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The quitting economy

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Re: The quitting economy

#151

Post by pnutjam »

joshuahutt wrote: post #101
xxSparkleSxx wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First job out of college Inhad something to prove and worked my ass off. What I did was extremely measurable and I was easily doing 2x the work compared to the department average. Every single day. 1.5% raise the first year, made a huge fuss the second year and asked for a large raise (because my numbers of were insane) and only managed a 4% raise (promotion included). I've been at a new job for about a year and have…

I discovered early on that, at least in larger companies, advancement in a role is based on your strategic value to the company, and not even remotely related to your work ethic. If your manager is willing to go to bat for you, you stand a chance of getting a meaningful raise. And that depends on whether you can demonstrably make their job easier. Working "hard" only serves to let you feel good about yourself.

Not only are you dependent on your manager, your often only able to secure significant raises at the cost of other team member raises. The bucket is allocated to your team based on a company standard, with nothing connected to your performance, then that has to be divided, which they often claim is performance based...

Re: The quitting economy

#152

Post by dajohnson89 »

Every company I've ever worked for nickels and dimes my pay. If I didn't have to fight for a market/above-market salary, good benefits, and regular raises commensurate with what I'm adding to the company with my increased tenure and effectiveness, I'd gladly stay.

But it never works out that way. It's painfully simple -- you get what you pay for.

Re: The quitting economy

#153

Post by dalbasal »

didgeoridoo wrote: post #43
dalbasal wrote: post #30

I really think trying to reason about labour markets using pure theory in a Hayek-Friedman-esque way is a dead end. It's the 2nd time in two days I made the recommendation, but throwing Ronald Coase into the Neoliberal canon would help a lot. He was a "chicago school" academic from the same intellectual family, so it shouldn't be too much of a culture shock. He wan't like "progressives" in the "evidence based" sense…

Transaction costs. Both the employee (search costs, hours in the day) and employer (job training, search costs, process knowledge) incur far greater transaction costs than you see in commodity markets. Business models that lower transaction costs (e.g. "gig economy" middlemen) tend to lead to the emergence of highly flexible labor markets. This currently only applies to jobs that don't require a high level of nontran…

:)

That's definitely a very Ronald Coasian answer! We should start that lobby to get Ronald Coase accepted into neoliberalism or novoliberalism or whatever comes next.

I purposely didn't give the answer because I think there are possibly other explanations besides transaction costs and regulation (probably the more friedman-esque go-to). The reason I like his papers a lot is because of his questions. He has a Darwinian sort of approach. Why does the moth have such a strange beak. Lets look for the matching orchid.

I think (don't know, speculation) labour markets are special in other ways, not just high transaction costs. A company is a society. People have loyalties and identity tied into it. We are a social animal in very fundamental ways. Our psyche handles the intricate nuances of human cooperation by default. Things happen in a team of people that know each-other, like each other or just think of themselves as part of a group that I think are fundamental to this question. I don't think transaction costs sums it up. I suspect group-oriented work plays a bigger role. Also employer-specific skillsets, though that probably can be lumped into transaction costs.

Incidentally, I feel that "basic economic theory" tends to acknowledge transaction costs mostly as a caveat to basic models: "assuming no/low transaction costs," more often that actually accounting for it. I think this is also true for "economist hat" thinking. Coase complained about this a lot. Coase theorem is (at least to me) taught as a theory about bargaining and contracts solving problems like externalities. For Coase, the caveat was the "theorem." In the absence of transactions costs blah blah pareto optimals. externalities... He thought it was obvious that the pareto efficiency doesn't actually happen in reality, externalities continue. Therefore transaction costs must be high.

To me, this is the big difference between Friedman and Coase. Friedman's a pure theory guy. The main opposition to this view today is a theory-less econometrics/evidence based "wonkish" analysis. Coase is a middle ground. Theories make predictions. In some cases they are good. In cases where they're not, we need theoretical expansion. Neoliberals tend to reach for "distortion" as an explanation far too often, and selectively IMO.

(we're really in the weeds here, sorry)

Re: The quitting economy

#154

Post by ttoinou »

DonbunEf7 wrote: post #128
ttoinou wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyway, the pure theory approach leads to a general conclusion/assumption that markets are the same. The market for labour, barbie dolls, whatever. Proof needed. Have you ever read Hayek or Friedman you're talking about ?

Go to your whiteboard and draw supply-and-demand curves for a couple derpy markets of widgets and other goods. Then, draw one for labor. Note how the curves are reversed; if you draw it "backwards", then it goes back to behaving like a normal market. Now, try adding employment policies, like minimum wages, to the market; what happens to the curves?

