111–120 of 606 posts
The article says no, but are there any dissented view that sees a causation between Trump policies and the rise in blue collar wages? Please, polite answers only. I'm just a foreigner that want to understand a little more.
This comment (not by me; the poster name isn't even visible anymore): > Illegal border crossings on the southern border are down 78% and blue collar wages are rising. Of course correlation does not equal causation, but when there are fewer available workers to hire/train and demand remains constant, wages tend to rise. was marked dead. Why? Is the illegal crossing number wrong/fake news?
illegals dont have SSNs. EMployers have to run ssn verification before they hire you. These checks are instant and this will popup immediately. Can they still hire you - well maybe for janitorial -> manufacturing jobs I'd say highly unlikely.
Employers are supposed to have employees fill out an I-9 form that verifies employment eligibility, but the penalties for noncompliance are at most $1,100 per form -- basically slap on the wrist territory [2].
The irony here is that the anti-immigration wing of the Republican party is now in open conflict with the business wing of the party, which benefits heavily from hiring ineligible workers for low wages.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Verify#Operations
[2] https://www.thebalance.com/i-9-form-employment-eligibility-v...
I worked with small / medium manufacturers in the prosperous part of the Southeast. Hiring is brutal currently. Last week one company setup interviews with 20 possible new workers. One showed up for his interview, and one wandered in the next day. 18 nonshows. Another local company is seeing 50% of new hires failing their first drug test. Anecdotaly, about 20% of new hires under 30 don’t understand the concept of sho…
In case it's helpful, here's my story from two years ago about living with undiagnosed narcolepsy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10984478
One of my memories of that job was sleeping fully-dressed for work, then leaping out of bed when my alarm goes off. I'd carefully balance on my feet and wait for the tiredness to pass.
That's not sustainable. I can't do that more than a week at a time.
So there's all this anger focused toward people who are genuinely lazy, and it's impossible to separate it from people who have a genuine medical condition. What's the solution?
One way to handle it is to be upfront with your employer. This tends not to work. Recruitment in software has heated up to the point where any small flag against the candidate is enough to pass. No one would voluntarily jump in with someone whose attitude is "Well, I couldn't sleep until 3am because of being wide awake since 10pm, so I'm gonna show up around noon if that's ok."
It makes scheduling meetings extremely difficult. Morning standups are out. How many of you have weekly standups?
I still two years later have no idea what to do about this. I'm working remotely part-time, putting in full-time hours, just because I feel lucky to have any sort of job.
The point is, the next time someone posts in a company-wide Slack channel that they're feeling sleepy and will be in later, consider there might be more going on than meets the eye. Relationship problems and medical conditions both need to be concealed, and it takes a toll.
The thing is, it's not up to you to care. We have to deal with it or we're cut. And that's fine. But maybe some context will help, somehow.
Since this article focuses on the U.S., how much of this is related to the slowdown in illegal immigration?
Probably none [edit: in manufacturing]. Most illegal immigrants don’t work manufacturing. The three most common jobs for illegals around here are construction, yardcare, and building cleaning via nested subcontractors. Manufactures have hard assets they could loose. Sketchy subcontractors can just disappear and rename. The growth is from the demand side - people are buying more right now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I imagine there's an opportunity for a startup that let's someone who wants to do a simple job themselves Facetime with a plumber to talk them through the work. No idea if there's any profit in it though.
DIY always breaks down when you need to purchase an expensive tool that you only use once.
I work at a medium-sized software company. We've had similar problems with younger employees. Guys literally posting in company-wide Slack channels that they're "feeling a little sleepy this morning, gonna be in later." Can you even imagine somebody saying that to their boss in some black-and-white movie from the 1940s? "Hey, how about instead of coming in later you hit the bricks and never come back?" The culture ha…
>> "feeling a little sleepy this morning, gonna be in later." Most clients don't want to deal with that kind of behavior. "It's been 3 hours, why is the site still down?" "The developer isn't in yet to fix it." Being reliable and showing up to work on time is a job skill as much as good communication, being a hard worker, etc I realize that you should be flexible with workers' hours but people also need to realize co…
I work at a medium-sized software company. We've had similar problems with younger employees. Guys literally posting in company-wide Slack channels that they're "feeling a little sleepy this morning, gonna be in later." Can you even imagine somebody saying that to their boss in some black-and-white movie from the 1940s? "Hey, how about instead of coming in later you hit the bricks and never come back?" The culture ha…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you against this? Flexible working hours that can bend to accommodate very malleable human lives seems better than rigid adherence to traditional schedules for the sake of it.
I imagine what dionidium is getting at is the lack of good, reasonable cause to either not show up or be late. For example, I'm fortunate enough to have a high paying job in the finance industry and our office/company is pretty laid back and very good about the work/life balance thing. But managers here would react in two different ways to people being out late drinking and oversleeping vs. there being a massive acci…
"I'm feeling sleepy and will be in later" is an employee being upfront and direct that they will not be productive and do not want to be the source of waste in the office. This is an employee that should be rewarded and encouraged. An office culture where this type of message is ok should be encouraged.
What you don't want is a toxic culture where everything needs to be explained and justified to an office full of scorekeepers and clock watchers. The people that do care are the ones that shouldn't care and should probably be minding their own business.
In dionidium's scenario it is very possible that employee worked it out with their manager and the message was a courtesy message. It is very possible they are tired from putting in a late night the night before. It is very possible they are tired due to "truly unforeseen and unusual circumstances." Etc.
To me, dionidium is the problem in this scenario.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Last week one company setup interviews with 20 possible new workers. One showed up for his interview, and one wandered in the next day. 18 nonshows. I bet you'd get approx. 0 noshows if you bumped salary. > Another local company is seeing 50% of new hires failing their first drug test. So don't give drug tests? > Anecdotaly, about 20% of new hires under 30 don’t understand the concept of showing up on time (or at a…
> I bet you'd get approx. 0 noshows if you bumped salary. I'm not sure exactly what industry the original poster was referring to, but broadly my experience has been that there are many people who are just unreliable. I worked in retail a few years ago, and it was incredible. People just don't show up, or show up so intoxicated from the night before that they're not actually capable of doing their job. Now, as a deve…
Anecdotally, I know several people who worked retail throughout college and showed up super hung-over basically every weekend, but who are now extremely responsible professionals in software, medicine, etc.
Again, I think salary and a sense of career prospects / something worthwhile to lose are far more important than individual proclivities or responsibility.
People know their retail jobs are bullshit, dead-end positions. There's nothing to lose and 10 more identical jobs waiting for them on the market.
> For lots of jobs that may not be an option. Operating heavy machinery puts lots of lives at risk, or it could be an insurance requirement.
Sounds like a policy (law) option to me.
No it won't last, because as soon as the wages start coming up then the fed will say "inflation is heating up" and raise interest rates, causing businesses to spend more on debt service and less on employees.
The average maturity of a corporate bond is now 15+ years, and most bonds pay a fixed interest rate that doesn't vary due to current rates [1].
That means that any change to rates will not have much of an immediate impact on the interest expense line item. On the other hand, it will actually increase the interest income they receive on their cash balances.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/41213b02-b87e-11e6-ba85-95d1533d9...