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

#341

Post by biztos » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

pdimitar wrote: post #207

mkohlmyr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it's quite as simple as being reducible to salary as a single (or majority) variable. I tend to think people are willing to work a poorly paid job if there was some kind of light at the end of the tunnel (career advancement, primarily). (As a casual outside observer, and with all due respect) My bet would be that a pervasive sense of pointlessness or helplessness in society is an equal partner along with…

There are only so many dollars you can shave off of your employment budget before people decide they do not have to bother. It's an escalating problem in Eastern Europe in general. Our politicians are way too greedy. They lost all perspective. They try being a bit more insolent since the last year, they sit and wait -- no revolts, no fires, no pitchforks. So hey, these people don't mind! Let's get EVEN MORE money fro…

The version of that currently operating in Hungary is that even though living on benefits is impossible, you can just go to Austria/Germany/UK and make way more money. Interestingly this is less true of programmers than it is of waiters and cooks, but then it's extremely true of doctors and plumbers.

Nobody in Budapest expects to make even a Berlin salary, but the difference is big enough now that lots of people say screw it, better to live abroad at least long enough to buy an apartment and so on at home. But I doubt many of those people will be coming back.

Ironically enough you could make a killing as a plumber anywhere in Germany right now, or in Vienna, or in Budapest, as per your choice. But a ton of Hungarian plumbers left when it wasn't like that, and now they have lives in Dinkelacker or wherever.

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

#342

Post by gaius » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #283

felix_nagaand wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It’s not 800 Eur all other things being equal, it also incurs additional expenses. There’s the rub.

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

#343

Post by smsm42 » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 4:25 PM UTC

swebs wrote: post #147

wolfgke wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All tech companies in Finland are like "We can't find enough competent coders!" and newspapers are publishing that as is. To me, if a tech company claims in a newspaper that it cannot find competent coders, to me it says that they are uncapable of detecting talent. Which means "we have a really incompetent human ressource team". This is clearly not something that I would like journalists to print if I were a compan…

>To me, if a tech company claims in a newspaper that it cannot find competent coders, to me it says that they are uncapable of detecting talent. Nah, you see the pattern in pretty much every first world country. 1. Government makes law protecting citizens saying companies must hire local unless as a last resort 2. Big tech companies post job listings with unreasonable qualification requirements, while offering wages…

> Repeat steps 1 through 6 until the average programmer salary hits minimum wage

Did it ever happen? I mean, some active high-tech markets that have a lot of hiring going on and have been around enough to run these cycles if it's indeed what is happening. I don't know about other first world countries, but I am seeing in the US software developer's salary is nowhere even near the minimum wage. In fact, they are substantially higher than average wage for all the other comparable occupations (i.e. not bank CEOs and board members for Fortune-500 companies). I also am not seeing them precipitously dropping. So I am not seeing it happening as your model describes. Why do you think it is so?

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

#344

Post by smsm42 » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 4:28 PM UTC

swebs wrote: post #236

wolfgke wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 100% agree. It's all about the money. Is it really worth to invest so much money into "marketing" and "lobbying" the skill shortage instead of simply increasing the salaries to make the job more attractive? Just wondering...

Yes, lobbying has an incredibly high return on investment. >After examining million records, including data on campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, federal budget allocations and spending, we found that, on average, for every dollar spent on influencing politics, the nation’s most politically active corporations received $760 from the government. https://sunlightfoundation.com/2014/11/17/fixed-fortunes-big.…

True enough, but most of this is corporate welfare lobbying (e.g. getting favorable legislation or direct subsidy or tariffs or taxes or something like that) not specifically about employment and immigration.

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

#345

Post by sctb » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

merinowool wrote: post #245

sctb wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've already asked you to please not post generic inflammatory comments here. If you keep going we'll ban the account, so please stop? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Why is the OP submission not removed then? Do you only allow one side of the argument?

No, all sides are fine if the argument is made within the site guidelines. We need you to make your comments more thoughtful and informative because readers are here to learn something substantive.

