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Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#371

Post by nate_meurer »

ajb wrote: post #233
BossingAround wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might also be an attitude problem on your side. If you're serious about getting a job, consider coaching. This "nobody is hiring, everything sucks, and I'm the victim here" narrative isn't really helping you. Also, bringing up stuff like "lies about the cough" (which I assume is OP talking about COVID) absolutely undermines your credibility as an individual capable of critical thinking, which is necessary for softwar…

Would you rather , on this site, people post what they honestly think, or what they would say in a job interview situation? Because if the latter, you might be better off not assuming that the OP is dumb enough to let out their unvarnished thoughts in an interview.

> you might be better off not assuming that the OP is dumb enough to let out their unvarnished thoughts in an interview.

After a glance at Calltrak's recent comment history, I think that might actually be an ok assumption.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#372

Post by [deleted] »

rantwasp wrote: post #289
kktkti9 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out a “services based” economy is a euphemism for austerity based economy. Adam Smith claimed that “…landlords' role in the economic process is passive. Their ability to reap a revenue solely from ownership of land tends to make them indolent and inept, and so they tend to be unable to even look after their own economic interests". Look at dollar rich rent seekers destabilizing their value store. Dead guys alre…

> Humans haven’t literally evolved that much in 200 years. You’re being generous. I would say we haven’t evolved in thousands of years. I mean sure, the tech is better but we’re the same self absorbed, careless bipeds we’ve always been.

[deleted]

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#373

Post by bobthepanda »

nicoburns wrote: post #229
bobthepanda wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That being said, this is not necessarily easy even for large employers, because until now there wasn't a need to clarify if workers were subject to the income, payroll etc. taxes and employee protection, health insurance contracts of their working or resident state. It is totally possible to be a large Fortune 500 company in the US and not be set up to do paperwork in, I don't know, Alaska or Wyoming or Idaho.

I guess that's an issue if you move states. I'm in the UK, and I know someone who moved 8 hours away to a different part of the UK. Would never have even been considered pre-covid, but the evidence that they could work productively from home was there: they'd been doing it for a year already! They're a manager too, so regular collaboration is a given. It's just all online now.

Keep in mind that 11 US states by themselves are larger than the entirety of the UK; Oregon, for example. I don't know if tax is assessed differently for say Scottish rather than English residents, and 32 US states are larger than England.

This is going to be an issue if you move anywhere within a country with a federal system of government. For EU residents I imagine this also gets tricky for people who decide to WFH from other countries.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#374

Post by nate_meurer »

fallenspec wrote: post #315
heurisko wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to Matt Hancock, there was also the case of exemptions from quarantine for UEFA football VIPs. [1] I think it's right the UK is returning to personal responsibility, especially as many of the rules haven't seemed to be science-based e.g. you must wear a mask entering a pub, but you are allowed to remove the mask while eating seated. It's health-theatre, rather than virus prevention. [1] https://www.thegua…

There were many notable people who were exposed as to exposing that we all should be lockdown while breaking the rules themselves. It is quite frustrating when I live in an area where almost everyone followed the rules. Yes there is a quite an element to theatre to the whole thing, which makes sensible discussion about the issue impossible. Which I believe is somewhat by design.

> Which I believe is somewhat by design.

That's a really interesting thought that had never occurred to me. Maybe somewhat akin to Steve Bannon's "flood the zone with shit" strategy.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#375

Post by RobertKerans »

WalterBright wrote: post #323
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of this stuff about workers disappearing and people reconsidering their lives is pretty much a sideshow of projected narrative that is detached from what is really going on. Well said. We’ve been bombarded with news articles and thought pieces about how COVID has forever changed the workforce, how people are refusing to work jobs they don’t like, how people are quitting en masse because their employers won’t al…

> companies are abandoning office spaces in favor of full remote for months now On the other hand, traffic during rush hour seems to have returned to as bad as it ever was.

[UK specifically] not seems, it has gone back to normal (as in pre-pandemic).

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#376

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ipnon wrote: post #346
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will not give specific examples. Here, there be dragonnes... But I have been told "You know, because you're older, you'll need to ask for less" by recruiters (recruiters are the worst). I've had testers (silly tests), be quite disrespectful, and use tone and engagement (or lack, thereof), to make it clear that this is an annoyance for them, and I should just "get it over with," so they can do something "more import…

Working at startups has been my solution to this wide problem. No startup will turn away a domain expert in a field they need help with. A corporation over a certain size seems to glean all they need to know about me as soon as they see my bald head. Any social organization over a certain size seems to be allergic to people with much experience, I think because they cannot mold them into drones.

