Labor shortage or terrible jobs? • Hacker News Board

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#141

Post by specialist » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:58 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #107

jolux wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not like the restaurant owner has the option of just deciding to pay twice or three times the labor costs, and trust that their customers will be happy to cover the difference, if their competitors don't have to do the same. This feels a bit backwards. We don’t know that their competitors aren’t already paying more, we only know that some people can’t seem to get labor at the price they were paying before. I th…

> I think America has been too scared of inflation for too long This is true! The Federal Reserve, since the Carter administration, has acted like even the slightest bit of inflation is impending doom.

I've concluded that over steer (over correction) is the norm.

My hunch is one big cause is the mismatch of time scales between tenure (employment) and policy outcomes. Meaning that most policy and decision makers have moved on to new roles and jobs before the consequences of their decisions become clear. So very little learning can happen.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#142

Post by seibelj » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #128

throwaway1777 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it’s not really a good option. Maybe a high schooler should be focusing on school.

okay, it's a good option if you want/need work and you're a highschooler. I guess we could debate whether it is a good thing for a highschooler to have a job in the first place. that's going to depend on the situation. if you're working tons of hours to support your family instead of keeping up in school, that's going to hurt your long-term prospects. if you're working a couple shifts a week so you don't have to ask…

Honestly - working crap retail and food service jobs during high school was as much (or more) valuable education than what I learned in school. Certainly motivated me in college to study and work hard. The value of working is not only in the money earned, and I will force my children to get part-time jobs during high school.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#143

Post by gruez » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

Communitivity wrote: post #116

unethical_ban wrote: post #21

Occasionally, Twitter provides some nice insights in digestible forms (of course, nuance gets stripped). I saw a post recently that said something like "We watch Star Trek and marvel at their post-scarcity world. We are living in a post-scarcity world now, but all the benefits are being funneled by wage slaves up to the 0.1%." Paraphrased. I was talking with a friend who mentioned that a local pizza place is offering…

I think the problem may be that many companies increase their prices to whatever the traffic will handle for needed items. For example, the $600 cost of epi pens. "$100 in 1980 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $321.45 today, an increase of $221.45 over 41 years" - Source: https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1980 This is a 68.89% decrease in spending power. For comparison, the minimum wage in 1980 was…

>For median family single home in 1980, $55k. In 2020, $300k. (source: https://dqydj.com/historical-home-prices/). A decrease in spending power of 86%.

Inflation-adjusted monthly mortgage payments (the actual price that matters when it comes to housing) has actually gone down since 1989. This is on top of houses getting bigger.

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2021/03/what-if-housing-pri...

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#144

Post by paulpauper » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

medium_burrito wrote: post #15

This is super exciting and scary- we've basically gone basic income, but with zero planning. We'll see how it turns out. We're having some price inflation due to supply chain issues. Cost of housing is more interesting... should we go public housing like Signapore, but contract it out to a country that isn't full of morons that cant plan/lawsuit/consult/build infra for a reasonable price?

The strength of private sector is helping funding and providing this infrastructure , such as Amazon and Walmart, this post scarcity we have.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#145

Post by OldTimeCoffee » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #76

unethical_ban wrote: post #21

Occasionally, Twitter provides some nice insights in digestible forms (of course, nuance gets stripped). I saw a post recently that said something like "We watch Star Trek and marvel at their post-scarcity world. We are living in a post-scarcity world now, but all the benefits are being funneled by wage slaves up to the 0.1%." Paraphrased. I was talking with a friend who mentioned that a local pizza place is offering…

$18 for how many hours? Most "pizza places" will not hire someone full-time. They want part time employees so that they do not have to deal with benefits. Now, the intelligent thing to do as a nation would be to offload those benefits to the government so that companies would be free of the extra work AND employees would be free to move to better jobs... but America is not the land of the smart.

I hear this a lot, but it's really not true. Most "pizza places" are small businesses (They want part time employees because it offers scheduling flexibility. If all you have is full time workers and someone calls out sick, you're short a person. If you have mostly part time workers, you can call everyone not scheduled that day to see if they can come in. Office jobs don't really have this because it's typically not critical that the employee is there.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#146

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #141

cratermoon wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think America has been too scared of inflation for too long This is true! The Federal Reserve, since the Carter administration, has acted like even the slightest bit of inflation is impending doom.

I've concluded that over steer (over correction) is the norm. My hunch is one big cause is the mismatch of time scales between tenure (employment) and policy outcomes. Meaning that most policy and decision makers have moved on to new roles and jobs before the consequences of their decisions become clear. So very little learning can happen.

[deleted]

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#147

Post by nondeveloper » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

throwaway1777 wrote: post #97

leetcrew wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's pretty common for the second shift to start right around the time highschool gets out. or if it doesn't, the manager might be flexible. dinner rush doesn't usually start until 6:00 or so. there's also the weekend. obviously highschoolers are not filling 100% of entry-level food service jobs, but they make up a pretty good chunk of these workers along with some college kids. it's a good option for someone who has…

Except it’s not really a good option. Maybe a high schooler should be focusing on school.

Maybe. But I learned a lot of useful skills working that weren't taught at school. And working, along with sports and clubs, kept me out of trouble. I tell my partner all the time that when we have kids they're getting jobs in high school.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#148

Post by paulpauper » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

andreshb wrote: post #6

If a business can’t pay a living wage, automate the role.

automation is expensive. it is not like a company or franchise can just flick on a switch to automate jobs. It has taken millions of dollars and decades to make robots that walk on stirs, let alone do anything that a low-skilled human worker can do.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#149

Post by motohagiography » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

It's like people don't understand how their wages impact the price of the goods they are producing.

The problem is domestic producers can't compete against the actual terrible jobs with poverty wages that foreign producers pay. The trade off is binary. Either you put tariffs on cheaper foreign goods and protect your economy from predatory countries, or you tolerate downward wage pressure. There is no middle ground. It's such a simple and established reliable dynamic that even politicians can understand it.

Our democracies have chosen cheap stuff and downward wage pressure, with the spoils going to the people who manage the capital flows. It's not a right/left thing either, as both sides cynically advocate and exploit globalization to inflate those capital flows.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#150

Post by gruez » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

jolux wrote: post #133

gruez wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've long felt that many jobs paid unsustainably low wages. Can you elaborate on this? $7.25 * 8 hours = $58. It's hard to imagine expenses adding up anywhere close to $58/day, especially if you factor in that in high cost of living areas the minimum wage is also higher than $7.25.

>It's hard to imagine expenses adding up anywhere close to $58/day Well thankfully we don't have to imagine, people have researched this: https://livingwage.mit.edu/ . According to these data, the living wage across the US in 2019 was $16.54: https://livingwage.mit.edu/articles/61-new-living-wage-data-... . So it's not at all inconceivable that the federal minimum is a poverty wage, in fact it almost certainly is.

But that has nothing to do with GP's claim? GP was talking about your "net pay is below zero", meaning that the job itself pays negative. eg. you get paid $50/day but spent $55/day to earn it. Your comment seems to be about the minimum wage not being able to sustain a given living standard, eg. you get paid $50/day but you need to spend $55/day to survive.