Earlier quoted context omitted.
Salaries may be lower but work/life balance seems much higher in Europe.
> work/life balance seems much higher That doesn't sound too great. You probably mean better .
Indeed. :)
Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?
61–70 of 531 posts
Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?
#62The harsh reality is that there's not enough incentive to work for a lot of people through a combination of state supported welfare, lack of job security (i.e. short term contracts / zero hour contracts) and the financial and mental health cost involved in working (transport to and from work, paying for childcare etc.. it's a financial cost but also impacts work / life balance i.e. a lot of people realise they have n…
I don't think there's a good argument the social security system in the UK is excessively generous. Our long term unemployment is only around 360,000 people. That's people unemployed for more than 12 months. The vast majority of our 1.7m unemployed, roughly 4/5 of them, are simply between jobs. I have no problem supporting these people through the transition.
And even those that are planning to live off of welfare... what else can you do. Welfare isn't that great and a vast majority (by a huge margin) has aspiration to have a better life so you only need to support those who can't work and those who will not work no matter what. You can force the latter by starvation but if they have such low needs anyway they will find the easiest way to sustain themselves and will be a bigger problem to others one way or another. Welfare is a cheap price to pay
It's a strange way of thinking that I don't fully understand. Why would one choose to live with homelessness problem rather than pay to solve it and get them off the streets? Only because those paid 'don't deserve it' so now both parties live non-optimally. Some weird twist on a prisoner's dilemma
Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?
#63I 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.
Hey, try being over 50. I just gave up, and retired early. Best decision I ever made. I'm working for free, with NPOs, and it's been a joy. The worst part, for me, has been the naked contempt and disrespect. I don't expect to be worshipped, but raw insults are beyond the pale. It's -literally- like a hazing ritual. With all the news about "frat boy culture," I think I see where it comes from. I don't think it's just…
> The worst part, for me, has been the naked contempt and disrespect.
If you don’t mind and if it’s not sensitive do you mind to share some examples? I’ve just gone past the 40 year threshold myself and I think I’m starting to see/notice some of the same things you noticed, i.e. less “camaraderie” (for lack of a better word) and more “getting on top of the other”, a feeling I didn’t have when I entered this industry 15 years ago.
Just yesterday I happened to sit in a coffee shop close to a table where an IT lead (or something like that) was interviewing (I think it was an interview) a younger potential hire (it was a woman, if it counts), and I found his tone and remarks and general demeanor quite off-putting, I was one step way of telling the guy “why the heck are you spewing such bullshit?”, but then again I didn’t want to ruin said young lady’s job interview.
Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?
#64I 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.
> You know what the media has become? A cesspool of bullshit unworthy of any trust.
I wouldn’t label all media outlets under the same but mainstream media (think of what we grew up watching - CNN, NYT, BBC etc) is increasingly becoming what you described, opinion driven activism fueled journalism rather than reporting facts. It’s a sad state of affairs but across the world it is the same norm, journalists have turned into crowd pleasing (many have their own tweeter world where they are not shy to be an ideologue) click rate seeking media professional rather. My sense is that this type of journalism and their wide coverage under libel protection for example in US only polarizes further the people and as you mentioned make people mistrust _all_ experts. Which is not a good place to be for a society.
Good news is more and more independent journalism (ones not behind under mainstream umbrella or with brands of their own) are doing works in real journalism. People such as Glenn Greenwald are using platforms such as substack which is far better imo than any news you read these days to cover and report a nuanced topic.
Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Might also be an attitude problem on your side. If you're serious about getting a job, consider coaching. This "nobody is hiring, everything sucks, and I'm the victim here" narrative isn't really helping you. Also, bringing up stuff like "lies about the cough" (which I assume is OP talking about COVID) absolutely undermines your credibility as an individual capable of critical thinking, which is necessary for softwar…
You've got cause and effect flipped here. It's not the bitterness that causes one to be not hired, its not being hired that causes bitterness. I experienced the same when trying to get in the field. The narrative at the time was that there was a labor shortage, and they were trying to push for more H1B visa holders. Yet there were very very few entry level positions, nobody was training, and the company that hired me…
> The narrative at the time was that there was a labor shortage
Not unique to the particular time or place : Dutch employers are complaining about a lack of technical workers for decades, think welders / metal workers / machine operators etc.
Except they pay sh*t. Somehow the statement about the lack of workers gets printed in the media everytime.
Now we have the 'free transfer of people' in the EU. The EU is not there for you, but for the employers ( just like HR ).
Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?
#66I am an unemployed programmer. I am 50 years old. I have 15 years of C#, 15 years of sql server, two years of golang, two years of node.js, vue.js, svelte, css, html, postgress, rabbitmq, etc etc etc.... My skills list is about 10 times this short list I just threw up. They tell me there is a skills and labor shortage in tech. That's complete bullshit I am UNEMPLOYED for a year. I don't believe one dam word the gover…
I was unemployed for 9 months in the UK. I was a contractor/consultant and had to take a full time position.
When Lockdowns started I was literally finishing a contract and was happy to have some time off. After month 7 of not having any work and eating into savings and constantly lockdowns meant I had to go full time.
Interview process was frustrating to say the least. Lots of pre-screen "tests" which some were two to 3 hours of asking computer science style questions that are irrelevant for web development.
It was a frustrating process that was exasperated by COVID.
Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey, try being over 50. I just gave up, and retired early. Best decision I ever made. I'm working for free, with NPOs, and it's been a joy. The worst part, for me, has been the naked contempt and disrespect. I don't expect to be worshipped, but raw insults are beyond the pale. It's -literally- like a hazing ritual. With all the news about "frat boy culture," I think I see where it comes from. I don't think it's just…
> The worst part, for me, has been the naked contempt and disrespect. If you don’t mind and if it’s not sensitive do you mind to share some examples? I’ve just gone past the 40 year threshold myself and I think I’m starting to see/notice some of the same things you noticed, i.e. less “camaraderie” (for lack of a better word) and more “getting on top of the other”, a feeling I didn’t have when I entered this industry…
I think tech attracts a certain type of person... People with high iq but very low scores in compassion and care.
Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?
#68I am an unemployed programmer. I am 50 years old. I have 15 years of C#, 15 years of sql server, two years of golang, two years of node.js, vue.js, svelte, css, html, postgress, rabbitmq, etc etc etc.... My skills list is about 10 times this short list I just threw up. They tell me there is a skills and labor shortage in tech. That's complete bullshit I am UNEMPLOYED for a year. I don't believe one dam word the gover…
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Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?
#69Don’t know about UK but in the US former employees are sitting at home collecting juiced up unemployment benefits thanks to COVID and not paying rents.
But the free ride is finally coming to an end and the evictions are starting soon. These people will be living on the street for the foreseeable future. Many companies do not hire homeless.
Re: Employee shortages: Where have all the workers gone?
#70I 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.
In having a similarly hard time finding something. It seems like every job I apply to has 50-100 other candidates that also applied. I'm not sure how many of them are actually qualified, but based on how many times I've been passed up, some of them clearly are. This is also compounded by the fact that a lot of the jobs are remote now, so anyone across the country can apply.
My friend who is a recruiter says it's a talent driven market right now. So, I'm not sure what to make of any of it. It certainly depends on the specific type of work you're looking for.