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

latimes.com

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

#411

Post by JamesBarney »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #303
taneq wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Additionally, he operates a real estate "investing" school that advocates and instructs semi-legal, morally questionable predatory practices. Yeah, it's 90% trivial platitudes about "buy low, sell high" and "invest your money wisely", and then a few pages about how he actually made his money (if that part is true, anyway): Haunt foreclosure auctions to flip the houses. Skeezy.

So he says to buy low and sell high, and he made his money by buying real estate cheap and then selling it higher? I have absolutely no background on the guy, but that doesn't sound "skeezy" or even inconsistent; what am I missing?

No he made his money selling books explaining to people how to become rich. To my knowledge he wasn't wealthy before his book.

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

#412

Post by rorykoehler »

vfc1 wrote: post #320
rorykoehler wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amend the contract before you sign it.

I started doing this later, but it can get complicated. If they have two freelancers that have passed the interview, and one is asking for contract amendments while the other is not, we can see what would happen. But in general, if you insist that they add a termination clause of 15 days on your side, they usually do it although only after some insistence and negotiation, which if you have several interviews ongoing…

I generally do this as a rule of thumb. Every engagement is a partnership between equals. I have the skills they want. They have the capital I want. We exchange on terms that suit us both or we don't at all. It also sets out the stall as to how the relationship will play out. I've been in enough contracts I need to get out of to save my sanity to know that it's not worth compromising on certain points. Everything on equal footing. The clause will always read something like "either party". There is no way they can legitimately argue against that.

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

#414

Post by eloff »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #358
eloff wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I setup a company and structure the employment as a contractor with no benefits. Most companies are happy to structure things that way, and all jobs are basically at will employment anyway, so there's little practical difference. US companies are used to spending a lot on benefits, so you can negotiate a higher salary instead. Compared to what you do every single day at work, it's not really much trouble at all.

So the extra effort is all in dealing with your own taxes / benefits, and the rest is basically the same?

Yeah, it's really not a big deal.

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

#415

Post by nradov »

mistermann wrote: post #402
nradov wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be lazy. The BLS publishes their methodology in detail. What specific part of it do you disagree with?

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/common-misconceptions-abo... "The CPI used to include the value of a house in calculating inflation and now they use an estimate of what each house would rent for -- doesn't this switch simply lower the official inflation rate?" "No. Until 1983, the CPI measure of homeowner cost was based largely on house prices. The long-recognized flaw of that approach was that owner-occupied hous…

Housing purchase prices are largely an investment, not a cost. Including purchase prices in the CPI would be just as silly as including 401(k) contributions. If all goes well you're going to get that money back plus gains.

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

#416

Post by taneq »

adventured wrote: post #157
taneq wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much room for hedonic advancement there is when average wage raises are almost exactly equal to inflation.

That's not actually what's happening. Drop natural population growth toward zero. Import one million low skill, very low income persons per year. Welcome to the non-merit, non-point based immigration system treadmill of never getting anywhere because you perpetually flood your system with cheap replacement labor. Tens of millions of Americans moved from the middle class into the top two economic tiers since 1970. And…

Your argument doesn't seem to disagree with mine - I said wages aren't growing, you suggested a (quite plausible) explanation as to why.

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

#417

Post by vfc1 »

marenkay wrote: post #360
vfc1 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked around in a couple of european countries and I can confirm that the freelance rates for software development today are the same or typically less than in 2001. The software developer golden age was in the mid-nineties here in Europe, and then the rates and salaries have stagnated (but not the inflation). Also, the contractual conditions are getting worse. We are now many times offered contracts with a ter…

I can confirm that rates are a lot lower than what they used to be. Comparing what I earned in 1996 with 2018, the actual income at the end of the month is about 20% of what was there in 1996 for about twice as much work, and 20 years experience more. For the contractual side, if you are in Europe, one-sided rules in such contracts are easily removed, since they are void by European laws. It's the same with US compan…

Do you mean that in 2018 the income is 5 times less than in 1996, taking into account both lower rates and inflation?

Or 20% less today than in 1996, in gross terms? The problem is, now most freelancers are forced to create their own service companies (of one person), so the contract is between two companies and not between a company and an employee.

And in those cases, the rules are not the same, AFIK. I did ask a lawyer to get the contract reviewed in 2013 for a mission that I was baited into taking and then there is literally almost no programming involved and I wanted out.

The lawyer examined the service contract and told me that by the terms of the contract, I would have to either serve the service contract or reimburse the company for what they would lose. Maybe another lawyer would say something different, or things changed since 2013.

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

#418

Post by inertiatic »

galfarragem wrote: post #398
inertiatic wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's ignore the fact that there simply aren't enough high paying positions for everyone that "tries hard enough". Let's simply discuss why people might not always go for the highest paying job they could get. What most people that aren't doing everything optimally to improve their situation is that they're succumbing to common human logical fallacies. People don't see that there are jobs that can potentially lead th…

> A lot of the "lazy uneducated" workers you mentioned spent years getting a university education, up to the PhD level frequently, and they feel they're invested in a thing they might be good at or they might enjoy practicing. Objectively, they should give it up. Subjectively, I can understand wanting to hold on to a small hope that you might eventually get to do the thing you enjoy doing for a living. And all it tak…

At least over here, studying STEM isn't a guarantee that you'll be able to make a career out of your degree, much less a lucrative one. Tech gets you a job, but medical or physical sciences, and math, from the stories I hear involve fighting over scraps. I could elaborate and repeat the horror stories related to me by people around me but I won't for now.

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

#419

Post by Nursie »

geezerjay wrote: post #93
Nursie wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh shush, taxes are not 'extreme' in most of Europe, and you get a lot for your money - healthcare for example.

Income taxes tend to cover up to 50% of your income. Then there's VAT syphoning an extra 20% of the remaining cash. Then there are hidden taxes charged throguh other fees being levied, even to access mandatory state services. In the end you get healthcare, but in general the service is practically unusable and you end up having to pay for health insurance anyway. And by the way, a large portion of your taxes is effec…

> In the end you get healthcare, but in general the service is practically unusable and you end up having to pay for health insurance anyway.

Yeah this is just wrong. I have friends who have moved to the US, and said things like - "I wouldn't be as annoyed at how massively expensive health insurance here is, if you got any better service, but you don't"

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

#420

Post by galfarragem »

inertiatic wrote: post #418
galfarragem wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of the "lazy uneducated" workers you mentioned spent years getting a university education, up to the PhD level frequently, and they feel they're invested in a thing they might be good at or they might enjoy practicing. Objectively, they should give it up. Subjectively, I can understand wanting to hold on to a small hope that you might eventually get to do the thing you enjoy doing for a living. And all it tak…

At least over here, studying STEM isn't a guarantee that you'll be able to make a career out of your degree, much less a lucrative one. Tech gets you a job, but medical or physical sciences, and math, from the stories I hear involve fighting over scraps. I could elaborate and repeat the horror stories related to me by people around me but I won't for now.

By STEM I meant Tech/Medical sciences. Unemployment rate in these areas is virtually zero in my country.

As an anecdote, on average, a masonry assistant(!) earns more than an architect (buildings, not IT) where I live.

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