27 ms·

The reason employees aren't returning to work in America [video]

121 points by baybal2 5y ago

theshadowknows 5y ago
It’s so crazy to me that people wonder about this. Maybe it’s people who’ve never had a normal job. But most jobs suck. Most jobs are demeaning and poorly compensated. Most jobs can and will fire you for no good reason and most jobs provide little to no protection. Most jobs will fire you for being late a couple of times. And most jobs come with no respect or prestige at all..what’s wild to me is that people don’t seem to understand that. I guess they never unloaded trucks in 100 degree weather for 8 dollars an hour or mopped up gas station toilets at 5 am for 12 dollars an hour.
- bogota 5y ago
  I really don’t get this attitude. Are people just too full of themselves today to do menial work? I have a good job now but from before high school to after college I worked jobs in places were the customers were rude and treated you like shit along with your coworkers and managers. As far as I know you still need money to live do people think it’s now the responsibility of the government to take care of them if they have to work a job that sucks? I really can’t wrap my head around it it’s just not how i was raised. This just smells like entitlement at the same level people accuse “the rich” of having.
  - endymi0n 5y ago
    The Boomer generation needed just 306 hours of minimum wage work to pay for four years of public college. Millennials need 4,459. Calling that out doesn't sound like entitlement to me.
    - bogota 5y ago
      Sure call it out but not working is what im talking about. Life is always unfair. I started working in 2009 I am familiar with shit jobs that pay nothing.
      - aaron-santos 5y ago
        It sounds like your saying "life is unfair so we have no obligation to try." I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it's difficult. Maybe you meant something else.
      - ggggtez 5y ago
        Honestly, if you are trying to so a "back in my day" to 10 years ago... I think you should take a moment and reexamine some of the fundamental facts that you are basing your worldview on. You're likely relying on flawed anecdotal evidence to decide how things used to be. It's possible your personal journey is effected by your experiences. 2009 was a financial crisis, when I'm sure many people were desperate for money. Others delayed entering the workforce by taking on college debt. It's not a sign of a healthy economy, but the strategic decisions of millions of people... And in 2009 there was no pandemic. You weren't risking actual life and limb to work a 9-5. In 2009 most people didn't have smartphones. There was no real option to make money online. And let's be clear: just because people aren't working for a corporation in a 9-5 doesn't imply they aren't working. Today you can make money online easier (Only Fans comes to mind). The people who become internet models can make more money quitting their jobs and devoting their effort to content creation. And honestly, a pornstar has more prestige and better hours than McDonald's, too...
  - LocalH 5y ago
    It's entitlement to refuse to be treated like garbage? I feel like it's rather entitlement on the part of those who are treating workers like garbage. Employers expect employees to "go above and beyond" but I see that as a two way street. I will "go above and beyond" for a company that does likewise with me. I will do no more than the basic job functions if the job demands more than its rightful place in my life, or if they attempt to abuse me.
    - bogota 5y ago
      Being treated like garbage and a job inherently being shitty aren’t the same thing. People seem to confuse that. All this is doing is driving automation at a faster pace and the people who once did the jobs will now have something new to complain about when they have no job available at all in 10 years
      - MrStonedOne 5y ago
        The majority of the jobs that can't hire people are customer facing jobs where the job is to be treated like garbage by customers
    - oliv__ 5y ago
      Fine, so find another job that suits your snowflake requirements
      - taurath 5y ago
        What do you think people are doing? Aren’t the business owners the snowflakes here, demanding their right to pay people peanuts for labor and earn them profits?
        oliv__ 5y ago
        They're not "demanding" anything. They're offering jobs for wages which you deem too low.
      - LocalH 5y ago
  - touisteur 5y ago
    Maybe it's time we change attitudes towards menial jobs, then. No more accepting bad customer or managerial behaviour would be a start. Customer isn't always right, and even then they don't have to be encouraged being shitty to service workers by... Letting them pay the lowest price possible. Maybe now shop owners will have better incentives to discipline their customers or give humane working conditions. Or you know, barring that, better pay. About fucking time service workers had some bargaining power back.
    - indymike 5y ago
      > Maybe it's time we change attitudes towards menial jobs, then. A menial job is not menial. It is just a job. Labels like "menial" and "low skill" aren't fair to anyone and are there to sell people on taking less pay. > About fucking time service workers had some bargaining power back. This is really the truth. It is about time.
      - touisteur 5y ago
        I agree and should at least have put quotes in there. I've made a personal mission of trying to rehumanize every damn job, saying hello, how are you, stopping sometimes to talk about kids or the shitty people leaving shit in the kids playground, or just asking how's the family going. Not only did I make friends with the bus drivers, the street cleaner, the store cashier, the security people everywhere, but now I feel better the pulses of my communities, and have a far less difficult time talking to new people and giving or asking for help. I know those people and they know me. During the pandemic, I just sometimes asked news about family or kids and the amazon drivers here were crushed, their families sick and dying all around. One of them stopped and just cried there. Yes as one other commentor said, it's a job, man up, do it. But also, when there's a crying father there telling me he's been yelled at the whole week, he's been late for deliveries for days, and getting his pay docked, fuck ALLL that. Come on, have a water, a coffee if you can stomach it, late for late... And talk. Learned some of my neighbors needed a talking to. No one deserves to be treated like that. I... didn't see people were so shitty to each other, especially what one lady called 'the help'. Even the people I'm never gonna see again, it costs me almost nothing to say hi, hope your day's OK, thanks, and it brings sometimes the simple joy of talking for 2 minutes and feeling all fucking human. Some make it hard (uber eats kids...) but still, hi, everything OK? How's your family? I can't do much, but tipping and talking, yes. And don't let me started on making your salary almost only from tips. You're really wondering why you can't find 'help'?
  - ggggtez 5y ago
    I think it requires superhuman levels of mental gymnastics to defend accusations against billionaires being parasites, while putting down the working class for not putting up with having people yell in their faces... Honestly it's such a leap of logic that likely no one understands what exactly the thrust of your comment is trying to get at. I'd like to look at the more charitable part of the argument: "back in my day, we worked shitty jobs and we liked it, because we needed money". Ok, sure. But the economy was different in the past. Many people need to work 2 jobs to maintain the same standard of living. At the same time, the prestige and respect of such jobs have declined. There are less paths to retirement. This is a logical response to a system that is overworking people, without long-term prospects.
