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Guest Post: Dear Person Seeking a Job: Why I Can't Hire You
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
Potential employers have to respond to the incentives and disincentives that exist in today's world, and those do not favor conventional permanent employees.
I know you're hard-working, motivated, tech-savvy and willing to learn. The reason I can't hire you has nothing to do with your work ethic or skills; it's the high-cost Status Quo, and the many perverse consequences of maintaining a failing Status Quo.
The sad truth is that it's costly and risky to hire anyone to do anything, and "bankable projects" that might generate profit/require more labor are few and far between. The overhead costs for employees have skyrocketed. So even though the wages employees see on their paychecks have stagnated, the total compensation costs the employer pays have risen substantially.
Thirty years ago the overhead costs were considerably less, adjusted for inflation, and there weren't billboards advertising a free trip to Cabo if you sued your employer. (I just saw an advert placed by a legal firm while riding a BART train that solicited employees to sue their employers, with the incentive being "free money" for a vacation to Cabo.)
The other primary reason is that there are few (to borrow a phrase used by John Michael Greer) "bankable projects," that is, projects where hiring another worker would pay for the costs of the additional overhead, labor and capital and generate a reason for making the investment, i.e. a meaningful profit.
There is very little real "new business" in a recessionary, deflationary economy: any new business is poaching from an established business. The new restaurant isn't drawing people from their home kitchens, it's drawing customers from established restaurants.
The only competitive advantage in a deflationary economy is to be faster, better and cheaper or have a marketing and/or technology edge. But marketing and technological advantages offer increasingly thin edges. The aspirational demand (driven by the desire to be hip or cool) for a new good or service has a short half-life. As for technology: miss a product cycle and you're history.
Put these together--higher costs and risks for hiring people, and diminishing opportunities for expansions that lead to profit--and you have a scarcity of projects where hiring people makes financial sense.
Faster, better and cheaper usually means reducing the labor input, not increasing it. In a deflationary economy, it's extremely difficult to grow revenues (sales), and as costs continue climbing inexorably, the only way to survive is to cut expenses so there is still some net for the owner/proprietor to live on.
Consider the tax burden on a sole proprietor who might want to hire someone. The 15.3% Social Security/Medicare tax starts with dollar one. After the usual standard deductions, the Federal income tax is 15%, and 25% on all earned income above $34,800. My state tax is around 5%. Since every other advanced democracy pays basic healthcare coverage out of tax revenues, the $12,000/year we pay for barebones healthcare insurance is the equivalent of a tax. That's 15% of our income. Property tax is also $12,000 annually, so that's another 15%.
Above $35,000 in income, my tax burden is 15% + 25% + 5% + 15% + 15% = 75%. You can imagine how much money I would need to clear to be able to afford hiring someone. The number of businesses that generate huge sums of profit are few and far between, and the number of businesses that scale up from a one-person shop to mega-millions in revenues is also extremely limited.
The potential employer is faced with this reality: the money to hire a new employee will come out of my pay, at least at first. Hiring an additional worker only makes sense if the new employee will immediately generate enough additional revenue to fund his/her own wage and overhead costs, the added expense of supervision and a profit substantial enough to offset the risks.
I should stipulate that my knowledge of hiring people and being an employer is not academic. My partner and I launched a business in late 1981, in the depths of what was at that time the deepest recession since the end of World War II. We had a very diverse ethnic workforce and did millions of dollars of work. Rather than make a fortune I lost $50,000 and had to mortgage the house we'd built by hand to make good all debts. I exited in 1987 with my personal integrity intact: nobody lost money working for us.
The losses were basically the result of me pushing the outer boundaries of my experience and thus my competence in an unforgiving, very competitive environment. The learning curve in business is steep and pricey.
I have also been involved in saving/managing a small non-profit organization that had expanded payroll far beyond what the organization's revenues could support.
What newly minted employers understand that employees rarely understand is that the overhead costs of hiring even one person do not scale at first. To hire one person, even part-time, the employer needs to set up a complex infrastructure to manage the payroll taxes and accounting, and comply with a variety of statutes. If the employer does not follow the many laws regarding labor, witholding taxes, workers compensation, liability coverage, disability insurance, unemployment insurance and so on, then the employer is at risk of penalties and/or lawsuits.
If a business does $1 million in gross receipts a year and already has five employees and a manager, it's not that burdensome to hire a seventh employee--the framework is all set up. But the cost of setting all that up for employee #1 is not trivial, especially when you realize the complex machinery all has to be overseen and managed.
In the Silicon valley model, a couple of guys/gals work feverishly in the living room/garage until they have a product/service to sell to venture capital. If the pitch succeeds, the VCs give them a couple million dollars and they hire a manager to sort out all the paperwork, management, etc.
