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

washingtonpost.com

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

#71

Post by tonyedgecombe »

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…

In the UK we are going to solve this by letting everybody get a degree, there is a move to allow apprentices to become graduates. Add in the fact that shops are offering apprenticeships for 'sandwich artists' and you can see where it is all going.

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

#72

Post by VLM »

fierarul wrote: post #38
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that doesn't mean you are profitable or making a living wage These statistics are tracked to a pedantic level of detail by the BLS. You can get numbers of people by industry and zip code and earnings bucket and quarter for most categories of self employment going back to the early 1980s. Moreover, unemployment isn’t mean to measure if people are getting a liveable wage. It measure if they’re getting any wage. The p…

I wasn't thinking only about the self-employed (as in S-corp) but also LLC owners that are employees at their own company and smaller ventures/startups(?). Indeed, at some point the money runs out and that will become actual unemployment, but it will show up in statistics with a rather long delay or not at all. In the mean time, you have people doing literally nothing while on paper the economy is overheating. Of cou…

"For consistencies sake" (or more likely, to make the numbers look better) the stats have been compiled the same way for a century or more with criteria relevant to an economy mostly employing unskilled manual laborers for factory work and ag work. Because unskilled laborers can find a job if they want in less than a year, they drop off the unemployement rolls after a year. Of course its trivial if you have an esoteric degree and decades of experience to end up in a situation where there are no skilled jobs in your field... at all... regardless how "hot" the economy might be for other people with other skills, and in a year it won't matter anyway as you drop off the list of unemployed and onto NEET or similar status. That is the situation with almost every person in the linked article, they have 2020 skills and experience, no jobs exist for those skills, and they'll will only appear for a short time in unemployment stats designed to track unskilled manual laborers working at a Ford plant a century ago.

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

#73

Post by tonyedgecombe »

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…

This is a very entitled and selfish statement.

It doesn't take a huge imagination to realise the unexpected could happen, especially at that age. If you have had a reasonable career in a well paying job then it is irresponsible not to put something away for a rainy day.

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

#74

Post by makecheck »

Many “jobs” today won’t even cover cost of living in their areas, making UNDER-employment a valid issue that is too easily ignored in statistics that show lots of people “employed”.

Also, being forced to take on a massive amount of debt just to have a chance to get a certain job makes that job less valuable overall. A company can still boot you out in less time than it takes to pay off debts so you’re really trying to find continued employment to justify an investment such as having to move or obtaining a degree. And of course you might acquire new debts while paying off the older ones.

These situations tie the hands of so many, and that’s not a “strong” economy. If there’s no truly disposable income, you’re essentially expecting people to set aside their basic needs to raise your stock price.

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

#75

Post by wiz21c »

CompelTechnic wrote: post #57
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…

Many of the facts you stated are relatively invariant to the strength of the economy. I do not have good sources to describe how they have changed over time, but I would assume that points 1,3,4, and 5 are true nearly all the time. Additionally, for point 2, real wages going down on a timespan of 1 year is essentially noise in the face of rising real wages by various measures by FRED. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/tags…

If it's invariant then I find it even more disturbing.

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

#76

Post by dragonwriter »

VLM wrote: post #72
fierarul wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't thinking only about the self-employed (as in S-corp) but also LLC owners that are employees at their own company and smaller ventures/startups(?). Indeed, at some point the money runs out and that will become actual unemployment, but it will show up in statistics with a rather long delay or not at all. In the mean time, you have people doing literally nothing while on paper the economy is overheating. Of cou…

"For consistencies sake" (or more likely, to make the numbers look better) the stats have been compiled the same way for a century or more with criteria relevant to an economy mostly employing unskilled manual laborers for factory work and ag work. Because unskilled laborers can find a job if they want in less than a year, they drop off the unemployement rolls after a year. Of course its trivial if you have an esoter…

The only problem with that rant is that the entire premise is false. Unemployment benefits have a time limit, but unemployment statistics do not (you only fall off of the headline unemployment statistic if you become institutionalized or employed, stop actively looking for work, or die.)

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

#77

Post by wiz21c »

wufufufu wrote: post #54
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…

4 out of 5 of your examples are about income inequality, which isn't the same as how strong the economy is IMO. Everyone could be living in a shack and the poverty line = no shack and by your definition the economy would be strong if everyone could afford a new shack if their current one collapsed.

if you separate income inequality and economy, then you basically say that economy's goal is not to improve everybody's life. Benefits of successful economy should be shared by everyone.

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

#78

Post by tonyedgecombe »

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…

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.

That pretty much describes most of humanity, resource extraction to landfill with a brief stop off in our living rooms.

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

#80

Post by pnutjam »

LanceH wrote: post #39
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?

And make loans dischargeable like any other loan.

I've been through bankruptcy over decade ago and I'm still paying on a useless ITT tech degree... Wish I had known better when I was younger. Well, technically I'm paying, I have paid off very little. This is the first year I'll be breaking 2x poverty.
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