  - ubercow13 5y ago
    People trying to better for themselves is not them being entitiled. There is nothing noble about working hard for bad pay and in bad conditions just for the sake of being a hard worker. If people are choosing other options instead of going back to their shit jobs, and the system isn't providing good enough opportunities for enough people that's a failing of the system, not of those people for lacking a strong Protestant work ethic and not rolling over and letting themselves be exploited. Anyway the video is about these people choosing to work for themselves or being otherwise entrepreneurial, not being entitled and lazy like you are implying.
    - crazydoggers 5y ago
      So who does the hard jobs? Who slaughters the cows. Who picks the vegetables in 100 degrees. It sure is damn noble. Someone has to do it, or we all have to. And I give those people amazing props for doing those things. Many of us have either done those jobs and taken pride, or have family who have in order to better the lives of those children. Saying that work is not noble is demeaning to those who worked for your current standard of living.
      - ubercow13 5y ago
        >Saying that work is not noble is demeaning to those who worked for your current standard of living. The video is about people choosing better opportunities for themselves. If there aren't people to do those hard jobs, then those jobs need to compete with the opportunities these people are choosing instead, for example through higher pay. Saying these people should choose worse work, for the benefit of others (eg. business owners), by appealing to some nebulous concept of nobility is exploitative.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - MrStonedOne 5y ago
        Nobody until those employers start paying enough and stop making the job harder for the sake of policies that only serve the employers interests. can't get workers to work hard 8 hours a day doing hard labor, maybe add more breaks than the minimum you are legally required to? Or maybe stop suspending the workers next two shifts because they were 5 minutes late from traffic 1 too many times? Maybe consider that threatening to fire workers if they don't work late or overtime isn't productive? Maybe stop paying minimum wage which hasn't risen with inflation or rent prices and increase your prices out to compensate or consider that if baseline worker wages have risen slower than inflation, but management's wages has risen faster than inflation, you've had to do so off the back of your workers ability to have spending money outside of barely living.
- nikanj 5y ago
  I’m yet to hear an UBI proponent explain to me how those jobs would get done. The naive go-to answer is ”automation”, but on HN people generally understand how hard automating unskilled labor is
  - api 5y ago
    The most likely outcome is that they would be outsourced to people who don’t know anything other than menial labor. There are better ways such as variable work weeks and gig/day labor for easily acquired menial labor (on top of UBI), but that may be a bigger shift in culture than UBI.
  - ScaleneTriangle 5y ago
    Better pay, better working conditions.
  - DocTomoe 5y ago
    They would get done by paying them better. And at some point, automation would be cheaper than labour. That being said: Unloading trucks is a solved problem that can be automated with sufficient containerization.
    - ianhawes 5y ago
      > That being said: Unloading trucks is a solved problem that can be automated with sufficient containerization. Go read https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedexers https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedexers and let me know how solved that problem is.
  - mupuff1234 5y ago
    I think a lot of people wouldn't mind doing such types of jobs if they only need to do 2-3 shifts a week, in fact, I think a lot of people would enjoy it. I think it's mostly the mix of overworked + low benefits + knowing that you have to do it otherwise you'll have nothing is the deal breaker - not so much the job itself.
    - 5y ago
- crazydoggers 5y ago
  > Most jobs can and will fire you for no good reason and most jobs provide little to no protection. Most jobs will fire you for being late a couple of times. Well at least in the US we have unemployment benefits when you’re fired without cause. But yes, being late a few times is cause to be fired, and rightly so. I think perhaps the real issue is that people’s perceptions have changed, and I don’t think for the better. If you’re an unskilled laborer, then for the moment, your value to society is doing unskilled jobs. Now a whole host of reasons cause people to be unskilled. From their current socioeconomic status, to mental health reasons etc, to just honest poor life choices, like not valuing education. But there’s no free lunch in society, and ultimately that’s the current disconnect. Those that can only get unskilled jobs have now gotten benefits extended and are enjoying not doing “demeaning jobs”. And yet how do they enjoy that? Without society safety nets people would then need to do the demeaning jobs of supplying their own food and water. Hunting or foraging for food in 100 degree weather for 0 dollars, dealing with injuries on their own. So these same people complaining are also willing to take for granted the strawberries and meat at the grocery that another person worked hard for to provide. They take for granted the shelter that was built and maintained over there head, but they don’t see that they should provide equal work back to society for that enjoyment. Now there’s obviously a lot of real issues with labor fairness, minimum wage needs to be increased across the board, companies need to be held accountable for pushing a gig economy that strips employees of benefits etc. But the progress in labor fairness in the US, 8 hour work days, minimum wage, workplace safety, has been fought for in literal blood. Now we have a generation of people who take all that for granted, and that’s a problem. Edit: I also add this. These same people who say others haven’t worked such jobs, have not themselves lived in a society that is truly difficult. Many people have lived through or had family live through conditions that would make these people cry. Ask a migrant. Ask people who have had to flee countries and could barely subsist. Those people are the ones thankful to have a “demeaning job” because in reality, difficult does not mean demeaning. It’s entitlement, very pure and simple. And it won’t serve this generation well. Prove me wrong with reasoned responses and discussion rather than downvotes.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
- varelse 5y ago
  This presents a fantastic opportunity for these gigs to explore market efficiency, much to the chagrin of the people who wish to keep paying them subpoverty wages. If our overlords can't protect us from a deadly pandemic then what good are they?
- anovikov 5y ago
  But people will return to work once free stuff is over. And it is over now. In a month or so there will be a glut of workers again once people realise that their rent is due and free money is no longer hitting their accounts.
  - taurath 5y ago
    Time will tell. Certainly those paying starvation wages are hoping that is so.
