Posted on 08/24/2014 6:54:55 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
America has a deficit of workers. Willing workers. Capable workers. Skilled, or at least semi-skilled workers, who can do a job and do it well. There are at least one million jobs that go begging day after day if only employers could find workers to fill them.
This probably seems hard-to-believe. After all, how can America have a worker shortage when we have about 18 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed? When the real unemployment rate is 12 percent?
Well certainly the economy isn’t creating nearly as many jobs as it should – in large part because of regulatory and tax restraints on hiring workers. Obamacare’s anti-employment impact, including the rule that caps employment at 50 workers or less at many firms to avoid the law’s higher costs, is just one example of a law that adds to unemployment lines.
But there are also millions of unemployed Americans who don’t have the skill sets to match what employers are in need of. To make matters worse, a lot of these frustrated job searchers have college degrees that are about as marketable as the paper diploma they are written on.
So what kind of jobs are going unfilled?
* Manufacturing – We always hear we are losing good manufacturing jobs in America and those bedrock middle class jobs aren’t coming back. Gregory Baise, the president of the Illinois Manufacturing Association, tells me that there are “some 500,000 jobs we can’t fill. It’s the biggest problem our industry faces.”. The industry needs welders, pipefitters, electricians, engineers. It needs people skilled in robotics and basic engineering.
* Trucking – At any time over the last several years there have been about 30,000 too few truckers to run long haul routes. The American Trucking Association tells me the number could be closer to 50,000. This is admittedly a tough and high-stress job with lots of time away from friends and family. But they are jobs that pay $50,000 and up, and a lot more than that with overtime.
* Energy – Bloomberg reports that “Gulf Coast oil, gas and chemical companies will have to find 36,000 new qualified workers” by 2016. Many energy towns have unemployment rates of less than 3 percent – in other words, there’s a worker shortage.
These aren’t menial or “dead end” jobs. They typically pay between $50,000 and $90,000 a year and with benefits the compensation can climb to $100,000. That’s rich in most nations.
Bob Funk, CEO of Express Employment Professionals, one of the nation’s largest temporary employment agencies located in Oklahoma City, places more Americans into jobs than just about anyone. With nearly half-a million hires a year he tells me, he can find a job for “any American with a strong work ethic and can pass a drug test.” He also estimates that the worker shortage – those with skills to fill available jobs – “is at least one million and probably higher than that.”
Why is it so hard to fill these jobs?
One reason is the curse of the so-called “skills mismatch.” American workers with high school or even college degrees just aren’t technically qualified to do the jobs that are open. This is a stunning indictment of our school system at all levels considering that all in parents and taxpayers often invest as much as $200,000 or more in a child’s education. We’re not turning our kids into competent workers.
Some governors like Mike Pence of Indiana have moved to make vocational education more standard in the Hoosier State. It’s a great idea and it’s a start.
But this won’t solve the whole problem because many companies are already willing to offer 3 to 6 months on the job training for trucking and manufacturing jobs. They will teach them men and women how to operate the machinery, the computers, and the scientific equipment. These aren’t sweatshop jobs.
Mr. Funk cites figures that more than half of the applicants for these kinds of jobs in the temporary job market can’t pass a drug test. “They are unemployable in that case,” he says regretfully.
Then there is the issue that these jobs don’t get filled because the work lacks glitz and glamour.
Too many Americans have come to view blue collar jobs or skilled artisan jobs as beneath them.
Contributing to this attitude is the wide availability of unemployment insurance, food stamps, mortgage bailout funds and other welfare. Taking these taxpayer handouts is somehow seen as normal and a first, not a last resort. One owner of a major trucking company told me last year, “drivers who get laid off don’t come back until their unemployment benefits run out.” This is documented by research from my colleagues at the Heritage Foundation who have found that “4 million Americans laid off in the recession faced effective marginal tax rates near or above 100 percent [because of welfare benefits], significantly reducing their attachment to the labor market.”
There’s no doubt America needs millions of more jobs. But we could put one million more people in jobs tomorrow if we get schools to train our kids with core competencies and if we could instill in Americans an old-fashioned work ethic. The only dead-end job is no job at all.
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I wish few of us could find a way to get hired over at Card Member Services...You know, the ones that call you a lot to ask you if you want to reduce your credit card debt, and improve your interest rates on existing cards???
Wonderful people, I just wanna “hug” all of them, from the janitor, customer service people, to the CEO...
Then...
“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.
+1
“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?”
That’s the GOPelite/Democrat party line.
