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Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

nytimes.com

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Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#181

Post by throwaway1892 »

denzil_correa wrote: post #65
throwaway1892 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How will it effect? My guess is that the increase number of immigrants in Western Europe will cause a reduction in social benefits

How? Without immigrants, the social benefit system would reduce anyways because there aren't enough young people to pay into the system. In addition, both low and high skilled migrants increase productivity and per capita GDP in advanced economies (Source : IMF) [0]. [0] http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2016/02/pdf/c4.pdf

From the linked paper: "The stock of refugees has a stronger presence of children; in 2015, for instance, more than half of refugees were under the age of 18." So a part of the migrants would not influence positively the GDP for a few years and put more pressure on public welfare system, as well as public schools and hospitals.

Also I think that, whether low or high skilled, when you have high unemployment rate (above 10%), more workers just mean more people unemployed, so more social benefits, that the various welfare states won't be able to assume, since they all are in deficit.

Also can you point in the document where this affirmation is made?

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#182

Post by VLM »

eveningcoffee wrote: post #89
andrepd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The simple idea of idleness and staying at home to paint or draw seems to drive people crazy. It kinda does, because for you to be able to idle and sit in your home painting, somebody else has to go on the "giant treadmill" to feed you, house you, and clothe you. Do you think I wouldn't like to idle at home as I please, and paint and write and read and laze about? Only if everybody did that we would all starve to de…

I think that you misinterpreted the meaning by a large margin. The question is about handling the productivity gains. One option would be to use the gains to have more (intelligent, as was proposed) leisure time. You do not have to work 8 hours a day if the job you did could be done in 30 minutes of work. You can still keep working for 8 hours (or as it common, more) to squeeze even more out you than was possible bef…

"You do not have to work 8 hours a day if the job you did could be done in 30 minutes of work."

You're confusing doing work with being at work.

I suspect for bean counting reasons and putting on a really good show, we'll all have to "work" for sixteen hour days in open offices generating great departmental metrics, but we'll actually work about 30 minutes a day and goof off on social media and online shopping and complaining about how busy we are for fifteen and a half hours per day. Well sure I spent three hours eating lunch at my desk and another three hour break is coming up in an hour for dinner so lets get the planning meeting for the pre-meeting for the meeting started...

You know how when you drive by a construction site and inevitably there's like six guys watching one guy operate a shovel? Same idea. Due to all the social media and online gaming, its gonna take ten programmers working together for weeks of pair programming to write fizzbuzz, but at least we'll all be putting in 16 hour days on paper. The whole business world is going to be like that.

The future is here, although unevenly distributed.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#183

Post by sundaeofshock »

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #125
amorphid wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entitled or not, it sucks to know that our American parents and grandparents could buy homes, and we cannot. You could be nicer about "yeah it sucks, I hear you, but all is not lost..."

I am in the same age range as the poster. Life is tough. Get over it. You want nicer things? It has to come from somewhere. And our parents did not have it easier. I would say if anything, they had it harder, and didn't get caught up in all the bullshit commericalism that is marketed to us today. This is anecdote, but still, my parents worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, for 20 years, with one single vacation, so t…

I am in the same generation as your parents (49) and can say for sure that my generation had a lot easier then your generation. We had free or low-cost college, real wages were higher, there were plenty of real (non-gig) jobs, people could afford to buy housing on a middle-class income, health insurance covered more, and the overall cost of living was lower. Anecdotally, your parents may have had it rougher then most of our generation; but according to the data our generation had a hell of a lot easier time then your (and my son's) generation does.

Oh, and -- like ever generation -- we whined just as much and were also call entitled. Go back and read about all the delightful things written about Generation X. We were whiney, lazy, self-entitled, and also told that life was tough and we needed to get over it. Christ, if you hadn't have called our your age in your post, I would have guessed you were my age or older.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#184

Post by moosey »

contingencies wrote: post #31
istjohn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your knee-jerk response to this statistic is symptomatic of the stygma attatched to mental illness in our society. If this was a statistic on a viral infection, would you be so doubtful? This attitude is what keeps people from being willing to seek help when they suffer from depression or suicidal thoughts for fear that skeptics will judge them as faking or lacking character. As someone who lived for over ten years w…

I think you misread my comments. I am just saying that when a fairly large percentage of the population is considered 'mentally ill' then they're probably not ill at all, they're just having a perfectly reasonable response to a completely screwed up society. I mean objectively the binary view of "sick" and "healthy" is wrong for starters. Also objectively, many societies don't have these issues or at least don't have…

> the whole antidepressant epidemic in the US (and other places, like Denmark, the self-reported happiest country on earth) is a symptom of a fundamental breakdown in the community aspects of society and a pervasive, deep-seated sense of mental rudderlessness infecting the more vulnerable parts of the population

That causes damage. Turning your ankle or pulling a muscle might be more obvious, because it's purely physical, but there isn't as much difference as you think.

There have been studies that show that long term unemployment causes permanent changes to a persons personality, one not easily healed by getting a new job[1]. These modifications to thinking and increased stress levels lead to physical changes (and argumentatively decay). Pointing out the source of the problem in society does not change the fact that it isn't mental illness. Quite on the contrary, giving a source is similar to pointing at a poisoned well and saying "That's why everyone is sick.", but then afterwards saying nobody is really sick because we all know the well is poisoned.