Most small businesses/proprietors don't get handed a couple million dollars. They have to grow organically, one step at a time. Each expansionist step is fraught with risks, especially when opportunities to grow revenue are few and far between and are generally crowded with competitors.
Thirty years ago the employer's share of Social Security tax was not today's 7.65%; it was much less. Worker's compensation rates were lower, as were disability and liability insurance rates. Adjusted for inflation, healthcare insurance was half (or less) of today's absurdly expensive rates. To pay someone a modest $20,000 annual salary today would cost at least $30,000 in total compensation costs, and if the employee is middle-aged or requires family healthcare coverage, it could easily exceed $40,000. That sum many be trivial in the bloated $3.7 trillion Federal government or in Corporate America, but in millions of small businesses that $40,000 is the proprietor's entire net income.
In other words, as costs of hiring anyone to do anything have climbed while revenues have stagnated, the threshold to hire an employee keeps getting higher. Back in the day, I could hire a young person out of high school for a modest cost in overhead, and the work-value they produced to justify the expense was also modest. I could afford to hire marginal workers and as long as they didn't get in the way too much and ably performed basic tasks then I could afford to have them on the payroll.
The same was true of older workers, veterans living on the beach who wanted work, etc.--I could afford to give all sorts of people a chance to prove their value because the costs and risks were low.
That's simply less true today. The costs and risks are much, much higher.
Liability has become a lottery game where anyone with assets or income is a target for "winner take all" lawsuits. I would have to be insane to hire someone to work around my property on an informal basis: if the person injured himself, I would face the risks of losing my property to the legal defense costs and potential settlements that exceed the homeowners' insurance policy.
In an office environment, I could be sued for harassment or for engendering a "stressful work environment." If you think these kinds of cases are rare, you need to get out more.
Simply put, the feeble hope of increasing revenues does not even come close to offsetting the tremendous risks created by having employees.
There's a Catch-22 aspect to all this; small business can't expand revenues without employees, but the costs/risks of having employees makes that a gamble that is often not worth taking. The lower-risk, lower-cost survival strategy is to automate everything possible in back-office work and free up the proprietor's time to grow revenues that then flow directly to the bottom line.
Managing people is not easy, and it's often stressful. Once a proprietor hires an employee, he/she must wear a number of new hats: psychiatrist/counselor, manager, coach, teacher, to name but a few. Frankly, I don't need the stress. I would rather earn a modest living from my labor and avoid all the burdens of managing people. (In my case, that included bailing workers out of jail, loaning them my truck which was subsequently rolled and destroyed, and a bunch of other fun stuff.)
I am not embittered, I am simply realistic. I enjoyed my employees' company, even the one who rolled my truck and the ones who managed to get into trouble with the law. But I got tired of meetings and all the wasted motion of office management, and I got tired of taking cash advances on my credit cards to make payroll.
If anyone out there thinks being an entrepreneur/small business proprietor is easy and a surefire pathway to the luxe life, then by all means, get out there and start a business and hire a bunch of people. I applaud your energy and drive, and sincerely hope you are wildly successful.
I hope you now understand why so many businesses only want to work with contract labor/ self-employed people: having employees no longer makes financial sense for many small enterprises. What makes sense is paying someone a set fee to accomplish a set task, and that's it, the obligation of both parties is fulfilled. If the task isn't completed, then the fee isn't paid.
Revenues just aren't steady enough in many cases to support a permanent employee. When the work comes in, then contract labor is brought in to get the work done. When it's done, they're gone, and all their overhead costs are theirs.
It's extraordinarily difficult to generate revenue in a deflationary economy, and extraordinarily difficult to scrape off a net income as expenses such as taxes, insurance, healthcare, etc. continue climbing year after year.
Self-employment places a premium on professionalism and results. Unlike offices filled with managers and employees, nobody cares about your problems, conflicts, complaints about the common-area fridge or your attendence at meetings. Once you've been self-employed for a while, and you only hire/work with other self-employed people, then you look back on conventional work places as absurdist theaters of schoolyard politics, tiresome resentments and child-parent conflicts acted out by self-absorbed adults.
Once you're self-employed, your focus shifts to nurturing a productive network of clients, customers and like-minded, reliable, resourceful self-employed people who will give you work/work for you when you need help. Building trust and following through on what you promised to do become your priority.
The economy is different now, and wishing it were unchanged from 30 years ago won't reverse the clock. We have to respond to the incentives and disincentives that exist in today's world, and those do not favor conventional permanent employees except in sectors that are largely walled off from the market economy: government, healthcare, etc.
