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Skills Don’t Pay the Bills

nytimes.com

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Re: Skills Don’t Pay the Bills

#51

Post by enko »

eshvk wrote: post #48
pinaceae wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, it is a correct observation that HR (and marketing) departments have the highest female ratio in pretty much any company. let's look at famous examples: Carly Fiorina? Marketing. Brigitte Ederer (Siemens)? HR. Meg Whitman? Marketing (started as a Brand Manager) the cute moniker is unnecessary, I agree. the overall observation is correct. i agree in particular with the fact that once HR takes over hiring from th…

You are missing the point and flailing at straw men. I don't care about the female ratio (Neither I think does any one who downvoted the OP). I am not going to discuss the utility of the HR department, the issue here is that they are human beings whom no one has the right to reduce as being mere eye-candy (which is particularly freaking sexist).

> I am not going to discuss the utility of the HR department, the issue here is that they are human beings whom no one has the right to reduce as being mere eye-candy

this attitude, to me, is unbelievable. Of course they are human beings. What else would they be?

If you're going to make a claim about HR, make it on its merits. I have said they're nothing but a bunch of good looking girls. They have zero understanding about any of the roles they're hiring for, and no incentive to learn. Care to contradict me?

Re: Skills Don’t Pay the Bills

#52

Post by anonymouz »

sami36 wrote: post #4
sharkweek wrote: post #2

...highly skilled manufacturing jobs — the ones that require people who know how to run the computer that runs the machine. -- Thinking meta for a moment here: How far does this concept go of machine process. Could we program machines that can run the computers that run the machines? And how about machines that program those machines? One of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_…

No we can't. I base that on being a software architect who sat through endless useless marketing meetings from IBM & their ilk promising the imminent advent of Doodleware (have a business person with domain knowledge & no technical skills draw a process on this monkey-easy UI tool & we'll generate a working application from it.) I maintain that being a programmer will still be a highly paid skill in demand for decade…

To be fair, in CNC milling, it is actually possible and common to design your part in a CAD software, and then have the software write the actual instructions for the machine. But of course this still requires a lot of technical knowledge.

In a way it's only as "meta" as it is to have a compiler generate your assembler code.

Re: Skills Don’t Pay the Bills

#53

Post by Soarez »

If an Entrepreneur can't pay for the resources needed to build/ensure a product/service at their market prices, he should and eventually will, close business.

There is nothing wrong with that. That is the economical system in the works.

If no one is willing to pay for his product/service at the price he needs to charge, it is because either people do not need it, or they can get it cheaper somewhere else. In business, if you can't compete, you shouldn't.

In this specific case, these jobs are getting oursourced to china or replaced by machines. This is wonderful. Not for infimal number of people that lose their jobs, but to the huge number of people who will be able to afford that product/service cheaper.

I can't set up an ice-cream kiosk in antartica and whine about how business is hard and what will be of the antartica ice-cream industry.

Re: Skills Don’t Pay the Bills

#54

Post by lifeisstillgood »

This is fairly speculative, but I have been thinking this paradox over for a while.

A high demand for scarce highly skilled workers must drive salaries up in competition.

Unless the skills are not actually high skilled, but obscure skills. I predict that "high skilled manufacturing" is a morass of proprietary solutions to highly specific process needs - that is, the metal fabrication plant alluded to at 10USD per hour has highly specific machinery doing a fixed task, and that the skill is mostly one of repairing the proprietary code.

From a software perspective, that mostly means the machinery is "legacy" - and impossible to refactor. So it can never be improved upon, only replaced.

I am not a 3d-printer fanboi - the advantages of additative manufacturing are hugely over hyped (at the moment), and likely to remain elusive for, lets say, a generation, before it becomes obvious to all we throw away factories and their jobs and build millions of thing-o-matics.

However in that generation there will be huge opportunity for semi-general manufacturing - robots with sufficient flexibility in parts and software that they can be re-purposed easily as part of a (virtual) conveyor belt.

This sounds truly skilled work - flexibly adapting as processes and customers change.

if providing semi-general manufacturing machines is uneconomic compared to proprietary simpler but "obscure skill" machines, then we cannot expect a productivity premium for actual highly skilled workers and should expect 10USD phour jobs to limp along till Shanghai takes their lunch.

If however semi-general machines can be made to adapt to different manufacturing requirements, then our whole manufacturing base may be in want of replacing.

Again something emerging economies will have an advantage in.

So, overall, the West should view itself as Great Britain was at the end of the 19th Century - a pioneer whose advantages had run out, and without wholesale massive investment will simply enter a managed decline.

Disruption opportunities - Development of semi-general robotic manufacturing solutions that can quickly be re-purposed. And proving that it is both ecomnomic for a greenfield site and an installed base.

Re: Skills Don’t Pay the Bills

#55

Post by clarkm »

chrismealy wrote: post #28

Economist Dean Baker comments on this: That Shortage of Skilled Manufacturing Workers is Really a Shortage of Employers Willing to Pay the Market Wage News stories have been filled with reports of managers of manufacturing companies insisting that they have jobs open that they can't fill because there are no qualified workers. Adam Davidson at the NYT looked at this more closely and found that the real problem is tha…

I think it is important to note that the fast-food jobs with comparable pay are low level managerial positions, not entry level ones. You can start working for minimum wage at a fast-food job without any previous experience and/or skills. These jobs require very little training, and allow employees to add value almost immediately (and well before promotion to the $15-$20 an hour positions).

