Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 451 posts

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

#291

Post by tonyedgecombe »

Applejinx wrote: post #250
sdhgaiojfsa wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the goal is to spread wealth more evenly . . . If the only goal was to spread wealth more evenly, then what we should do is simple appropriate all wealth beyond (num_wealth / num_people), and give it to all the people who don't have that much wealth. Then it would all be even stevens. :) But there is not just one goal. Another important goal is to still have a functioning economy after applying your policy choic…

Yes you should. Bob supported a host of vacation-related workers and kept the economy moving. You sucked money out of the economy and sat on it. Saving capital so as to be wholly self-sufficient outside the functioning of a society is not in any sense a societal benefit. It's sort of the 'eat your own dogfood' issue: let's say you don't think retirement on Social Security is bearable, and you're alarmed by public hea…

>You sucked money out of the economy and sat on it.

Presumably they invested it and in doing so helped businesses to grow, employee more people and better serve their customers.

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

#292

Post by tomhoward »

gregcrv wrote: post #189
FidelCashflow wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that the owner(s) of the hotels shouldn't be compensated for the risk that they're taking by building and operating the property? There's a ton of risk associated with investing like that.

Could you explain what the risks are?

I think the GP's comment was unhelpful, but there is always risk in starting a business, particularly in hospitality, and especially as an independent operator.

There's risk in the construction (that budgets/timelines will blow out, contractors will be unable to complete the work to specifications), in whether the hotel will be appealing to customers, in the possibility of a recession or natural disaster or civic crisis that will keep tourists away.

There's a few of the more obvious ones.

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

#293

Post by m3rc »

baxtr wrote: post #43
lkrubner wrote: post #4

It’s interesting how much momentum there is in these processes. After several decades of big wage gains, during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the nominal increases could not be stopped, even as the economy weakened in the 1970s and 1980s. Back then all the wage cuts had to done through inflation. Nowadays there is no inflation, and no momentum to restart wage increases. This part of the article says it right: “””The u…

Which is somewhat great because if they don’t pay well startups can exploit opportunities that open up as a consequence. However, my experience lately from Germany is that large companies are becoming more and more popular for developers. This was also reflected in a recent HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286939

Haha, something that should theoretically help small players actually only helps huge corps? That's CRAZY. I bet that's never happened before.

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

#294

Post by rorykoehler »

candiodari wrote: post #205
lkrubner wrote: post #4

It’s interesting how much momentum there is in these processes. After several decades of big wage gains, during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the nominal increases could not be stopped, even as the economy weakened in the 1970s and 1980s. Back then all the wage cuts had to done through inflation. Nowadays there is no inflation, and no momentum to restart wage increases. This part of the article says it right: “””The u…

But people have been working for a decade and a half to open up global migration of workers, as well as allowing China and others to export whatever it wants at any price (and several other "details", like IP theft of course). When 2 markets merge, prices converge. What are engineer wages in China, the Phillipines, India, ... ? Oh wait ... Second: with opening up markets, ... if there is one well-known fact in econom…

Engineers wages in China often surpass even SV wages. China is not cheap anymore if you live in Beijing or Shanghai for example.

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

#295

Post by logfromblammo »

commandlinefan wrote: post #243
at-fates-hands wrote: post #146

So then, the basic premise here is: Employers: "We can't find good devs/workers!" Devs/Workers: "Well, you don't pay enough!" My advice to employers is what a lot of companies started doing when there was a gold rush of developers and people were scarce. Find a few average devs or newbies with little or no coding experience, train them into your "system" and then work to promote them up into senior positions and give…

> then jump ship But be careful... I did this back in the late 90's; I changed jobs four times in four years, getting a 25-30% pay increase each time. Then one day I tried to do it again, and they told me up front, "we're not interested in hiring you because you change jobs too often". Although I eventually did find something and have kept each job I've had since for at least 3 years, I'm pretty sure my "shady job ho…

Job-hopping is no sin when you can get a 25% pay increase whenever you do it, and companies will only give their retained employees 2.5% raises (while cutting their benefits by 5%).