But these moated sectors cannot remain isolated from the deflationary market economy forever, and what was considered safely walled off from risk and change will increasingly face the same market forces that have changed private-sector enterprise.
If you want security and a steady income, it may be more rewarding to build it yourself via highly networked self-employment.
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Money is cool but working for an asshole might not be worth it.
yes-ZH gives rosie and her 5 sisters a rest between "sessions". BTW-I work for the SEC
Time to grunt, scratch myself my change my diaper...
It's good to be the boss.
Also, not all jobs require that you be doing something every minute of the day, and not all bosses are such assholes as to expect you to pretend to be busy when they are around. I let my guys watch TV between experiments, and send them home early with pay if there is nothing else to do the rest of the day. Better than sitting around staring at the damn clock. Also makes things a lot easier when I need them to come in on the weekends.
market doesn't care if you are the boss or the slave.
when your industry sector contracts, all of sudden everyone's job becomes job protection through politics, make work work, and other non-productive work.
So you hired 16 Oracle admins?
Not sure if you're bullshitting us readers here, or your clients by overcharging for basic admin.
Over my career I have met only 3 good Oracle admins, and even those were way from being top notch.
From my job as Data Integrator (ETL) my daily tasks regularly lead me into many Oracle admin areas, and most of the time I'm better at it than the so-called admins. Or SQL Server admin for that matter.
good oracle admins are worth at least $100k.
anything less than that you get what you pay for.....ever shop at walmart? you are paying 10% less for 50% reduction in quality.
Oracle sucks noodles. Clunky, unwieldy, not intuitive, and god forbid you fuck up on one of your entries, 'cause it's gonna take that $100K admin to fix it. Larry Ellis can suck a bag of dicks.
Absolutely, that thing is a nightmare. I remember seeing folders with thousands of little bullshit files and wondering what the F is going on!? How many times has that POS been reinstalled due to some 5k file corruption?
Larry is so busy pimping his image around the globe and buying bullshit and gold toilets, does he really 'run' anything anymore?!?!? Just an entitled bitch living off of past govt/corp no bid contracts... amazing.
If you're doing consulting work for a government-subdsidized business, you can get away with murder.
Mostly South and Southeast? Probably MIC drones.
A top-notch DBA who knows Oracle + accounting + FIT is very hard to find these days. Many are 3rd rate but claim to be good and their screw-ups cost alot downstream.
Sadly most Americans don't have the skills that our industry are looking for. We received 71 applications for the 16 job opennings we had, and only two native-born Americans applied.
And this was in Chennai!
lol
I personally interviewed about a dozen people claiming to be software developers. Out of the dozen, three were actually decent and a couple would be a fit in certain organizations, just not ours. One was so bad that the interview became really uncomfortable for me and we pretty much just talked about his current job and how he might approach learning to program. It's okay to be learning, it's not okay to pretend you're a senior-level person and not even know basic concepts.
So true. I've been trying to fill 2 mid-level developer positions (55-70k/yr) for the past 6 weeks. Out of all of our applicants so far, only 5 were even close to being qualified. Of those 5, 2 were indian, 1 pakistani, 1 mexican, and one white boy from Ohio. The buckeye didn't show up for the face-to-face.
My boss told me about an applicant who called about a job opening. My Boss said he needs to send us a resume. The guy asked, "But did I get the job?" My Boss told him he needs to see his resume first. And ya know what the guy/applicant answered?
"I'm not going to waste my time putting a resume together if I didn't get the job."
WTF!?! Am I missing something?
Reminds me of a story a friend tells of a young kid coming into his bakery looking for work, and asking him "you're not hiring are you?" Needless to say the answer was "no", even though he needed some part time help.
Back in the days of doskey at a computer place I worked for, someone submitted a resume to my supervisor Phil.
The applicant spelled his name Fill.
facebook paying fresh college grads $80,000+ stock options + cool place to work + new technology.
mid level developers get $100,000~$150,000 in California where old ugly homes are $700,000+. Kids have college debt in six figures too.
what's your offer?
wow you were on a roll till you placed Facebook as some type of bellwether for employment.. you do know those stock options are worthless for anyone hired after IPO right?
and the company itself will be trashed in 2 years of suck revenue
Facebook is a sham, a parasite that has latched onto society, and people gobble that shit up like it's Thanksgiving dinner. Parasitic tools for a parasitic species, huh? With a solid background in designing hardware and software at any level, along with education in business, finance, and management, I'm frankly quite disgusted by the state of the tech industry and I wish that I had nothing to do with it or any other industry at all. For an honest person to do real work that matters... those days are long gone. The web certainly helped kill it all and I see the consequences every single day in the SF Bay Area. There are only tasks for me in this world, at this time - no real work. Someday, I will earn enough of these fake money units to let me acuqire enough raw materials and resources so that I may do real work, for myself, for the continuity of our existence, for meaningful progress in the realm of living a technologically-rich life that is just as harmonius with our natural state as a life without technology. I certainly have not devalued the concept of impermanence and I have not forgotten that physical resources are the only real measurement of "money."
