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Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

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Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#931

Post by ryanmarsh »

hinkley wrote: post #896
blihp wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 10% margin also often doesn't tell the whole story of how they make their money. Nearly since its inception, a substantial portion of McDonald's long term profit came from the appreciation of the real estate the stores were built on. Operating a business on it just made it cash flow positive during the holding period. So it was essentially a REIT that happened to operate a fast food chain. Even for many mom-and-pop…

Then you have the reverse problem where the stores or restaurants are renting their space. As the neighborhood density increases, their customer base goes up but so does rent. And since location matters, you can’t just move if you don’t like the rent prices, so they can squeeze you pretty hard. Goodbye profit margins. In my old neighborhood there were always a few empty places because they were pricing people out, an…

Insert Adam Smith quote about the rent of land.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#932

Post by malandrew »

dmitriid wrote: post #804
danielrpa wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never known anyone here in the US (friend, coworker, family member, acquaintance etc - Internet forums don't count) who has moved to Europe permanently. I know that many do, obviously, I just don't one personally. At the same time, I personally know many Europeans living here and have seen many more coming over the years. I can't find hard data, but probably we should not say that "those who have the means to, d…

> It's likely more of "a tiny percentage of those who have the means to, do". Yes. However, the main reason I phrased it the way I did is that "if you don't like it, move to a different continent" is a very arrogant approach. An American barely surviving on minimum wage is very unlikely to move to Europe.

> An American barely surviving on minimum wage is very unlikely to move to Europe.

And even if they did they would be far less likely to contribute meaningfully to the commons in Europe to support that social safety net. Therein lies the rub.

The only way to provide the productivity that funds the social safety net is when those providing the safety net far outnumber those consuming it. As this gets out of balance, those providing it start to resent those consuming it.

When it gets out of wack, you get situations like the DDR and North Korea, where the government needs to erect walls to prevent the productive people from escaping that shitty deal.

You can only achieve this balance in a high trust society where there is social pressure not to be on the consuming side for longer than is reasonable to get back on the producing side.

Guess what destroys that high trust condition? Bringing in outsiders faster than can be assimilated and/or eliminating the expectation of assimilation as the US is doing and Europe is now starting to do.

It's not that you can't bring in outsiders and maintain a high trust society. You can. But that takes work and it requires an acknowledgement that a high trust society is something that we should be trying to preserve while we do things that can hurt the current state of trust in a country.

From a trust perspective, the US is at a low probably not seen since either the Civil War or the Great Depression. We should solve the trust issue if we are to have any hope of building the social safety net features that rely on high social trust as a foundation.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#933

Post by WarChortle18 »

randomopining wrote: post #658
bogwog wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not UBI at all. If someone starts working now, they lose those unemployment benefits they're getting. So the question becomes: should I work my ass off at this shitty job to make $X, or should I stay unemployed and make $X? If it were real UBI, these people could work those shitty jobs while still receiving the extra income every month. It's still a shitty job, but you also get the added benefit of not having…

No one is gonna do a shitty job if they don’t have to financially lol. Clear misunderstanding of incentives. Most people would chill or take easy fun jobs.

I think you vastly under estimate peoples will to advance. Would some take easy or no jobs sure, but not everyone wants to get by with a fixed income. They will always want to buy something UBI doesn't enable them to buy.

A nice vacation, nicer larger home, new car etc. UBI would just give people the cushion to take a risk and know if I fail I don't end up homeless. Or the piece of mind to relax and know they can eat a healthy meal and pay rent no need to work 2 or 3 jobs. Maybe the reinvest in their education.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#934

Post by dehrmann »

throwaway292893 wrote: post #130
dehrmann wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> farms unwilling to pay a fair wage Half the blame has to go to consumers and a lack of desire for fair-wage strawberries that cost 2x as much.

No, the full blame goes to the near slave farms exploiting these people. Raise the prices if you have to and tell the consumers to shove it. Chipotle just did this, farms can do it. If you can't survive without slave labor don't survive at all.

Chipotle is big; they can do this. Most of their costs are also in store labor and rent, not food. If you're a small farmer, the distributor will pay you $x regardless of how you produce it. There's no market for strawberries picked by well-paid workers, so they don't care.

