Say Hello to Full Employment • Hacker News Board

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#251

Post by mmt » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 1:36 AM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #210

Veelox wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you hear someone say "I cannot find qualified workers" always add "at the price I am offering" because if they doubled or tripled the wage they offered, they could find a qualified person so it is a matter of price, not a matter of availability. >Maybe, maybe not. But that's not an argument for not increasing wages. The initial comment was about paying a living wage. There are two ways to make a non-living wage…

> When you hear someone say "I cannot find qualified workers" always add "at the price I am offering" because if they doubled or tripled the wage they offered, they could find a qualified person so it is a matter of price, not a matter of availability. Somewhat related, but sometimes the issue is an unreasonable definition of "qualified". I feel like there are a lot of choosing beggars, particularly in the tech indus…

Isn't the aphorism "beggars can't be choosers" exactly about price, though? (Just the price happens to be zero)

That said, I don't actually mean to merely quibble over semantics and wish to clarify: Is what you meant that many tech tech companies are hoping to hire someone that just doesn't exist at all [1], rather than not existing in sufficient number?

[1] Expecting, like Dilbert's pointy-haired boss that, just because qualifications can be listed in a job description, there must exist someone who fits them all.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#252

Post by ShabbosGoy » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 1:38 AM UTC

ZainRiz wrote: post #247

vivekd wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not every post has to be completely on topic, it was topical to the issue of unreliable figures skewing economic data which was what the subtopic was about. I admit he was bringing up an inflammatory topic, but really I expect a place like hacker news to have a user base that can handle that objectively As for equal pay for equal work - I'd be very surprised if women aren't getting that, because that's illegal and yo…

If there is a pay gap, I suspect it's at least partially determined by a person's tendency to negotiate salary. There are many articles about how salary negotiation is crucial when applying for a job, yet many women and men often accept the first offer a company makes to them (which is usually a low ball offer). Negotiating a higher salary requires a bit more drive/aggressiveness than the average person has. Making u…

> It's probably in the best interest of all companies and society in general that these kind of personality traits are not rewarded unless they are actually beneficial.

I have another theory. Some people are so incompetent that they end up as C-level execs. Incompetent people tend to promote equally or more incompetent people.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#253

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 1:40 AM UTC

opencl wrote: post #223

scarface74 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atlanta. Don’t aimlessly submit to job boards. Go through local recruiters.

How am I supposed to go through local recruiters in Atlanta, or have any idea who they are, when I don't live in Atlanta? Are many of these companies willing to pay for relocation?

Just the ones I have used and found jobs through.

https://www.matrixres.com/

https://prestigestaffing.jobs.net/

https://www.htrjobs.com/

http://www.professional-insight.com/

http://www.hays.com/index.htm

These are all reputable agencies that don’t submit your resume without your permission. They will tell you the salary range up front and once you talk to them, they will tell you the name of the company.

As far as relocation. Probably not, but if you’re a good developer and not finding jobs quickly in your market. You need to relocate anyway.

It’s neved taken me longer than a month to find a job as a developer in over 20 years - always paying more.

I moved from a small town the week after I graduated from college in the mid 90s because I knew there were no jobs there.

The salary survey posted by Matrix jibes with my experience at least for Atlanta.

https://www.matrixres.com/resources/salary-survey/

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#254

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 1:45 AM UTC

duxup wrote: post #170

scarface74 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atlanta. Don’t aimlessly submit to job boards. Go through local recruiters.

Yeah I would like to find a good recruiter for my area.

I don’t get why it’s so hard to find good recruiters. I’ve had relationships with reputable recruiters for 20 years.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#255

Post by oremonger » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 1:45 AM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #82

spir wrote: post #47

This article seems to use the terms "unemployed" and "jobless" interchangeably. People who stop searching for jobs (eg. due to despondence or poor health) are excluded from the official unemployment rate, yet they are jobless. On a recent EconTalk, Edward Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard, said, in their recent sample, 11.9% of U.S. men aged 25-55 have been jobless for over 12 mont…

Does that take into account the incarcerated? From Wikipedia: > In total, 6,899,000 adults were under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) in 2013 – about 2.8% of adults (1 in 35) in the U.S. resident population. It's very difficult to find work with a criminal record in the US.

