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

Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

annehelen.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 1001 posts

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#371

Post by Pfhreak »

humanrebar wrote: post #338
rbg246 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is saying that these sorts of companies have lots of money. These business have a model that relies on poverty wages changing the minimum wage will disrupt these businesses greatly and I don't see a problem with that. You can't keep a broken thing going because of the businesses that will have to change their model. But sorry I also see your point there needs to be help to business to change thei…

A teenager making change on bagel purchases isn't working for "poverty wages". And a business that providing tennagers jobs isn't being exploitive. I do think employers should be conscious about the kinds of lives they set their employees up for, though we can talk about that without overgeneralization.

I was a teenager working a minimum wage job. I also had to pay for housing, meals, healthcare, etc. Don't assume a teenager has a life less complex than yours.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#372

Post by heavyset_go »

jschveibinz wrote: post #2

This article unfortunately doesn't address the business side of the problem. Fast food restaurants, or place like "Dale's" mentioned in the article, make very little profit. It is most likely below 10%. Here is an estimate: https://www.restaurant365.com/blog/what-is-the-average-profi... . A 10% profit is very modest. That's not the story of the "fat cats getting rich on the back of the workers" that the article is al…

> But watch out for technology and automation...that is the part of the equation that has been "solving" the labor problem for some time now...

This claim in particular was examined in studies on minimum wage increases, and found that increases in the minimum wage had no impact on the adoption of automation[1].

[1] https://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/260/

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#373

Post by bogwog »

paulpauper wrote: post #148
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.

> automation is expensive.

Especially without right to repair!

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#374

Post by judge2020 »

thunfischbrot wrote: post #224
bradlys wrote: post #223

I find this is true even within software. There is a large complaint about not enough engineers. There are enough engineers - it’s just that you won’t pay enough for them for the given locale! If every startup started compensating like FAANG, they’d have no trouble finding talent. Personally, I’ve had to go through this recently where I received 5 job offers. All well below what I’d consider “market” rate. They were…

Meh - I see one of the benefits of working outside of FAANG and other enterprises to work on something you trule believe in. Who truly loves working on improving the returns on online advertising to extract more money out of people's pockets?

Some people truly love problem solving and don't have to believe in the product to feel fulfilled. The 2 million dollar house with a Model S in the garage and the money to start any hobby at any time doesn't hurt either.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#375

Post by humanrebar »

bp0017 wrote: post #356
humanrebar wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A teenager making change on bagel purchases isn't working for "poverty wages". And a business that providing tennagers jobs isn't being exploitive. I do think employers should be conscious about the kinds of lives they set their employees up for, though we can talk about that without overgeneralization.

Be careful with this argument, it's a talking point that over-represents the amount of these jobs held by teenagers earning pocket money. Quite a lot of minimum wage jobs are held by single parents or people just trying to stay afloat. By the way, even if it is just teenagers, I don't think that should somehow disqualify them from earning fair wages. They aren't being "provided" jobs, they work to produce value for a…

I'm more concerned that teenagers in poverty won't be able to get jobs at all.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#376

Post by [deleted] »

michael1999 wrote: post #368
fighterpilot wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes no substitutes, but in reality this will increase the relative cost of restaurants compared to home cooking which will reduce demand for take out.

Sure. But labour is only a third of costs. And given the relative bargaining power of landlords, owners, and labour, the flow through to retail price might be less than you think.

[deleted]

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#377

Post by _qwfv »

TuringNYC wrote: post #244
mywittyname wrote: post #20

I've long felt that many jobs paid unsustainably low wages. There are a lot of jobs where your net pay is below zero, long term, when you factor in the external costs associated with working, such as needing transportation. These jobs have been propped up by debt. It looks like the pandemic has put and end to this. Transportation costs have skyrocketed to such a degree that it's basically impossible for a poor person…

Another thing: if the job pays just enough to disqualify you from state-run healthcare (medicaid, etc), but not enough to pay out-of-pocket for health insurance, the only logical step for many is to not work. This is especially the case for part-time jobs which do not provide healthcare.

Means testing in social services is such a terrible idea. It creates nothing but perverse incentives like you describe. Programs like food stamps should be available to everyone who wants them. I don't care if a billionaire uses food stamps, they still need to eat. If too many rich people use the program, tweak tax rates until it balances out.

It's a waste of our time to go through and double check that only those that 'deserve' a handout get one. It makes everything less efficient, creates bad incentives, and builds a social stigma around the programs. ("Oh, that program is only for really poor people. I'm not really poor, so I shouldn't use it.")

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#378

Post by imtringued »

jfengel wrote: post #226
medvezhenok wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is quite clear - the Fed cannot transfer money effectively to the poor/middle class; it's fiscal policy that can do that (and labor unions to some degree, which were gutted in the 80s). Inflation doesn't happen when you give more to the people that don't consume (and sustained inflation only happens when there is an actual shortage of some good, and arguably we have overcapacity for everything today so inf…

That's absolutely correct, but it has been remarkable the way there's been no money flowing to the poor and middle class. Supply-side economics clearly doesn't work, but it wasn't totally insane. If money was pumped into corporations you'd expect at least some of it to turn into more conventional demand. Buy a private jet or a yacht (built by workers and maintained by more workers), or start a company that pays wages…

>Supply-side economics clearly doesn't work,

Supply side economics works if you have a nation that is doing so many productive investments that it has trouble getting enough financing for everything. By cutting taxes and lowering interest rates you are making it easier for businesses to acquire enough capital to do even more investments.

The US economy is the exact opposite. It's difficult for the investment rate to catch up with the savings rate. Things like home construction are being delayed. Public infrastructure suffers from cost overruns, etc.

>It's not just that trickle-down doesn't work; it's that it doesn't seem to trickle at all.

For obvious reasons. Money doesn't trickle because consumer/worker behavior tends to lag behind business behavior. When a company has a good year, it can wait until the labor market tightens before it has to increase wages. If companies invent automation then they have a first mover advantage where they save a lot of money in the first 5 years and then once competitors join the market the margins are driven down. That delay is costing consumers money and it's costing workers money because the company doesn't employ anyone with it. Business oriented politics also tends to encourage inefficient (from a macroscopic perspective) corporations who lobby for bills that benefit them at the expense of everyone else.

>Part of it is that the government has done a weak form of the right thing, pumping money directly to consumers.

It's good enough. EU is still doing poorly.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#379

Post by humanrebar »

Pfhreak wrote: post #371
humanrebar wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A teenager making change on bagel purchases isn't working for "poverty wages". And a business that providing tennagers jobs isn't being exploitive. I do think employers should be conscious about the kinds of lives they set their employees up for, though we can talk about that without overgeneralization.

I was a teenager working a minimum wage job. I also had to pay for housing, meals, healthcare, etc. Don't assume a teenager has a life less complex than yours.

With all due respect, you don't know me or what I've been through either.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#380

Post by rufus_foreman »

jfengel wrote: post #173
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.

Is it really that hard to imagine? For starters, you don't want to have to work every single day. If you work 5 days out of every 7, you only have $41.43 to spend per day. The average cost of a studio apartment is over $900 a month. That's $30 per day. Even if you get roommates, that's going to cost you at least $15 per day. That leaves you $26 a day to spend on food, clothing, hygiene, Internet access, electricity,…

Why would someone near the bottom quintile of income rent in an average cost area? What is the bottom quintile rent for an apartment?
Post reply on HN