Say Hello to Full Employment • Hacker News Board

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#291

Post by vivekd » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 11:03 AM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #257

vivekd wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 im…

I assume you're refering to the CONSAD reserach study which found a gap of between 95 to 93 cents on the dollar. That study did not in fact control for status chasing - nor did it compare men and women in similar roles with similar performance, they also found that the wage gap was not statistically significant enough to warrant corrective action

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#292

Post by user5994461 » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 11:14 AM UTC

Veelox wrote: post #232

s73v3r_ wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot disagree more. It's a "minimum wage". What good is it if it's not a living wage? What's the point of having a minimum wage that one cannot survive on?

Honestly I would be fine with no minimum wage. I also tend a little more libertarian than most. I am fine with the minimum wage setting a floor to how much people are paid because it cuts down on explotive practices. That said, putting the minimum wage to an amount that is surviable at 40 hours a week removes people on the margins that would benefit from a job that paid these than a living wage. Note I am taking as a…

Frank should get a part time job.

One issue with the current model is that Frank has to retire in due time. He cannot be allowed to work for cheaper while receiving benefits, otherwise he's taking the spot of younger folks who are supposed to be working there at a normal wage and finance his benefits.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#293

Post by user5994461 » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 11:20 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…

>>> I feel like there are a lot of choosing beggars, particularly in the tech industry.

Assuming true, that would be limited to the silicon valley and new york area.

Try to work in tech in smaller cities and you will quickly realize that there are few employers and they can be picky.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#294

Post by nradov » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 11:42 AM UTC

otakucode wrote: post #241

CocaKoala wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the employees willing to be retrained? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-effect-coal-retrain...

The alternatives that coal miners have are garbage. They are being asked to leave union jobs with decent pay, decent benefits, protection from unfair treatment, and embrace radically lower pay, radically worse benefits, and active unfair treatment. You can't expect anyone to get excited by those prospects. If computers were outlawed tomorrow, would you sign up to stock shelves at Walmart with a smile on your face and…

I wouldn't be thrilled with it, but sure I'd take the Walmart job if I could get it. I've done worse jobs before.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#295

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 12:44 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #281

scarface74 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kept a spreadsheet of when I was looking for a job in 2015 using recruiters. This was after filtering for location and salary. This was all within a two week period. I network like crazy - with people who know where the jobs are. Leads: 16 Position filled: 4 Phone Screens: 9 I didn’t like tech stack: 2 Didn’t have qualifications and didn’t apply: 1 In person interviews: 4 Offers: 4 Rejections: 0 - I took myself out…

I don't doubt there's people like you who can make it happen and have it better off but there's no way your results are typical. I don't know of a single fortune 10 company that even has a hiring pipeline that could be gotten through in 4 days unless you know someone with some pull, and the entire industry can't be friends with that small group of people. Additionally look at all the work you've put in. "Networking l…

[deleted]

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#296

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 12:50 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #281

scarface74 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kept a spreadsheet of when I was looking for a job in 2015 using recruiters. This was after filtering for location and salary. This was all within a two week period. I network like crazy - with people who know where the jobs are. Leads: 16 Position filled: 4 Phone Screens: 9 I didn’t like tech stack: 2 Didn’t have qualifications and didn’t apply: 1 In person interviews: 4 Offers: 4 Rejections: 0 - I took myself out…

I don't doubt there's people like you who can make it happen and have it better off but there's no way your results are typical. I don't know of a single fortune 10 company that even has a hiring pipeline that could be gotten through in 4 days unless you know someone with some pull, and the entire industry can't be friends with that small group of people. Additionally look at all the work you've put in. "Networking l…

I don't know of a single fortune 10 company that even has a hiring pipeline that could be gotten through in 4 days unless you know someone with some pull, and the entire industry can't be friends with that small group of people.

The Fortune 10 company having a fast hiring process was dumb luck.

The department I got hired in was originally a small startup that had been acquired by the larger company. The hiring manager was the founder of the original company. At the time, they hadn't been fully integrated with the company as a whole.

As far as the results not being typical, I've had a former coworker who was laid off that contacted me because they call me the "job whisperer". I put him in contact with three of my recruiters and he also had a job within three weeks working for a large well known company. I did help him with his resume.

