Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more • Hacker News Board

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#281

Post by inertiatic » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #112

inertiatic wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a few notes: After a few years of full time employment I received a bit over 300 euro a month I believe, for a full year, when I was fired myself. And I believe the maximum amount of time where you can be eligible for unemployment benefits over here in Greece is a year or so. I believe a large cause for the apathy in people who you'd expect to work these jobs is the fact that working a job like that doesn't move…

> Now what's the dream for these workers? They can never afford to save up on their 500 euro a month. They can never get a loan to open their own business. Work harder. Make more money if you want to do your own thing. Surely there are professionals in Greece making good money working as employees for others. What are they doing that the lazy uneducated worker is not? Do more of that and less complaining that you're…

Let's ignore the fact that there simply aren't enough high paying positions for everyone that "tries hard enough".

Let's simply discuss why people might not always go for the highest paying job they could get.

What most people that aren't doing everything optimally to improve their situation is that they're succumbing to common human logical fallacies.

People don't see that there are jobs that can potentially lead them out of that class of salaries, not because they're lazy but because they're uninformed about these possibilities.

Or they might gauge that the small chance they have to get such a job isn't worth doing something they don't enjoy at all, and would rather survive doing something they find bearable.

For a lot of younger people however, things are even more depressing. A lot of the "lazy uneducated" workers you mentioned spent years getting a university education, up to the PhD level frequently, and they feel they're invested in a thing they might be good at or they might enjoy practicing.

Objectively, they should give it up. Subjectively, I can understand wanting to hold on to a small hope that you might eventually get to do the thing you enjoy doing for a living.

If I'm allowed to be frank I find the characterization "lazy" very offensive, despite not having been in their shoes, because I have countless peers that are in this exact situation.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#282

Post by nimish » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

madengr wrote: post #87

nimish wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the article you would know that labor wage increases are laughably low compared to share buybacks. Raising salaries 10% would barely even touch cash returns to shareholders

You conveniently ignored the 8% drop in AA stock. Doesn’t matter if that was due to dividend reduction or spooking investors, it’s still a big drop.

And Wal-mart shares rose by 8% in the year after they announced wage increases.

The broader issue is that shareholders have deluded themselves into thinking that they are the end-all-be-all of a company when in fact their contribution is limited.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#283

Post by pc86 » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

felix_nagaand wrote: post #208

pc86 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now what's the dream for these workers? They can never afford to save up on their 500 euro a month. They can never get a loan to open their own business. Work harder. Make more money if you want to do your own thing. Surely there are professionals in Greece making good money working as employees for others. What are they doing that the lazy uneducated worker is not? Do more of that and less complaining that you're…

You're suggesting they pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Put on some boots and try to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Let me know your vertical.

I suggesting that maybe, just maybe hard work might play a role in things. If someone doesn't want to work hard for 800 euro because they can get 400 euro for nothing, do they have the mindset and drive necessary to become wealthy in today's economy?

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#284

Post by eloff » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #111

eloff wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bizarre. Even Amazon Seattle pays 2x the salaries of Amazon Vancouver, even although they are separated by only 200km and are the same company! I ask every Canadian developer I meet, why are you still here? I like living in Canada, so I work remotely even although I don't really like remote work. Instant 70% raise.

Is there any difficulty in working across the border like that? I work for a Canadian company due to having my roots here and find the thought of dealing with remote work in another country intimidating. Is it much hassle?

I setup a company and structure the employment as a contractor with no benefits. Most companies are happy to structure things that way, and all jobs are basically at will employment anyway, so there's little practical difference. US companies are used to spending a lot on benefits, so you can negotiate a higher salary instead.

Compared to what you do every single day at work, it's not really much trouble at all.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#285

Post by arkh » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #264

koolba wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The unemployment benefit is 400+ euros per month. So tell me who in their right minds would go to work for 500 euros or even 800 euros, whilst they have to spend petrol to get from and to work, work prolly 10+ hours a day, in the sun most likely cause thats what means tourism industry, There are always people who don't just want to live off the dole. Also a lot of the people who complain about crappy entry level wa…

As I read it, the whole point was that those normal hassles of a job aren't worth the (small) differential between the salary and the dole, and the suggested alternative was go on the dole .

And don't forget you usually don't work from home: so you pay for gas or public transportation. As you're at some shit job you lose opportunities to network or get new skills. You're not there for your children.

All for a differential of 200 or 400 euros?

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#286

Post by ggg9990 » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 2:43 PM UTC

This makes sense. It’s very hard to 1) pay new hires more than existing employees, or 2) ever reduce anyone’s salary. So raising salaries to hire people means raising everyone’s salary in the company, permanently. Not a good idea if your employment needs may be the temporary result of a bull economy.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#287

Post by pc86 » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 2:43 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #278

pc86 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now what's the dream for these workers? They can never afford to save up on their 500 euro a month. They can never get a loan to open their own business. Work harder. Make more money if you want to do your own thing. Surely there are professionals in Greece making good money working as employees for others. What are they doing that the lazy uneducated worker is not? Do more of that and less complaining that you're…

Read the article. Wages are lower today than they were in the 1960s. So overall, workers are making less across the board.

> Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that." [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#288

Post by rorykoehler » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

vfc1 wrote: post #31

sametmax wrote: post #11

And if you think it's bad, it's even worse in Europe. Taking the French example: I'm an freelancer, but I used to have a contract with an American company. They gave me 3x the salary most of my French colleagues would get, while keeping the exact same social advantages (they paid me through a French branch). However, to them, the salary was twice lower than what they would have paid for the same guy in the Valley. No…

I've worked around in a couple of european countries and I can confirm that the freelance rates for software development today are the same or typically less than in 2001. The software developer golden age was in the mid-nineties here in Europe, and then the rates and salaries have stagnated (but not the inflation). Also, the contractual conditions are getting worse. We are now many times offered contracts with a ter…

Amend the contract before you sign it.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#289

Post by pnutjam » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 2:45 PM UTC

dmichulke wrote: post #253

Applejinx wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small business guy here. When abusive employment practices give you a competitive advantage and nothing stops you from doing them, you can indeed go and be virtuous and make less money for yourself and your business and lose all day long. At the scale of publically held companies, your bossy evilness is virtue signalling that tells the market that you are viable in the era of Uber and Amazon. Right now, as things sta…

I think you're reading a little too much into my above comment. Just to reduce my point to the basics: Either the evil guy makes lots of money (in the sense of profit) -> You start your own business in the same sector -> get some of that market share and profit -> pay your workers better -> everyone is happy except evil guy Or the evil guy doesn't make a lot of money -> He cannot pay his workers more -> He's not the…

Your a fool if you don't see how the "evil guy" can undercut the good guy all day long. Evil has a pause button.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#290

Post by abandonliberty » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 2:47 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #11

And if you think it's bad, it's even worse in Europe. Taking the French example: I'm an freelancer, but I used to have a contract with an American company. They gave me 3x the salary most of my French colleagues would get, while keeping the exact same social advantages (they paid me through a French branch). However, to them, the salary was twice lower than what they would have paid for the same guy in the Valley. No…

>No, you can't pay that $2500 a month.

Right now, not that often. However, we're attempting to educate a lot more people in this skill set, and the increased supply will help reduce the cost.

White collar is the new blue collar. Business is incentivized to make this happen.