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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?

#511

Post by gifnamething »

release-object wrote: post #16
bserge wrote: post #3

I literally can't find a job in any kind of engineering. Applied for dozens of cleaning and production positions and couldn't get a job. You know what the media has become? A cesspool of bullshit unworthy of any trust. No wonder so many people mistrust actual experts, it's hard to even tell who they are.

Really sorry to hear that. My personal experience, of hiring software engineers in London, aligns with this article. We have seen a drop in supply this year. If you are looking in the South of England I would recommend finding a specialist tech recruitment agency.

I've turned down job offers in London because I can get the same salary with a 33% reduction in cost of living elsewhere or work in London for 200% of the salary doing software engineering for finance.

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

#512

Post by pb7 »

fallenspec wrote: post #462
iodfuse wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there are many great scientists that believe very deeply in Religion. Which as a non-believer I would think would be at odds with one another. And you would be right, we definitely shouldn't trust religious people to do science, of all things.

The fact was that I wasn't right. They were doing decent work and their beliefs didn't affect their work. A lot of non-believers (in the past I would have include myself in that list) seem to believe because they don't believe in a higher being that they are somehow more "rational". Nothing could be further from the truth. It took me a long time to realise that I wasn't being more rational than the faithful and I dog…

Believing in something that lacks any evidence is textbook irrationality. It is also at odds with science.

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

#513

Post by nate_meurer »

fallenspec wrote: post #433
nate_meurer wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There is a short by Adam Curtis called "Oh Dear". You may have seen it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcy8uLjRHPM The basic takeaway is that you make it impossible for the average person to keep up the thread of events and they become apathetic to it. I've also watched Adam Curtis's "Hypernormalisation". It is well worth a watch.

Fantastic, thank you.

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

#514

Post by rantwasp »

imbnwa wrote: post #475
RhysU wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Progress" is a Western myth. Perhaps "progress" is The Western Myth. Things simply change. TIL from my Classical Archaeology professor.

You can't say this kinda stuff on HN since too many people associate their job with creating said progress. Michel Foucault spent his whole life making this exact argument - things simply change.

you can say it. they just did

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

#515

Post by beambot »

Clubber wrote: post #493
beambot wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus mortgage forbearance and eviction moratoriums... So you have more money in monthly unemployment and a pause on peoples' #1 expenses. Until these programs end, I wouldn't even speculate about the future state of labor markets.

Eviction moratoriums ended yesterday (7/31/2021). Not the smartest thing to just cut off all at once. An obvious tell as to who the government (both parties) considers their constituents. Also not the smartest thing to do during a pretty large resurgence of COVID. Expect another year of this at least. People without a place to live are a great way to spread a communicable disease. I mean we're talking millions all at…

I'm not advocating for the cessation of mortgage forbearance nor eviction moratoriums. All I'm saying is that they distort the labor markets and will continue to do so until we reach a new post-COVID steady state.

(Don't know why this triggers down votes.)

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

#516

Post by bdavis__ »

8note wrote: post #452
bigbob2 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we live in a Union? The idea is that your state will be helped if the table is ever turned. Not everyone in Kentucky hates California and the people who live there. What you're essentially promoting is reducing the role of federal government, which is the same thing current Kentucky senators want. I'm sorry to be so blunt but to be honest your comment sounds hateful and ignorant.

I don't think it's likely that the Kentuckians would help out if the tables were turned

disagree. in times of peril, the states consider themselves part of the nation.

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

#517

Post by pklausler »

Clubber wrote: post #492
alisonkisk wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> workers have moved on Moved on to what ? Not other jobs, obviously. Unemployment insurance for income, eviction moratorium (reducing expenses), maybe, but that's all ending. Lower income standard of living? More efficient higher density households? Dropping out of the rat race?

Unemployment rate is at 6%, which isn't perfect, but pretty low all things considered. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Unemployment (in this sense) does not count those who are not (any longer) searching for jobs.

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

#518

Post by jessaustin »

bumby wrote: post #290
bruce343434 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This massive destabilization/bubble you are describing is not a good thing by the way.

I know the commenter you’re referring to may come across as venting but I’ll try to be generous to their take: In my laymans understanding of game theory, one of the things that becomes apparent is that the best outcomes come from cooperation but only when freeloading can be kept below some threshold. Once freeloading reaches some tipping point, the system destabilizes and collapses.

Once freeloading reaches some tipping point, the system destabilizes and collapses.

We're well past the tipping point of freeloading:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27432326

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

#519

Post by DougN7 »

m0llusk wrote: post #88

It is strange that the top known factors for this are not even mentioned in this or other similar news stories. First, closing of schools caused large numbers of women to leave the workforce in order to care for children. Until schools are fully open and day care is available those women will probably not be going back to work. Second, all markets are cultivated things. Employers in the most troubled sectors have rec…

But all those workers that have moved on - where have they gone? I can understand restaurant workers moving on for example, but that should mean they have filled positions elsewhere. It just doesn’t seem like the numbers add up. But your comment about women staying home to care for children might be it.

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

#520

Post by DougN7 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #479
vladvasiliu wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No individual can raise prices without losing competitiveness, but clearly higher prices would fix some of these serious issues. A higher minimum wage would prevent the “they’ll just go next door” issue. That seems right on the face of it. But then there's another issue: are you sure that the same number of people would continue eating out? Personally, I wouldn't bet on it. I don't often eat out, mostly because it'…

> It's not clear to me that raising the minimum wage, and therefore the price of a restaurant meal This study[1] specifically looks at the effect of raising the minimum wage on restaurant prices. What they found is that increases of 10% to the minimum wage are correlated with only a 0.36% increase of prices, and minimum wage increases may cause some prices to decrease, too: > Many business leaders fear that any incre…

That seems pretty hard to believe to me. I suspect they didn’t take into account all the efficiency gains technology has enabled in that time period. Otherwise let’s just increase minimum wage by 100% if it will only raise prices by 3.6%.
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