Posted on 11/26/2012 9:40:40 AM PST by ksen
Eric Isbister, the C.E.O. of GenMet, a metal-fabricating manufacturer outside Milwaukee, told me that he would hire as many skilled workers as show up at his door. Last year, he received 1,051 applications and found only 25 people who were qualified. He hired all of them, but soon had to fire 15. Part of Isbister’s pickiness, he says, comes from an avoidance of workers with experience in a “union-type job.” Isbister, after all, doesn’t abide by strict work rules and $30-an-hour salaries. At GenMet, the starting pay is $10 an hour. Those with an associate degree can make $15, which can rise to $18 an hour after several years of good performance. From what I understand, a new shift manager at a nearby McDonald’s can earn around $14 an hour.
The secret behind this skills gap is that it’s not a skills gap at all. I spoke to several other factory managers who also confessed that they had a hard time recruiting in-demand workers for $10-an-hour jobs. “It’s hard not to break out laughing,” says Mark Price, a labor economist at the Keystone Research Center, referring to manufacturers complaining about the shortage of skilled workers. “If there’s a skill shortage, there has to be rises in wages,” he says. “It’s basic economics.” After all, according to supply and demand, a shortage of workers with valuable skills should push wages up. Yet according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of skilled jobs has fallen and so have their wages.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Hard to pay those higher wages when other countries pay 1/4 that much, if that much, to workers and sell their cheap crap here. An unrestricted global market if all start at the same place, too bad we started light years ahead in living standards and technology and have to go backwards to let everyone catch up.
Oops, meant to type “global market works if”
Read the last sentence in the article. He’s saying the problem is education. The remedy will be that we need more “education”. It’s the New York Times....they can’t help themselves.
Stupid reality messes lots of things up.
Manufacturers don’t want to pay for labor - skilled or unskilled. I have thirty years of experience in industrial maintenance and have had offers of $15/hr. Luckily I have a job and am making okay money. Don’t think it will last long, though. The only people making any real money these days are govt. workers and money changers.
Isn’t education essentially the same as OJT or shop classes?
They NY Times talking about supply and demand? What has the world come to?
There is a shortage of long-haul truck drivers for this same reason. Trucking companies think people should be eager to jump at a job at any wage. Potential drivers don’t think the pay being offered is worth the downside (long time away from home/family), so they look elsewhere.
Eventually the free market will work it out.
‘Part of Isbister’s pickiness, he says, comes from an avoidance of workers with experience in a “union-type job.” ‘
Unless the job applicant’s last job was in a right-to-work state, he probably didn’t have much choice as to whether or not he was in a union. Turning the applicant down for that reason alone, if he has a good skill-set, work record etc. may be ill-advised.
Not really. What they are really admitting is that all the money that they keep throwing at education is a dismal failure:
"The problem, he finds, is that far too few graduate high school with the basic math and science skills that his company needs to compete."
We didn't have this problem years ago before all the socialist programs in education.
The answer (other than changing Presidents) is to change the laws to favorably treat the hiring of independent contractors. But the unions go ballistic every time that subject comes up.
We pay our Ind. Maint. Techs $21.80/hr to start, and cap at $25. Still can’t find anyone worthwhile, willing to work OT on top of that.
I realized that this was exactly what would happen when we
did NAFTA. It was meant to bring all living standards to
the same level around the world. The world only needs a
few brain surgeons but lots of lesser skilled workers.
Why should a guy with the same skills here live better
than the same guy in India? That’s the way the globalists
see things and they have been in control for a while.
Things are all going according to the plan.
Perhaps the burden of Government is now so great that machine shops cannot make a profit without offering very low wages.
If there’s no Worker-Employer match it’s not the business’s fault. Businesses employ people in order to make a profit, and they must compete with other businesses.
Either there’s no one suitable to hire or the cost-of-employment in the state is simply too high for a Worker-Employer match.
Depends on who you talk to. Many people see a difference between training and education. The point is that the writer writes about the lack of skilled workers in manufacturing jobs and then closes the article by saying that the real problem is a lack of education. I can guarantee you he’s talking about going to college. The Democrats are scared that fewer people will go to college.
Companies used to train and manage. Now they don’t train and they don’t know how to manage. Frankly, very few managers even have skills anymore. “Manager” is now a career field and not a job position. “What do you do?” “I am a manager. I have a degree in management.”, not, “I am a facilities engineer and manage a facility staff of 15 for a heavy equipment company.”
“We pay our Ind. Maint. Techs $21.80/hr to start, and cap at $25. Still can’t find anyone worthwhile, willing to work OT on top of that.”
My brother does that kind of work and the rates you mention sound very competitive for the southeast US. Not sure how that would compare nationally.
The Democrats are scared that fewer people will go to be indoctrinated in college.
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