I'll second Facebook being a Parasite.
Zionists run Facebook just like they run Disqus which is also sucking up everthing that can and will be used against you in a court of law.
Maybe the buckeye had a date with Michelle bachman
Industrial PLC programming is what I do. I could work 7/12’s if I wanted. PLC guys / gals can literally pick where they want to work. Hard to find good qualified people – I hear you.
I am working out if town in Peoria, Il right now. I can’t even go out for dinner because every restaurant is full, construction every where (money being spent). This town is booming. Of course had to make a visit to the local Wal-Mart, the same as every where, Jabba the Hut fat pigs riding their little rascals …… too funny
If you look at BLS unemployment data Peoria is hardly different to anywhere else in the US, except perhaps that it's unemployment rate was higher in 2010 than most other places.
Well if you're not connected with CAT you're probably right. Dude, I couldn't even get a hotel room (at times) I had to go an hour away.
CAT is cranking them out here where we are too.
Unfortunately most of the Heavy Equipment gets trucked to the Bakken or to China where they are put to use.
I like them kitty cats.
Caterpillar's $37 million visitor's center in Peoria, Ill., is schedule to open on October 20, 2012. I drive by this every day - sure the Fuck aint Detroit........... That is just the visior center, the plant has $hit going on all over.
Anyways enough BS, drinking Bacardi, only back in town for a day and I still need to pound the ......................
got "Click"?
Taint, you need to roll down and west along the river, near the old stockyards and you'll find some really quaint places to grab supper.
Will do .. I hear the Burger Barge is a dive but good food.
I've got an AB programming cert but haven't seen the volume of jobs as you're describing. Where are you finding these openings?
Sorry, a piece of paper really doesn’t mean much. If you have experience and live in Michigan send your resume to the screen name at gmail. I would certainly help if I could.
I took a little PLC programming at one point in the past. One thing I remember the instructor telling us was that somewhere along the way, some operator is going to tape two broom handles together and attempt to press these two buttons at the same time and how that had to be mitigated somehow.
They now have two hand capacitance buttons that know that capacitance of the human body – problem solved, LOL, but good point, everything is about $afety now.
note:
If he is standing in the tool the broom sticks will break the light screen - no go, if he is outside the tool it is the same as using your hands - really not a problem. Your teacher is an idiot, that is why he is teaching.
If you are so prosperous, why do you need to go to Walmart?
Who said I was prosperous? Closest place to buy booze - why would I NOT go there? Best freak show money can buy. OK I'm done .........I have got to stay off Zero Hedge while I'm drinking ha ha
Best to all and Happy 4th
The IT consulting bubble crashed with the 2000 high tech bubble. So it has bubbled back? Enjoy it while you have it. I am a certified software engineer. I wouldn't return on a bet. Made sure the young'uns understood as well. Let me know when these jobs are protected from foreigners.
IT consulting = temp slave labor
Americans and even older Indians are smarter now. You have to pay market wage + job insecurity premium on risky jobs. Otherwise you will only attract low quality drones who can't even price their labor correctly who probably end up causing you more headache.
Amazing the negative votes this got.
I work for a major chip manufacturer. Salary and bonuses are very good. We hire regularly. Our recruiters go to universities and hire the best electrical engineers we can get. Almost all are foreigners. They are smart, worked hard in school and work hard here. We would be glad to hire more Americans, there just aren't many who went into engineering and are good at it. Sad but true.
most EEs have enough brain power to become lawyers, bankers, doctors making $150,000/year with job protection.
Foreigners present in the labor market = employers keeping wage down while cost of living is all-american( high).
avoid them like the plague
I would argue that they are smarter than most lawyers, bankers, doctors. Unfortunately they are not usually rewarded for their intelegence like the profesional bureaucrats mentioned above. In this age, corruption is handsomely rewarded & glorified and hard work and intelegence is largely ignored.
Right. Plus, Americans will turn down jobs on which they cannot continue paying their 800,000$ mortgage that they should have dumped years ago.
why work when 50% of country is on dole from govt-meaning my taxes pay for some welfare ho to have a bunch of rude little black bastards
nah, haven't you heard? all your taxes are exported by the MilitaryIndustrialComplex for invasion and securing of other nationstates resources and the removal of extraneous foreign citizens by death.
none of your taxes go to in-state welfare - phew, eh.