    - anovikov 5y ago
      But what will be the alternative? Will these people run to the woods or what?
- bitcuration 5y ago
  Everybody's interest is different, some care about job security, others are greedy want much more. It depends on personal needs, conditions, life stage and capability. You cannot attribute to a single reason universally when explaining this. However in a tough time like this, it's disadvantageous to a society where everybody just look after themselves. I bet you in Japan this type of problem and question are less wondered, as people are treated by and treat the employer as home/family, took a personal interest instead of merely a means to make living, although at least in the past not sure it's still the case nowadays. True, what's feasible in Japan may not be suitable to a multi-culture society like US, or many other countries. But human motivation and value system are more or less the same across the globe. For example, some companies make employee their partners, gives stock options no matter how small percentage it is, a real bounding exercise must be financial based. Relying on enchanting employee to work relentlessly while in truth they're just pawn ready to be dispensed at any moment, how many cycles does any employer seriously think such trick will last before any employee with even below average IO would figure it out? It's not sustainable.
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    They aren't more or less the same around the globe. It is a very western, and relatively recent social structures we believe to be true everywhere. What is the same global, for the most part is the capitalist model adopted because of it's success and power over other models. You get a pay for your labour that is negotiated with your employer who keeps a company afloat and pays dividends. The social aspect is vastly different in many countries where the shareholder and employer, or at least the manager treat its employees nearly like family. Yes you get a pay cheque and profit is the ultimate goal, but the bond between workers is so strong it influences business decisions. Some will hire a less competent candidate simply because he is close to the worker community, it provides trusts and reinforces the "family" structure. Japan is mentioned, but it applies similarly to most countries in Asia, and to some degree other continents as well. It is often not spoken of or display, or accounted for explicitly. Humans develop and break those bonds as things go along.
    - donkeybeer 5y ago
- oliv__ 5y ago
  Oh, so you mean to say that life is hard?
uselesscynicism 5y ago
What is this video? A random person wandering around and speculating? This is Reddit content.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mdorazio 5y ago
Personally, I don't buy this argument. Economics doesn't care about your feelings or your dreams. If you need money to pay your bills and the only way to get that money is to work a shit job, you will work the shit job. Three things changed during the pandemic: 1) the government paid a huge amount of money to people to not work for a long time, 2) people got used to living much more cheaply than they had before due everything being closed, and 3) the immigration and trade market shifted significantly. So suddenly you have a large number of people who, at least temporarily, have options that they didn't have before and who probably aren't competing with the same size labor pool that they did before. The whole narrative that Americans are suddenly waking up and realizing that they should all be entrepreneurs and follow their dreams is at best a feel-good second-order effect. It's a nice story, but the only reason new business starts are so high right now is because there were so many business closures last year. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but I just haven't seen the data or economic theory to support this video's position.
- ffggvv 5y ago
  yeah, i’m sure it applies to a few thousand peoples but not the millions of jobless people. not everyone even has a dream they are passionate about following in the first place. for the most part people just want a stable job and to be able to enjoy their life outside work. there aren’t millions of new entrepreneurs out of nowhere. it’s a romantic idea
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- junon 5y ago
  > the government paid a huge amount of money to people to not work for a long time They did? I remember three teeny tiny payments. Certainly not enough to live on for a long time.
  - ctrlp 5y ago
    Did you go on unemployment benefits?
drewcoo 5y ago
Thank goodness it's only one reason. I was worried that if the workers of the US suddenly developed agency and started thinking for themselves, there could be many varied motivations.
- trutannus 5y ago
  Fallacy of the Single Cause has become a popular ope-ed trope lately.
nine_zeros 5y ago
These reasons are valid even in the tech industry - especially for engineers. I can see engineers making $400k/yr quitting as if it is nothing. They just can't see themselves being treated like a cog in the wheel, reporting to incompetent management. From my conversations, these engineers just tired of reporting to managers who are not technically as skilled as them but have large boss egos. They don't want to be treated as subservient slaves with a paycheck. They especially don't want to report to paper pusher managers who only do performance reviews and suck all the visibility onto themselves - when the real output producers are the engineers. To boot, these engineers have the financial means to just quit their previous bosses. Why spend your one life reporting to an incompetent management?
- surfingdino 5y ago
  It is a huge problem in our industry. I have had people quit because of or be fired on a whim of a boneheaded slavedriver who couldn't explain what an API is if their own life depended on it. The banking industry if probably the worst for overblown egos of non-technical managers (who are proud of being non-technical) and their incompetence.
SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
One of the core arguments seems to be that ”you don’t need to go finding people to hire if you never let them go”. The only people my company lost are the people who were making more on unemployment than at their job. Most were making $18/hr working, and $24/hr with the extended benefits. We allowed them to leave if it made more sense for them, as a favor to them, hoping they would return, some have. All the other positions that we’re struggling to fill, are new positions. We need a sysadmin in Detroit and I can get one, not even close. So… no, I don’t subscribe to this argument. We didn’t let a single person go, and are in the same boat as everyone else. Covid was a great thing for the megacorps and I think we should consider if that was all coincidence or not. Local resturants let people go, fast food places didn’t, neither can get enough people. My local Thai place can’t pay the $20/hr and signing bonus to match the McDonalads two blocks down. This is a particular blight on small business. Maybe if we could pay a level1 IT tech $95k/yr we might get one, but big Nope on that.
- guenthert 5y ago
  > We allowed them to leave Unemployment benefits are only paid after lay-off. Those who quit their job or a fired for misconduct won't get a cent.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    Yes. We agreed to lay them off it if made more sense for them financially or for their health.
abdel_nasser 5y ago
