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Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

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Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#621

Post by barry-cotter »

pessimizer wrote: post #529
scrozart wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds exactly like what OP indicated.

A fast food job isn't an apprenticeship. It's just a shitty job. Management of a fast food restaurant takes a bit of generalizable, transferable skill, but there are always going to be an order of magnitude more workers than managers. A job where only 10% of the workers can move up is a dead end job for 90% of them. Every apprentice carpenter can become a carpenter.

If you have kept a fast food job for six months you have shown that you will actually show up on time regularly, not steal (much) and do an at least adequate job. More generally most jobs don’t lead to a qualification but do teach skills. The more responsible the job you’ve had in the past the more likely you are to do a good job with a new one. McDonald’s does teach skills. If you want to go from a teenage hire to an assistant manager in under six months that’s doable, and managing a McDonald’s really does take skill and pay well. There are very few dead end jobs but there are plenty where most people hired there have no intention of getting promoted.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#622

Post by rufus_foreman »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #598
rufus_foreman wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not doing your homework. The original post said the average cost for a studio was $900. You claim that the 20th percentile cost is $1000. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever, so you go figure out what the real numbers are and then we can talk.

For some other random cities using the same methodology (1 bedroom) Wichita: 500 St Louis: 650 Columbus: 800 Pittsburgh: 850 Dallas/Fort Worth: 950 Nashville: 1000 Orlando: 1200 Sacramento: 1200 What methodology would you use to find this data if Appartments.com isn't reliable?

It's not that apartments.com isn't reliable, I would assume it reliably reports the data it gets.

But most apartments don't get rented through apartments.com, and the ones that don't are skewed towards the lower end of the market.

The 4-flat where the owner is renting out the other 3 places and living in one of them doesn't show up on apartments.com. I don't know where you find good comprehensive data, you tell me. But if you are looking at bad data because you can't find good data, you are the drunk looking for his keys underneath the street light not because he lost his keys there but because the light is good.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#623

Post by barry-cotter »

monkeycantype wrote: post #582
zizee wrote: post #382

Honest question: why do discussions about minimum wage in the U.S. never propose having teenagers having a different minimum to adults? In australia we have a $12.50/hr minimum for 15 year olds. It climbs in increments until about $25/hr. This system allows teenagers to get a foot in the door for low-skilled jobs, and allows adults to get paid a livable wage. The result is that a lot of fast food jobs are performed b…

In Au, current ceo at my work recently complained how frustrating it is having 16 y.o. s manage stores. Hmm wonder how that problem happened?

In a hot labour market you take much worse employees because you can’t get anybody better at the price you’re willing to pay.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#624

Post by chii »

_qwfv wrote: post #377
TuringNYC wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing: if the job pays just enough to disqualify you from state-run healthcare (medicaid, etc), but not enough to pay out-of-pocket for health insurance, the only logical step for many is to not work. This is especially the case for part-time jobs which do not provide healthcare.

Means testing in social services is such a terrible idea. It creates nothing but perverse incentives like you describe. Programs like food stamps should be available to everyone who wants them. I don't care if a billionaire uses food stamps, they still need to eat. If too many rich people use the program, tweak tax rates until it balances out. It's a waste of our time to go through and double check that only those th…

> tweak tax rates until it balances out.

that just makes the whole system inefficient - the rich pay a bunch of taxes, then try to obtain all of those benefits for having paid those taxes to try even it back out.

So why not just tax less, and let them spend the money directly?

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#625

Post by barry-cotter »

Igelau wrote: post #568
andromeduck wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if adults can't compete with teenagers.

At that level, "cheaper" is the killer feature. There's no competing with the cheaper option.

If you can’t do the job you’re not worth hiring whatever the cost.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#626

Post by barry-cotter »

anthony_romeo wrote: post #156
mywittyname wrote: post #20

I've long felt that many jobs paid unsustainably low wages. There are a lot of jobs where your net pay is below zero, long term, when you factor in the external costs associated with working, such as needing transportation. These jobs have been propped up by debt. It looks like the pandemic has put and end to this. Transportation costs have skyrocketed to such a degree that it's basically impossible for a poor person…

There’s another aspect: there’s a horrible lack of common decency and respect by supervisors and managers of low-wage workers. Having worked menial data entry, warehouse, grocery store, fast food jobs, I’ve interacted with far too many stressed-out and abusive/abused bosses who cannot cope with the razor-thin timelines with minimal workforce (which seems to be the norm) and ultimately exhaust this irritating heat ont…

> there’s a horrible lack of common decency and respect by supervisors and managers of low-wage workers.