Job-hopping is no sin when you are an "at will" employee with no contract. Some companies think nothing of firing 10% of their employees every year, and replacing them with fresh faces. Is that not the same thing from the other side of the table?

The company who rejects you for job-hopping is explicitly rejecting your self-agency and your right to continually re-evaluate your business relationships, in exactly the same way that companies do when they fire bad employees. You fire bad employers. It is no different. The relationship is work for pay. If they want you to stay, they have to ensure that relationship stays mutually beneficial every week that you work for them.

No, don't be careful. If there is no contract specifying otherwise, you owe your employer nothing next week, and they will owe you your pay for this week. That is all. Corporate loyalty is dead, and the corporate employers killed it. It is not our fault that the harvest they are now reaping is bitter in their mouths. If you are offered higher pay somewhere else, start there next Monday, and tell your current employer on Friday that you won't be back next week.

We have all done it in this industry. 25% more is too good to pass up, and they know it.

Let them be the ones to start offering contracts with severances and notice periods and guaranteed raises and bonuses. That company who won't hire job-hoppers will find that word gets around, and qualified people will simply stop sending their resumes and entertaining interview requests.

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

#296

Post by magduf »

kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #213
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…

My job takes me to Frankfurt and Brussels once or twice per year for four weeks at a time. Every time I am inundated by queries from the local engineers and developers about how to get work either directly with for my employer or any other US company. For the same level of skill and experience I'm paid more than double the typical EU engineer and the cost of living (including health care and retirement planning!!!) i…

>On top of all of that, I'm 49.5% moron. Most of the guys I work with here in the US and in the EU are much better than I am. The only reason I go on these trips is because nobody else wants to be away from home for a month.

This sounds like a job that would be perfect for me. Where do you find a software job like this?

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

#297

Post by quotidium »

sametmax wrote: post #276
quotidium wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, hey, wait, let's not forget the daily standup rituals of agile scrum behavior modification. Every day, justify your existence. Every day, beat that same dead horse. Every day, grab your coffee, sound off, and then listen to 20 other people bark at the empty air under their nose to show their devotion to a product that has the slimmest utility, and is coated in slippery, greasy dark patterns intended to screw the…

If the scrum has 20 people, something is really wrong.

Sometimes you get stuck on multiple scrums, back-to-back. Separate projects, but the same plans and activities each.

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

#298

Post by jeffreyrogers »

abandonliberty wrote: post #290
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.

Maybe, but you have to be pretty smart to be a competent software engineer. Most people just aren't capable of it (just like most people aren't capable of being a lawyer or a civil engineer).

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

#299

Post by bluGill »

gregcrv wrote: post #189
FidelCashflow wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that the owner(s) of the hotels shouldn't be compensated for the risk that they're taking by building and operating the property? There's a ton of risk associated with investing like that.

Could you explain what the risks are?

Many risks. A disaster (war, bad weather) could keep customers away. A competitor could build next door, and resulting in your hotel being half full instead of full. A competitor could start a price war. Tastes in vacations could change resulting in less customers than expected coming. The laws could change in many different ways, each of which can change either your income or expenses.

That is just off the top of my head.

Of course as has been pointed out, your suppliers could demand more money than you have left in your budget (employees are a form of suppler - the human aspect has been intentionally ignored)

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

#300

Post by hajile »

vfc1 wrote: post #48
gt2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that enforced on the employer side, keeping employees in their contract?

They can terminate your freelance contract with a one week notice, but on the other hand, we can't terminate the contract on our side under any circumstances. All we can do is wait for the contract to finish and then not renew it. Its perfectly legal, a lawyer told me.

In the US, one-sided contract clauses are supposed to be thrown out (judge's discretion though). If they can terminate free and clear while you cannot, that contract is very one-sided and I wouldn't personally sign that contract for any price.

Sometimes I think an international one-week walk-off by IT staff would do wonders for the worker-employer relationship.

Post reply on HN