Why is this on hackernews? Where were the youtube videos on HN duing occupy wallstreet? Are we really going to be a place to watch videogamedunkey videos and internet talking head videos?
- ShamelessC 5y ago
  Ignoring your seeming disinterest in all of YouTube (fair enough), the creator of the video might be relevant to the Hacker News audience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Rossmann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Rossmann I personally enjoyed the video. I guess there are a lot of business owners on HN? The message seemed fairly simple. People got fired and it was the last straw after dealing with their employer's bullshit pre-pandemic. The lie sold by most office jobs in my experience is that if you're here for awhile; they will take care of you even when times are tough. If you're going to make it 100% about money; pay them more/don't fire them. Otherwise they can quit and not come back. That's the deal.
aazaa 5y ago
tldw: They realize that job security is an illusion. Aside from the problem that zero evidence is presented that "employees aren't returning to work in America," the idea that they're freelancing instead is just outlandish. It's the kind of thing you might expect a successful but out-of-touch entrepreneur to spout. Paycheck-to-paycheck living, which has been amply documented, means you have no agency. You work or you begin your journey down the social ladder. Often you do both. Assuming employees aren't returning to work, there can only be two reasons: 1. there are no jobs, despite what employers might be saying; or 2. government transfers (extended unemployment, etc.) have been keeping them afloat. Extended unemployment (extra $300/week) ended in all 50 states around Labor Day. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2021/09/05/unemployment-benefits-end-tomorrow-for-millions-of-americans/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2021/09/05/unemplo... That leaves just (1). It's a doozy, because if jobs have really disappeared and government transfers are really done, then we are about to witness what happens when millions of people suddenly don't just lose their jobs, but their ability to pay for basic needs.
- hh3k0 5y ago
  Third possibility: Full-time work allowed employees to scrape by but provided them little more than that. They neither have a home to call their own nor do they have any possessions worth mentioning. Health care coverage is often absymal on top of that. Why work full-time for that? You can have all that living a homeless/drifter lifestyle, working odd jobs here and there.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
I've stopped following Louis Rossmann. I care deeply about right to repair but these videos or all the other silly NY-bashing videos detract from the right to repair message.
- MrStonedOne 5y ago
  This seems kinda silly to me. The channel is named Louis Rossmann, not "Right to repair with Louis Rossmann" I don't know why the channel has to be only about right to repair, nor do i understand how these videos can distract from the right to repair message.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
    How's all the NY/De Blasio negativity detract from the positive right to repair message? It made me, someone not from NY, unsubscribe. It doesn't only have to be about right to repair.
    - aaomidi 5y ago
      > It made me, someone not from NY, unsubscribe. If you're not going to support right to repair because you unsubscribed from a youtube channel then you didn't care about right to repair to begin with.
      - russelldjimmy 5y ago
        They said they cared deeply about right to repair. Can you show where they contradicted this?
- breput 5y ago
  He has addressed this recently. YouTube incentivises 10 to 20 minute videos and also there are more people interested in a shorter general interest video vs. a two hour long MacBook repair video. How many people who watch his videos aren't already 100% in favor of Right To Repair?
Ansil849 5y ago
The claims in this video are absurd. It suggests that there are no stable jobs, which is patently false. If you want the promise of a steady job, however, you need to pick a field which will always be in demand. Off the top of my head: corrections, sanitation, healthcare, and the legal system.
lph 5y ago
Sure, job security for many has collapsed in a way that makes traditional jobs less appealing. That's a good insight. But "everybody wants to follow their dreams and go into business for themselves!" is sort of an LOL Hacker News caricature. Low-wage workers already knew they had no job security. They didn't need a pandemic and recession to show them that. What I want to know is why aren't wages going up? Isn't that the textbook free market thing that should happen when the entire economy is having trouble hiring?
- mst 5y ago
  I remember reading about cases where a minimum wage increase in a particular area actually benefited employers because they've had less turnover as a result so saved on training and ramp-up costs - but (effectively) none of them could convince themselves to do that spontaneously. I keep wondering if a similar thing is happening here.
- Beached 5y ago
  in my area I have seen low wage jobs like McDonald's and stocking shelves advertised at 12$ before the pandemic, I now see them publicly advertising starting at 14/15 and even 18$ for the super market. from the outside looking in. it does appear to have gone up a little in those jobs, but it doesn't appear to have gone up in any other job (like mine)
- axiolite 5y ago
  > What I want to know is why aren't wages going up? Who says they aren't? Every business around here has a banner about hiring, usually listing a $1,000 bonus, and hourly wages are shown at least 20% higher than they were pre-pandemic. Amazon is pretty desperate to hire, with $3,000 bonuses, and talk of nation-wide $18/hr minimums. https://www.reuters.com/business/amazon-hire-125000-workers-pay-hourly-wages-18-2021-09-14/ https://www.reuters.com/business/amazon-hire-125000-workers-... It seems that still isn't quite enough. But perhaps with the end of summer vacation, that picture may soon change.
cyberpsybin 5y ago
Wait till they unlink the health insurance and employment. It's another thing that corporations use to keep their wage slaves around. That will hit like a nuke on the job market.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  I have wondered why hasn't that been pushed through? To me it seems it would fix multiple issues. Like employers not wanting to employ people full-time because of benefits. Removing the benefit trap could be very effective.
  - m_ke 5y ago
    Because we live in the united corporations of America.
    - effingwewt 5y ago
      Goddammit, this is a perfectly succinct description and that enrages me so hard. What ever happened to the American Dream? Corporations happened.
      - dustingetz 5y ago
        “dream”
- gruez 5y ago
  >Wait till they unlink the health insurance and employment[...]That will hit like a nuke on the job market. Considering that's already the case in most other developed countries, have we seen that sort of effect there?
  - bobsmooth 5y ago
    I've never had a person tell me they stayed at a job because of healthcare.
rickspencer3 5y ago
I enjoy Louis Rossmann and all, and I've learned a lot about computers from his videos. But this video is purely one lay person's opinion. I'd go as far to say "speculation."
BooneJS 5y ago
But how many people saw how pointless working 9-5 was when they’re making low pay that barely covers daycare? They changed their spending habits and one parent stayed home with the kids.

