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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Hmmmmm....
Well, my little brother told me point blank that everyone deserves a living wage. Poppycock.
They don’t deserve anything.
They get what they negotiate for and what the job is worth.
For instance: McDonalds....How much right brain does it take to press buttons or wait for a buzzer to tell the fries are ready or now you must turn a burger over?
Seriously, if McDonalds finds them selves paying $15 dollars an hour for burger flippers and my hamburgers start costing me $10 I’m at Smith and Wolensky where they they will serve a “Fat” burger with plank style fries and I can get it rare the way I like it.
Oh, and no salt on my food, another way I like to order my food.
Grocery clerks will absolutely be replaced with only a few for those who just have to interact with other human beings.
I see a “Self Checkout”, I’m there and out of the store, lickity split.
Low level skill jobs pay low level wages. You want moh muhnny, then get your azz to work and figure what it takes to get the skills you need, learn them and then go get that job that pays $100k so you can be a big shot.
It’ll put you in the top 7% as well, of all wage earners and you buy all that stuff you thought people were lucky to have, only to learn they, like you, worked their sorry asses off to get where they are, took a lot of other peoples Shiite, got bumped and scrapped...but, hey...we think we’re happy..with our stuff and facades of happiness.
They won’t figure it out until later in life that no one really cares about the stuff you buy. They aren’t impressed and you are not really interesting.
Better to want more but to want to do more interesting things and build great friendships and family.
I prefer to go for a walk in the woods or walk along the shoreline of the Pacific.
God speaks to me there....
It isn’t highly skilled labor anymore.
It’s Xbox skills.
Many people, including me, understanding computers down to command line issues.
When I say most people I’m talking about those under 45, for the most part.
It ain’t rocket science to us and it’s programming a parameter or an outcome.
Super simple, really....
These companies wonder why they can’t find good help. It’s because they’ve made a bad reputation for themselves, and nobody in their right mind will work fork them.
The cost of wages is not set by the employer, is it ? The wage is set by the market, based on demand of the product. At least that’s the way I learned it in economics.
Also from the linked article: "As he spoke, I realized that this isn’t a narrow problem facing the manufacturing industry. The so-called skills gap is really a gap in education, and that affects all of us. "
Both of these statements reveal the author's lack of understanding what is happening in the U.S.
The fact of the matter is that there is nothing which is going to enable a skilled American citizen to out-compete a skilled Chinese while enjoying a higher standard of living, aside from interference by the Chinese government in the Chinese economy to an extent greater than the interference today in the U.S. economy by its government.
The same is true of skilled workers in India.
What we have witnessed over the last several decades (and which we witnessed in regard to Japan in the prior several decades) is that highly-educated, highly-motivated Chinese will naturally identify industries which are relatively easy to start-up and will out-produce more highly paid Americans.
As time goes on, the Chinese must identify more and more industries in which to engage. Those industries that are more challenging to start-up are simply the ones which will be established later rather than sooner.
But the bottom line is that there is very little reason to believe that any job in America that can be done in China won't someday be done in China, given that the Chinese will accept a lower standard of living.
This is what my son has found. A level II CNC operator is going for $13 and hour in our area. Considering what it takes to learn that machine, that’s insane.