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Most businesses that rily on unskilled labor are tripling down on automation / systems engineering. The common explanation is cost savings, but I've observed a

Most businesses that rily on unskilled labor are tripling down on automation / systems engineering. The common explanation is cost savings, but I've observed another major driver : quality of service. Our current unemployment rate is virtually the lowest in 20yrs and it's hard to hire ANYBODY as a result. (1) And the low unemployment rate has had the interesting effect of upwards mobility for the traditional unskilled clerk / laborer / driver / server / etc. As a result the labor pool that is showing up is less professional / educated than they have been in the past which is creating major quality of service issues, training issues, etc. Automation in some of these jobs is a necessity, as the automation tech is a closer reality than availability of "professionalized" unskilled labor. (1) https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z1ebjpgk2654c1_&met_y=unemployment_rate&hl=en&dl=en https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z1ebjpgk2654c1_...

mc32 8y ago
There are still lots of folks who are chronically unemployed[1], whose skills have atrophied. It's nothing new, U-6 has gone up and down over the years, but we really have not put a good dent in it. Many people forget about them altogether. They are not all un-retrainable. [1]http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/10/news/economy/95-million-out-of-workforce/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/10/news/economy/95-million-out-...
- csomar 8y ago
  I think the problem when you are on the lower end of the market, it doesn't make much financial sense to train you. Nobody is going to invest in these people. The only entity that can save them is the government (ie: social help).
rtpg 8y ago
It's pretty amazing how the narrative around labor has generate an expectation from employers that employees should get their skills from anywhere but them. Skilled employees come from being trained and taught. They don't fall from the sky.
- 1123581321 8y ago
  I don’t find it amazing, but it’s an issue I try to help solve where I have control. The trouble with an offer that includes training is that it is effectively a provisional offer. Candidates do not like that unless they think they’re getting training valuable enough. Meanwhile, employers don’t want it to be too valuable or else they’re just training people to work somewhere else. So, the offer needs to come with an expectation of 2+ (depending on industry) years of employment on both sides without actually being contractual (again, industry dependent) because of employment laws and because training costs can’t be clawed back as they’re just payroll going to an unskilled worker. Navigating this, in my experience, takes a lot of emotional intelligence on our part and I don’t know how I’d scale that in a bureaucratic organization.
  - lovich 8y ago
    They don't have to train people to work somewhere else. It's perfectly legal to offer training to someone with a claw back on training costs if they leave before x years. The issue is that this creates a contract and every employer in the US currently wants to have at will employment at all costs. I have had managers complain about turnover and offered to sign a contract with them if we could agree on set goals that would translate to a set raise if reached each year. They don't even entertain the thought. Companies and managers want to just mine society for skilled labor but put zero investment into creating it. They can lie in the bed they made at this point. Most employees would prefer known stability. We didn't all start job hopping because the idea of working at one place for 40 years and retiring comfortablly became unpalatable to the population at large. We started getting treated as disposable and now employers are treated as disposable right back
    - 1123581321 8y ago
