Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

9M American men in prime working age can’t find jobs. I’m one of them

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 147 posts

Re: 9M American men in prime working age can’t find jobs. I’m one of them

#11

Post by lordnacho »

flippy2 wrote: post #5

Honestly. If the author can't make it in SV due to having a rough ride they should look outside the area. There are plenty of companies needing IT workers across the USA and moving to one of them sounds like a good way for him to get back on his feet.

He's got a bunch of kids and a wife. Moving might not make sense. Kids will cause more stress if they're unhappy in a new location, and how do you move the current sole bread winner? She'd have to find a job in the same area as him, meaning you're looking for two jobs instead of one.

Also proximity to the in laws is worth something too.

Re: 9M American men in prime working age can’t find jobs. I’m one of them

#12

Post by dagw »

flippy2 wrote: post #5

Honestly. If the author can't make it in SV due to having a rough ride they should look outside the area. There are plenty of companies needing IT workers across the USA and moving to one of them sounds like a good way for him to get back on his feet.

But would his wife be able to find a job there? Moving across the country so that he could get a low paying job, while his wife instead ends either unemployed or with a much worse job than the one she currently has is hardly an optimal solution. By the sound of it they are making just about enough money to get by as it is, so uprooting the entire family in search of something else is a pretty high risk strategy,

Re: 9M American men in prime working age can’t find jobs. I’m one of them

#13

Post by yummyfajitas »

tjic wrote: post #6

I've met a lot of people who "couldn't" find a job. What they usually mean is "they can't find a job in the area they want, in the industry they want, doing the kind of work they want, at the salary they want, working for someone else." This is a highly overconstrained search. If / when people loosen one or more of these constraints, they're opportunities open right up. Like everyone, I prefer to get exactly what I w…

This guy seems to fall into that category:

"There have been times where I’ve wondered if I should just get a temporary service or manual labor job...I would be too humiliated... It would be exceptionally difficult to work eight hours a day hoping with all my might that a neighbor or friend wouldn’t swing by to see me working the cash register or pumping gas."

This is a definitive example of the prideful worker effect. It's kind of crazy how our modern culture substitutes "can't" for "won't".

Meanwhile, this guy says he doesn't have skills with modern technologies and he spends 4 hours/day ("a quick glance at Twitter to see what’s going on in the world, and then I look up and it’s 1:15") procrastinating rather than learning those technologies. Hardly a surprise that no one wants to hire him, I certainly never would.

Re: 9M American men in prime working age can’t find jobs. I’m one of them

#14

Post by vivekd »

tjic wrote: post #6

I've met a lot of people who "couldn't" find a job. What they usually mean is "they can't find a job in the area they want, in the industry they want, doing the kind of work they want, at the salary they want, working for someone else." This is a highly overconstrained search. If / when people loosen one or more of these constraints, they're opportunities open right up. Like everyone, I prefer to get exactly what I w…

The problem is education is tailored towards particular jobs. For example if you have a degree in biology, sure you can get a job in a factory paying almost minimum wage. . . but it wouldn't pay enough for you to cover your student loans and still be able to move out. There seems to be a serious lack of jobs that let people actually have a life. . . and I'm not talking about picket fence in the suburbs dream home kind of life, I'm just talking about being able to afford basic necessities

Re: 9M American men in prime working age can’t find jobs. I’m one of them

#15

Post by arcanus »

tjic wrote: post #6

I've met a lot of people who "couldn't" find a job. What they usually mean is "they can't find a job in the area they want, in the industry they want, doing the kind of work they want, at the salary they want, working for someone else." This is a highly overconstrained search. If / when people loosen one or more of these constraints, they're opportunities open right up. Like everyone, I prefer to get exactly what I w…

> This is a highly overconstrained search

Yes and no. It can speak to structural inefficiencies in the economy. For instance, I am a Computational Scientist with a decade of experience in scientific research, publications, etc. It would be a massive waste of my training to be working in an unrelated field, for instance.

Underemployment is a very real thing, and it hurts the entire economy. We as a society have a vested interest in ensuring that highly productive roles (data science, medicine, etc.) are filled, because thelse positions are more productive and boost the aggregate economy. To say nothing of the likely higher salary and job satisfaction that comes with a 'good fit'.

