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There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

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Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#51

Post by tricolon »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #35
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Job vacancies below market rate should not be counted as openings. Pretty easy to determine market rate from data provided by payroll providers (ie ADP).

That $65k may very well be the "prevailing wage" determined by the Department of Labor.

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#52

Post by cle »

ared38 wrote: post #36
cle wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sele…

But how? If it takes 4 months to train on a new CNC machine or 8 to learn the latest web design tools, how do we make people more adaptable? There are certainly some jobs that are currently over trained, as evidenced by nurse practitioners taking over some common general practitioner roles. But I'm not convinced that's the situation in manufacturing.

I honestly don't know. I'm mainly concerned that it's not part of the conversation--the national conversation currently revolves around getting back lost jobs, or preventing jobs from being lost, instead of adapting to change.

Jobs will be lost, industries will die, money will shift--it's inevitable. How can we adapt? It's something I don't have a good answer for, but that I'm confident can be solved if we actually try.

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#53

Post by [deleted] »

twoquestions wrote: post #14

As 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…

[deleted]

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#54

Post by 20years »

michael_h wrote: post #6

I'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.

Exactly! The article starts off trying to sell you on $12/hr. You can make $12/hr at much easier, less demanding jobs. They try and hold that carrot over your head of eventually making $70k, but even that isn't all that great, and how long before you get there?

I agree with the article in that there are plenty of jobs out there. Just not good paying jobs.

There is not really a talent shortage. Instead there is employers who pay good salaries shortage.

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#55

Post by moxious »

blfr wrote: post #49
moxious wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no fast way out of the situation. Training and education is ultimately the answer, but to fill today's jobs, that needed to happen 2-4 years ago. So today, I think we're up a creek in any case. Still, best get to training and educating people ASAP, because 2 years from now is coming sooner than most people think. We could complain about how much it costs to do this, or we could just shut up, do it, and then e…

There's no fast way out of the situation. Of course there is and at least some Republicans at least claim they're going to take it: slash immigration, lower the labour supply, raising its prices.

Yes, no matter how big or complex the problem, there will always be someone promising a quick and easy fix. And there will always be those in enough pain that they want to buy the quick fix.

I'm not a big fan of magic beans though, because I'm young enough I still have to live here for a long time, I'm not cashing out of this place next year. If the problem is not enough skilled workers, it would seem that lowering the labor supply is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#56

Post by aharrison3 »

insickness wrote: post #40
pc2g4d wrote: post #28

The 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 mat…

The problem with this is that its often difficult to tell whether a person is suited for a job or even would like a job until the person starts training in it. You could decide you want to go into HVAC because there's a lot of money in it. But six weeks into the training you hate it or you realize you suck at it. Who foots the bill for that failure?

The debtor would. They can choose to stick it out until their loan is repaid or find another way to pay it.

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#57

Post by user5994461 »

lkrubner wrote: post #19

Let'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.

Added 50%... still got no one.

-- based on a real story

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#58

Post by jwtadvice »

America recently redefined what unemployment means.

It used to mean "the amount of people currently capable of working, who are not employed in work."

The new definition is "the amount of people who want a job, but can't find one".

Basically the difference between structural unemployment and transitive unemployment. America used to track transitive unemployment, but through a series of reforms have narrowed in on measuring structural unemployment.

Originally if you were not employed you would be unemployed. Slowly this was altered so that if you were not employed and hadn't found a job in a month you were unemployed (because you were looking and not finding, and therefore there was no job for you). Slowly that got moved out. I don't have the most recent numbers committed to memory, but an not employed person is not considered unemployed unless they've been looking and have not found for a large amount of time.

This article hits on that theme. The argument/opinion it expresses is that the jobs ARE there - that structural unemployment is low - but that workers aren't finding good work ("transitive unemployment is high").

There's been huge moves in the labor market as middle skilled jobs are disappearing. The only move for the labor pool is down to low-skilled labor jobs, work that masses of the labor pool are not only overqualified for, but will be compensated significantly less for and which represent much less socioeconomic mobility.

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#59

Post by ChuckMcM »

twoquestions wrote: post #14

As 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…

   Does anyone here know a good way out of this   
   situation?
Yes, you reprice labor. It is potentially inflationary though.
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