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Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

economist.com

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Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#121

Post by extrapickles »

bluedino wrote: post #86
danielvf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You forgot about food production - both farming and things like meat packing or food manufacturing

Those jobs are unskilled, so they are easy to learn even if you don’t speak or can read the native language.

Most traditional manufacturing jobs require being able to read/write the native language. Also, manufacturing companies are sometimes audited by standard bodies that involve interviews with workers (mainly to see if they understand quality control).

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#122

Post by monocasa »

ransom1538 wrote: post #82
Y7ZCQtNo39 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure half of my office at my white collar job wouldn't show up if they started drug testing. But I imagine if we interviewed 20 people for a position, we would most certainly not have 18 no-shows.

Yes. However, you don't worth with concrete cutters or 1k volt lines.

Someone who smoked a joint a couple days ago can absolutely work with concrete cutters or 1k volt lines.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#123

Post by Y7ZCQtNo39 »

throwawaytime wrote: post #113
danielvf wrote: post #9

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…

I see a lot of latent anger in this thread against lazy software programmers who don't show up on time. 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 tired…

> One way to handle it is to be upfront with your employer. This tends not to work.

It's a medical condition. Employers need to provide reasonable accommodations if you're able to fulfill the job. Are you able to do the job on a slightly shifted schedule? Chances are it's the case.

> It makes scheduling meetings extremely difficult. Morning standups are out. How many of you have weekly standups?

Could do afternoon standups. Problem solved.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#124

Post by watwut »

killjoywashere wrote: post #90
throwawayjava wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fail drug test != show up to work high.

Past performance != future performance But it's the best signal we've got. Ignore it at your peril. Perhaps you are too young or live in too modern a world to understand how dangerous rare events are. Constructive paranoia has helped select evolutionary survivors for a very long time. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/jared-diamonds-gui...

Drug test measure whether you smoked weed anytime last weeks, up to three months if I recall right. It has little to do with whether you are high first day on the job. It has more to do with drug war then with incidents.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#125

Post by mgkimsal »

maccard wrote: post #106
throwawayjava wrote: post #37

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…

> Again, people are flaky. Suddenly paying someone more isn't going to make them start showing up on time.

But in terms of initial applicants, who may not be as flaky, advertising higher starting salary may bump up the non-flakiness of people showing up for an interview.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#126

Post by ryanmarsh »

smallnamespace wrote: post #112
stemc43 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is definitely not the case. E-Verify has existed for a long time, but is still not mandatory [1]. 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 b…

I've never used E-verify. I just use people's I-9. Everyone I've ever hired was born in the US so I never thought about this.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#127

Post by Density »

seibelj wrote: post #30

I keep reading that AI is going to eliminate all the jobs. Yet unemployment is at record lows and wages are rising across the board. Could it be possible that AI will instead free people to work on new jobs in new industries? Amazing! It’s almost like this time is not any different from any other time.

Overwhelming number of jobs created in the last decade are very low quality gig economy jobs. People work, but they're severely underemployed.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#128

Post by myth_drannon »

onion2k wrote: post #4
ocschwar wrote: post #2

Plumbers can't telecommute.

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.

I'm not allowed to cut a tree in my backyard because it's close to power lines, only licensed arborist. I CAN do it but not allowed, so it's just a legislation not an issue of knowledge.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#129

Post by enraged_camel »

monocasa wrote: post #122
ransom1538 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. However, you don't worth with concrete cutters or 1k volt lines.

Someone who smoked a joint a couple days ago can absolutely work with concrete cutters or 1k volt lines.

It's not about whether they can or can't. It's about the massive liability for the company if they fuck up on the job and cause property damage or bodily injury.
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