Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy • Hacker News Board

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#61

Post by sandworm101 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:00 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #55

prolikewh0a wrote: post #43

I keep hearing that we're in a strong economy, but the reality is that we aren't. It's a strong economy for the rich and powerful, but not really anyone else. Most American's can't afford a $1000 emergency [1]. Wages actually went down last month [2] 78% of Americans are living Paycheck to Paycheck. [3] Nearly half of all Americans are low-income or in poverty. [4] 1/5 of children in USA are living in poverty [5] I w…

You would expect to see average wages decrease as companies hire less experienced, less productive workers who are just starting new jobs. So in a way it could be sort of a good sign since those workers wouldn't have found jobs at all when the economy was weaker, but it's hard to tell what's really going on based on that data. (I agree the economy still isn't good for many people.)

>> You would expect to see average wages decrease as companies hire less experienced, less productive workers who are just starting new jobs.

In a truly booming economy people, bodies, matter more than skills. Skills can be trained after employment. I would expect companies to be paying more regardless of background. Any lesser pay for new people would/should be balanced by greater pay to retain trained people. None of that is happening. Wages are up a tick here and there, but not substantially. It will be booming when I see wages growing as a percentage of profits, when companies start tightening profit margins to retain people.

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#62

Post by EliRivers » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

pastor_elm wrote: post #40

>"She once had her own office, secretaries and assistants, along with titles like “director” that spoke to her decades of experience. Now, she’s a temp — one of many. >Levi was laid off from her job at a law office during a merger in early 2015, and has struggled to find long-term work. In late 2016, she filed for bankruptcy." How do you go from director at 59 to filing bankruptcy in fewer than two year after losing…

I understand getting sick is the number one cause of bankruptcy.

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/05/01/this-is-the-no-1-...

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#63

Post by pishpash » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

bargl wrote: post #30

The economy and the education system are out of sync. We are turning out a TON of degrees for a few jobs and expecting people to be able to just succeed based on a 4 year degree program. All the while the economy does expect a 4 year degree for some jobs that really shouldn't. So you're expected to waste money on a degree you don't need to work a job that won't help you pay back your degree because they aren't paying…

The solution is to cut K-12 to K-8, and teach modern college courses in 9-12 instead of wasting time there to "prepare." Dual-track 9-12 so that one track is the equivalent of full college, and another is the equivalent of vocational school/community college. College can be what graduate school is now, and graduate school can go back to being genuinely faculty-track.

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#64

Post by coldtea » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:02 PM UTC

pastor_elm wrote: post #40

>"She once had her own office, secretaries and assistants, along with titles like “director” that spoke to her decades of experience. Now, she’s a temp — one of many. >Levi was laid off from her job at a law office during a merger in early 2015, and has struggled to find long-term work. In late 2016, she filed for bankruptcy." How do you go from director at 59 to filing bankruptcy in fewer than two year after losing…

>How do you go from director at 59 to filing bankruptcy in fewer than two year after losing your job? Fiscal irresponsibility

Or you know, fiscal responsibility, but a health issue or two in the house, and there goes your money...

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#65

Post by falcolas » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #58

nine_k wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Financed with debt" is another way to say "Can't afford". You can finance an enterprise with debt because it may produce income, and the debt will be repaid. But financing consumption with increasing debt is... dangerous at best.

As someone else said in the thread [1], just existing in America is very expensive. It’s easy to conflate consumption vs necessary expenses needing to be financed, but you do what you have to do. It takes 20 years of nothing going wrong to escape poverty [2]. Imagine how easy it is to get back there. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17594826 [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/economi...

Very easy. Just get very sick and survive it. Or have a dependent do the same.

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#66

Post by germinalphrase » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #51

pastor_elm wrote: post #40

>"She once had her own office, secretaries and assistants, along with titles like “director” that spoke to her decades of experience. Now, she’s a temp — one of many. >Levi was laid off from her job at a law office during a merger in early 2015, and has struggled to find long-term work. In late 2016, she filed for bankruptcy." How do you go from director at 59 to filing bankruptcy in fewer than two year after losing…

I think about this a lot. I've always been a bit concerned with pricing myself out of the market. I've never really fought particularly hard for pay raises, but I have kept up my education and experience and my pay has risen pretty consistently, putting me in a very comfortable salary range. But I still consider the possibility that the bottom could drop out completely and every employer in the US could collectively…

I am in no position to judge one way or another - but it seems like you already know what you want to do.

