Posted on 04/06/2025 5:26:30 PM PDT by untenured
The average cost of public education in the U.S. is about $17,000 per student today.
If 13 years of education at a cost of more than $220,000 doesn't get you a high school graduate who is capable of doing moderately skilled work in a modern industrial facility, then the whole system has collapsed and is probably beyond saving.
The guy who owned the plumbing company we used, before he sold it, made more annually than the non-STEM PhDs in our family.
You don’t need two or three jobs if you’re willing to learn a trade.
In government labor statistics "working age" is considered to be anyone 16 and over who is not a student and is not institutionalized. There is no upper age limit on this. So that means the vast majority of those 100M+ "working age" Americans who are not in the labor force are actually retired.
HOW DARE WORKING CLASS AMERICANS WANT MORE JOBS!- The globalist Journal.
I fear that those who think large scale manufacturing jobs will return to the US, are dreaming. While some manufacturing facilities will relocate back here, the much higher US labor costs will have to be offset by dramatic increases in productivity. What is the easiest way to boost productivity???? It is through automation. With breakthroughs in robotics and AI, the well paid manufacturing worker is rapidly becoming cost inefficient.
“Good luck finding workers to fill them. A common lament among employers, especially manufacturers, is they can’t find reliable, conscientious workers who can pass a drug test”
Bullcrap. No, you probably -cannot- roll back into the Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan zone, flip a switch and have loads of workers just like the move to China never happened.
It’ll take time to get things spun up again. Probably a few years. But it needs to happen just the same.
I remember DC spending massively to assist companies in moving to Mexico and China. Maybe we need to help fund businesses returning.
But the pigs who strip mined American jobs DESPISE any effort to reverse that on behalf of the middle class.
Add in that many workers are not willing to enter a profession that for decades had major concentrated effort between industry and government to send those jobs overseas. Why show up on day one of a career with a bullseye on your back? Why come in every day for the rest of your career watching the trade journals to see when, not if, your plant was going to close because the government and Wall Street found a better deal somewhere else?
I graduated with students who were offered jobs before they they even graduated - in Mexico, overseeing the manufacture of heavy equipment for companies that moved their production there.
Manufacturing isn't the only industry that likely burned so many bridges that they're not likely to be able to cross those gaps ever again.
Aviation (having nothing to do with COVID-1984 worldwide lockdowns) is another: Who would enter a profession that required so much training, that didn't transfer anywhere else, only to have your flying hours cut based on government decisions?
Since the illegal COVID-1984 diktats, healthcare is another. Take the shot or get fired. Ignore science. Ignore everything you've been taught. Take the shot or get fired.
The military, which already had recruiting and retention problems, likely cemented their fate with the COVID-1984 diktats as well. There are mostly two types in the military, the largest being one or two tours and out. Who would join for something that wasn't a career, only to be a lab rat for MurdeRNA testing? Conversely, who would try to go the distance for a career, only to find that just before the finish line, you were being told, "take the injection rape or forfeit your pension?"
One might argue, "well, they'll do it or they'll starve." That might work on married men with a family to feed or divorced men with an ex-wife and kids to feed, but as the number of single men increases, single men are willing to "lie flat to get over the beatings" (tang ping) and say "let it rot" to actively embrace a deteriorating situation rather than trying to turn it around (bai lan).
Amazing the percentage of high school grads that can’t do the three r’s of education. System is broken, indeed.
+1
“They expect the rest of society and the worker to bear the cost of education and training and then use this capital interest free as a kind of gift and the lay off or outsource production whenever they see a slight advantage.”
I worked at Boeing for over twenty years and frequently saw this.
My job there was very safe as you just can’t get some foreigner to walk in and do it.
I also worked at the Keck observatory in Hawaii,
same thing, people like me don’t grow on trees.
What does grow on trees is low hanging fruit, and that is easy to replace.
Most our USA population is low hanging fruit.
The fix for that is complex, too complex for me to solve
on my own.
One good step in the right direction would be
to figure out how to keep a large population
of useful “Idiots” busy but happy.
My solution would be entertainment and all the drugs they want.
They seldom did what they used to because they wanted to do so (Ford was something of an exception).
They did it because they had to, and because they still knew how to make autos, planes or steel. Unlike the current grifters who only know how to cut costs by gutting the companies they manage simply to goose next quarter's profits. Look at GE, Boeing, etc.
Exactly. This is like the local gang members lamenting that the neighborhood has become unsafe.
These pricks and the WSJ literally killed those factories, destroyed that workforce, and flooded Oxycontin into those areas.
Then they have the audacity to say they can’t move back because they can’t find workers. Clown world indeed.
… for what he wants to pay.
Correct. When paid to not work most people will choose that. Also, there will be an awful lot of unemployed government, NGO and others available as the government and the largess shrink.
“Largely nonsense: the reason there are so many job openings in manufacturing is because US companies expect to hire already skilled workers and pay them little.”
I disagree. Drug abuse is rampant in many small communities around the country and has ruined many once prosperous small towns. A decade ago I had a manufacturing plant in a small town in a southeastern state with a high unemployment rate. The issue the plant faced was not pay, we paid higher than the prevailing rate in the region. The issue was not skills. We gladly trained people who had good work ethic and a desire to learn skills. Ongoing training and skills enhancement was and still is a major priority.
Many motivated and productive workers who started on the factory floor became supervisors and managers based on strong performance. Benefits were extremely good. A major problem was 40% of the applicants could not pass a drug test. Why did these people apply for employment knowing they would fail the drug test? The state required a certain number of job applications per week to qualify for assistance benefits.
There are good paying jobs in this country and there has been a problem with work ethic for a number of years. There is also a drug epidemic that is destroying our culture, our communities, and our domestic labor force.
Yes, the factory is still in the USA and the owner has no intention of moving it overseas. And yes, the factory still struggles to find good workers who are drug fee and motivated to succeed if given the chance.
Flannery O’Conner reference in title, English lit. major inculcated in Orange Man Bad, verbose: “proclaimed” “lament”.
Glasses, hair in a bun, tigress in the sack.
“”””You don’t need two or three jobs if you’re willing to learn a trade.”””
Once you get the illegals out of the work force that might be the case. The illegals I compete against get free housing, medical and food. Then they under cut me by 10%. In the end they drive better cars than I do because at a 10% reduced pay they make more than I do once you add in the benefits that I pay for.
Plus, they don’t follow all the rules I have to be legal.
$30/hr with overtime and full benefits...to start...will attract more workers than you can shake a stick at.
Drug free and without convictions.
There’s millions of ‘em.
FWIW, my hubby had a great 40 career with a two year degree.
Illegals weren’t an issue because they couldn’t do what he did.
If you want better job security, do what other people can’t do as well as you.
40 year career...
And what we’ve lived through the past forty years has taught us that nothing scares us as much as Deep State.
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