121 points by baybal2 5y ago

It’s so crazy to me that people wonder about this. Maybe it’s people who’ve never had a normal job. But most jobs suck. Most jobs are demeaning and poorly compensated. Most jobs can and will fire you for no good reason and most jobs provide little to no protection. Most jobs will fire you for being late a couple of times. And most jobs come with no respect or prestige at all..what’s wild to me is that people don’t seem to understand that. I guess they never unloaded trucks in 100 degree weather for 8 dollars an hour or mopped up gas station toilets at 5 am for 12 dollars an hour.

bogota 5y ago
I really don’t get this attitude. Are people just too full of themselves today to do menial work? I have a good job now but from before high school to after college I worked jobs in places were the customers were rude and treated you like shit along with your coworkers and managers. As far as I know you still need money to live do people think it’s now the responsibility of the government to take care of them if they have to work a job that sucks? I really can’t wrap my head around it it’s just not how i was raised. This just smells like entitlement at the same level people accuse “the rich” of having.
- endymi0n 5y ago
  The Boomer generation needed just 306 hours of minimum wage work to pay for four years of public college. Millennials need 4,459. Calling that out doesn't sound like entitlement to me.
  - bogota 5y ago
    Sure call it out but not working is what im talking about. Life is always unfair. I started working in 2009 I am familiar with shit jobs that pay nothing.
    - aaron-santos 5y ago
      It sounds like your saying "life is unfair so we have no obligation to try." I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it's difficult. Maybe you meant something else.
    - ggggtez 5y ago
      Honestly, if you are trying to so a "back in my day" to 10 years ago... I think you should take a moment and reexamine some of the fundamental facts that you are basing your worldview on. You're likely relying on flawed anecdotal evidence to decide how things used to be. It's possible your personal journey is effected by your experiences. 2009 was a financial crisis, when I'm sure many people were desperate for money. Others delayed entering the workforce by taking on college debt. It's not a sign of a healthy economy, but the strategic decisions of millions of people... And in 2009 there was no pandemic. You weren't risking actual life and limb to work a 9-5. In 2009 most people didn't have smartphones. There was no real option to make money online. And let's be clear: just because people aren't working for a corporation in a 9-5 doesn't imply they aren't working. Today you can make money online easier (Only Fans comes to mind). The people who become internet models can make more money quitting their jobs and devoting their effort to content creation. And honestly, a pornstar has more prestige and better hours than McDonald's, too...
- LocalH 5y ago
  It's entitlement to refuse to be treated like garbage? I feel like it's rather entitlement on the part of those who are treating workers like garbage. Employers expect employees to "go above and beyond" but I see that as a two way street. I will "go above and beyond" for a company that does likewise with me. I will do no more than the basic job functions if the job demands more than its rightful place in my life, or if they attempt to abuse me.
  - bogota 5y ago
    Being treated like garbage and a job inherently being shitty aren’t the same thing. People seem to confuse that. All this is doing is driving automation at a faster pace and the people who once did the jobs will now have something new to complain about when they have no job available at all in 10 years
    - MrStonedOne 5y ago
      The majority of the jobs that can't hire people are customer facing jobs where the job is to be treated like garbage by customers
  - oliv__ 5y ago
    Fine, so find another job that suits your snowflake requirements
    - taurath 5y ago
      What do you think people are doing? Aren’t the business owners the snowflakes here, demanding their right to pay people peanuts for labor and earn them profits?
      - oliv__ 5y ago
        They're not "demanding" anything. They're offering jobs for wages which you deem too low.
    - LocalH 5y ago
- touisteur 5y ago
  Maybe it's time we change attitudes towards menial jobs, then. No more accepting bad customer or managerial behaviour would be a start. Customer isn't always right, and even then they don't have to be encouraged being shitty to service workers by... Letting them pay the lowest price possible. Maybe now shop owners will have better incentives to discipline their customers or give humane working conditions. Or you know, barring that, better pay. About fucking time service workers had some bargaining power back.
  - indymike 5y ago
    > Maybe it's time we change attitudes towards menial jobs, then. A menial job is not menial. It is just a job. Labels like "menial" and "low skill" aren't fair to anyone and are there to sell people on taking less pay. > About fucking time service workers had some bargaining power back. This is really the truth. It is about time.
    - touisteur 5y ago
