1) Thanks to the decline in standards, younger college graduates have minimal critical thinking skills.
2) Companies have not adjusted to the idea that people who do have experience and critical thinking skills are demanding to be paid accordingly.
Thus, there is a now huge deficit of early-to-mid career professionals who can think and who are willing to to work in the same inflation-adjusted salary range they would have been willing to work in twenty years ago. Faced with a choice between paying more than they want to pay for the talent they need and spending a lot of money on remedial in-house training, companies are naurally looking overseas for a quick fix.
Companies who are smart enough to bite the bullet and pay the going rate are going to gain a competitive edge that more than makes up for the extra salary expense. Very few MBA-run firms get that concept, though. You start to run into senior managements with the "Well, I never got paid like that when I was coming up!" attitudes. Well, you didn't work now, Pops. The game has changed.
I suspect in your West Loop example, a "great salary" as opposed to a "good salary" would have rapidly attracted just the right candidate. ;)
With my broad brush, I’d junk Capital Gains taxes, sales taxes on plant and equipment, and the minimum wage.
The idea is to draw foreign capital here. If skilled immigrants land here, so be it.
Although what you say may be true anecdotally sometimes. It is also not true many times.
- Conservatives I met doing COBOL-DB2 took a couple classes in C++, Java, Oracle and other cheaper paying specialties. Those people refuse six figure legacy positions (which has always been where the money is because we are judged more productive). These people inexperienced in new technology turn up their nose at jobs that need them and are seeking high salaries in new careers that just aren’t there at that salary rate.
- This snobbery is prevalent on many levels. As I implied earlier in this thread, I’ve had well qualified people turn up their nose and working “in the middle of the corn fields”. No pay level will change that.
An big office complex wanted to re-carpet everything ... a 2 year project. I suggested to an unemployed, near illiterate public school product, friend (who owed my money) that he take the job. He was young, healthy, fully qualified for a job that only required that and no education. His answer was that “He did not do SPIC work”.
After a hail storm insurance companies paid claims for thousands of new roofs and siding in my suburb (I live in 3 places at the same time). The contractors put ads in the MSM, Black and Spanish newspapers; and in the Unemployment office bulletin boards of employers seeking employees, and in the web site of the unemployment office. The only requirement was people willing and able to go on suburban roofs and work hard and get dirty ... and not have a hangover or be under the influence in a way that would make them incapable of doing the job.
Among a dozen contractors, not a single Black, white or Asian citizens even applied for any of the jobs, not even for the “estimator” jobs that required some education and communication/sales ability. The only people who applied were a small number of Eastern European illegal immigrants and Hispanics (both citizen, legal and mostly illegal). Many from the same family were hired by word of mouth without ever seeing the many help wanted ads. The first guy got a finder’s fee for bringing in his brother-in-law and cousin to work with him. The contractors were desperate. The homeowners were desperate to get the roofs fixed before there was further water damage below the roof.
In those entry level construction positions they rapidly moved up from $15/hr to $25/hr if they showed up on time and actually worked. That was August 2004. Some of those guys now have 3 years construction experience; own their own companies and are contractors themselves now. They’ve been buying those same suburban houses in my area that they previously roofed. And they are mostly buying on conventional mortgages with no subsidy, no FHA, just a friendly bank (my bank) that loans to illegals.
I'm actually looking for a job ideally in the West Loop or Oak Park/Forest Park area, and I could tell you quickly enough whether the salary is competitive. I lived in the West Loop for almost five years, and basically know all that needs to be known about it.