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Given an opportunity and a mechanism to retrain or switch careers, people can do that But most people don't. Offer retraining of entirely different work to 10

Given an opportunity and a mechanism to retrain or switch careers, people can do that But most people don't. Offer retraining of entirely different work to 100 truck drivers whose jobs don't exist any more, and maybe 10 of them will go through on it. We should do what we can to help those 10 do it, but most people will want to stick with something at least related to what they know. And they don't want to be on direct welfare, even though someone typing out code would think that would be nice. We can make labor cheaper to ease the pain on people's lives. Raise my taxes to boost the EITC. Make employment cheaper by reducing payroll taxes and all other business expenses related to employment. And these are tunable fixes. Once you put otherwise employed people through long periods of unemployment, they become very very hard to get back to work. If you keep them working, even part time, it's easier to restore them to full employment should the need arise.

Retric 10y ago
Retraining is expensive in lost wages if nothing else. "Retraining" without that is financially difficult and minimally useful for older workers.
mindcrime 10y ago
Offer retraining of entirely different work to 100 truck drivers whose jobs don't exist any more, and maybe 10 of them will go through on it. Assuming that is so, to my mind the salient question is "why?" That is, why only 10? Is it that the other 90 just don't want to be retrained? Is it that the retraining wasn't accessible to them for some reason (child-care, transportation, etc.)? Or maybe some of them started it but dropped out for some reason? Is it that they "couldn't hack it" or is that we don't really know how to retrain people properly? I would hope there has been research directed at this, as it seems to me that we'd want to find a way to maximize the number of people who do take advantage of retraining, and who ultimately benefit from it.
- monk_e_boy 10y ago
  It's really hard. I'm doing it at the moment. I'm a 40 year old man being trained up with a bunch of 20 something women for a job. It'll take a year and it is really hard going. It was hard to get onto the course. I've taken a huge loan. I'm shitting my pants. I've got no idea if I'll like the job or be good at it. It's the biggest gamble I've ever taken. The stress is unreal. Most of my fucking hair has fallen out. My body is just falling to bits. It feels like my heart is either going 200% or 10%. When I read posts saying "Why don't people re-train?" Its for the same reason you don't re-train as a doctor or a teacher or for the police. Because it's not what you do. It's not what you want to do. It's hard to change. It's a massive gamble. I imagine if you have no qualifications it's even harder.
Frondo 10y ago
Demand for a good or service is what's going to drive employment. Why would I keep a worker around, even at zero cost, if I didn't need them to be employed? When those 100 truckers are put out of work, how is cheaper employment going to make them useful to another business owner?

Retric 10y ago

Retraining is expensive in lost wages if nothing else. "Retraining" without that is financially difficult and minimally useful for older workers.

mindcrime 10y ago

Offer retraining of entirely different work to 100 truck drivers whose jobs don't exist any more, and maybe 10 of them will go through on it. Assuming that is so, to my mind the salient question is "why?" That is, why only 10? Is it that the other 90 just don't want to be retrained? Is it that the retraining wasn't accessible to them for some reason (child-care, transportation, etc.)? Or maybe some of them started it but dropped out for some reason? Is it that they "couldn't hack it" or is that we don't really know how to retrain people properly? I would hope there has been research directed at this, as it seems to me that we'd want to find a way to maximize the number of people who do take advantage of retraining, and who ultimately benefit from it.

monk_e_boy 10y ago
It's really hard. I'm doing it at the moment. I'm a 40 year old man being trained up with a bunch of 20 something women for a job. It'll take a year and it is really hard going. It was hard to get onto the course. I've taken a huge loan. I'm shitting my pants. I've got no idea if I'll like the job or be good at it. It's the biggest gamble I've ever taken. The stress is unreal. Most of my fucking hair has fallen out. My body is just falling to bits. It feels like my heart is either going 200% or 10%. When I read posts saying "Why don't people re-train?" Its for the same reason you don't re-train as a doctor or a teacher or for the police. Because it's not what you do. It's not what you want to do. It's hard to change. It's a massive gamble. I imagine if you have no qualifications it's even harder.

Frondo 10y ago

Demand for a good or service is what's going to drive employment. Why would I keep a worker around, even at zero cost, if I didn't need them to be employed? When those 100 truckers are put out of work, how is cheaper employment going to make them useful to another business owner?