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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: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @07:06PM (2 children)
The unemployed, or they lose welfare, unemployment, or any other gov't handout. This crap I keep hearing "I want to start in management" is really "I'm fucking lazy and want a cush job" is bullshit. There's also a lot of jobs the incarcerated can do. Instead of making prisons "Club Med" put them to work. I worked my ass off from age 15 (while still in high school) until I retired early at age 55, there's no excuse for not working when you're able but lazy.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @01:40AM
So true, we should just make them work for food and shelter. People don't really need anything more than that. And move them around when they are needed someplace else. This crap I keep hearing "I want to start a family" and "I need a living wage" is really "I want free sex and booze"
Since they're not quite regular workers maybe we should find a new name for them. How about "forced labor" or "shtraf company". The last one has a nice ring to it ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @06:53PM
You're obviously not American. The United States has a grand tradition of penal labor. [wikipedia.org] U.S. prisons have been called an "employers' paradise". [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Saturday July 15 2017, @07:16PM (8 children)
From the perspective of HR, MBAs, or investors, giving employees more money is the same thing as throwing it away.
Employers aren't supposed to collude among themselves to keep wages down. But, they can hire a third party to conduct a survey and determine the "market rate." Once they have their magic number of what a position "should" pay, why would they want to pay more than that?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @07:27PM (7 children)
This is completely true, but at the same time it's also an incredible illustration of a tragedy of the commons.
Companies treat employees as employees and consumers as consumers, but on a high enough level these people are one and the same. Even for low paid employees working at high end producers. Those low paid employees spend their salaries at other companies whose owners and investors are the consumers for the original high end store. As their lower end store suffers as the low paid employees suffer so too does the high end producer. Marginalizing employees results in marginalizing consumers. In an effort to simply do what companies think is in their own best interest, they end up hurting themselves more than they could ever imagine. It's really quite intriguing that this is so simple an effect that I think anybody could see it, yet at the same time it's such a decentralized and gradual effect that nobody would ever be willing to change their practices to prevent it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @08:38PM (3 children)
You misspelled "Capitalism".
Other than that, you are on the money.
A cleaning company was mentioned in TFS and I expanded on that upthread.
There is an ideal opportunity in that instance for that jerk's employees to form their own company, a worker cooperative and out-compete the jerk.
In so many cases, the solution is Socialism replacing Capitalism.
(You can bet that the owner of that company does none of the actual labor but takes an enormous portion of the company's income.)
...and even when it comes to non-shit jobs, we've previously mentioned a Socialist workplace.
Swedish Worker Cooperative Software Development Company Has No Boss [soylentnews.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @01:18AM (2 children)
That sounds fantastic! When are you forming your cooperative? Where can I join?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @09:56PM (1 child)
when: 1956
where: Mondragón, Spain
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @04:52PM
Oh, never again?
Weird, I'd have thought that someone as smart (and sexy, and devastatingly handsome, and witty of course!) as gewg_ could have started something up in the USA.
But maybe not. Oh, well. Back to the drudgery of capitalism.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 16 2017, @07:45AM (2 children)
No, they obviously aren't. Even if we choose to believe this statement, what should societies be doing to help companies act the right way? Instead, companies are being blamed for everything while simultaneously, societies are making it very hard for companies to employ people.
It's been the rationale for screwing over businesses in favor of labor unions for the past 80 years (and the Marxists were pulling similar tricks back in the 19th century with their labor-focused obsession). We're seeing here the limits of such favoritism. Employers just aren't employing people. They aren't going to train them, they aren't going to move them, they aren't going to pay them more. Why? Because employees already cost too much. A job has costs beyond just the wages and benefits offered, including risks of litigation and lost investment from employees who move on.
This results in the current situation where employers would rather the work just not get done than employ people unprofitably.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @05:05AM (1 child)
And yet the profits are always rising and the bosses are always getting richer. Clearly there is more and more money, it's just being given to fewer and fewer people.
