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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

#81
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…

There is no skills/jobs mismatch.

These types of articles are part of a stealth propaganda campaign primarily designed to push for more immigration for the purpose of driving down wages.

If people think there are not enough skilled workers domestically, they will support more immigration. Don't fall for it!

Employers can't find skilled workers... at slave-wage salary. That's the part they never include.

How is an app going to fix the problem of employers posting fake jobs domestically, in order to circumvent the immigration rules: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no missing piece, because the first part of your statement isn't backed by fact. There's not a big dark pool of people who can't find jobs. The second part of your first sentence is maybe true, but maybe not. In surveys of Americans most people feel positive about their economic circumstances, at every level of income. 75-80% of Americans report they feel their job is secure[1]. 1: http://kff.org/report-sect…

Other than the 3% of all workers who have become permanently discouraged workers in the past decade, you mean? http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 It's only 5 million people or so, so I guess you're saying that's not "big".

Expand the graph back to 1948, where it starts, and you'll see labor participation is higher now than it was from 1948-1984. So it's not that simple, unfortunately.

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#83
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's like employers don't even attempt to think about anything from the employee's perspective -- even after they've struggled to fill their own positions. "Cheap business owners" couldn't be a more accurate byline. Or maybe the job their trying to fill isn't worth that much to them (the employers, that is)? As an example, let's take a speech-writer for a presidential candidate. Company X (let's say it has 100 billi…

>Or maybe the job their trying to fill isn't worth that much to them (the employers, that is)? Just imagine the businesses that suddenly become profitable if employers could provide nothing beyond room and board and employees weren't allowed to quit!

>employees weren't allowed to quit

In the US you can quit and look for another job, the same way how MS can exit the OS market.

The same way MS doesn't leave the OS market (too lucrative), most people don't walk off on their jobs.

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#84

You can check this kind of stuff out by looking on your local Craigslist postings. Machinist wanted (with decent level of understanding multiple machines, reading blueprints etc.) - 5 years experience - $25/hour in the Denver/Boulder area. e.g. http://boulder.craigslist.org/trd/5902683986.html (and you have to supply some of your own tools) ... this is not a cheap area to live in BTW. $50-60K is barely middle class f…

I sometimes see job placements come in for machinists which demand almost every machinist skill one can have. Manual machining on every available type of machine, CNC machining on every type of machine, CNC programming, CAD and CAM Design in all the main software, GD&T, Blueprinting, etc.

And for a list of requirements that takes up a full page, and frankly sometimes even requires skills that you would earn with a bachelors in mechanical engineering. All for $10/hour. And they wonder why no one has taken them up on their offer. And this is also in a major Southern city, with an ever increasing cost of living.

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#85
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2% growth is very low. Jobs =! well paying secure jobs.

What developed country has sustained better growth?

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?year_h...

Ireland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Iceland, Poland, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Spain, the UAE, and Israel (although there are more depending on your definition of a developed country).

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#86
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd think more in WY or IN due to snow plowing and freeze/thaw cycles.

I lived in indiana the first 30+ years, and live in Norway now. I've never heard of car glass breaking because of the freeze/thaw cycle. More common, it is things like hail during thunderstorms or gravel from a road.

It is the water getting into chips and micro-cracks in the glass. Not instantly breaking, but growing into cracks over the years from freeze thaw cycles.

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#87
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…

Part of it is that we've stopped training our workforce. I have a friend who has been a machinist his entire life. He taught me a lot, and is one of those guys who has probably forgotten more than I will ever know.

But when he started, he was an apprentice for 5 years. And he worked with guys who taught him everything he knows.

Now, if you want to become a machinist, you have to pay your own way to a community college to become a trained machinist. It'll probably take 2 years. But I hope you've got money to support yourself with over those 2 years.

We have almost no real apprenticeship programs anymore. Companies want their employees to come out of the public education system full formed to be exactly what the companies want, but they're unwilling to really put down the cash to train them and educate them.

So we've created a system that once again privatizes rewards for the companies (not having to pay to train an employee), but "publicizes" risk (the student/community pays for the training.)

That, and we don't want to pay people a decent wage after they've done their training. Why should companies pay them barely more than minimum wage? The same thing is now playing out at the University/4 year degree level.

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#88
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What developed country has sustained better growth?

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?year_h... Ireland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Iceland, Poland, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Spain, the UAE, and Israel (although there are more depending on your definition of a developed country).

What definition are you using for sustained? 10 years? 20 years?

I didn't include this either. Just curious.

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#89
post #20

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…

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…

People aren't stupid. They don't just want jobs; they want careers.

Training makes sense for a job that has a career path. If you learned to drive a road tractor, you started by working for a transport company until you save up enough to buy your own rig, then you were a contractor for one of those companies until you got an agent to get you the loads you wanted on the routes you liked. Maybe eventually you got off the road to work in the management office for a transport company. With automated trucks on the horizon, young folks are less likely to even bother learning how to drive such vehicles.

No one wants to be told that the skill they already spent half their lives honing will not carry them through to retirement.

Big companies have been dismantling careers and repackaging them as cheaper and more fungible jobs for decades now. There is no consideration given whatsoever to the fact that employees are people that cannot spring fully formed from Zeus's brow when the company calls, nor store themselves in a closet and turn themselves off until needed again.

If you won't pay for people to live their lives outside of your workplace, they won't waste any of their finite time in it.

It isn't just training. The company needs an ecosystem that moves humans from graduation to retirement. They don't have to own or control the whole thing, but all the pieces have to be there. And if a piece breaks, it has to be repaired or replaced to keep other parts healthy. That hasn't been happening since the 80s, so now there are huge, gaping holes in the career pipeline, and what companies remain are often parasites upon it rather than contributors to the ecosystem.

So, yeah, good luck finding someone to install your auto glass, buddy. All those kids know that you will never be paying that $70k/year (with bonuses!) you teased them with, because three years from now, you might just replace the guy you hired this year with yet another sucker at $12/hr. What happened to your previous glass guy? Did you promote him, or fire him?

Re: There Are Plenty of Jobs Out There, America

#90
post #46

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.

> a full-time Database Administrator Do those even exist anymore, in the US? In the UK I very rarely encounter UK-based DBAs, 99.99% are offshore.

I was a technical recruiter for a couple year and only met two USA based DBAs. They both do fully remote work and bill 100 an hour as a contractor.
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