I saw an story in Slate about stagnant wages in an economy that is growing otherwise:
There's a disturbance in the force of the U.S. economy. An airline canceled flights because it couldn't find enough pilots to steer them. Despite high demand, homebuilders in Colorado are throttling back activity because they can't find the workers to erect frames. Farmers in Alabama are fretting that crops may rot in the ground for a lack of workers to bring in the harvest.
[...] There are a whopping 5.7 million job openings (well over twice the level of eight years ago). Meanwhile, baby boomers are aging out of the workforce at a rapid clip and Mexicans, many of whom crossed the border to work, have been leaving the U.S. for years. The demand for workers is high.
Given these conditions, wages should be rising sharply. But look at this chart from the Atlanta Federal Reserve: They haven't been, and they're not. … Last week, the New York Times featured a Columbus, Ohio, cleaning company owner mystified that he couldn't find applicants for his $9.25-per-hour jobs ("I sometimes wish there was actually a higher unemployment rate," he actually said) and a Nebraska roofer who couldn't figure out why nobody applied for the $17-an-hour jobs she was offering. "The pay is fair," she said.
Actually, if not a single person applies for your job, the pay probably isn't fair. But that's where America remains stubbornly stuck: Employers won't pay enough, and workers either won't or can't demand more. There are likely a lot of reasons, but the biggest, or least most fixable, may be psychological: From an economic perspective, both sides of the hiring market should have the power to increase overall wages in the current climate—but they aren't.
[...] There could be a skills gap in which the workers out there simply don't have the training necessary to fill the open jobs. Or it could be that, as Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times ventured on Twitter, that "a lot of American businesses have lost the muscle memory of how to compete for workers." That is to say, they have literally forgotten the words to use, and the tools to deploy, when workers aren't lining up in droves to fill their positions.
I also found this in the Daily Caller. It discusses the shortage of H2B workers this year. Most folks here know about H1B workers... H2B is program for low skill seasonal workers which has seen rule changes and cuts this year.
Businesses in Bar Harbor, Maine are turning to locals to make up for a shortage of foreign guest workers that normally fill summer jobs in the bustling seaside resort town.
Because the H-2B visa program has already reached its annual quota, Bar Harbor's hotels, restaurants and shops can't bring in any more foreign workers for the rest of the busy summer tourist season.[...] The shortage is so acute that companies are sweetening incentives for local workers. Searchfield says some businesses are offering flexible schedules that might appeal to older workers who might be interested in working only a day or two each week. And other companies have gone so far as to offer higher wages to entice locals.
Imagine that.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @05:49PM (6 children)
This is the US, in pretty much the whole country you can fire people at any time for virtually any reason. There's a small list of reasons that you can't use for firing people, but other than that, you don't even need a reason at all.
Sure, your unemployment insurance might go up a bit if you fire people, but other than that, it's not that big of a deal in most cases. You hire the people needed to do the job and you fire them if there's no longer enough demand for it.
If they can't find people to do the job for what they're offering, they're supposed to offer more money until that's either no longer the case, or they can't afford to offer more. In which case, they just scale back a bit.
The problem more than anything else is that most employers are cheap as fuck and anything above free is taking away from their absurd profits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @06:31PM (3 children)
Yup, I had a boss who had a gambling and drinking problem. I never saw the books, but the book keepers were always a bit shocked. Gotta love when your hard work is treated to job insecurity and lack of raises. Employers by and large are incredibly selfish and view any employee benefit as whiny entitlement. Or they guiltily just say the company can't take it, otherwise known as "I don't want to give you any of the nice pie, like those scraps!"
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @08:11PM (2 children)
...and just plain assholes.
...and, in so many cases, when they say "job", they're NOT talking about fulltime employment; they're talking about "The Gig Economy".
Regarding the cleaning company mention in TFS, for those who don't like giving NYT pagehits, I read about that in another place:
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 15 2017, @09:42PM
"(Question: Why does he require an educational history--including "Major / Subjects studied"--in order to hire a fucking janitor?)"
Maybe the same reason that larger employers require some very specific education? So they can reject any application they don't like. For instance, "nationality". If you're not an Indian H*b then you're fucked. In this specific case, the employer may be a racist, and he's going to use lack of education to block any black males, especially if they use ghetto-speak gangsta-talk. There are jobs that do require some specific levels of education, sure, but there really aren't that many of them. Janitor services are most certainly not one of those jobs.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by kaszz on Sunday July 16 2017, @12:14AM
If you pay someone more than X per year, you have to pay 12 987 US$/year in addition for Obamacare?
Anyway, this seems to be the costs as outline by OriginalOwner:
* Time for five-page job application.
* Time for meetings or training.
* Travel (by car?) for interview and drug screening.
* Little notice = other activities can't be planned.
* Car loans, insurance, fuel and repairs.
* Cell service 20 US$/month.
* Bank account fees.
* Maintenance for a desktop PC + printer to deal with PDF retrieval and return.
* Personal protective equipment.
* Heavy equipment carrying risks for future backpain and thus medical cost and sickleave.
I don't know what the specific costs would be. But it sounds darn expensive to work. Normal business is done to make a profit and not charity. So what they are looking for really is a charity to help their profit making business. They are not even looking for slaves because such people can't take on debt etc.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 15 2017, @09:32PM
You don't "fire" people without reason, normally. Yeah, it happens from time to time, but generally, not for the reasons you state.
When I was in construction, I was routinely ROF'd - that is, laid off due to "Reduction of Force". Generally speaking, when the rainy season hit, a lot of construction workers were laid off. And, generally speaking, when business picked back up, those same workers were put back to work on another new job. Construction workers usually try to get into a job that is likely to continue through the rainy season. In home construction, that means erecting a half dozen shells during the spring and summer months, so as to have the empty shells to work in during the rain.
Other industries have their own idiot-synchrosies, but there is no need to "fire" people to get rid of them when business is slow.
All of that said - yes, many states have adopted that "At will" work clause. Both employer and employee enter into a business relationship "at will". When there is no longer a will to work together, either can leave the relationship, without any need to give a reason. Of course, that works to the employer's advantage, and almost always to the employees detriment.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday July 16 2017, @10:05AM
What, the groundskeepers and cleaners and builders and maintenance people are leaving? Quick, we need to stop them! Build a wall! We need to build a great wall on the SOUTHERN BORDER, and much more! Stop illegal emigration!