[1]: http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/02/25/long-term-unemployme...

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#185

Post by witty_username »

jokoon wrote: post #164
barrkel wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poe's law strikes again. Nobody owes you a living. "Contributing to the labour force" isn't a religion; it is a necessary condition of life, without which we starve. There's no free lunch. I think that, to protect your ego against accusations of laziness, you've projected this idea of society as a pointless activity, so you can defend to yourself your choices. It is self-delusional.

> Nobody owes you a living. Since FDR, social programs has been implemented, so actually, yes, everyone is owed something because we understood that society can easily crash if some people don't have food.

Do most people think that way? I thought social programs were more about moral aspects (it's unethical to let someone die of starvation simply because they don't have enough money).

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#186

Post by elementalest »

I think part of the problem is that jobs are becoming more and more high skill based, requiring many years of university level education. The low skilled jobs are replaced with high skilled ones. The problem is our education systems are falling behind. Education needs to be readily accessible and inexpensive for both initial schooling and those who need/want to re-skill. The universities should also have employment programs which help workers new to their field find and obtain jobs so they can gain experience.

With the economy the way it is (slower growth, wage stagnation etc), employers are unwilling to take the potential risk with low skilled workers (who have no degree) and there are plenty of new workers who just finished their degree which employers will prefer to employ. I suspect there would be enough jobs, if there were enough high skilled workers and a better economy. I think the problem is there is a shortage of high skilled experienced workers and an oversupply of lower skilled workers.

As some anecdotal evidence, when I search for software engineering / developer jobs in my country, I see a lot of high skilled jobs available, requiring moderate to significant levels of experience and/or education. However, there are much fewer junior/graduate/basic developer jobs available.

To become a high skilled worker, you generally have to start in the low skilled jobs, or get a PhD. If its hard to get a lower skilled/entry level job due to low demand, the rate higher skilled worker are produced is restricted. So its a catch 22.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#188

Post by logicallee »

mfoy_ wrote: post #151
logicallee wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked people not to reply to the comment, thanks.

Which is part of my criticism of your post. You can't just say something inflammatory and walk away mic-drop style. That's not a constructive comment. That's also not how message boards work.

But there's nothing constructive about your comment - you say "at least put some effort into it." So please do so, yourself. If you are within your edit window go ahead.

If you will leave it as the empty kneejerk comment reading "at least put some effort in" (which is against HN policy and derails the thread) all I have to say, as promised, is oh those aren't my thoughts, we obviously agree and I was just quoting off of a neo-Nazi message board. No need to reply. Thanks for your understanding.

(If you wanted to make a constructive reply, you could start by saying "If we were to take that argument seriously for a moment..." and then state your thoughts.)

There's really no need for any other short comment, I will just agree with you. We can just agree to agree.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#189

Post by Bartweiss »

cjdkcnsnd wrote: post #126
trentnix wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scenario you describe simply doesn't pass the smell test. I own a business (retail) that employs 10 and retail is, to a certain degree, "unskilled". My experience has been that it is very, very difficult to find dependable, trustworthy employees who work diligently and productively. Consequently, employers simply do not have the "luxury" to set up a system that treats employees as disposable. It's not profitable…

>My experience has been that it is very, very difficult to find dependable, trustworthy employees who work diligently and productively You forgot to append the most important part to that statement, and instead chose to leave it implied: "at the wage I am willing to pay." Pay your employees more money and better labor will come. So say the laws of supply and demand.

I'm normally on board with this response, but I think here it's unwarranted.

"Difficult to find" is about scarcity, but it's also about the actual act of finding. Traits like 'diligent' and 'trustworthy' are hard to identify before hiring someone. You can't test for them in the short term, and everyone wants to signal that they have them. That's especially true in low-skilled sectors like retail, where you're unlikely to have common contacts or be able to see diligence in someone's work history.

From what I've seen, those traits are hard to find in a very literal sense - even given a candidate you don't know what you're getting. This is coordination failure; raising wages doesn't resolve information asymmetries.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#190

Post by trentnix »

DashRattlesnake wrote: post #57
trentnix wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scenario you describe simply doesn't pass the smell test. I own a business (retail) that employs 10 and retail is, to a certain degree, "unskilled". My experience has been that it is very, very difficult to find dependable, trustworthy employees who work diligently and productively. Consequently, employers simply do not have the "luxury" to set up a system that treats employees as disposable. It's not profitable…

> The scenario you describe simply doesn't pass the smell test. It's pretty well documented. Here are a couple of articles that outline the conditions at Amazon, but I'm sure there are more. http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/life-and-deat... http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f... You might want to also read up on how temp labor is treated, to see how other workers are treated dis…

But that's the thing - temp labor is, by definition, disposable. A business has little incentive to invest in employees that are likely to turn over frequently, and that's what temp labor does. The links you provided - which read like propaganda, btw - have an insightful message:

"mainly all I needed to get hired was to confirm 20 or 30 times that I had not been to prison"

So it appears Amazon does struggle to get good help, employs very, very low-skilled works, and has systems set up that provide structure. Indeed, it's very controlling to the average information worker that comments on Hacker News, but just might work well within the confines of their warehouse.

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