> No startup will turn away a domain expert in a field they need help with.

This has not been my experience. Part of it may be that I don't really do the whole "self-promotion" thing so well.

I'm pretty good at what I do. I have worked with many, many people that are much better than I am, so I don't let it get to my head.

But whenever I mention what I'm good at, it's met with snorts of disbelief. That's crazy. I am not claiming to be Superman.

I have a massive portfolio that proves what I claim. It has 30 or more (complete, documented, tested, and supported) repos, with over a decade of checkin history, and full source for a whole boatload of [mostly deprecated] shipping applications. Don't believe me? Clone the repo, and hit "Build." I have dozens of blog entries, articles, teaching series, etc.; all linked from my SO story. I even have the PDF manual for my very first engineering project, in 1987.

What I can (and can't) do is not a matter for debate. Like I said, I have worked with many folks that make me look like a piker.

Here's an example:

About a month and a half ago, I responded to an article, where the author claimed we "never finished" anything. This was what I posted:

>> I dare you to list three finished software projects.

> I can probably list 30, and point to the repos.

It's 100% true. You don't need to take my word for it. Simply look at my SO story. I link to it in my HN handle.

Someone that obviously did not bother to do exactly that, posted a challenge, basically calling me a liar. I responded by throwing the seed into the nest, and posting a link to my SO story[0]. They never responded, after that.

Like I said, I know that I'm pretty good at what I do, but I spent my entire career around folks that made me look like a beginner.

It's really, really sad that people seem to consider that kind of stuff to be a lie.

[0] https://stackoverflow.com/story/chrismarshall

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#377

Post by ipaddr »

username90 wrote: post #249
ipaddr wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is.. it speaks to wages not raising enough to meet the demand. You wouldn't need the Yankees a lot of people would do it for a million, half a million, 100,000 pounds. There always seems to be a shortage of people willing to work for little never a shortage of people wanting the CEO's jobs

There is definitely a shortage of decent CEO's, which is why companies are forced to hire and try to work with the charlatans they have today. That is also why the salaries are increasing, they try to get one of the few good ones.

There is a huge supply of people who want to be CEOS so much in fact most places will not hire you unless you have been a CEO before or have risen through external ranks.

If you take what unemployment defines are qualification.. many able body people could perform those tasks if all CEOs decided to move to other careers.

Salaries increase because qualifications increase creating scarcity which benefit the people who create scarcity. If the hiring guidelines say only CEOs can be CEO prices goes up for CEOs, VPs and anyone in charge of making the rules.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#378

Post by scolby33 »

throwawayboise wrote: post #344
Closi wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, when I hear about people struggling to recruit, it’s often minimum wage jobs on awful conditions. People don’t want to work for absolute minimum wage on a temporary contract picking fruit? Colour me surprised!

IDK about everywhere but I'm not seeing anyone still paying minimum wage. McDonalds is paying $12.50/hr for day, $15/hr for night work. That's $30k/year FTE for a job that you can learn in a week and that requires zero prior experience or education. And they are still begging.

Just this week in Pittsburgh, I saw an official corporate poster up in a McDonald's advertising a "competitive starting wage" with an 8.5″x11″ sheet taped to it reading "STARTING RATE UP TO 10$/HR." I doubt they'll have much luck at ≤$10/hour. Sure, it's more than the minimum ($7.25/hour), but the "up to" weasel words don't give me confidence.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#379

Post by DrewRWx »

derefr wrote: post #296
rantwasp wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humans haven’t literally evolved that much in 200 years. You’re being generous. I would say we haven’t evolved in thousands of years. I mean sure, the tech is better but we’re the same self absorbed, careless bipeds we’ve always been.

> I would say we haven’t evolved in thousands of years. We’ve become slightly more lactose-tolerant!

And the appendix became seemingly useless.

Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?

#380

Post by paulpauper »

It's evident we're transitioning to a post-labor society. The labor force participation rate keeps falling. More and more people are on sort for of welfare, assistance, or are homeless or incarcerated. Tent cities everywhere all across the country, in poor and rich areas alike. Each crisis, from 2008 to Covid, only hastens this transition.
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