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

#346

Post by ihsw2 » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 4:36 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #280

I've been thinking about this. Let's say a company has 1000 employees at $50,000 per year. They were able to find enough workers at that rate. Now let's say they need 100 extra workers. They'd expect their labour costs to go up 10%. But, it turns out there isn't a supply of 100 workers at $50,000. To pull in extra workers, they'd need to offer $60,000. So far, so good. Extra labour costs are only $6,000,000, and only…

I'm not sure of an exact name for that but what you're describing can be considered the theory of marginal productivity[1].

Your argument that the 10% cost in labor (to hire those 100 extra workers) is where the additional cost ends is a common logical fallacy -- those 100 extra workers will not be operating at 100% efficiency from the get-go. They will need to be trained and there will be a ramp-up period, and up until then they will likely have a negative return on investment.

What this means is that the value derived from these new employees will be net-negative for a period of time. One could say that ~10-30% of that $6M in new labor costs for the next 12 months will not be recovered.

Your theoretical scenario could result in:

* current employees departing (taking institutional knowledge with them, decreasing the efficiency of your organization)

* current employees using their hours at work helping ramp up their new co-workers (decreasing the efficiency of your organization)

* new employees taking on tasks they're not yet trained for (decreasing the efficiency of your organization)

Furthermore, some new employees will not stick around for multiple reasons (eg: family events like a spouse moving to another city, being unqualified but passing the interview process, etc), and therefore the significant investment in them will be gone for good.

Now, that said, is it better to give everybody a 10%? Of course not, but only because everybody is not equal. Raises should be handed out based on competence-based metrics (be it qualitative reports from co-workers and managers or self-reported quantitative data pertaining to their individual impact). Real bottom-line pushers would even qualify for 20% raises.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_revenue_productivity_...

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

#347

Post by atlantic » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 4:43 PM UTC

mkohlmyr wrote: post #54

muse900 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My example comes from Greece where I reside for the past 9 months. People owning touristic buisnesses on the islands are moaning about how much they need more staff and can't find any, and they are arguing why younger people tend to not work and just receive benefits instead of going to work. The argument here that they won't understand though is that, 1st they are paying very low. They are all willing to pay the min…

I wonder if it's quite as simple as being reducible to salary as a single (or majority) variable. I tend to think people are willing to work a poorly paid job if there was some kind of light at the end of the tunnel (career advancement, primarily). (As a casual outside observer, and with all due respect) My bet would be that a pervasive sense of pointlessness or helplessness in society is an equal partner along with…

It really is reducible to the differential between salary and unemployment benefit, which is the opportunity cost of not taking a job. This is a well-known phenomenon in economics since the stagflation of the 70's, called the "poverty trap".

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

#348

Post by merinowool » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

sctb wrote: post #345

merinowool wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the OP submission not removed then? Do you only allow one side of the argument?

No, all sides are fine if the argument is made within the site guidelines. We need you to make your comments more thoughtful and informative because readers are here to learn something substantive.

How do I know my comment is not thoughtful and informative enough to meet the guidelines so I won't make such mistake in the future? If I had added more details regarding the taxation and who benefits the most from it, would that been enough to not trigger such response?

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

#349

Post by atlantic » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #283

felix_nagaand wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

So you're saying that the labour force of entire countries in the Mediterranean region (Portugal, Spain, Greece) suffers from lack of mindset and drive, and that explains the low salaries they suffer from right across the board. Interesting. Perhaps you might want to come over and straighten them out. White man's burden and all that.

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

#350

Post by atlantic » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

dmichulke wrote: post #90

muse900 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My example comes from Greece where I reside for the past 9 months. People owning touristic buisnesses on the islands are moaning about how much they need more staff and can't find any, and they are arguing why younger people tend to not work and just receive benefits instead of going to work. The argument here that they won't understand though is that, 1st they are paying very low. They are all willing to pay the min…

The thing you describe is the narrative of the evil capitalist owner exploiting poor workers. Here's a thought experiment - those (tourism businesses) owners are making lots of money, so why not create such a business yourself (maybe with help of some external capital) and pay better wages and treat your staff better and pay taxes? Your clients will be much happier with you while having to pay the same. Other capital…

So what you're suggesting is that this person should not complain. Instead he should set up his own business, offer better salaries than everyone else, and single-handedly change the labour market of an entire country. Great suggestion. Why didn't I think of that?