Finding work is required for people on probation/parole, if they don't they just end up back in prison. The majority of them are forced into contracting, factory labor, landscaping etc.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#256

Post by mmt » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 1:54 AM UTC

zeth___ wrote: post #226

Looking at statistics instead of stories: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IAPCPI In Iowa 2008 was the biggest drop in nominal personal income since 1955. The period 2009-2017 had the slowest nominal personal income growth since the end of the great depression in 1931. 2017 was one of 3 years to record negative income growth in the last 50 years (2008, 1993). This all speaks of a labor market working far beneath ca…

Interestingly, of the neighboring states, only SD exhibits the same shape of curve (although NE is close, with a decreasing of the slope at the end, like KS, which is nearby).

It certainly doesn't seem like full employment, but it also doesn't seem like it can be extrapolated to the other 99% of the population in other states (not that I'm saying that's what you were implying).

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#257

Post by joshuamorton » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 1:58 AM UTC

vivekd wrote: post #248

noelsusman wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, when you control for everything there is still a gap, it's just smaller. 94 cents on the dollar is nothing to sneeze at. Second, when you do that you're sort of controlling the problem away. Women don't seek more work/life balance because they're not as crazy as men. They do it because they're expected to carry more of the burden of raising a child. The literature is clear that the wage gap is relatively small…

Well there are other factors you need to control for too, men are more likely to try and choose higher paying jobs because social status and attractiveness to potential mates is impacted by a man's wealth. This is not the case for women, studies show that men are indifferent to a women's economic status when it comes to mate choice and focus more on physical appearance. There certainly is sexism in the workplace, alt…

I'm just going to point out that status-chasing is controlled for in what he described. The .95 cents on the dollar figure appears when you compare populations of men and women in similar roles with similar performance. You're confusing wage gap 1 (pay for performance) with gap 2 (seniority/glass ceiling).

Saying you need to control for things that have already been controlled for doesn't leave a particularly good impression.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#258

Post by purplezooey » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 2:02 AM UTC

Wage growth is not going to pick up. There are a billion people in the other hemisphere that are poor and will gladly accept the same work for subpar pay. That wage growth will pick up in any meaningful way is another false line fed to us by the right wing message machine.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#259

Post by wavegeek » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 2:03 AM UTC

noelsusman wrote: post #239

vivekd wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was this downvoted? Women tend not to be crazy like men and thus are more likely to choose fulfiling careers that have lower pay, and seek more work life balance. When accounting for these factors, the existence of a gender pay gap becomes more questionable.

First, when you control for everything there is still a gap, it's just smaller. 94 cents on the dollar is nothing to sneeze at. Second, when you do that you're sort of controlling the problem away. Women don't seek more work/life balance because they're not as crazy as men. They do it because they're expected to carry more of the burden of raising a child. The literature is clear that the wage gap is relatively small…

>control for everything

The studies do not "control for everything". For example I have never seen

1. Control for the much higher levels of sick days taken by women.

2. Control for the product of hours worked and years worked. Women work fewer hours and spend more years out of the work-force. This has a multiplicative effect on "hours of work experience"

Additionally the power of "controlling for X" is vastly overstated. In reality it is only reliable when the different factors are close to orthogonal, have linear relationships and are not causally related. Typically none of the above are true.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#260

Post by wavegeek » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 2:05 AM UTC

BadassFractal wrote: post #186

vivekd wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was this downvoted? Women tend not to be crazy like men and thus are more likely to choose fulfiling careers that have lower pay, and seek more work life balance. When accounting for these factors, the existence of a gender pay gap becomes more questionable.

It gets downvoted because that topic has long transcended being a discussion about interpretation of available data, and has instead turned into a cultural and moral battle over "liberators of the oppressed" vs "evil misogynists" or "whiny snowflakes" vs "those who pull themselves by their bootstraps". Almost impossible to make any progress in it without appeal to emotion and in-group/out-group dynamics.

But still there is an actual set of facts here.