You are full of it. I worked in the IT industry for years and the bottom line was it became cheaper to hire or outsource people from India or Pakistan who would work for half if not less.
The other factor I ran into is that nearly all employers were looking for perfection whenever it came to an American white male. The vast majority would not see the idea that a man working in the industry for ten or twenty years couldn't learn on the fly any stupid language or skill required in the industry.
If your out of work for any great length of time in any industry eventually your skills are diminished and especially true in the IT industry. That is why you see fewer Americans in your industry now. The majority gave up and moved on.
Yeah and if you're over 50 forget it , even over 40 is tough. Yes, a few lucky people get rich but most of them end up working 60-80 hours a week with high stress for not that much money - certainly not banker or doctor money.
I got out of IT while still in Kindergarden, oops.. college when I discovered the sheer amount of shovel work being filled by the Far East workers here on a Visa. Not so the real Americans like myself.
I am glad I got out when I did before I got too deep to escape.
The problem is that most native-born Americans want to work for others instead work for themselves. It's a problem of the mindset. Take a look at most immigrants in this country instead. Most of them work for themselves, even if that means operating a shoe-repair shop 7 days a week.
Yes well some things can be done only by large organizations and Americans used to excel at that. In Pakistan there is no choice. You can't start your own nuclear power plant, steel mill, pharmaceutical factory. Those things barely exist in countries like Pakistan which is one of the reasons they are so poor relative to countries where such large organizations exist,.
Somebody is going to be an IT support 'contractor' for themselves? Doesn't sound very lucrative. Is that like a pool boy for computers or a 'technical janitor'? I have a UC degree in programming and networking and just like EVERY OTHER discipline, when inquiring about employment, I would NEVER get a call back. Great references, skills, etc. Placement services are only there to get people to join LinkedIn and hope a friend can hook you up.
Most job listings I believe to be fake. When companies ask for 5 languages, years of experience, then toss in some DB and cart garbage - my only thought is that the perfect person for this job, is the person they just fired.
Nobody wants to train for the skills they really need. Really, how f'ing hard is anything? I could train somebody in a month. My first job was software builds for router hardware - that was cool until they outsourced the whole operation in 1999. Software and IT has not been easy ever since. Maybe if you care to move for that ONE JOB LEAD..
I wouldn't recommend it to any young person, unless they want to be a math guru for the hell of it. Luckily I'm still working, but there's no security anywhere. Engineering is dead, H1Cs will kill healthcare, and MBAs are worthless garbage. Even all your 'chips' and 'apps' have hit a wall - how many ways can we sell cheap shit and 'clicks' and 'likes'? Totally pointless. Have you shot a robot today?
Learn to weld.
I may yet learn to weld. I did a spot of it back in voc school a lifetime ago.
I have not forgotten.
Don't forget TSA, Homeland Security, MIC, etc. The Police State is always looking for large, brutish, unintelligent thugs to fill their jackboots.
Theft probably pays better, but IT lets you sleep at night knowing you've done something useful.
unless you work in Financial sector, where IT is just automated theft.
I find it hard to sleep because there is always something else you didn't test that might go wrong. Often I dream of working at the post office and moving the packages into carts depending on zip codes.
I worked a mailroom for a major company for a time.
Listened to the boss bitch once too many times and let her have it both barrels.
Of course I was fired. I am not sorry.
Those fucking stamp machines are not money, they are there to stamp postage.
IT that enables fraud ... Priceless!
which produces something somewhere between jack and motherfucking shit. But yeah. I agree.. IT has had a pretty good buffer, but mostly because of companies offloading their IT services to companies who specialize in it. Gov't is not excempt from this.. they do this almost exclusively.
I'm a software dev in the health field. Perm positions are REQUIRED. I won't hire any contractors any more. It costs more in QA.
Agreed, health services + IT. I feel rather safe.
same here.. IT + Healthcare.. good.. until; fiat pops.. which may be never..given the ability to endless kick cans..
I don't. So many hotspots and stickers on computers with IP Addresses and subnets too.
You can learn the keys to the Kingdom by simply keeping your eyes open.
What languages do you develop in? (If I may ask?)
C# Primarily. But I do client side work (javascript etc) as well. I used to know VB.NET but I got away from that, ironically, because I couldn't find a job. Best move I ever made.
"Consulting" indicates these might not be regular, full-time jobs....What kind of benefits do you offer? Are these indpendent contrators, or for-real employees?