What you're saying only works if you're Driscoll's and tell farmers to pay workers more or enough consumers demand it, but I just don't see much demand for this. The most we've seen is Fairtrade chocolate, coffee, etc., but there's only limited demand for it.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#935

Post by _dps »

aazaa wrote: post #928

> "We have four positions open," Christy Welch, the co-owner of Black Cat Bake Shop, told the Missoulian. "One is for a barista. We've gotten maybe three to four applications for that job, when we would usually get 20-25. We have three back-of-house positions and we've gotten no applications." > Current pay for most of those positions: $10.50 an hour. Overnight shifts get $11.50. Tips are shared. (Current average ren…

I'm with you re: "pay more if you want more applicants" but this does not sound like a situation where the jobs are economically unviable.

When I was a student in LA in the mid-2000s I lived on basically this amount of money, inflation adjusted. I couldn't afford a one-bedroom, so I split the cost of a three-bedroom with two friends. This was a very common arrangement for people well into their late 20s, especially people in creative professions like writing.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#936

Post by ddingus »

dmitriid wrote: post #750
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah but the job market is not a free market, because not getting a job is existential for those seeking the job, while the company can usually just survive when a position is not filled for a certain time. This is, to begin with, not true. It's common for small businesses to be operating at the margin. If you don't have someone making the sandwiches then you don't have revenue and you still have rent and utilities…

> This is, to begin with, not true. I will never stop being amazed at how Americans argue that something decent is wrong, or untrue, or even impossible... when Europe exists.

Only 30 percent of the USA travels abroad.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#937

Post by wolfhumble »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #879
prepend wrote: post #842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I’m making likely assumptions. Obviously, individual experiences will vary, but when trying to estimate and model cost of living, assuming that everyone was sexually assaulted or traumatized so badly that they can never live with another is not useful. It also denigrates sexual assault victims by assuming that they are alone, without family, friendless, or without a spouse. It is possible for one to recover f…

>...when trying to estimate and model cost of living, assuming that everyone was sexually assaulted or traumatized so badly that they can never live with another is not useful. I'm not assuming this of people, but that's quite an extreme projection you're making... Rather I'm stating that telling people to find roommates or rent a room is generally bad advice, if they're not first time renters then it is reasonable t…

A person that buys a 5 year old version of an iPhone, is probably either a frugal person and/or a person that does not have too much money. To me it seems like a person that is used to think about how to stretch her/his wage. I find it interesting that you can say to this person: "You're not putting yourself in the shoes, nor the mindset of a poor person". Have you walked in this HN member's shoes in different stages of her/his life?

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#938

Post by AtlasBarfed »

or... insufficient compensation? (Yes I know the body addresses this, but seriously, why does every single headline in labor supply only do the false dichotomy of "no workers" vs "americans don't want to do X".

Why do politicized right-wing economists pretend supply and demand pricing doesn't apply to the labor market? It's supposedly the foundational pillar of right-wing extreme laissez-faire cult economics.

Universal healthcare would go miles to making these tolerable/palatable jobs to a wide variety of workers. Often what is lost in the "americans don't want to do job X" is that "Job X DOESN'T GIVE HEALTH BENEFITS".

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#939

Post by sokoloff »

lanstin wrote: post #585
sokoloff wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the question is what do you do when you find people who present with that situation: that they’re perfectly capable to hold down a job but only to create $10/hr of economic value by their labor. If you set the minimum wage at $15/hr and do nothing else, you have made that person worse off than today. Everyone around them now has more money, so everything is becoming more expensive. They now can’t find or keep…

Generally the math works the other way. I worked in a Wendy's for a while; I made minimum wage and most of the people made a little bit more. We cleared $30,000 a month profit for the owner ($100K revenue, $70K for expenses including all of our wages). If a company is so inept they can't generate a bit of value from people, then to be frank, as a society we can afford to be without them. Look at the minimum wage as a…

That’s an amazing level of transparency to share all the company financials with the minimum wage workers.

Re: Labor shortage or terrible jobs?

#940

Post by bradlys »

luckylion wrote: post #783
bradlys wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, that’s nice but it doesn’t really afford a typical professional middle class lifestyle that you would see outside the SF bay area. (Unless partner is at FAANG or surgeon) You’re mostly stuck at liquid comp of $180-220k tops. Obviously if the startup works out, hallelujah. But if it doesn’t - that salary sucks for trying to have a home in a nice school district along with some normal vacations and what not.

> You’re mostly stuck at liquid comp of $180-220k tops [...] that salary sucks for trying to have a home in a nice school district along with some normal vacations and what not. Do you mean "in SF, where the cost of living is extremely high", or are you suggesting that you can't have a comfortable life on $180k/year?

Yes - SF Bay Area.

Obviously you could live like a king in some other regions but they wouldn’t pay $180k most likely for random startup senior software engineer.

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