51–60 of 242 posts
Can anyone show me statistical evidence that this "great resignation" is anything more than a story made up by the media?
great musical chairs
At some point, this nonsense has to stop. Both in the UK and the US. 1) Student loan plans (especially in the UK) are gonna cripple the economy and are vastly unsustainable. Especially given the ridiculous payback terms that change on a whim every year, and vastly unsustainable interest rates. People aren't earning enough to pay them back either. 2) Grants are being used as a negotiation tactic, with EU horizon fundi…
FWIW on your (5) there's nothing unsustainable about the most recent iteration of the pension scheme. The problems are an interesting (if infuriating) combination of the employers wanting to kill the defined benefit scheme to save money, the government's regulatory framework being designed to protect pensionholders in closed defined benefit schemes and not to run functional private DB schemes (which are nearly all go…
This a problem with many public sector pension plans. Many cities across this country have pension plans that guarantee pensioners income that cannot be paid from the plan without screwing over future retirees.
Clearly this issue has to be evaluated system by system.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
By senior I mean "senior or associate professors and lecturers" like myself, and by middle I mean postdoc full lecturers with at least 5-10 years. I don't know what to say about the word "tenured" because it's meaning seems very different in the UK than it is used in USA. In the US I get the idea people think "tenure" makes you impossible fire. Yet here I know of two full professors with over 20 years service, scores…
Where are you based?
That's why I'm quite confident in saying generally "universities are in trouble". I've seen it over time and geography. Not all places of higher learning are. Some private and state entities are thriving. What is killing the universities, in my opinion, is they're caught in a no-mans-land, as neither fully state entities, nor private concerns.
Not sure I count as mid career yet(graduated 2018, starting PhD 2022) but I can certainly echo the sentiment. I work in life sciences academia and if it were not for me leaving for school I 100% would be swapping to industry. I’m even quitting a bit earlier than anticipated because I’m fed up. I’ve been getting a lot more recruitment outreach this spring, some good some bad. The biggest thing is that they’re offering…
This is actually really scary. As American universities become less powerful I shudder to think of what kind of radical politics and cultural narratives will sweep the nation.
Or China will take over advanced manufacturing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The BLS's records of the labor force participation rate alone are pretty intense. https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...
Graphs with zoomed in Y axes make eyeballing often misleading. Consider the data: 2000-2016: -4.3% LFPR 2016-2020: +1% LFPR Current: 0.2% below what we were in September 2015 (while currently in a sharply increasing trend) The graph is eye popping, but the numbers themselves don't seem particularly exceptional.
Really, where this chart is misleading is that there are likely different cohorts. If stratified by decade of birth I would expect boomers to be most of the difference, and maybe even millenials offsetting it. And if so, there are at least two great resignation stories to tell:
1. Boomers resigning, as long predicted. in the 2008 crisis everyone expected them to retire but that didn't really happen. maybe happened this time
2. The rest of us resigning one job to start another, filling the vacancies created by story #1, and creating its own cycle of job hopping for salary bumps.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In professional circles, maybe you see some people retiring sooner than they would otherwise would have. Don't know. I haven't really seen that myself though. [ADDED: That's not really true in healthcare. I had two primary care doctors retire on me over the course of a year.] Certainly I've seen a fair bit of motion among fairly senior employees between companies but I don't know how it compares to the baseline. What…
> In professional circles, maybe you see some people retiring sooner than they would otherwise would have. Mother was working as a teacher for over 40 years. A real teacher by calling. Kids loved her, always got the most flowers and chocolades etc. Unfortunately she had to retire prematurely because the work conditions became terrible. Goverment wants you to do more and more for the same pay. On top of that ppl quit…
https://www.statista.com/statistics/236541/per-capita-health...
Here in the US, I expect a lot of K-12 teachers to be leaving the field. The additional demands created by Covid were the last straw for many. Their employment contracts are such that they have to give months of notice, so I expect all to be quiet until August, then panic everywhere as slots can't be filled.
Covid didn't break their back--shitty parents did. Covid just ran the parental shittiness meter up to max.
And, to put a cherry on top, practically all teachers now have multiple students who actually had a parent die. In a normal year, that would be rare and that child would get lots of counseling. With Covid--it's too common and the teachers have to deal with it. Just like everything else.
And people wonder why teachers are quitting ...
At some point, this nonsense has to stop. Both in the UK and the US. 1) Student loan plans (especially in the UK) are gonna cripple the economy and are vastly unsustainable. Especially given the ridiculous payback terms that change on a whim every year, and vastly unsustainable interest rates. People aren't earning enough to pay them back either. 2) Grants are being used as a negotiation tactic, with EU horizon fundi…
FWIW on your (5) there's nothing unsustainable about the most recent iteration of the pension scheme. The problems are an interesting (if infuriating) combination of the employers wanting to kill the defined benefit scheme to save money, the government's regulatory framework being designed to protect pensionholders in closed defined benefit schemes and not to run functional private DB schemes (which are nearly all go…
Largely talking about my experience seeing my parents'(30 year professors) pension who are in the Teacher's pension scheme along with other pension schemes.
From my perspective, I was blown away by the figures they were being given. With my points in regards to a potential drop in grants, and funding from students. I fail to see how the figures I saw will be sustainable going forward.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW on your (5) there's nothing unsustainable about the most recent iteration of the pension scheme. The problems are an interesting (if infuriating) combination of the employers wanting to kill the defined benefit scheme to save money, the government's regulatory framework being designed to protect pensionholders in closed defined benefit schemes and not to run functional private DB schemes (which are nearly all go…
I'm not exactly sure what the GP was talking about, but if the pension benefits are guaranteed and greater than the return on funds invested in the pension, then the only way the pension plan could be sustainable would be in some growth scenarios. In many growth scenarios, though, it wouldn't be. This a problem with many public sector pension plans. Many cities across this country have pension plans that guarantee pe…
If you want far more detail than is sane, there was a 'Joint Expert Panel' set up by the employers organisation and the union to provide a way forward after the industrial action caused by the last attempt to abolish the scheme. Their report analyses USS in detail (rather than pension schemes in general) and is at https://web.archive.org/web/20220506092908/https://ussjep.or...