If contractors, you just proved one of the main points of this article.
In Japan, 30% of young workers are "temp" workers without permanent positions even if they have been there for 10 years.
In USA, they just call temp workers "consultants". I think even hair stylists are now called "beauty consultants" $50k/year for mid experience is just temp worker salary/ status/ job not a career by any means.
Retired General with 30 years in the service working as military advisor to president is a "consultant". Not some 20/30 somethings.
Admit it, corporations want fluid labor market (churn and burn workers) while protectionist tarde policies (why do you pay $10 for some shit made in China for $1?)
We only hire the full-time positions, that offer 401K, health insurance, paid vocation days, and profit-sharing retirement plans, among other things.
" full time" only until bernanke raises rates and market contracts....layoff time.
government jobs offer 401k + PENSION + JOB SECURITY
($100k salary + $3k 401k match ) X 50% chance of lifetime employment = TRUE VALUE of $51,500/yr
($80k gov job salary + $6k 401k match + $10k pension NPV) X 95% chance of lifetime employment = TRUE VALUE of $91,200/yr
Unless private sector pays 50% more NOW, not worth the risk and effort.
Are you looking for any new senior programmer/analysts?
USD has lost 50% of it's value since 2007.
85k today is 42.5k in 2007 dollars.
If your pay hasn't risen 100% since 2007, you're working for less now than you did back then.
I've raised my rates 150% since 2007, still have all the work I can handle.
you must be a favored whore of the Secret Service
That's true. Basically we haven't increased our payscale since 2001. There are a great number of IT talents mostly from India keeping the rate constant largely thanks to H1B. Sadly, most native-born Americans just want to make less stressful money by becoming all sorts of managers instead in our firm.
From IEEE Magazine: "I had an employer write to me the other day saying they had a skills gap, and they really did. It wasn’t wages, because they did market wage surveys, and they were paying what everybody else was paying, and all the employers, by the way, are having a skills gap, so it’s a big problem. Well, if everybody’s got the same problem, and you’re all paying the same wage, it’s probably the case that you’re not paying enough. So the way markets work isn’t you set the wage and say, “Well, this is good enough.” You pay what it takes to get the people you need, and if wages have to go up, then so be it, right? You wouldn’t say, for example, that there’s a shortage of diamonds. Diamonds are very expensive. They cost a lot, but you can buy all the diamonds you want as long as you’re willing to pay."
'consulting' which means that 85k is all you get... none of the beni's that a PERM tech job gets in addition to his 85k
and that 'yearly salary' is projection if you actually get to work the whole year
Yeah if you get sick no pay. No client work no pay. And the days when consultants got paid overtime are pretty much over. Expect to work at least 60 hours/week, paid for 40. But that's built into your salary don't u kno.
"IT consulting with an average salary about $85k."
Oh what total B.S.!!! Try $15.00 an hour douchebag. Have you actually looked at Craigslist lately?
Yes or less if you go to websites where people bid for work. And those Indians, etc went to college for free. No student loans. If they live 4 to a motel room and make $15/hour for 5 years they can go back and buy a house cash and retire.
12.95 was the cap in our larger town.
Otherwise you get to living large and getting too uppity and hoity toity with the crappy shops in the business district.
95% of Mexico Calllexico lives very good on our social payments and free medical.
18
Strippers. prison guards or TSA?
Fluffers?
No budget for fluffers anymore only Viagra, stars have to do all the "work".
Hah, the .gov TSA model... We all just grope each other for a living.
Why pay someone for something priests and football coaches will do for free?
because TSA can get away with public molestation while priests and coaches can't?
yes. we'll have a bubble of cannibalism and groping. Maybe I should start writing my business plan for a brains smoothy bar.
does it require silicon tits?
ha, ha, have fun. I hired three for my small business but soon got rid of them and just hired contractors. Saved me money and redtape.
agreed. that whole post is whiny supply side bullshit.
if you have work that needs to be done and can't afford to hire someone to do it, your business model sucks.
nah, what I decided to do in my small business was to do it myself. I got tired of babysitting.
babysitting...right, huge waste of time, small business owners should be given subsidies to babysit all these useless people.
Same here. We've hired or placed over 85 this year. Probably 50% are foreign nationals. Reality is that we're graduating less IT and knowledge workers every year, in the US. Can't figure out why a generation of tech-saavy individuals are not taking up the IT career path.
Maybe because so many of them lost jobs to foreigners who were either hired at a cheaper rate (brought in via H-1B visas) in the US or because their job was out sourced to an overseas firm.
Yes and realized they will have to work 60-100 hours a week, get laid off by 40 and not even be able to get an interview regardless of skills.