      Yes, I don’t think either party wants to be locked into a contract. Your personal example is interesting, though. I’d like to think we would entertain a contract if presented the idea, but that would require negotiation, as I mentioned, and I don’t see how training contracts with financial consequences to the candidate could scale effectively in a bureaucratic org —- but again, it’s a puzzle I keep trying to solve. I respect but don’t generally share your dimmer view of the labor market, but I do agree that some companies have made it difficult for other companies to present themselves as stable places worth investing time into. I also think some employees have made it difficult for other employees. I try to improve the situations I can control.
mojomark 8y ago
Not bad points, but I won't believe youre first statement (Re: "tripling down" on automation) without a citation. The heart of what's going on (good or bad; I tend to think it's bad for society in general) does not lie on the surface, instead it's rooted on the flawed notion that profits to appease shareholders should be maximised and indeed prioritized over corporate goals that benefit society in general. Increased automation and productivity are a good thing. They have the potential for increased standards of living for all. Unfortunately, the profits from increased productivity are not being redistributed/recycled into higher wages and a more educated workforce, they are instead being hoarded at the top by shareholders accumulating wealth. That's certainly the prerogative of shareholders, but it's a foolish shortsighted bet. This faulty thinking is depleting a large consumer base because an increasing number of people have less to spend on taxes, and also products/services that these same companies sell. So, they're basically stealing from the future to eat heartily now. The future of our children, as a result will have a less educated and poorer populous, resulting in more crime, litter/pollution, and likely even a social atmosphere ripe for violent revolution thanks to the increasingly segregated wealth gap. It is what it is, and you can bet your sweet bippy that I'm not selling the stock I've accumulated for the good of the masses in the long term. However, I don't think it needs to end poorly. If you want to dig into this deeper, I highly recommend "WTF? What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us," by Tim O'Reilly.(1) It explains the philosophical shift that needs to occur to repair our societal trajectory, not just for the sake of the 99%, but also the 1% (and even the 0.01% where the worlds wealth reserve is truly accumulating). 1.) https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062565716/wtf/ https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062565716/wtf/
AlexandrB 8y ago
> Our current unemployment rate is virtually the lowest in 20yrs and it's hard to hire ANYBODY as a result. (1) This observation is so weird in the context of flat wages and the proliferation of sub-minimum-wage "gig economy" jobs. If labor was really scarce, shouldn't that put upward pressure on wages? Perhaps what automation is doing is giving employers a way out of competing for labor. The long range consequences seem pretty obvious: massive, rising inequality.
- falcolas 8y ago
  There's a second option I just recently understood in the "high employment == high wages" equation - employers can just wait longer for hires at the wages they're offering. And, based on the way employers keep the jobs posted for months or years, it seems to be working for them. I guess in a way it's just another signal that the jobs being filled aren't that critical.
  - grigjd3 8y ago
    In a lot of cases, a job opening listed for months or years reflects a company continuously hiring. I certainly know our office does that.
  - protonimitate 8y ago
    I've always found it strange that the most 'critical' job positions are among the lowest paid / furthest down the totem pole. I work for a medium-sized established tech company. We've been running without a CTO and Director of HR for > 6 months. Everything has run smoothly. We've even had open positions for mid-tier management that have gone unfilled for long enough that they were deemed 'unnecessary' and the req was closed. However, we had two of our operations people (one step above entry level) leave, and our regional office almost tanked completely.
    - tsunamifury 8y ago
      It's almost as if a CTO is around to make sure stuff like that doesn't happen...