      I agree and should at least have put quotes in there. I've made a personal mission of trying to rehumanize every damn job, saying hello, how are you, stopping sometimes to talk about kids or the shitty people leaving shit in the kids playground, or just asking how's the family going. Not only did I make friends with the bus drivers, the street cleaner, the store cashier, the security people everywhere, but now I feel better the pulses of my communities, and have a far less difficult time talking to new people and giving or asking for help. I know those people and they know me. During the pandemic, I just sometimes asked news about family or kids and the amazon drivers here were crushed, their families sick and dying all around. One of them stopped and just cried there. Yes as one other commentor said, it's a job, man up, do it. But also, when there's a crying father there telling me he's been yelled at the whole week, he's been late for deliveries for days, and getting his pay docked, fuck ALLL that. Come on, have a water, a coffee if you can stomach it, late for late... And talk. Learned some of my neighbors needed a talking to. No one deserves to be treated like that. I... didn't see people were so shitty to each other, especially what one lady called 'the help'. Even the people I'm never gonna see again, it costs me almost nothing to say hi, hope your day's OK, thanks, and it brings sometimes the simple joy of talking for 2 minutes and feeling all fucking human. Some make it hard (uber eats kids...) but still, hi, everything OK? How's your family? I can't do much, but tipping and talking, yes. And don't let me started on making your salary almost only from tips. You're really wondering why you can't find 'help'?
- ggggtez 5y ago
  I think it requires superhuman levels of mental gymnastics to defend accusations against billionaires being parasites, while putting down the working class for not putting up with having people yell in their faces... Honestly it's such a leap of logic that likely no one understands what exactly the thrust of your comment is trying to get at. I'd like to look at the more charitable part of the argument: "back in my day, we worked shitty jobs and we liked it, because we needed money". Ok, sure. But the economy was different in the past. Many people need to work 2 jobs to maintain the same standard of living. At the same time, the prestige and respect of such jobs have declined. There are less paths to retirement. This is a logical response to a system that is overworking people, without long-term prospects.
- ubercow13 5y ago
  People trying to better for themselves is not them being entitiled. There is nothing noble about working hard for bad pay and in bad conditions just for the sake of being a hard worker. If people are choosing other options instead of going back to their shit jobs, and the system isn't providing good enough opportunities for enough people that's a failing of the system, not of those people for lacking a strong Protestant work ethic and not rolling over and letting themselves be exploited. Anyway the video is about these people choosing to work for themselves or being otherwise entrepreneurial, not being entitled and lazy like you are implying.
  - crazydoggers 5y ago
    So who does the hard jobs? Who slaughters the cows. Who picks the vegetables in 100 degrees. It sure is damn noble. Someone has to do it, or we all have to. And I give those people amazing props for doing those things. Many of us have either done those jobs and taken pride, or have family who have in order to better the lives of those children. Saying that work is not noble is demeaning to those who worked for your current standard of living.
    - ubercow13 5y ago
      >Saying that work is not noble is demeaning to those who worked for your current standard of living. The video is about people choosing better opportunities for themselves. If there aren't people to do those hard jobs, then those jobs need to compete with the opportunities these people are choosing instead, for example through higher pay. Saying these people should choose worse work, for the benefit of others (eg. business owners), by appealing to some nebulous concept of nobility is exploitative.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - MrStonedOne 5y ago
      Nobody until those employers start paying enough and stop making the job harder for the sake of policies that only serve the employers interests. can't get workers to work hard 8 hours a day doing hard labor, maybe add more breaks than the minimum you are legally required to? Or maybe stop suspending the workers next two shifts because they were 5 minutes late from traffic 1 too many times? Maybe consider that threatening to fire workers if they don't work late or overtime isn't productive? Maybe stop paying minimum wage which hasn't risen with inflation or rent prices and increase your prices out to compensate or consider that if baseline worker wages have risen slower than inflation, but management's wages has risen faster than inflation, you've had to do so off the back of your workers ability to have spending money outside of barely living.
nikanj 5y ago
I’m yet to hear an UBI proponent explain to me how those jobs would get done. The naive go-to answer is ”automation”, but on HN people generally understand how hard automating unskilled labor is
- api 5y ago
  The most likely outcome is that they would be outsourced to people who don’t know anything other than menial labor. There are better ways such as variable work weeks and gig/day labor for easily acquired menial labor (on top of UBI), but that may be a bigger shift in culture than UBI.
- ScaleneTriangle 5y ago
  Better pay, better working conditions.
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  They would get done by paying them better. And at some point, automation would be cheaper than labour. That being said: Unloading trucks is a solved problem that can be automated with sufficient containerization.
  - ianhawes 5y ago
    > That being said: Unloading trucks is a solved problem that can be automated with sufficient containerization. Go read https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedexers https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedexers and let me know how solved that problem is.
- mupuff1234 5y ago
  I think a lot of people wouldn't mind doing such types of jobs if they only need to do 2-3 shifts a week, in fact, I think a lot of people would enjoy it. I think it's mostly the mix of overworked + low benefits + knowing that you have to do it otherwise you'll have nothing is the deal breaker - not so much the job itself.
