The Strategic Imperative Not to Hire Anybody • Hacker News Board

Re: The Strategic Imperative Not to Hire Anybody

#31

Post by j5eb6ach » Fri, May 07, 2010, 10:24 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #16

j5eb6ach wrote: post #5

We have a situation of 'haves' and 'have nots'. A corporation of 100 employees has every reason to prefer that those employees work at 120% (50 hrs/wk). Our society would benefit if instead the corporation hired 20 additional employees, and everyone worked at 100%.

Your math ignores retraining costs. A corporation of 100 employees that hires 20 more will in fact temporarily have just created extra work for the existing 100 for some time before they see a benefit from the hires. And given normal turnover, retraining would become a higher portion of that corporation's costs permanently, resulting in permanently decreased productivity.

No doubt about the fact that ( more employees == more inefficiency ) for the corporation. But the benefit to the 20 members of the community that have gone from zero income to working is enormous.

Re: The Strategic Imperative Not to Hire Anybody

#32

Post by sokoloff » Fri, May 07, 2010, 11:55 PM UTC

j5eb6ach wrote: post #5

We have a situation of 'haves' and 'have nots'. A corporation of 100 employees has every reason to prefer that those employees work at 120% (50 hrs/wk). Our society would benefit if instead the corporation hired 20 additional employees, and everyone worked at 100%.

Would society benefit if the output of that company were 25% more costly?

Let's say that the company sells a serving of food for $4, or clothing or clean water or some other neccessity of life, which would go up by 25% to account for the need of that company to feed 25% more mouths.

Suppose company A (your exemplar company) raises its prices from $4 to $5 and company B holds its price constant at $4 (and maybe works its staff 50 hours a week). Which company would you expect to be more successful in the marketplace? Which company would you expect would ultimately employ more people over time? I'd bet on company B.

Re: The Strategic Imperative Not to Hire Anybody

#33

Post by vl » Sat, May 08, 2010, 5:39 AM UTC

kg wrote: post #8

emmett wrote: post #3

Very similar to the arguments of the Luddites: The power loom is putting workers out of a job! Some attempt to do something which gets the unemployed back to work could be good, but trying to create make-work by using more people than a job requires is not.

I'm definitely not in favor of creating needless jobs, and companies that can be creative and do more with less in a sustainable fashion (without creating a poor quality of life for those doing it) should be rewarded. That being said, overworking people and pushing them aside when they fall out of fashion is short sighted and will create long term problems for society as a whole.

>I'm definitely not in favor of creating needless jobs

Most jobs are already needless. Consumerism helps to keep wheels turning. As the time goes, situation is going to get worse. The question is how society is going to get restructured if 80% of its workforce can't produce anything viable anymore (i.e. produced cheaper without involving said workforce)?

Re: The Strategic Imperative Not to Hire Anybody

#34

Post by gamble » Sat, May 08, 2010, 5:51 AM UTC

"We've come to realize we don't really want most employees for the whole of their careers. We want their particular set of skills when we need them — but then things change so fast, we don't need that particular skill set any more."

But job-hoppers are still evil, right?

Re: The Strategic Imperative Not to Hire Anybody

#35

Post by kirill_blazhko » Sat, May 08, 2010, 3:16 PM UTC

nkassis wrote: post #7

We you can't fight them join them. I guess the best option is to own a company instead of working for one. I'm pretty much preaching to the choir here but it's worth mentioning

Unfortunately not everyone is carved for the entrepreneurship. The end of the article mentions this very category of people and I agree with the author: something must be done to provide jobs to those people.