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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?

#231

Post by gjem97 »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #107

I had a long talk with a guy getting his general contractor's license yesterday. He told me that down in San Diego they are continually short on construction workers, so much that one of his friends said that there is 10 years worth of construction that needs to be done and no one to do it. Wages at ~$45/hr, and probably rising, some projects paying perdiems for commutes from Orange County. Strange.

I always find it a bit strange when people talk about shortages of non-price-controlled goods and services. When you say that the industry is "short on construction workers", there's an implicit "who will work for what we used to pay them." It seems to me like it's someone who hires in that industry trying to entice more talent to come help lower the price again, rather than an accurate description of the state of the world.

To be sure, bona-fide shortages can occur transiently. For example when a natural disaster happens, it will take time for the local tradesmen to work through the backlog. But at a relatively steady state, it seems silly to talk about a shortage of construction workers. Pay a bit more than the next guy, and my guess is, your shortage will quickly disappear.

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

#232

Post by closeparen »

dionidium wrote: post #17

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…

It may surprise you that many workplaces (mine included) are not particularly interested in butts-in-seats hours. Obviously you need to show up to your meetings, but if the work is done no one cares whether you work 8-4 or 11-7.

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

#233

Post by moduspol »

opportune wrote: post #219
moduspol wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do--but this (a difficulty in getting lower-paid workers to even show up) is a new phenomenon. We've always had lower-paid workers and poverty, but something else has changed. My concern is that the "something else" might be counter-effective but well-intentioned policies intended to help.

Personally I don't think we should be incentivizing people to show up to work under threat of homelessness/starvation like we did in the past, even if it may be more effective. If people want to live their lives in the "comfort" of SNAP and SSI, I'm personally ok with it. The market will adjust and maybe those blue collar jobs will begin paying even more (or people will adapt)

Nobody questions your personal ability to voluntarily provide for them, though.

The question is how much the rest of us are involuntarily having to provide for them, and more relevantly, whether or not society is even really being improved if the result is an increasing number of people so unable / unwilling to contribute to society that they can't even be bothered to show up for an interview.

It is very easy to spend other people's money supporting people perceived as downtrodden. It just might not be the solution proponents think it is.

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

#234

Post by xbzbanna »

logfromblammo wrote: post #207
skellera wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is required to give you a job. The increased cost to do that everyday is not worth it to the company if they can weed out possible irresponsible workers from a drug test. It’s work, not a babysitter. All everyone is talking about is weed which I’m sure most of us agree shouldn’t be tested for but we don’t even know what the failed tests failed for.

I think you underestimate the cost differential between contracting with a lab to drug-test your employees on an ongoing basis, and with hiring a software developer once to make a rudimentary video game that positively correlates a passing score with operating heavy industrial equipment safely for the next 8 hours. Hell, you could set up an old Atari with Frogger in it, and require employees to score X points before…

Considering that drug tests for operators of heavy machinery are mostly about legal liability, has a system like you propose ever been tested in front of a jury?

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

#235

Post by civilian »

logfromblammo wrote: post #220
darpa_escapee wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. However, I'd rather get pinged via a quantifiable metric like BAC than someone's opinion regarding my perceived impairment.

How exactly would an automated sobriety test make use of a qualitative metric? Is a score on a video game quantifiable enough for you? There are so many "brain training" games that do nothing but score you on your observation, working memory, reflexes, etc. Back in college, everyone had to participate in the psych experiment test pool, where many of the experiments were coded in extremely rudimentary Visual Basic, to…

Exactly. The only downside I imagine is that it could give false-positives to retarded people. Reaction speed is pretty well correlated with intelligence.

I suppose the system could compare your current score with your baseline / sober scores. Or, mentally slow people would simply have less tolerance for being fucked up at work.

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

#236

Post by gthtjtkt »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #210
gthtjtkt wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the illegal immigrants take those jobs because they pay so little, or do those jobs pay so little because there has always been a steady supply of illegal immigrants desperate to fill them at below-market prices? If your business model relies on wages being suppressed by those illegal workers, then maybe your business deserves to go bankrupt when the supply dries up and Americans start demanding $15/hour.

First off, these businesses typically don’t “rely on” those wages, the owner is just taking a $20k bonus because they can and they like money. Undocumented workers take the jobs because there is no financial incentive for an owner to risk breaking the law unless they are getting cash back. The worker is basically paying their employer to break the law.

So you're saying they pocket the difference rather than using reduced overhead to maintain competitive prices?

Interesting hypothesis... I was under the impression that many farmers operate on thin margins these days.

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

#237

Post by ceejayoz »

bluGill wrote: post #215
alextheparrot wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great! There’s an opportunity for same day rental delivery here too

The return delivery costs are as much as the cost of the tools themselves. I always tell people wanting to do a job themselves that the first time your costs are the same as hiring a pro, but the second time you own the tools and it is just time.

Unless, of course, I'm so incompetent that I accidentally cut a hole in a load-bearing wall, broke the tools, and had to call a pro in to fix it all.

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

#238

Post by cyberpunk0 »

Y7ZCQtNo39 wrote: post #123
throwawaytime wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 st…

No employers will not make reasonable accommodations. Business is profit over people, you requiring accommodations means more effort for them. Just try to tell your employer you have depression and see how "reasonably accommodating" they will be.. capitalism is disease

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

#239

Post by sharemywin »

throwawayjava wrote: post #205
runeks wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the illegal crossing number wrong/fake news? Given that they’re illegal, how could we ever know if the number is down or if they just found some other way to cross the border? Also, it would be quite foolish to think there is only a single factor affecting wages. There are a multitude of factors, and a reduction in the number of illegal immigrants might be one of them, although it’s hard to be sure.

The explanation also doesn't fit the data. Wages have been surging the past few years, not just this year.

In June 2017 they were still talking about a wageless recovery:

http://www.thehour.com/business/article/Wageless-U-S-recover...

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

#240

Post by sharemywin »

stemc43 wrote: post #63
thanatropism wrote: post #29

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.

you don't think they fake documents?
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