The biggest impediments to hiring good workers are managers that write extensively detailed ‘requirements’ and ‘qualifications’ lists and the HR bimbos that scrape everyone off the list that doesn’t meet each and every one of those nonsense requirements.
How about a few more of them: Union contracts, prevailing-wage laws, and the Jones Act.
What's driving this is productivity in every industry (even government, if you can believe that). Your statement that "good paying jobs in manufacturing have been transferred abroad" doesn't really get to the heart of the matter. Even with many good paying jobs in manufacturing being transferred abroad, the U.S. still leads the world in industrial output. That's true ... the U.S. manufactures more than China, more than Japan, and even more than the entire European Union combined.
The reason for this is that it simply takes less human labor to produce a single unit of anything that can be produced by human hands. The number of "good paying jobs in manufacturing" that have been moved overseas is miniscule to the "good paying jobs in manufacturing" that have been lost to automation.
According to recently published data from the United Nations, the fear that China will displace the United States as the world's largest manufacturing nation has been realized. Manufacturing value-added in China totaled $1.92 trillion in 2010 while U.S. manufacturing value-added was $1.86 trillion.[1] China therefore accounted for 18.7 percent of world manufacturing in 2010 while the U.S. share was 18 percent. When measured in terms of U.S. dollars, China is the largest manufacturing nation in the world.
China Widens Lead as World’s Largest Manufacturer
According to the latest research from the United Nations, China has further outpaced its competitors in world manufacturing, generating $2.9 trillion in output annually versus $2.43 trillion from the U.S., the world’s second-largest manufacturing economy.
Over the last two years, China’s manufacturing sector has made strong gains, while the U.S. has been mired in economic and political doldrums.
“In 2011, China’s manufacturing output surged by 23 percent while manufacturing output in the U.S. only increased by 2.8 percent,” the American Enterprise Institute explains. “That brought China’s manufacturing output last year to more than $2.9 trillion, which was almost half a trillion dollars (and 20 percent) more manufacturing output than the $2.43 trillion of manufacturing output that was produced in the U.S. last year.”
Depending on what statistics you believe, the EU now exceeds the US in manufacturing output. In any event, it is about the same.
The reason for this is that it simply takes less human labor to produce a single unit of anything that can be produced by human hands. The number of "good paying jobs in manufacturing" that have been moved overseas is miniscule to the "good paying jobs in manufacturing" that have been lost to automation.
I have no source to verify your assertion. Regardless of the cause there are less good paying jobs in manufacturing. I might add that I have traveled to China and seen some of the factories that international businesses have set up there, including many US firms. They have the latest in automation technology. Coupled with cheap and educated labor, they can compete in terms of productivity.
The American worker is being threatened at home and abroad. The importation of foreign workers to take American jobs and depress wages does not bode well for our future.
And, the most important external intervention of all...
Massive legal and illegal immigration.
In 2013, we issued 1.1 million new Green Cards, most of them to low skill, low education workers.
In 2013, we created 750,000 new citizens, most of them low skill, low education workers.
In 2013, we issued or extended about 650,000 work visas, most of them to medium skill workers.
In 2013, we had about 7 million illegal workers, most of them low skill and low education.
The “natural” wage scale for low skill workers in America has been crushed.
The “natural” salary scale for certain skilled occupations in America - like software engineers - has been stagnant for 15 years.
What's he expect? He's paying 1989 wages...
Gezzz
‘What’s he expect? He’s paying 1989 wages... “
A friend is a substitute teacher. He’s making 8.75/hour. You must live in California.
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.
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.
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The US tightened fed regs and took truckdriving out of voc high schools last year and made it a voc college programjust in time as NAFTA opened the border to Mex drivers. Of course US drivers are welcome to work in Mexico, but do not because it is so unsafe. Again a one way steet.
Get real pal....If you’re making 8.75 per hour in 2014 anywhere in the U.S., you’d better be living in your parents house and have no bills...
Some of you people have not a clue....
Getting back to the original question:
1. Do you think China has grown to this position because the U.S. is importing tens of millions of immigrants?
2. Do you think the loss of "good paying jobs in manufacturing" is a cause of a problem, or an effect of something else?
What exactly does the term "natural wage scale" mean in the context of this?
Well, I’m not sure I want to start a debate about language here.
Namely, what is - or, what is not - external intervention.
My point is that overt government policies on immigration have flooded America with a huge oversupply of labor, most of it low skill, low education labor.
When the supply of labor is larger than the demand for labor, wages go down.
And that is exactly what has happened in America for the last 20 years.
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