mc32 8y ago

There are still lots of folks who are chronically unemployed[1], whose skills have atrophied. It's nothing new, U-6 has gone up and down over the years, but we really have not put a good dent in it. Many people forget about them altogether. They are not all un-retrainable. [1]http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/10/news/economy/95-million-out-of-workforce/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/10/news/economy/95-million-out-...

csomar 8y ago
I think the problem when you are on the lower end of the market, it doesn't make much financial sense to train you. Nobody is going to invest in these people. The only entity that can save them is the government (ie: social help).

rtpg 8y ago

It's pretty amazing how the narrative around labor has generate an expectation from employers that employees should get their skills from anywhere but them. Skilled employees come from being trained and taught. They don't fall from the sky.

1123581321 8y ago
I don’t find it amazing, but it’s an issue I try to help solve where I have control. The trouble with an offer that includes training is that it is effectively a provisional offer. Candidates do not like that unless they think they’re getting training valuable enough. Meanwhile, employers don’t want it to be too valuable or else they’re just training people to work somewhere else. So, the offer needs to come with an expectation of 2+ (depending on industry) years of employment on both sides without actually being contractual (again, industry dependent) because of employment laws and because training costs can’t be clawed back as they’re just payroll going to an unskilled worker. Navigating this, in my experience, takes a lot of emotional intelligence on our part and I don’t know how I’d scale that in a bureaucratic organization.
- lovich 8y ago
  They don't have to train people to work somewhere else. It's perfectly legal to offer training to someone with a claw back on training costs if they leave before x years. The issue is that this creates a contract and every employer in the US currently wants to have at will employment at all costs. I have had managers complain about turnover and offered to sign a contract with them if we could agree on set goals that would translate to a set raise if reached each year. They don't even entertain the thought. Companies and managers want to just mine society for skilled labor but put zero investment into creating it. They can lie in the bed they made at this point. Most employees would prefer known stability. We didn't all start job hopping because the idea of working at one place for 40 years and retiring comfortablly became unpalatable to the population at large. We started getting treated as disposable and now employers are treated as disposable right back
  - 1123581321 8y ago
    Yes, I don’t think either party wants to be locked into a contract. Your personal example is interesting, though. I’d like to think we would entertain a contract if presented the idea, but that would require negotiation, as I mentioned, and I don’t see how training contracts with financial consequences to the candidate could scale effectively in a bureaucratic org —- but again, it’s a puzzle I keep trying to solve. I respect but don’t generally share your dimmer view of the labor market, but I do agree that some companies have made it difficult for other companies to present themselves as stable places worth investing time into. I also think some employees have made it difficult for other employees. I try to improve the situations I can control.

mojomark 8y ago

Not bad points, but I won't believe youre first statement (Re: "tripling down" on automation) without a citation. The heart of what's going on (good or bad; I tend to think it's bad for society in general) does not lie on the surface, instead it's rooted on the flawed notion that profits to appease shareholders should be maximised and indeed prioritized over corporate goals that benefit society in general. Increased automation and productivity are a good thing. They have the potential for increased standards of living for all. Unfortunately, the profits from increased productivity are not being redistributed/recycled into higher wages and a more educated workforce, they are instead being hoarded at the top by shareholders accumulating wealth. That's certainly the prerogative of shareholders, but it's a foolish shortsighted bet. This faulty thinking is depleting a large consumer base because an increasing number of people have less to spend on taxes, and also products/services that these same companies sell. So, they're basically stealing from the future to eat heartily now. The future of our children, as a result will have a less educated and poorer populous, resulting in more crime, litter/pollution, and likely even a social atmosphere ripe for violent revolution thanks to the increasingly segregated wealth gap. It is what it is, and you can bet your sweet bippy that I'm not selling the stock I've accumulated for the good of the masses in the long term. However, I don't think it needs to end poorly. If you want to dig into this deeper, I highly recommend "WTF? What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us," by Tim O'Reilly.(1) It explains the philosophical shift that needs to occur to repair our societal trajectory, not just for the sake of the 99%, but also the 1% (and even the 0.01% where the worlds wealth reserve is truly accumulating). 1.) https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062565716/wtf/ https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062565716/wtf/

AlexandrB 8y ago

> Our current unemployment rate is virtually the lowest in 20yrs and it's hard to hire ANYBODY as a result. (1) This observation is so weird in the context of flat wages and the proliferation of sub-minimum-wage "gig economy" jobs. If labor was really scarce, shouldn't that put upward pressure on wages? Perhaps what automation is doing is giving employers a way out of competing for labor. The long range consequences seem pretty obvious: massive, rising inequality.

falcolas 8y ago
There's a second option I just recently understood in the "high employment == high wages" equation - employers can just wait longer for hires at the wages they're offering. And, based on the way employers keep the jobs posted for months or years, it seems to be working for them. I guess in a way it's just another signal that the jobs being filled aren't that critical.
- grigjd3 8y ago
  In a lot of cases, a job opening listed for months or years reflects a company continuously hiring. I certainly know our office does that.
- protonimitate 8y ago
  I've always found it strange that the most 'critical' job positions are among the lowest paid / furthest down the totem pole. I work for a medium-sized established tech company. We've been running without a CTO and Director of HR for > 6 months. Everything has run smoothly. We've even had open positions for mid-tier management that have gone unfilled for long enough that they were deemed 'unnecessary' and the req was closed. However, we had two of our operations people (one step above entry level) leave, and our regional office almost tanked completely.
  - tsunamifury 8y ago
    It's almost as if a CTO is around to make sure stuff like that doesn't happen...