"Pure theory" or Hayek / neoliberal theories don't seem to be just about perfect S/D curves and reasoning with S/D curves doesn't prove anything, it's just a visualization tool. I didn't understand why the curves are reversed ?

Re: The quitting economy

#155

Post by dalbasal »

tpeo wrote: post #99
dalbasal wrote: post #30

I really think trying to reason about labour markets using pure theory in a Hayek-Friedman-esque way is a dead end. It's the 2nd time in two days I made the recommendation, but throwing Ronald Coase into the Neoliberal canon would help a lot. He was a "chicago school" academic from the same intellectual family, so it shouldn't be too much of a culture shock. He wan't like "progressives" in the "evidence based" sense…

Would you mind if I told you that you're not even wrong? First, neither Hayek nor Friedman were well known for contributions to labor market research. Hayek was well known for his critiques of central planning while Friedman was famous for his contributions to monetary theory. But my point is that these guys aren't "labor market economists", so taking an issue with them over labor market issues would be barking up th…

They were both pretty wide, but I disagree. I think both touched on labour markets quite a bit. For example, "Friedman's" best known policy is negative income tax (earned income tax whatnots).

Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rate_of_unemployment http://journal.apee.org/index.php?title=Spring2008_2

Re: The quitting economy

#156

Post by dalbasal »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #141
DonbunEf7 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to your whiteboard and draw supply-and-demand curves for a couple derpy markets of widgets and other goods. Then, draw one for labor. Note how the curves are reversed; if you draw it "backwards", then it goes back to behaving like a normal market. Now, try adding employment policies, like minimum wages, to the market; what happens to the curves?

To be fair, the labor market does have some gotchas. In particular, there's the phenomenon of "price stickiness", which is a big deal in labor (i.e., wage stickiness), but doesn't have nearly so much effect with other goods.

Don't bring Keynes into this! We're way to far in the weeds already.

Re: The quitting economy

#157

Post by itamarst »

TomSawyer wrote: post #27
treyfitty wrote: post #3

tl;dr: Our capitalistic economy, which incentivized the notion of "maximizing shareholder returns," created an environment in which Companies who are efficient in hiring the right amount of disposable assets. Because of this, employees better be ready to quit when they sense better pastures elsewhere. It was a good read, and a reminder that we are all subservient to the Shareholders (directly or indirectly). The comp…

Yes, and being passionate about your work — such as wanting to work with new developments in your chosen field or changing jobs for an opportunity where you'll be better able to apply your talents to your field of interest — is just a capitalist ploy.

You shouldn't be passionate about your work: http://www.virtuouscode.com/2014/02/10/the-passion-gospel/

Re: The quitting economy

#158

Post by ryandrake »

sidlls wrote: post #61
mcguire wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My longest jobs both lasted around 8 years. In both cases, I stayed because I liked my coworkers and the environment. As a result, my salary history is well below average for my location and experience. Further, since I was paid less than my less experienced (and less capable) coworkers, my input was usually ignored and I was basically sidelined except when something went badly wrong and I spent much of my time clean…

At this point in my career I've reached a salary plateau for the technical track. Short of landing a high-profile project at one of the major tech firms the ~6%-7% raises I've had the last couple of years are about the max of what I might expect from a "hop." Instead I'm looking to both exit this industry completely and, while I build the cushion necessary to do so, switch to management (which has ample support, curr…

The plateau is real. It's not unheard of for your first job hop, early in your career, to get you 10-50%. Next move might be 5-15%. Over time, as you approach the ceiling, your reward for job hopping will diminish. I've got close to 20 years under my belt, and my last few hops were less than +1%.

Short of going into management or doing a complete career change, it seems you can get stuck later in life.

Re: The quitting economy

#159

Post by sidlls »

noobhacker wrote: post #149
jacobush wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Except, "strategic value to the manager "

What is strategic value to the manager that is not hard work and delivering result? I'm asking sincerely, since I do hear a lot about the lack of correlation between hard work and promotion. I want to understand.

In my experience delivering results that the manager can leverage to demonstrate his or her value is more important than either working hard or delivering results in the strict sense that, e.g. you write solid code to produce a feature.

Often the talent on a team is not nearly as important as the talent's relationship to the strategic direction of the company.

Re: The quitting economy

#160

Post by ido »

s73ver wrote: post #139
soulnothing wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view it more akin to a military contract. You will serve X years then get stock.

What's to stop them from terminating the contract a month shy, because of "performance reasons"? Unfortunately this setup would require quite a lot of trust in the industry, which, quite frankly, it has not earned.

At least in Germany this would open the company to a lawsuit for wrongful termination (unless you worked there less than 6 months I think). At-will employment throws this out the windows, of course.
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