  - 5y ago
crazydoggers 5y ago
> Most jobs can and will fire you for no good reason and most jobs provide little to no protection. Most jobs will fire you for being late a couple of times. Well at least in the US we have unemployment benefits when you’re fired without cause. But yes, being late a few times is cause to be fired, and rightly so. I think perhaps the real issue is that people’s perceptions have changed, and I don’t think for the better. If you’re an unskilled laborer, then for the moment, your value to society is doing unskilled jobs. Now a whole host of reasons cause people to be unskilled. From their current socioeconomic status, to mental health reasons etc, to just honest poor life choices, like not valuing education. But there’s no free lunch in society, and ultimately that’s the current disconnect. Those that can only get unskilled jobs have now gotten benefits extended and are enjoying not doing “demeaning jobs”. And yet how do they enjoy that? Without society safety nets people would then need to do the demeaning jobs of supplying their own food and water. Hunting or foraging for food in 100 degree weather for 0 dollars, dealing with injuries on their own. So these same people complaining are also willing to take for granted the strawberries and meat at the grocery that another person worked hard for to provide. They take for granted the shelter that was built and maintained over there head, but they don’t see that they should provide equal work back to society for that enjoyment. Now there’s obviously a lot of real issues with labor fairness, minimum wage needs to be increased across the board, companies need to be held accountable for pushing a gig economy that strips employees of benefits etc. But the progress in labor fairness in the US, 8 hour work days, minimum wage, workplace safety, has been fought for in literal blood. Now we have a generation of people who take all that for granted, and that’s a problem. Edit: I also add this. These same people who say others haven’t worked such jobs, have not themselves lived in a society that is truly difficult. Many people have lived through or had family live through conditions that would make these people cry. Ask a migrant. Ask people who have had to flee countries and could barely subsist. Those people are the ones thankful to have a “demeaning job” because in reality, difficult does not mean demeaning. It’s entitlement, very pure and simple. And it won’t serve this generation well. Prove me wrong with reasoned responses and discussion rather than downvotes.
- deleted 5y ago
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- deleted 5y ago
varelse 5y ago
This presents a fantastic opportunity for these gigs to explore market efficiency, much to the chagrin of the people who wish to keep paying them subpoverty wages. If our overlords can't protect us from a deadly pandemic then what good are they?
anovikov 5y ago
But people will return to work once free stuff is over. And it is over now. In a month or so there will be a glut of workers again once people realise that their rent is due and free money is no longer hitting their accounts.
- taurath 5y ago
  Time will tell. Certainly those paying starvation wages are hoping that is so.
  - anovikov 5y ago
    But what will be the alternative? Will these people run to the woods or what?
bitcuration 5y ago
Everybody's interest is different, some care about job security, others are greedy want much more. It depends on personal needs, conditions, life stage and capability. You cannot attribute to a single reason universally when explaining this. However in a tough time like this, it's disadvantageous to a society where everybody just look after themselves. I bet you in Japan this type of problem and question are less wondered, as people are treated by and treat the employer as home/family, took a personal interest instead of merely a means to make living, although at least in the past not sure it's still the case nowadays. True, what's feasible in Japan may not be suitable to a multi-culture society like US, or many other countries. But human motivation and value system are more or less the same across the globe. For example, some companies make employee their partners, gives stock options no matter how small percentage it is, a real bounding exercise must be financial based. Relying on enchanting employee to work relentlessly while in truth they're just pawn ready to be dispensed at any moment, how many cycles does any employer seriously think such trick will last before any employee with even below average IO would figure it out? It's not sustainable.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  They aren't more or less the same around the globe. It is a very western, and relatively recent social structures we believe to be true everywhere. What is the same global, for the most part is the capitalist model adopted because of it's success and power over other models. You get a pay for your labour that is negotiated with your employer who keeps a company afloat and pays dividends. The social aspect is vastly different in many countries where the shareholder and employer, or at least the manager treat its employees nearly like family. Yes you get a pay cheque and profit is the ultimate goal, but the bond between workers is so strong it influences business decisions. Some will hire a less competent candidate simply because he is close to the worker community, it provides trusts and reinforces the "family" structure. Japan is mentioned, but it applies similarly to most countries in Asia, and to some degree other continents as well. It is often not spoken of or display, or accounted for explicitly. Humans develop and break those bonds as things go along.
  - donkeybeer 5y ago
oliv__ 5y ago
Oh, so you mean to say that life is hard?