As far as why I had so many leads, I attribute that to aggressively learning only what the market cares about, and at the time, my salary requirements were right in the median for what the market was paying for senior developers (and still $10K more than I was making).[1]

I've since changed jobs again, but the learn things->change jobs -> make more money process stops being as affective and gets slower once your salary requirements go up.

[1] I stayed at one job way too long and became an "Expert Beginner". My skillset and salary suffered the consequences. 10 years, 5 jobs, and a lot of studying later, I'm just now at the median salary for an "architect" and still have some gaps I want to fill in my skillset.

Networking like crazy" as you say. This obviously had benefits for you and is probably worth it for the vast majority of engineers. However, why is this amount of work necessary to find a job in an industry that constantly complains about a shortage of engineers? It seems like they're crying wolf when they say there's a shortage but the hiring process gets more insane every year

Out of all of the interviews I've done, I don't think any have been "insane". My technical interview at $largecompany consisted of a pair programming exercise correcting a program and making the unit tests pass. All of my other interviews have been the standard "explain your projects", talking and demonstrating architecture and best practices. I didn't have any programming work for my last two sets of interviews.

But with so many "developers" out thier who can't implement FizzBuzz, you have to be careful.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#297

Post by Veelox » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 12:56 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #292

Veelox wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I would be fine with no minimum wage. I also tend a little more libertarian than most. I am fine with the minimum wage setting a floor to how much people are paid because it cuts down on explotive practices. That said, putting the minimum wage to an amount that is surviable at 40 hours a week removes people on the margins that would benefit from a job that paid these than a living wage. Note I am taking as a…

Frank should get a part time job. One issue with the current model is that Frank has to retire in due time. He cannot be allowed to work for cheaper while receiving benefits, otherwise he's taking the spot of younger folks who are supposed to be working there at a normal wage and finance his benefits.

I guess you misread my example. Frank is not worth $15+ a hour. Thus a business will never hire him for a part time job because it is a net negative for the business at that price point but both Frank and the business would be willing to agree to a wage that is less than a living wage.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#298

Post by buttcoinslol » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 1:08 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #57

wgerard wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The openings seem to be largely in trades or nonskilled labor: > Competition for workers has gone crazy, Joe McConville, who co-owns a popular chain of made-from-scratch pizza restaurants, told me. “At almost every restaurant that I’ve worked at, you always had a stack of applications waiting,” he said. “You’d call somebody up and half the time they're still looking for an extra job. That’s not happening anymore.” >…

“There are not a lot of welders sitting around looking for work." That's a good thing. Welding is hard to learn and takes a lot of practice to get right. There shouldn't be people sitting around idle with that skill. Ask employers who are whining about a shortage of skilled labor "how many people do you have in training right now?"

Some employers don't have the luxury of selecting the employees that work for them, many union shops in the construction business for instance.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#299

Post by TheAdamAndChe » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 1:21 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #66

sbjs wrote: post #4

"For the first time in recorded history, the number of job openings is higher than the number of people looking for a job." So what? If there's a thousand Node developers like me looking for work, and a thousand job openings for dentists, that's a mismatch. You may say beggars can't be choosers, but do they expect Node developers who went through CS courses to throw that away and take dentist courses?

How much of underemployment is caused by people not willing to move? For instance, I can almost guarantee you that if you’re a good Node developer you could find a job in less than a month in my market.

Why should economic growth be constrained to a handful of coastal urban centers when NAFTA and other effects of globalization have hit the Midwest and rural areas of the country the most?

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#300

Post by badbug » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 1:35 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #208

badbug wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing lots of "help wanted" signs. In fast food places. This isn't progress.

Maybe that’s a proxy for people being hired away into higher paying jobs?

Read the article

"Yet the experience of towns like Ames and Des Moines show that such “labor shortages” might be due to insufficient wages and crummy working conditions — not an unwillingness of workers to switch industries or improve their skills for a job. The trucking industry is instructive here: Trade groups have argued that it is facing a shortfall of 51,000 workers, yet businesses have not yet shown much willingness to cut hours, boost pay, and improve conditions to lure workers in. Indeed, across the economy, companies have shown a remarkable unwillingness to boost wages, with growth barely keeping pace with inflation even as the unemployment rate has dropped to 4 percent"

This isn't progress