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

Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 240 posts

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#51

Post by 9rx »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #23
deburo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was it different? I never saw that in big corporations, only SMBs when the founders were still at the helm.

There was famously an inflection point 40-50 years ago where wages decoupled from productivity to the downside. I'm sure it wasn't perfect before then, but things did change.

Obviously wages and productivity had to decouple. Wages measure human labor, while productivity measures all output, including that which comes from automation. ~50 years ago is when automation started to become more than a curiosity in industry.

Human productivity to wages have kept pace with each other, though, so there is nothing to suggest anything has changed for the human. It is not like the robots are seeking promotions (yet).

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#52

Post by cindyllm »

arsan87 wrote: post #42

At my workplace we were hyped up for a special announcement during a company meeting. this is after, literally, years of layoffs, offshoring, cut after cut to benefits, and restructurings. Morale is incredibly low. The big announcement is they are giving everyone one extra day off around a national holiday as a reward. We already have "unlimited" PTO but of course can't really use it. So their reward is letting us us…

[dead]

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#53

Post by hylaride »

arsan87 wrote: post #42

At my workplace we were hyped up for a special announcement during a company meeting. this is after, literally, years of layoffs, offshoring, cut after cut to benefits, and restructurings. Morale is incredibly low. The big announcement is they are giving everyone one extra day off around a national holiday as a reward. We already have "unlimited" PTO but of course can't really use it. So their reward is letting us us…

"It's the least we can do, so it's the least we will do..."

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#54

Post by TheRoque »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #23
deburo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was it different? I never saw that in big corporations, only SMBs when the founders were still at the helm.

There was famously an inflection point 40-50 years ago where wages decoupled from productivity to the downside. I'm sure it wasn't perfect before then, but things did change.

Are you talking about the end of the Bretton-Woods agreement?

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

I mean, it's cherry picked, but still funny to see all those charts.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#55

Post by MangoCoffee »

figmert wrote: post #3

There's no reward for loyalty any more, and it's caused everyone to job hop (at least while that was possible), including me. At the time, employees complained about it, and in the same breath refused to give out any promotions and/or reward employees. Or they'd reward them with some shitty voucher. The world has literally become the people vs corporations. There is no soul in working any more.

two weeks notice when you leave but where's the two weeks notice when they fired you.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#56

Post by barbazoo »

darth_avocado wrote: post #27
deburo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was it different? I never saw that in big corporations, only SMBs when the founders were still at the helm.

20-30 years ago in private sector. Still is in government.

I'm having a hard time finding data on employee tenure that would support this. There seems to be a recent dip but it's only significant relatively, not in absolute numbers based on what I expected. Which was something like 25 years tenure not that long ago but that wasn't the case, more like 5.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#57

Post by nradov »

sjhatfield wrote: post #19
neversupervised wrote: post #16

Years of experience don’t correlate to output in all careers. Surgeons and engineers get better over time. This might not be true for all jobs. Meanwhile, management is naturally capped because every manager necessarily needs people to manage under them, so there’ll be 1/N^y managers at the yth level of the org. Unless loyalty ought to be reward for its own sake, it’s not clear why 100% of workers should get promoted…

It's not that promotions should be given out indefinitely but I think a pay raise in line with inflation should be the minimum, unless you are under performing. It's funny when a company excitedly shares a pay raise with you are it's below inflation...

Merit raises are typically based on market rates as a baseline. The employees' costs in terms of consumer price inflation are not a factor. If every employer gives out raises in line with inflation that also creates a positive feedback loop which contributes to higher and higher inflation every year (I do understand that's not the only thing which drives inflation rates).

If your wages are falling behind then look for opportunities in higher growth sectors.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#58

Post by stringfood »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #55
figmert wrote: post #3

There's no reward for loyalty any more, and it's caused everyone to job hop (at least while that was possible), including me. At the time, employees complained about it, and in the same breath refused to give out any promotions and/or reward employees. Or they'd reward them with some shitty voucher. The world has literally become the people vs corporations. There is no soul in working any more.

two weeks notice when you leave but where's the two weeks notice when they fired you.

this could be because the business have all the power in the relationship, especially in bad job markets like today. When they hold all the cards they can make us dance for them and they never dance for us

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#59

Post by dabidab »

arsan87 wrote: post #42

At my workplace we were hyped up for a special announcement during a company meeting. this is after, literally, years of layoffs, offshoring, cut after cut to benefits, and restructurings. Morale is incredibly low. The big announcement is they are giving everyone one extra day off around a national holiday as a reward. We already have "unlimited" PTO but of course can't really use it. So their reward is letting us us…

Yikes. Talk about a slap in the face. Who let them even propose that?

Maybe next they’ll give you housing from the company property, and sell groceries from the company store, and see a company doctor.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#60

Post by hylaride »

unethical_ban wrote: post #49
deburo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was it different? I never saw that in big corporations, only SMBs when the founders were still at the helm.

30 years ago and prior for a generation or two. Employees had pensions instead of 401ks where tenure built up a guaranteed fixed income payment at retirement. Now we're all tied to the stock market. Oh, and back then a single income could support a working-class family to buy a decent house, two cars and maybe send a kid or two to college.

Those pensions could also be tied to the market, or more often the profitability of the company that ran it. There are many, many cases of underfunded pensions by bankrupt companies causing issues. All being equal, I'll take the job hopping and my own retirement account.

I agree it's more expensive than ever to afford to raise a family, though. There's also a malaise in the air that I don't think broader society has felt since the late 1970s, too.

Post reply on HN