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The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#51

Post by JupiterMoon »

redblacktree wrote: post #50
SixSigma wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just up wage offers and see results. HGV driving already pays good wages here - upwards of $750 p/w and it costs something like $1500 to get qualified. Even if you only work for a year, you will recoup your investment so I don't think it can possibly be people thinking that "I'm not going to be an HGV driver because robots will take my job, I shall stay here in McDonald's on minimum wage" So it can't be a p…

Could be that the McDonalds employee doesn't have the $1,500 to get qualified. For a great many people, that's an amount that seems impossible to save.

If industry was really desperate they would simply offer people training contracts with a buy out clause. I.e. the company pays for the training and the driver (assuming they pass) then has to work for the company for a minimum length of time or buy themselves out. This would surely be a win-win for everyone.

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#52

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

gadders wrote: post #49
RobertoG wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to be negative but the article in the spectator dismiss the Gini index (that I'm sure has its problems) using a tweet as its source. Just to weight in with an alternative view: http://mainlymacro.blogspot.fr/2014/11/redistribution-under-...

To be fair, it was a tweet by Nassim Taleb.

> To be fair, it was a tweet by Nassim Taleb.

Do you think that's a positive recommendation? Because it's not clear and I don't.

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#53

Post by SixSigma »

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #48
SixSigma wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Industry is willing to pay but individual companies are not, especially in the days of "job for 5 years". For instance The NOVUS Trust [1] is a Supply Chain / Logistics undergraduate scheme that guarantees a job for those graduating with a 2:1 or over that is sponsored by industry members. [1] http://www.novus.uk.com/

I don't see industry calling for the introduction of training Levys or to stop uskilled Mc Jobs being promoted as apprenticeships to avoid paying the minimum wage.

"Industry" is quite a wide generalisation.

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#55

Post by gadders »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #52
gadders wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it was a tweet by Nassim Taleb.

> To be fair, it was a tweet by Nassim Taleb. Do you think that's a positive recommendation? Because it's not clear and I don't.

I think "a tweet from Nassim Taleb" carries more weight than a tweet from some random person off the internet. He does at least understand finance and economics.

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#56

Post by JupiterMoon »

redwood wrote: post #54
JupiterMoon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automation (at the moment) requires a skilled workforce to e.g. build or program the automated system.

Orders of magnitude fewer workers though...

But far higher paid. And therefore the few good industrial jobs building and running the automated systems should be able to support a large number of service jobs in the wider economy.

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#57

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

gadders wrote: post #55
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be fair, it was a tweet by Nassim Taleb. Do you think that's a positive recommendation? Because it's not clear and I don't.

I think "a tweet from Nassim Taleb" carries more weight than a tweet from some random person off the internet. He does at least understand finance and economics.

> I think "a tweet from Nassim Taleb" carries more weight than a tweet from some random person off the internet.

I used to follow him on twitter for a while, and I'm not convinced of that.

His first book was a well-thought out contrarian polemic. His tweets struck me as off-the-cuff random contrarian outbursts.

Re: The coming labour scarcity will shift the balance of power, pushing up wages

#58

Post by redwood »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #56
redwood wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orders of magnitude fewer workers though...

But far higher paid. And therefore the few good industrial jobs building and running the automated systems should be able to support a large number of service jobs in the wider economy.

Except not if the service jobs are all being automated.
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