"Bullshit. I just hired 16 more last week"
Wow!! The economy is saved!
but, I have nice Hugo Boss suits, Sir ..
you are H|IR|ED
in the 1930's we had the "New Deal" ... for the 2nd Great Depression we have the "Raw Deal"
and I didn't even get my salad tossed before hand..
yeah the New Deal was a Raw Deal and this Depresson is the "Real Deal"
which makes it a BIG FUCKING DEAL.
deals have positive connotations.
what americans have these days are straight up EXPLOITATIONS.
Capital says we can freely exploit Chinese and Indians, and illegal Mexicans, so Americans better be prepared.
Obama 2012... Hope you can deal.
Moated and Bloated.
Ah yes, the "growth" meme is back. While I am looking to hire at least one more engineer, it would be for a single year contract and for the same salary as a hire in 2007.
Wages do matter Hugh, corrected for inflation, how has that been working out for the average taxpayer since, well, 1971?
Same as it ever was.
Payroll (green slice) represents 79.5% of current year expenses in our service company. Where do you think we would cut?
A service company without labor ain't worth jack squat.
So it follows, a service company country without labor jobs ain't worth jack squat.
Just another reason why TPTB fear deflation, and thus they will continue to print, inexorably and eventually exponentially.
how much of that payroll expense is dedicated to executive salaries, bonuses, expense accounts, golden parachuttes, lobbyst hiring?
Cut off half the green and get some robots.
I see, so humanity IS the problem. Well, there is an easy solution for that.
Don't think they haven't thought of that!
there isn't a CEO or board of directors out there that can't be replaced by Hal 9000
I dunno. HAL 9000 had compassion and empathy.
They already have customers getting own drinks etc.
Doesn't really matter that you're a service company or not. If you're manufacturing, labor is the same variable. If you think manufacturer's are still overpaying for the components and can cut there, you're naive. Labor is always a variable that looks to be cut. Labor and the overhead applied to that labor is where you're going to cut back. Once all the fat is gone, you're only option is to cut muscle.
There is no magic fix. It's run its course. The only question is how it goes down.
payroll pac-man eats it all up.
chomp, chomp, chomp
Stop staying open at 3 am goddamn early.
Close it up and save a little after 9 PM until 9AM.
Go ahead and outsource the rest of those jobs and see what kind of resulting country you end up with.
Reduce our federal bureaucrats role in destroying the economy and unleash the American spirit of entrepreneurship instead. Keep electing social engineers and you will continue to have failed states.
If you can't organize your business so that an incremental employee produces incremental profit, you shouldn't be hiring any. Those who can grow their business and profits.
2007 wages were not that bad... now it's 15% less.
I will go to 2007.
Hey, we are not complete slave drivers. By the way, insurance costs are about 130% higher, so while the wage is good, the take-home is considerably less.
Next post:
Dear Person Who Has a Job, Here's Why You Are About to Get Fired and/or Take a Pay Cut.
Unemployed need to get out and make a job, not look to be given one.
need anything done? I am trying to do what you so sagely advised. Will you pay me? I will work hard!
Big talk. From a little mind, as usual.
If you have to beg a man for a job you've already lost.
You have to make that employer need you/your skillset.
Back in the day if my employee did'nt tell me to fuck off at least once in his first 90 days I got rid of them.
They could do that because of their skillset.
Work hard? So does a washing machine.
To a corp. you are an input cost - nothing more.
And as an business owner it's my job to cut input costs.
So where does that leave you? SOL!
I know a guy whose son was laid-off and could'nt find work.
His son looked around and came up w/a plan to do mulching around landscaping.
He contacted local tree cutting services and inquired about felled trees that they send thru a chipper.
Now those same tree service co.s drop off all the mulch he wants - FOR FREE!
Repeat after me - INPUT COSTS -INPUT COSTS!
For the record the majority of his customers PAY CASH.
my reply was unclear. if you read my posts, I often speak of the absence of demand. I often humorously wonder: what "growth" does anyone have exactly in mind?
You hear pundits speak of growth, but never quite say where or what it will be. My theory is: this is what a fully industrialized society looks like. Production is mastered, as is distribution, and efficiency is effortless, and... work becomes obsolete as the system becomes more and more perfect. But, it is work -- and the wages earned -- that drive the system on a daily basis. Consumption. That's our problem.
So I was being facetious: Need anything done?? Pretty please?? lol.
Keep in mind that until all the world's needs and wants are satisfied, there will always be opportunity.
Interesting look at jobs in era of automation and outsourcing:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Lights-Tunnel-Accelerating-ebook/dp/B002S0NITU...
