Labor shortage or terrible jobs? • Hacker News Board

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#71

Post by MattGaiser » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #35

MattGaiser wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employers might want to consider hiring more people in smaller shifts. Maybe an extra person and put everyone on 3-4 day shifts rather than 5-6. I thought that doing this to avoid providing healthcare was the problem. Many jobs that can't be filled are for part time hours at terrible pay with no benefits.

I'm not really understanding your point.

Most people need full time work to survive to pay for everything. They need 40 hours of paid work per week as well as health care, a benefit that is usually only provided to full time employees.

Businesses usually don't need 40 hours per person per week, especially for things like restaurants. They also do not want to pay for health coverage. So they offer part time jobs with 20 random hours per week.

To survive, you would need to cobble together two of those jobs and hope that you don't get sick. Or you can hold out/leave immediately as soon as full time work is available.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#72

Post by imbnwa » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

claudiulodro wrote: post #52

unethical_ban wrote: post #21

Occasionally, Twitter provides some nice insights in digestible forms (of course, nuance gets stripped). I saw a post recently that said something like "We watch Star Trek and marvel at their post-scarcity world. We are living in a post-scarcity world now, but all the benefits are being funneled by wage slaves up to the 0.1%." Paraphrased. I was talking with a friend who mentioned that a local pizza place is offering…

> Is it because the high-schoolers who would normally do that aren't looking for jobs due to pandemic? The concept that entry-level food service is mostly staffed by high-schoolers who don't really "need" the money is the weirdest trope. Basically every restaurant is open during school hours. Who is handling the lunch rush?

Yeah, I worked in hospitality my entire 20s in a major American city, only ONCE did I work with an actual HS teenager and that was at a middle-brow Mexican place and his family knew the owners, and he only worked weekends. Great kid though.

Also, most places serve alcohol and teens can't serve.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#73

Post by christophilus » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

jnwatson wrote: post #14

mc32 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently close to 30% of household income right now is from government payments. I think on average people are getting the equiv of $15/hr from gov checks. So for people to want to work it’s going to have to exceed that by some non trivial amount.

Ultimately, this is a problem with all government benefits with an strict binary income limit. The result is that, in some circumstances, earning 1 more dollar results in losing thousands of dollars. The marginal income tax system was set up this way for a reason. If these unemployment benefits were paid out UBI-style, regardless of current employment, there wouldn't be a disincentive to find work.

> The result is that, in some circumstances, earning 1 more dollar results in losing thousands of dollars.

I think your new marginal rate only applies to anything over the limit that bumped you into a new tax bracket, so I don’t think this is right. A raise always gets you more money.

The exception being if it bumps you out of the government assisted healthcare bracket. Then, a raise could indeed be a loss.

Edit: I thought you were talking about income tax, but you might have been talking about business subsidies, which I know nothing about.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#74

Post by iaw » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

throwaway292893 wrote: post #19

LatteLazy wrote: post #3

Neither. If employers really wanted more workers, they'd up wages. If employees really wanted to work they'd settle for less. If neither is happening then everyone is happy and anyone complaining is a liar in the economic sense.

The people with jobs paying taxes aren't very happy to support freeloaders simply taking unemployment because they don't want to work.

I pay my fair share of taxes and I'm happy to support 'freeloaders' when they're unemployed and need support. Especially if it leads to a universal living wage from employers.

Don't speak for me please.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#75

Post by toiletfuneral » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #58

unethical_ban wrote: post #21

Occasionally, Twitter provides some nice insights in digestible forms (of course, nuance gets stripped). I saw a post recently that said something like "We watch Star Trek and marvel at their post-scarcity world. We are living in a post-scarcity world now, but all the benefits are being funneled by wage slaves up to the 0.1%." Paraphrased. I was talking with a friend who mentioned that a local pizza place is offering…

The bottom 99.9% in America enjoy healthcare, communications, caloric intake, political freedom, public services, education and safety from violence unprecedented in human history. By almost every metric society is better off now than it was in the 1950's, 1800's, etc. The over-focus on the negative propels us toward greater collective good - up to a point. We would do better as a society to revert to a mean that exp…

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/rise-patients...

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#76

Post by MisterBastahrd » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #21

Occasionally, Twitter provides some nice insights in digestible forms (of course, nuance gets stripped). I saw a post recently that said something like "We watch Star Trek and marvel at their post-scarcity world. We are living in a post-scarcity world now, but all the benefits are being funneled by wage slaves up to the 0.1%." Paraphrased. I was talking with a friend who mentioned that a local pizza place is offering…

$18 for how many hours?

Most "pizza places" will not hire someone full-time. They want part time employees so that they do not have to deal with benefits.

Now, the intelligent thing to do as a nation would be to offload those benefits to the government so that companies would be free of the extra work AND employees would be free to move to better jobs... but America is not the land of the smart.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#77

Post by LatteLazy » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #4

LatteLazy wrote: post #3

Neither. If employers really wanted more workers, they'd up wages. If employees really wanted to work they'd settle for less. If neither is happening then everyone is happy and anyone complaining is a liar in the economic sense.

Apparently close to 30% of household income right now is from government payments. I think on average people are getting the equiv of $15/hr from gov checks. So for people to want to work it’s going to have to exceed that by some non trivial amount.

I'm a brit so I'm far from an expert but I though you kept the US covid payouts whether you worked or not? (unless you earn something like 400k a year)?

Sorry if I'm missing your point...

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#78

Post by somebodythere » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

gonational wrote: post #22

Timeline of Stupidity A: "we should give everyone free money!" B: "no, that'll make everyone lazy..." A: "no, people will work on things they love instead!" [everyone gets free money] [nobody works, everyone plays video games all day] A: "see, this proves that everyone was being exploited!" B: [smh] Plato's Five Regimes. We're entering the fourth regime.

It's almost like this happened in the midst of a global pandemic where most people aren't allowed to do the things they would rather do than sit inside and play games...

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#79

Post by cratermoon » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

macinjosh wrote: post #65

If this is happening it is truly a good thing. I have always felt that the best way to have improvements for entry-level labor is if they just refused to take the shitty jobs and the market turned on employers. What employers refer to as shortages aren't really that at all. The truth is that the labor market is just not in their favor as it typically is. I do not think it is ideal that the alternative option being ut…

It's not even the shitty entry-level labor that is underpaid. There's plenty of examples of companies offering $15/hr for mid-career jobs requiring some post-secondary education.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#80

Post by cto_of_antifa » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #58

unethical_ban wrote: post #21

Occasionally, Twitter provides some nice insights in digestible forms (of course, nuance gets stripped). I saw a post recently that said something like "We watch Star Trek and marvel at their post-scarcity world. We are living in a post-scarcity world now, but all the benefits are being funneled by wage slaves up to the 0.1%." Paraphrased. I was talking with a friend who mentioned that a local pizza place is offering…

The bottom 99.9% in America enjoy healthcare, communications, caloric intake, political freedom, public services, education and safety from violence unprecedented in human history. By almost every metric society is better off now than it was in the 1950's, 1800's, etc. The over-focus on the negative propels us toward greater collective good - up to a point. We would do better as a society to revert to a mean that exp…

I wouldn't really call fighting for living wages for the working poor "economic tribalism."