Yeah, if the entire culture creating class/media/academia is agreed that people who don’t have college degrees are worthless failures or at best need other people to make their decisions for them there’s not going to be much respect going round. The Anglo West is not Japan.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#627

Post by mannerheim »

cbozeman wrote: post #447
kukx wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, define what is a poverty wage, it is important. How much stuff one should afford to avoid being called poor. What is the change of the model in case of the restaurant? I can see only one, automate the jobs away to reduce the costs, namely replace humans with robots. But, if we consider these crappy jobs, what about people that are not qualified/able to do any more advanced jobs? People have vastly different c…

> Please, define what is a poverty wage, it is important. The ability to afford adequate housing, food, and clothing. I'm not saying we should mandate people can afford a 1500 sq. ft. home, ribeye steaks every evening, and Ralph Lauren Polo threads, but how about at least a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment; nutritious, nourishing food; Walmart clothing at a minimum. > What is the change of the model in case of the…

Do workers who receive tips want it to go away? The friends I've known who worked jobs with tips seemed to think they would be paid less if tips were replaced with wage increases on the employer end; my understanding is that they made a significant amount of money in tips. Obviously this varies by individual, job, and establishment, though.

There some restaurants that tried to go no-tipping, but I think it didn't work out for them because they had a hard time finding/retaining staff.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#628

Post by chii »

bradlys wrote: post #393
luckylion wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If every startup started compensating like FAANG, they’d have no trouble finding talent. That can't work. Current talent is a zero-sum game. You offer more, you get someone to switch over to you, somebody else offers more still and takes that person from you. You might attract more future talent to the industry by offering more, but since software developers already make 2-10 times the average, I doubt that people…

A lot of people I know who stop being software engineers do it because they found something more profitable. (Management, executive track, founding their own company, etc.) Part of the reason is that salary progression after the first 10 years is generally flat for IC level. Yet, it continues almost indefinitely for other tracks or roles related to software.

> salary progression after the first 10 years is generally flat for IC level

that is expected, if the salary matched the value creation of an IC. There's a limit to how much work one can produce.

The reason management has a higher progression is because they do different work, and thus the ceiling is different. But a ceiling does exist.

The only "work" that has no ceiling for compensation is equity ownership.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#629

Post by heavyset_go »

conanbatt wrote: post #479
8note wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really just raises the question on why employees don't get a share of profits. They take on all the same risk as owners do

It's certainly not the same risk. If a business goes bust the owners lose capital, the employees lose opportunity cost at worst.

If a business goes bust, those losses can be written of at tax time. A worker losing their job faces homelessness, the inability to see a doctor or pay for their medications, and hunger.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#630

Post by dogman144 »

shkkmo wrote: post #531
dogman144 wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The franchise part is interesting, although McD’s owning them or not doesn’t matter as the cash flow is what’s relevant. In this case I wonder what the terms are for franchise owners in EU vs USA and if they account for higher wage laws. There are a number of reasons corporate entities operate certain or many stores at a loss. Very well known example is flagship locations that are locally at a loss, but earn for the…

Are you seriously arguing that yhe entire EU McDonald's market is operating at a loss? That makes zero sense. Clearly it is possible to operate McDonald's in the EU and not burn money. Thus clearly there is a fast food business model that involves paying higher wages. Does this mean that every fast food store will remain profitable with the same hours? Probably not, but it does clearly mean that some fast food stores…

No I said loss leading probably wasn’t a good analogy. Did you not read that?

However, McD EU could be less profitable, McD picks up the slack.

This is fairly straightforward financial accounting.

Which is all to say: without discussing this from knowledge of a form 10k or similar details is a very weak argument approach.

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