Kidnapping wealthy folks' children for ransom is always an option.
It's a good time, too, because so many local governments are trying to cut back on law-enforcement these days. Criminal enforcement doesn't really pay--the cops have tickets to write.
Get out and make a job? Sound beautiful.
Of course it doesn't take anything into account. If people had skills needed to fill jobs available, me thinks there wouldn't be a problem with employment.
Naturally the response will be: Increase your skills. As if that were also as easy as "make a job."
You sound confused.
Who told you it was going to be easy?
Sounds good until you actually do it and find out the gov punishes you for being self employed. They want you to be a W-2 slave. Srsly.
The trick is to offer a service that utilizes everything you need in your personal life. Everything has to be a write off. The people that can find this niche will be the ones that the government gets to steal the least from.
@ lucky
Housewife ?
Ran a repair company with my soon to be ex out of my house. Trucks, lease, utilities, computers, cell phones, lawn care, hardwood floors all partial deductions. Lunch provided to us and subcontractors... fireworks for party, dinners... always invite a customer with us... bathroom supplies... the list goes on and on.
Now I do technical support out of my house, not as many write offs but still a lot.
landscaping, house repairs, tools, yard tools, work clothes all partial expenses
I could go on forever. Rent a boat, invite a customer....entertainment expense. Kids birthday party... invite subcontractors kids lol Me and GE both know how to work it.
Also... kids can work in office and earn up to a certain amount a year tax free. I think this changed this year though.
Dogs... security system
dog food, invisible fence... supplies
This is totally my very favorite game:-)
Thanks for asking!!!!!!!!
I think batering is a good way to make a living. I did this in the '90s in a Drs. Office e.g. had someone in the batering system make a sign for us and we provided medical services. The downside was the government wanted their cut.
Be ready for the collapse of the system and then your bartering services will come in handy.
Suggestions:
Shoe Shine Person: $50-60 day, easy?
Motorcycle/Auto Detailer: Easy start-up, setup anywhere, $100-200 day?
Lawn Business: Find a mower in the trash, fix it, go door to door, make $30/hour!
Junk Jobber: Buy stuff at yard sales, Goodwill, etc, resell at street corners using tables, double your investment.
Emergency Supply Technician: Purchase generators, gloves, chain saws and chains, gas cans, etc, things needed for emergencies, travel to emergency areas and triple your investment. Same applies for Gas/Oil Boom towns. Set up a 'Bartertown'.
Don't forget the gov wants their cut, make sure to get your business license/permit. Will probably cost you a few hundred dollars. This is of course unless you are an illegal and work under the table.
Real self employment is essentially illegal from a fiscal
point of view as you have no income to report. Just an outcome which you keep to yourself.
I'm sure with that idiotic show "American Pickers" and the one where the idiots buy the contents of storage lockers after the renters abscond, it's probably tough to be a junk jobber. Also, it was always a stupid idea.
yeah, there are some things I would not do for money, I'd rather starve than demean myself.
Yeah, call me proud!
An analogy.
Like so many who think they gonna get what they paid for their house pre '06. The price was a myth based upon a lie. It ain't comin back.
Realtors use these as setup homes. Show the unrealisticly priced home first to set up the buyer for the value prop of a realisticly price home.
Meanwhile the unrealistic got overhead n upkeep. But they too proud to see the market for what it is. They a joke. N everyone can see it...but the setup. In reality they jus waitin round to get their face ripped off.
You really jus waitin round to starve?
Yeah, got a mortgage on a house, foreclosed, in the early 90's, owning a house is not all cracked up to what you think. But I got out of the house with some dough just in time, my gf kept the house and later found out it had a cracked foundation that was never disclosed to us.
Ths housing market, as you pointed out, is a farce.
And yes, I'm ready to starve if that is what it comes down to. I'm prepared to go the way of all men.
Don't discount those auctions for storage unit contents.
Their's value in them as no one would pay for storage otherwise.
Recently a auction goer paid for contents and found upwards of 500k of silver.I personally know a guy who did this and got two almost new Quads for $400.00.
Diversify!
The wife and I garage sale on Saturdays for the thrill of the hunt. We'll never get rich doing it, but it gets us out of the house. Plus, like you said, you never know what'll turn up. Coach bags and Harley stuff bought for a couple quarters and sold at full market value on ebay is always fun!
I know a guy who owns several and he takes the good stuff before the auction. I'm sure that's the same most places. If there is something good it's only because the owner didn't recognize it's value. The yard sale, rummage sale stuff - I used to go to them when I had a used book business. You see the same couple dozen people real early at all of them. Chance of finding something valuable is much less than of getting in a car accident while looking around.