing like it was. The "new economy" is real. We need the fewer people and fewer things to do exactly the same things we did 35 years ago.
Blogspam for CHS and his Kindle book.
Complete BS article. Trucks are sitting idle and commuter aircraft are parked because wages and benefits are not worth the investment involved to secure the job.
Now that's very funny. the wages and benefits are not worth the investment involved because the government is putting food in your belly with the money they take from those of us who are working! If we cut off government handouts for which you do no effort, I'll bet you would find those wages very satisfactory.
Bullshit. I've quit jobs because I was losing money: The pay didn't even cover my expenses. Even without a gov't handout, I could lose money 'less fast" by simply sitting at home.
Work sucks! Just give people enough money for food and rent so they can spend time on themselves or with their families. That lifestyle sure works well for the 1% so we know it's a tried, tested and true. Now let the other 99% join in and if so required, they can all pretend to do something that is worth their while just like the 1%.
It's true that many of the 1% inherited their money, but the vast majority of the top 20% got there by putting in long hours or work and effort. It's been said the poor will always be with us and the corollary is true as well: The rich will always be with us too. Instead of focusing all your jealous energy on the smallest, richest 1%, try putting a couple decades of honest hard work and make it to the top 20%. It's a very comfortable life as well.
I have a couple classmates that are now multi-multi-multi millionaires and they all did it the hard way. The got up every day and went to work for very long hours. Now they have other people doing that work for them.
Good for them. Hopefully, they pulled some people along in their acsent.
Ten reasons your children will graduate as idjats (maybe; they "move" children in order to subterfuge the drop out rate of kids drummed out of school):
1. Teachers are just putting in the time by standing in front of the classroom and reciting. Did the kids learn the material? Doesn't matter. It ws "taught."
2. Teachers have all the electronic connections now. Your kids are sitting there having endless quiet time while the teacher runs their Etsy and Ebay business.
3. Teacher will sabotage your kids. Do you really think they care? Once had a teacher tell me they couldn't give my child a copy of a paper because they didn't have any. As that teacher stood in front of a computer and printer and then admitted that yes, they could print one off.
4. Your child is being "rigged." Had one of my children, without my knowledge, funneled into an AP class that she wasn't ready for in order to be one of the kids who would not get an "A" so that the "real" AP kids could be given the "A's."
5. Teachers will whine parents aren't involved. Beware. Teachers always imply it is ONLY your child that has a problem. Cross checking with other parents will show this is a lie. They love to imply that your child is a problem and create problems between you and your child. Takes the heat off their lack of teaching.
6. Read a study several years back that said children feel they are entering a hostile environment when they go to school. The kids know the teachers are sabotaging them. They are smarter than you give them credit for; believe them when the complain about the teacher.
7. Demand an exact, half hour by half hour syllabis of what is being taught to your child. They withhold information so you don't know what is going on, deliberately.
8. Teachers bump up their syllabi in order to say they are teaching "meaty" information. In other words, teachers are teaching beyond the grade level to show how tough they are, and making the kids feel stupid. Ex. Biology teacher for my kid required me to get out my college biology book and I STILL couldn't figure out the homework. This is know as "learned helplessness;" Learned helplessness is when their is inadequate base knowledge and the kid feels stupid instead of understanding they are being taught material ONLY to make the teacher look good on paper.
9. Understand these aren't the teachers from when you were in school decades ago and they were comprised of those who actually wanted to teach. Teaching is now for the worst from the colleges, a place where the teacher lunch room is comprised of endless discussions of the disgusting kids; had a janitor tell me one time that if you could hear how they talk about your kids, you'd never ever put them in public schools.
10. MOST IMPORTANT: If your child can't read (once taught a friend's child to read and she was in 8th grade; they'd been passing her along (social promotion). If a child can't read they can't do any of the homework and hostility sets in which is followed by self-destruction behaviors.
SO IF YOUR CHILD CAN"T READ AND can't do math and other basic skills, hire a lawyer and sue the school district. If you allow them to Stupify your child, you have failed as a parent; it is not your kid, it is the teachers tracking to their golden paycheck retirement with as little effort as possible.
YOUR CHILD Has the right to learn. To be taught. Make them do their job for your child. This is even more true in the places like the Chicago School Districts where the teachers RAN back to their jobs, while striking, when the focus started turning on the drop out rate and the failure of the kids to learn anything.
Reading is PHONICS; Reading is not whole word reading which is an abomination. Protect your child. Sorry this was long.
In CO, many teachers make so little that they qualify for public assistance. No wonder they're spending their day running eBay/Etsy side businesses. Wouldn't you?
Yup. This was precisely my experience in school & that was decades ago.
Only a few real teachers I could trust wanted to teach. The rest were garbage.
In this article CHS does not seem to have a good grasp of supply and demand, or the concept of scarcity...which is the bounding concept behind supply and demand.
He is right that the "perfect" employee is scarce or impossible to find. Schools aren't the answer. The answer is total compensation or a modification of standards.
"Perfect" is perfectly scarce. Because he cannot understand scarcity, he cannot understand the highly demanded, high end of the labor market.
At the same time he misunderstands the low end of the market - the itinerant farm worker, or other manual labor - for the same reason. Native American farm labor isn't scarce in and of itself. Government pays low-end workers in welfare, medicaid, and establishes minimum wage laws for private employers. Ergo, government pays low end workers not to work, and directly impairs employers from hiring them.
Employers simply can't outbid the government for the low-end workers. Hence the welfare rolls are always full, and the low-end jobs are empty - or filled by those who work outside the law.
Now you know why they don't want us to call the illegal workers "ILLEGAL". It has nothing to do with their race or place of origin. It has to do with the government prefering foreign workers to domestic ones, and setting policy accordingly.
I agree with your basic point here. It is the well meaning government that is messing up the workplace. I don't think the author has missed the point you so nicely articulated. I read the article more from the standpoint that given everything you said and for the reasons you stated, here's what's the unintended consequence of all those benevolent social programs. Because Congress doesn't have the stomach to pull those programs, the author ends on the gloomy tone that he doesn't see the situation changing in the future. I agree. Short of a revolution, nothing will change. There won't be a tax payer revolt because there aren't enough of us left!
Bull.
If you worked a desk job & then you spent a year not working at all you sure as shit won't get anywhere picking blueberries.
You'll be exhausted before 3 hours go by.
Dude, I won't get out of bed for less than $75K / year. I'm sitting!
If your avitar is a selfie, you should do just fine making a living on your back. Stay in bed, the work will come to you.
I had 2 tons of river rock dumped in the driveway and yesterday a laborer whom I hired at the stone company came to spread it. I had all the tools and knew where to put it so I didn't need a contractor or middle man. The man brought his 14 year old son. It was the first time on a job for the boy. It was a pleasure to watch dad show him how to dump the wheel barrow and line up the edge of the rock. The boy listened, did as he was asked and worked really hard. With a good attitude, a desire to learn and to please the customer, this boy is not going to be among the unemployed. Schools are doing a poor job, yes. Some teachers are incompetent and lazy, yes. But the biggest problem is the government mandates and affirmitave action. You must spend the time to teach your kids a work ethic, good manners and attitude. If you expect them to work in the business world they also need to know how to speak and write correctly in English. I noticed some comments above from the tech workers with serious errors ("would have" instead of "had" in the if clause of a conditional sentence).
If "healthcare" requires ponying up $5,000 in deductibles, how is that even "insurance"?
Huh?
That exactly describes the original meaning of insurance!
What most people expect nowadays would correctly be called a "service plan."