Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Here's How We'll Have Labor Shortages And High Unemployment At The Same Time
The labor force and the job market are referred to as if they were monolithic structures. But they're not monolithic, they are complex aggregates of very different cohorts of age, skills, mobility, education, experience, opportunity, potential and motivation.
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labor shortage? you mean all those illegal aliens the chamber of commerce loves are all on welfare and not working?
ReplyDeleteYou misspelled communist. Might be a problem with autocorrect.
DeleteYears ago, I worked with a grocery chain at the department-head level. I went years working overtime, and was not allowed to use my vacation/ sick leave. When I finally put in my 2 weeks notice, after 8 years, I was told that they were not going to reimburse me for any of my accumulated vacation or sick pay. They basically told me to hire a lawyer and sue them if I wanted it. A&&holes!
DeleteAnother problem is my age group that spent 20 years learning from the boomers how to build, operate, and fix these industrial plants have changed fields. Shit pay (no retirement, either), long hours (60+ hrs / week w/ sometimes getting straight time for OT... Sometimes!), rotating shifts, and layoffs have driven quite a few of us out of those industries. It'll cost them far more than I'm worth to ever get me back!
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, you didn't go through anything that the Boomers before didn't. When I was in my 20s I worked an 84 hour work week and when I got laid off, I cashed out something like 6 years worth of vacation time that I wasn't allowed to use because of 'work requirements". I'd have killed for a 60 hour work week.
DeleteAnd it's not us Boomers that are going to suffer when there's suddenly nobody left that knows how to operate or repair essential machinery - we'll all be dead or dying.
I was born in 1959, technically in the 'boomer' generation. Nobody gave me nothing. I spent 42 years painting bridges. Boom or bust kinda work. 90 hour weeks for months on end, then laid off when the weather changed. Pay was damn good, but we had to fight for every dollar.
DeleteDoubt any of us will be on hand for all the suffering that is coming.
Yeah, I don't miss 7x 12+ hr days. Took a big pay cut to get out of it. I'd rather grow my own food than ever go back to that. It's not worth it. At least to me it isn't.
DeleteThey're no fun, that's for sure. I wished I'd had an option to bail, but back then in the Central Valley, if you had a job you held on to it. If you quit, it might me months or even years before you found another one.
DeleteDave, oh boo hoo. Cry me a river.
DeleteSo why don't you saddle up and undue all the 'wrong' you so unfairly deserve?
Just today I read a comment to a video posted to YT. The idiot reminded me of you; by his own admission, he contributed nothing but he demanded the channel become better for he was not sufficiently entertained. BTW: it was a 'how to' video.
I reckon the chutzpah of that fellow is lost on you.
I worked 16 hour days/6 days/week to get my business going. My employees made more than I did. And they still squabbled that I had dollars flowing out of my pockets. For years I had an open invitation for any to examine my books. In six years, not one took me up.
DeleteBefore that, I started at minimum wage - even though I knew I could hire on elsewhere for 3x times that. Within the year I was paid 3× that plus running four guys under me plus mentoring plus profit sharing plus employer paid health. Not bad for a small business.
Before that I worked two PT jobs, 1 FT job (a total of three) plus attending college full time.
My dad, career Marine, after separation, worked twelve hour days then went to night school 5 days/wk. I learned from him. I also learned from *some*, (not all) older men that you have to push, push, PUSH! your way through life. Not to be unkind or unpeaceable but to be unstoppable. Even then, success is not guaranteed. But its the path of dignity, not whining like little David.
Maybe ol Dave don't think he's whining, not according to his generation. But boy, you need to read a history book or two. It has always been this way.
Stop bellyaching and push on.
Best advice: latch on to some older men to soak up knowledge and understanding. That used to be a given. It seems its not that way anymore. All I hear is nihilists talking about a day of the pillow.
Haha, as if. A bunch of ferals raising each other.
You know what you boomers had? A majority white society, for starters. An actual nation, for another. There's a reason the three generations after you either relish or are indifferent to the knowledge that someday the immigrants your peers invited in hoards will smother y'all with pillows. Repent Boomer!
Delete"Always been like this" You've always had craniorectal inversion? Huh. Interesting but how's it relevant? You parasites inherited the richest, least diverse, freest society in history and you raped and murdered it. America is dead because of your g-g-generation.
Proverbs 13:22 "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous."
Reconcile that with "spending the kids inheritance!" while you're contemplating eternity.
PS: a boomer pastor friend and mentor of mine wrote the sermon that included that verse, and he used it to castigate his generation for their sin. He's an example of a good man who happened to be born into a generation he despises and doesn't identify with. Be like him.
Oh. noes. If only girly men would have babies.
ReplyDeleteFor those who always have breakfast: There is no use (not "need", even "use") for temporal production, in a financialized economy. If there is nobody to fix the carbonized engine, to mine tofu from the ground, the price of tofu goes up. The tofu company makes bank. The bankers make bank. The Pritzkers make bank. And what is the greatest cohort of finacialized lives? (hint for the breakfast eaters: it ain't the screen watchers)
The only peeps that don't make bank, are the interweb influencers; the screen watchers; the rent payers (to the beskilled rentiers). Now. Let's gander at who's wailing, about not being able to have somebody else mine Their(TM) tofu.
At the plant, they call them khaki pants, the educated midlevel managers who are supposed to be educated, are getting paid too well for what they are not managing. It's supposed to take 45 minutes to unload truck. Test a sample, hook up the hose. 2 and a half hours the old guy finally gets called down from HIS job to chew some ass & ream the khakis who are not doing their job. Too many (manager) chiefs, not enough indians. One guy did it backward, hook the hose, test the sample. It was bad, and corrupted 500,000 pounds in a silo. Then he tried to snip the tape. Didn't realize there is a chip recording everything inside the machine also.
ReplyDeleteOur state expects you to report new hires to see if child support is supposed to be withheld. There is no corresponding reporting form to fill out for Quit or Fired.
Jerry
The old time elite have openly called for the world population to be reduced to 500 million as fast as possible, comes covid 19. They've been advocating for this reduction for decades. The new elite are happily calling for the "day of the pillow". It seems to me that in all of this desire for the imminent death of 7.5 billion humans it's forgotten that their lifestyle will be reduced just as dramatically as the lowliest peon. And, they will be even more dependent on those remaining peons.
ReplyDelete