More corporate propaganda to justify more immigration. We have a surplus of labor, skilled and unskilled. The indicator. Wages are going down not up. In fact, wages have been going down in real terms since 1969.
The US has got to get serious about developing a generation of competent adults who have a work ethic and who want to take personal responsibility. Every generation has a good percentage of such people -- but, overall, our system seems less and less capable of producing the people we need. We have to fix our system -- and Common Core isn't helping.
So a kid with a 200,000 education is too unskilled to get a 0-100k job but an illegal sneaking over the border has the skills?
The one item in the article that isn't relevant to this discussion is the shortage of qualified truck drivers. There are many factors tied to that problem that have nothing to do with the labor force or the qualifications of workers.
I do agree that we have a "surplus of labor" in some respects. A big part of the problem is that we have an excess supply of workers in fields that really don't need them (lawyers, for example). One of the positive things that may happen in a period of long-term economic stagnation is that young people might sit back and take a good hard look at their career options before they pursue a career where they end up as just another one of hundreds of thousands of people whose skills and knowledge simply aren't needed.
It is true, though, that we have a skills gap and people aren’t doing much to increase their worth to the employers in many cases, since UI, SNAP, SSDI, Workers Comp and all the rest are so easy to get these days.
Yes, the idea that we 1.) cannot reset the tax rate or the amount of welfare put out by us and 2.)new immigrants won’t know any better-— except that they DO, and once they get here they don’t work but go on welfare and/or work the system to death.
70% of illegals in Texas are on welfare and many are probably in jail, so I don’t think anyone with half a brain cell functioning would see that as a “solution”.
BS, most illegals are even less qualified for these jobs than Americans and they mostly can't speak English sufficiently well to be trainable.
Not really. I work in Industrial Construction and Heavy Maintenance. We have a terrible time getting good welders, pipe fitters, lofting is almost a lost art...
We get high school graduates that can’t do basic math let alone the trig used in pipe and vessel lay out. I and others have had to teach them what the little lines between the numbers on a tape measure mean. They can’t do fractions that I learned in elementary school.
IMO, the wages are down due to the Fed inflating the currency. The higher than inflation ride in cost of healthcare and insurances has not helped either. These are mostly due to lack of real tort reform.
We have a surplus of labor, skilled and unskilled.
Indeed. These corporations do not hire US workers because of government affirmative actions or specific psychological criterias. They want easy labor. Go to Frankfurt Indiana, and the Sheriff will tell you: unless your name is Jose, do not apply.
“In fact, wages have been going down in real terms since 1969.”
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I don’t think there is any room for doubt. In 1969 the minimum wage was $1.60 per hour. Full time meant forty hours a week, not thirty. Unadulterated regular gasoline with no ethanol added could be had for about $.31/gallon in SC. so one hour at minimum wage grossed enough to buy a little more than five gallons. Pure gasoline without ethanol now costs me $4.00/gallon so it takes over twenty dollars to buy the gasoline that one hour of minimum wage would buy then. The ratio on food and such is about the same. My estimate is that in terms of basic NECESSITIES it would take AT LEAST twenty dollars an hour now to equal the buying power of the 1969 minimum wage of $1.60. I reached the age of 25 in that year and had a salary of $7000. a year. Very few people I know now earn enough to match the buying power of that $7000. Before I turned twenty six the following year I had been granted a ten percent increase to $7700. Such merit increases were not at all uncommon then, anything less than an eight percent annual raise was considered stingy. At $7700. I lived as well as someone making $100,000. or more now. How many 25 year olds do you know who earn that kind of money now?
For any of the younger set who think I am just blowing smoke ask yourself how young men used to graduate from high school, go to work in a factory and become married homeowners and fathers by the age of 22. Tell me how many can do that now. In fact how long has it been since it even made sense for a young man to attempt to do that? I still read a lot of stuff about how the world is so filled with wealth now compared to the past and it may be true but the average American working person is nowhere near as well off now as in 1969, IT AIN’T EVEN CLOSE.
Agreed. They place I work has had a revolving door of low end workers who have been supporting themselves through school or supplementing spouses as the couple betters itself.
Now the revolving door has low end workers who are leaving for low end jobs with slightly better pay, or closer to their homes because of gas prices (which is a different sort of raise).
Also government regulations have made the work more dangerous. These are jobs that used to make 15 to 18 per hour in 2003. and are now being booked in at 9 to 12.
The corporation is looking for slaves. Leftists are looking for slaves. We are going back to a slave economy.