Re: 9M American men in prime working age can’t find jobs. I’m one of them

#16

Post by kemiller2002 »

tjic wrote: post #6

I've met a lot of people who "couldn't" find a job. What they usually mean is "they can't find a job in the area they want, in the industry they want, doing the kind of work they want, at the salary they want, working for someone else." This is a highly overconstrained search. If / when people loosen one or more of these constraints, they're opportunities open right up. Like everyone, I prefer to get exactly what I w…

I remember talking to the father of a girlfriend's roommate at the time. He used to be an executive at an engineering company in Chicago, but he didn't survive the 5th round of layoffs. When I met him, he was working at a hardware store around the corner from his house. He was unhappy with ending up doing a cashier's job when he spent his whole life working towards what he did previously. He never once said he was ungrateful for the job and he certainly didn't say it was beneath him, he just wanted to go back to what he was doing, and he clearly didn't just stay unemployed for his next opportunity. While underemployed, he kept looking an interviewing and didn't give up until someone hired him.

My point is, that you're absolutely right. It may not be the job you want right now, but it is probably the job you need right now. You can either take it and work on our next move or sit there pontificating if the perfect job will arrive next.

Re: 9M American men in prime working age can’t find jobs. I’m one of them

#17

Post by yummyfajitas »

dagw wrote: post #12
flippy2 wrote: post #5

Honestly. If the author can't make it in SV due to having a rough ride they should look outside the area. There are plenty of companies needing IT workers across the USA and moving to one of them sounds like a good way for him to get back on his feet.

But would his wife be able to find a job there? Moving across the country so that he could get a low paying job, while his wife instead ends either unemployed or with a much worse job than the one she currently has is hardly an optimal solution. By the sound of it they are making just about enough money to get by as it is, so uprooting the entire family in search of something else is a pretty high risk strategy,

Maybe he should move, find something, and let the wife follow once that situation stabilizes. I know a number of people who's father worked in the gulf and came home twice a year - they turned out just fine. My dad lives in Vegas (that's where his family is) and works in CA, driving across the desert twice a week.

My most recent hire moved from Chennai to Pune for work. Trump wants to build a giand wall of ice and magic to stop Mexicans from moving to a country where the jobs are, in spite of them not speaking the language or being legally permitted to work.

There are plenty of options. It sounds like this guy is just unwilling to do them, just as he's unwilling to do manual labor.

An honest title: "9M American men in prime working age are unwilling to find work, and I'm one of them."

Re: 9M American men in prime working age can’t find jobs. I’m one of them

#18

Post by sickbeard »

Bet he voted to "make America Great again". I feel for him but i believe the signs were there about the field he was working in, it's like a car sputtering and running out of gas. The solution would be reeducation, rather than trying to do the same dying job over and over gain.

Re: 9M American men in prime working age can’t find jobs. I’m one of them

#20

Post by cijt »

tjic wrote: post #6

I've met a lot of people who "couldn't" find a job. What they usually mean is "they can't find a job in the area they want, in the industry they want, doing the kind of work they want, at the salary they want, working for someone else." This is a highly overconstrained search. If / when people loosen one or more of these constraints, they're opportunities open right up. Like everyone, I prefer to get exactly what I w…

I've met a lot of managers who "couldn't" find anyone to hire.

What they usually mean is "they can't find an employee in the location they want, with the credentials they want, with the skills they want, at the salary they want, who's been trained by someone else."

This is a highly overconstrained search. If/when employers loosen one or more of these constraints, candidates show right up.

Like everyone, I prefer to get exactly what I want.

...but it doesn't always play out that way.

When I've needed staff and my dream candidate isn't there, I've hired imperfect people that I had to train, raise the rate I was willing to pay, put together attractive relocation packages, etc., and I've never had a problem hiring in 20 years as a manager.

(Both parties in an employment relationship may not have equal bargaining power, but I take issue with the implication that employers have no agency and workers no power.)

EDIT: A point I wanted to include or imply, but couldn't really shoehorn into this inversion, is that just as employers set bounds on what they offer employees, workers set bounds on what offers they accept. Sometimes it's rational to hold out for the right role through an extended period of unemployment (while focusing instead on finding the right role and acquiring or sharpening marketable skills) than to take underemployment that leaves you with no time for improving your position.

Post reply on HN