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#67

Post by lumberjack » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:09 PM UTC

bargl wrote: post #30

The economy and the education system are out of sync. We are turning out a TON of degrees for a few jobs and expecting people to be able to just succeed based on a 4 year degree program. All the while the economy does expect a 4 year degree for some jobs that really shouldn't. So you're expected to waste money on a degree you don't need to work a job that won't help you pay back your degree because they aren't paying…

There is a lot of potential work that needs to be done. The market is not providing the capital for it, but the need is apparent and you have an educated labor force surplus. It is logical, moral and efficient to put that educated labor surplus to good use. It is stupid to throw that potential away, just because it does not enrich a few bankers and their wealthy shareholders. What about the rest of America?

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#68

Post by VLM » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:09 PM UTC

Karishma1234 wrote: post #28

bambataa wrote: post #4

The waste of human potential is staggering. The purpose of the economy should be to enable making full use of it. Instead we focus on profit.

Human Potential is worthless if it is not profitable. A lot of third world countries have jobs programs where they pay one group to dig holes and another group to fill up those holes. What US currently lacks is the entrepreneurs who would come up with new products and services and then employe the unemployed, old people etc. But given the restrictions on immigration of highly skilled individual this is going to be to…

The education system and social expectations have not changed WRT entrepreneurship since the pre-1950s era, so naturally a model designed for producing cannon fodder factory workers in 1900 isn't going to work well in a 2020 economy. In that way the first half of your comment is correct. It'll be a cold day in hell when corporate funded clickbait journalism permits anything positive to be written about entrepreneurship. All big government retraining programs revolve around giving tax credits to big corporations for participating in taxpayer funded programs to retrain people to work for those big corporations. In exchange for campaign donations of course. Its always a scam, and its never to primarily benefit the individual participants.

The problem with the second half of your comment is its multiple applications of the magic dirt theory, in that somehow there exists a magic dirt in some countries that grows great entrepreneurs who are also magically forbidden from success in their own lands, yet supposedly magic dirt in other countries produces the opposite effect of people who cannot create business while in the conditions for great success. And somehow the solution to this magic soil fertilization issue is to take a solution that works for 1 person, such as moving around the world, and scaling it by 7.6 Billion to move the entire world population to Silicon Valley. The exact biochemistry is also mysterious, in that moving people around is implied to be a perm fix, although its more likely that moving people from "where X is broken" to "where Y is broken" will merely result in a larger quantity of "where Y is broken" people after a short amount of time, essentially re-enacting the slave trade to harvest a perpetual supply of human capital. Or maybe its a weird varient of old fashioned imperial era colonies complete with mercantilism. Move all the unemployed orange growers from Florida to Alaska, the only economic result will be a larger number of unemployed orange growers in Alaska rather than FL. Likewise there is no number of experienced profitable Maine fishing boat captains adequate to import and create a lobster fishing boom in Nevada, South Dakota, or Wyoming. Problems that don't scale have to be solved at the root of the problem, rather than brute force. On an individual basis, of course its nice when immigrating entrepreneurs work out, but for a variety of reasons it's not a scalable or long term solution to the very large scale overall economic problem.

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#69

Post by dsfyu404ed » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:09 PM UTC

prolikewh0a wrote: post #50

pastor_elm wrote: post #40

>"She once had her own office, secretaries and assistants, along with titles like “director” that spoke to her decades of experience. Now, she’s a temp — one of many. >Levi was laid off from her job at a law office during a merger in early 2015, and has struggled to find long-term work. In late 2016, she filed for bankruptcy." How do you go from director at 59 to filing bankruptcy in fewer than two year after losing…

>How do you go from director at 59 to filing bankruptcy in fewer than two year after losing your job? Fiscal irresponsibility This is a very entitled and selfish statement. The act of simply existing is very expensive in the USA, and if you have children or have unexpected medical bills that can be tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, you can easily eat through all of your savings very quickly and not be…

>The act of simply existing is very expensive in the USA

Someone who lives a lifestyle one typically associates with someone who's employment can be describes as "own office, secretaries and assistants, along with titles like “director” that spoke to her decades of experience" will become impoverished if they lose and do not quickly replace that job on any continent. It's not just a US thing.

Re: Millions of educated, experienced workers are tossed aside by a strong economy

#70

Post by mattbrewsbytes » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 7:09 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #48

moduspol wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Again, I don't know the solution. Regulate the number of graduates within a certain degree field? Stop providing loan guarantees for all students regardless of the marketability of the degree they've chosen?

This is the root of the problem. Anyone can get a degree regardless of aptitude. Loans will pay your way in, the school will do everything in their power to stop you from flunking out.

We have to take a lien on loans for cars that in some cases are much less money than school loans.

Maybe make schools take some brunt of the loans. If they feel so strongly that their degree is worth it, its like they should back you as an investment.