You treat employees poorly and are then surprised when they move on to better places, (even though thats already impossible, since you just claimed to be paying the "maximum" that will make your company profitable.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 17 2017, @07:31AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @08:52PM (2 children)
I didn't accrue 6 figure education debt so I could sweat for a living. You owe me a 6 figure salary job in an office, or preferrably at home.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @09:17PM (1 child)
Hahaha the jokes on you! Your college degree precludes you from employment! Bring in more H1B!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @11:06PM
this guy -- he is headed to the board of directors with that type of thinking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @12:49AM (2 children)
...but total compensation has, and is, in fact, at more or less normal historical levels, in terms of ratio to productivity.
https://www.nber.org/digest/oct08/w13953.html [nber.org]
However, wages have remained stagnant as "fringe benefits" consume a larger and larger share of workers' compensation. I'd wager exploding health care costs are a large part of this, with nearly all gains going to ever increasing insurance premiums. Couple that with housing costs which have been continually outpacing inflation and the result is Americans' take home pay is lower than ever before.
Gee, I wonder why we keep having all these problems with highly regulated sectors of the economy, really makes you think...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @01:20AM
A lot of fringe benefits have favourable tax treatment owing to explicit government incentives as policy. It mkaes sense for a company to sponsor everyone's stuff if there's a good tax reason for them to do so - and then they can supplement the ostensible cash value of their wage structure with the benefits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @03:46PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deimtee on Sunday July 16 2017, @05:22AM (8 children)
The biggest fuck-you to US employees ever, was the tying of health insurance to jobs. It started as a way around Government limited wage rises, but employers quickly realised how it could be used as a leash. Not just your healthcare, but your family's was dependent on you not telling an abusive employer to go fuck himself. It is a major restraint on anyone who has a modicum of familial responsibility.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 16 2017, @08:43AM (7 children)
But not enough familial responsibility to save money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 16 2017, @07:17PM (1 child)
Not everyone is a Physically and Mentally Perfect John Galtian Ubermensch like you khallow, some people know their limitations and just want a decent job.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 16 2017, @10:41PM
Sure, they do. It's really bizarre to think that saving money is somehow a trait of some superior sort of humanity.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday July 17 2017, @01:34AM (4 children)
How does saving money get you out of the health insurance mess? If you try to pay yourself, hospital costs are vastly inflated. The insurance companies have cozy deals where they pay only a fraction of the "official" bill that you get handed. Sure, if you're earning megabucks you can pay private insurance or just pay direct, but for some poor slob on minimum wage that is not really an option.
Also, even if you do save, given the system as it exists there are better things to do with savings than be the lone nut bucking the system.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 17 2017, @06:52AM (3 children)
It's not the insurance that's the leash here, but the risk of the insurance being dropped, should you lose your job. Here's where savings works. You pay the insurance premiums from savings until you get a new job and then you have employer insurance again. So even in the situation where we work completely within the employer-based system, we still see the power of savings to allow you to both weather the risk of layoff (you do know that employers do layoffs and fire people, right?) and actually look for jobs better than the one you have.
And one of those huge things to do with savings aside from being the "lone nut bucking the system" is fuck you money: the ability to leave a job without compromising your familial responsibilities.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday July 17 2017, @01:42PM (2 children)
If you leave an employer, can you continue to pay the employer's insurance company the same premium, and continue with the same coverage? Serious question, as I do not know.
If not, then you are subject to all those waiting period and existing condition exclusions on your new policy.
But more than that, it is a mindset thing. People look at their take home pay, $X per week and their expenses, usually almost $X per week.
You are proposing that they not only give up $X when they quit, but that their expenses suddenly go up by $Health_Insurance at the same time. That's scary, even if you have another job lined up.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @04:55PM
It's more or less possible, with some details left out. Same premium - yes, but not same premium to you. You have to pick up your employer's side of it as well (since they're not longer putting money in that kitty), which generally doubles it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 18 2017, @01:50AM
There are a lot of things worse than fear, for example, being the fall guy for multiple felonies. And leaving a job may not be voluntary. Fuck you money works just as well when you're fired or laid off.