Contrast this to the skilled manufacturing jobs which require up front experience. Though many blue collar fields offer entry-level positions with on the job training, apprenticeships, and opportunity for advancement, this doesn't appear to be common practice in manufacturing. Why not? I think the main reason is that it is very hard for a low skill worker to add value to a manufacturing company. There aren't any comparable entry-level positions that allow the employee to learn while still being productive.

Because of this, hiring an unskilled employee for the purpose of training them is a huge risk, since it requires a significant investment. And since this industry is already very unstable with razor-thin margins, it's not something many employers seem willing to do, which is unfortunate.

So maybe the solution is coming up with better training programs, so that manufacturers can hire new employees without taking on such large risks?

Re: Skills Don’t Pay the Bills

#56

Post by codewright »

moultano wrote: post #50
codewright wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a lot of encounters with YC founders, most of them negative. This anecdote well encapsulates the impression I had of a lot of them. I'd really like to meet the better of the crop, because I can't imagine PG and Jessica (she's usually the expert on character and personality in YC interviews) are intentionally picking petty people. I'm not the only person in the startup industry who's had this impression eithe…

I can imagine that for a company with a runway measured in months, immediate skills might be more important than for a well established company.

Specific skills weren't the issue in my interviews. I was remarking more on the pettiness of the founders I talked to.

That aside, both of my interviews at YC companies (two, although I've talked to a lot of YC'ers besides), had profitability so the typical runway concerns weren't predominating their conccerns I would think.

Re: Skills Don’t Pay the Bills

#57

Post by white_devil »

eshvk wrote: post #48
pinaceae wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, it is a correct observation that HR (and marketing) departments have the highest female ratio in pretty much any company. let's look at famous examples: Carly Fiorina? Marketing. Brigitte Ederer (Siemens)? HR. Meg Whitman? Marketing (started as a Brand Manager) the cute moniker is unnecessary, I agree. the overall observation is correct. i agree in particular with the fact that once HR takes over hiring from th…

You are missing the point and flailing at straw men. I don't care about the female ratio (Neither I think does any one who downvoted the OP). I am not going to discuss the utility of the HR department, the issue here is that they are human beings whom no one has the right to reduce as being mere eye-candy (which is particularly freaking sexist).

the issue here is that they are human beings whom no one has the right to reduce as being mere eye-candy (which is particularly freaking sexist)

I'm sure women all around the world are extremely interested in Ryan Gosling's personality.

Re: Skills Don’t Pay the Bills

#58

Post by reinhardt »

eshvk wrote: post #48
pinaceae wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, it is a correct observation that HR (and marketing) departments have the highest female ratio in pretty much any company. let's look at famous examples: Carly Fiorina? Marketing. Brigitte Ederer (Siemens)? HR. Meg Whitman? Marketing (started as a Brand Manager) the cute moniker is unnecessary, I agree. the overall observation is correct. i agree in particular with the fact that once HR takes over hiring from th…

You are missing the point and flailing at straw men. I don't care about the female ratio (Neither I think does any one who downvoted the OP). I am not going to discuss the utility of the HR department, the issue here is that they are human beings whom no one has the right to reduce as being mere eye-candy (which is particularly freaking sexist).

So from his whole rant about HR incompetency and almost calling them organisational cancer, the thing you took offence at was the only positive trait he attributed to them? The fact that you interpreted it as "reducing" says more about you than him.

Re: Skills Don’t Pay the Bills

#59

Post by qq66 »

qq66 wrote: post #9
ivany wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar problem is HR departments abusing the "knobs" on the position's requirements. For a software-based CRM company, they required something like 7 years of Java EE development experience for the lower level development positions, and 14+ for the team lead positions. How many 14 year Java developers are there? Furthermore, do you really need 14 years of experience in a particular language for this position? I th…

I've seen several job ads requiring "5+ years experience with Technology X" where Technology X is not yet 5 years old.

kenrikm, you have been hellbanned -- your posts are not visible but you're not informed of this. I hope you see this. I'm seriously considering leaving the HN community because of the frequency with which I see good contributors hellbanned.

Re: Skills Don’t Pay the Bills

#60

Post by trevelyan »

eshvk wrote: post #48
pinaceae wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, it is a correct observation that HR (and marketing) departments have the highest female ratio in pretty much any company. let's look at famous examples: Carly Fiorina? Marketing. Brigitte Ederer (Siemens)? HR. Meg Whitman? Marketing (started as a Brand Manager) the cute moniker is unnecessary, I agree. the overall observation is correct. i agree in particular with the fact that once HR takes over hiring from th…

You are missing the point and flailing at straw men. I don't care about the female ratio (Neither I think does any one who downvoted the OP). I am not going to discuss the utility of the HR department, the issue here is that they are human beings whom no one has the right to reduce as being mere eye-candy (which is particularly freaking sexist).

Sounds like the sexism is more on the side of whoever hired ten male programmers and two female hr staff.
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