Can't find workers means: can't find cheap skilled workers.
Exactly, there is a shortage of people with 20 years experience and a master's degree willing to work for $14/hour.
There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America
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Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America
#22As someone else has already said, the biggest shortage is skilled labor, not unskilled. Trouble is, it's unwise to dedicate months/years of training for a single job that may not be there when you graduate, and it's unwise to train someone when they could get poached by the next company not willing to shell out for training. I also wonder how sticky their wages are. If a business can endure not filling a position unt…
> it's unwise to dedicate months/years of training for a single job that may not be there when you graduate
Few jobs disappear in a few years. A few decades, maybe. (Yeah, yeah, we'll have flying autonomous vehicles in 2020 putting all taxi drivers out of work.)
You are correct there is a shortage of skilled labor. Physicians, engineers, lawyers, accountants etc. have been and will continue to be in demand. Blue collar jobs too: mechanic, plumber, electrician, HVAC.
Sure, getting an psychology undergrad from a $40k/yr tuition school is a bad move, but there are plenty of reliably good moves out there.
Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America
#23I feel like I've seen a lot of articles about people who can't find jobs or who are worried about their increasingly-outdated jobs going away in the short term. This article says we also have a lot of jobs that can't find people. What's the missing piece? Re-training? What does that actually look like for a 30- or 40-year-old person who has a family to support and doesn't much care for government handouts?
I'm hypothesizing, but I imagine a lot of it has to do with geographical mismatch. How many auto-glass installers do you need in Elkhart, Indiana [1]? Or Casper, Wyoming, or Lafayette, Louisiana? EDIT: to expand on my point, in metropolitan areas that are experiencing a population boom, demand creates opportunities for businesses, and therefore opportunities for prospective workers. It's a virtuous cycle. Meanwhile,…
I'd think more in WY or IN due to snow plowing and freeze/thaw cycles.
Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America
#24I'm always baffled by the people in these articles. From the anecdote at the beginning: he's having trouble hiring people for $12/hour (up to $70K/year with bonuses, etc). I am also having trouble hiring people: I need a senior software engineer. Pay is $12/hour. It's taking me a long time to find workers. I guess people are just lazy and don't want to work.
Yeah, the journos who are writing big articles about big trends always seem to want to anchor them with anecdata from the 2 local guys they talked to, as if that actually sheds light on the situation. Usually it just confirms whatever narrative their story is pushing.
I don't know what's a fair price in every area of the country for all of these jobs, so beats me if $12 is good or bad, but beyond this one anecdote, people have been saying for years that there was a shortage of skilled labor in the country. So aside from whether this one guy is paying fairly or not, it does appear to be a real issue.
Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America
#25If we're generous and say that the auto-glass installer job pays a bonus of $10,000 a year that leaves $60,000 earned at $12/hour ... which is about 96 hours a week. I can think of plenty of reasons why you'd have trouble finding people to do that job.
The $70k figure wasn't meant to be the entry-level pay. I think the idea is that working in that field, you could eventually make that.
Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America
#26Let's do this experiment: let's have all businesses double whatever wage they are currently paying. Is there still a shortage of workers? No? Ah, in that case, we have solved the problem.
You miss the point. Labor is inelastic. If you double the wage, it might take the market years to respond if the skill in question is not quickly acquired.
Buying high skilled workers is not like buying gumballs, where prices and high demand can quickly stimulate supply, and the two meet in the middle.
Gumballs don't have to sell their house and move. Gumballs don't have to take care of their kids while going back to school.
Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America
#27As someone else has already said, the biggest shortage is skilled labor, not unskilled. Trouble is, it's unwise to dedicate months/years of training for a single job that may not be there when you graduate, and it's unwise to train someone when they could get poached by the next company not willing to shell out for training. I also wonder how sticky their wages are. If a business can endure not filling a position unt…
The core problem here is that we can't adapt quickly enough to change. To ensure we can adapt quickly enough, we can either slow down change and make progress more difficult (which seems to be the popular sentiment), or we can make adaptation easier and faster.
When framed like that, IMO it's obvious--we need to focus on adaptability, not conservatism.
We are ineluctably bound by the laws of survival and natural selection, and if we can't sufficiently adapt to changes, then we will die (figuratively and literally).
Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America
#28The mismatch between available jobs and the skillsets of the workforce has baffled me. Is it just that autoglass installers aren't in sufficient demand for people to train to become autoglass installers? And so would it be economically inefficient for the government to subsidize the education of more autoglass workers?
But maybe it's not a question of insufficient demand for these skills. Maybe it's a question of matching up job opportunities, workers, and the capital necessary to train the workers for the jobs.
Imagine this: a site/app where employers post job openings with certain skill requirements, and where workers apply for jobs. These sites already exist. But add to it an element where workers can say they want to work a certain type of job but need additional training to do so. Then investors can put forward the money to train the worker, in exchange for 10% of the worker's future earnings until the loan is paid back plus interest.
Microfinance not as foreign aid but as grease for the labor market.
Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America
#29If we're generous and say that the auto-glass installer job pays a bonus of $10,000 a year that leaves $60,000 earned at $12/hour ... which is about 96 hours a week. I can think of plenty of reasons why you'd have trouble finding people to do that job.
I doubt the 70k makes $12 an hour. Likely a supervisor making say $20 an hour.. comes to a base of 42k. Other 28k he would make in 17 hours of overtime per week (Remember you get time and a half for overtime), for a total of 57 hour weeks. Not out of the question hours in a busy factory. I did some of those in college summer days...
But now you are working 57 hours a week in steady state to make that $70K and it does not sound like such a good deal any more.
Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America
#30As someone else has already said, the biggest shortage is skilled labor, not unskilled. Trouble is, it's unwise to dedicate months/years of training for a single job that may not be there when you graduate, and it's unwise to train someone when they could get poached by the next company not willing to shell out for training. I also wonder how sticky their wages are. If a business can endure not filling a position unt…
Case in point: my employer has a vacancy that has been unfilled for the better part of a year now because they want to hire a full-time Database Administrator and not pay more than $65k.
My theory is that they're intentionally low-balling it so that no one will apply and they can hire an H1B.