uselesscynicism 5y ago

What is this video? A random person wandering around and speculating? This is Reddit content.

deleted 5y ago

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mdorazio 5y ago

Personally, I don't buy this argument. Economics doesn't care about your feelings or your dreams. If you need money to pay your bills and the only way to get that money is to work a shit job, you will work the shit job. Three things changed during the pandemic: 1) the government paid a huge amount of money to people to not work for a long time, 2) people got used to living much more cheaply than they had before due everything being closed, and 3) the immigration and trade market shifted significantly. So suddenly you have a large number of people who, at least temporarily, have options that they didn't have before and who probably aren't competing with the same size labor pool that they did before. The whole narrative that Americans are suddenly waking up and realizing that they should all be entrepreneurs and follow their dreams is at best a feel-good second-order effect. It's a nice story, but the only reason new business starts are so high right now is because there were so many business closures last year. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but I just haven't seen the data or economic theory to support this video's position.

ffggvv 5y ago
yeah, i’m sure it applies to a few thousand peoples but not the millions of jobless people. not everyone even has a dream they are passionate about following in the first place. for the most part people just want a stable job and to be able to enjoy their life outside work. there aren’t millions of new entrepreneurs out of nowhere. it’s a romantic idea
deleted 5y ago
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junon 5y ago
> the government paid a huge amount of money to people to not work for a long time They did? I remember three teeny tiny payments. Certainly not enough to live on for a long time.
- ctrlp 5y ago
  Did you go on unemployment benefits?

drewcoo 5y ago

Thank goodness it's only one reason. I was worried that if the workers of the US suddenly developed agency and started thinking for themselves, there could be many varied motivations.

trutannus 5y ago
Fallacy of the Single Cause has become a popular ope-ed trope lately.

nine_zeros 5y ago

These reasons are valid even in the tech industry - especially for engineers. I can see engineers making $400k/yr quitting as if it is nothing. They just can't see themselves being treated like a cog in the wheel, reporting to incompetent management. From my conversations, these engineers just tired of reporting to managers who are not technically as skilled as them but have large boss egos. They don't want to be treated as subservient slaves with a paycheck. They especially don't want to report to paper pusher managers who only do performance reviews and suck all the visibility onto themselves - when the real output producers are the engineers. To boot, these engineers have the financial means to just quit their previous bosses. Why spend your one life reporting to an incompetent management?

surfingdino 5y ago
It is a huge problem in our industry. I have had people quit because of or be fired on a whim of a boneheaded slavedriver who couldn't explain what an API is if their own life depended on it. The banking industry if probably the worst for overblown egos of non-technical managers (who are proud of being non-technical) and their incompetence.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago

One of the core arguments seems to be that ”you don’t need to go finding people to hire if you never let them go”. The only people my company lost are the people who were making more on unemployment than at their job. Most were making $18/hr working, and $24/hr with the extended benefits. We allowed them to leave if it made more sense for them, as a favor to them, hoping they would return, some have. All the other positions that we’re struggling to fill, are new positions. We need a sysadmin in Detroit and I can get one, not even close. So… no, I don’t subscribe to this argument. We didn’t let a single person go, and are in the same boat as everyone else. Covid was a great thing for the megacorps and I think we should consider if that was all coincidence or not. Local resturants let people go, fast food places didn’t, neither can get enough people. My local Thai place can’t pay the $20/hr and signing bonus to match the McDonalads two blocks down. This is a particular blight on small business. Maybe if we could pay a level1 IT tech $95k/yr we might get one, but big Nope on that.

guenthert 5y ago
> We allowed them to leave Unemployment benefits are only paid after lay-off. Those who quit their job or a fired for misconduct won't get a cent.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  Yes. We agreed to lay them off it if made more sense for them financially or for their health.

abdel_nasser 5y ago

Why is this on hackernews? Where were the youtube videos on HN duing occupy wallstreet? Are we really going to be a place to watch videogamedunkey videos and internet talking head videos?

ShamelessC 5y ago
Ignoring your seeming disinterest in all of YouTube (fair enough), the creator of the video might be relevant to the Hacker News audience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Rossmann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Rossmann I personally enjoyed the video. I guess there are a lot of business owners on HN? The message seemed fairly simple. People got fired and it was the last straw after dealing with their employer's bullshit pre-pandemic. The lie sold by most office jobs in my experience is that if you're here for awhile; they will take care of you even when times are tough. If you're going to make it 100% about money; pay them more/don't fire them. Otherwise they can quit and not come back. That's the deal.

aazaa 5y ago

tldw: They realize that job security is an illusion. Aside from the problem that zero evidence is presented that "employees aren't returning to work in America," the idea that they're freelancing instead is just outlandish. It's the kind of thing you might expect a successful but out-of-touch entrepreneur to spout. Paycheck-to-paycheck living, which has been amply documented, means you have no agency. You work or you begin your journey down the social ladder. Often you do both. Assuming employees aren't returning to work, there can only be two reasons: 1. there are no jobs, despite what employers might be saying; or 2. government transfers (extended unemployment, etc.) have been keeping them afloat. Extended unemployment (extra $300/week) ended in all 50 states around Labor Day. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2021/09/05/unemployment-benefits-end-tomorrow-for-millions-of-americans/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2021/09/05/unemplo... That leaves just (1). It's a doozy, because if jobs have really disappeared and government transfers are really done, then we are about to witness what happens when millions of people suddenly don't just lose their jobs, but their ability to pay for basic needs.

hh3k0 5y ago
Third possibility: Full-time work allowed employees to scrape by but provided them little more than that. They neither have a home to call their own nor do they have any possessions worth mentioning. Health care coverage is often absymal on top of that. Why work full-time for that? You can have all that living a homeless/drifter lifestyle, working odd jobs here and there.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

I've stopped following Louis Rossmann. I care deeply about right to repair but these videos or all the other silly NY-bashing videos detract from the right to repair message.

MrStonedOne 5y ago
This seems kinda silly to me. The channel is named Louis Rossmann, not "Right to repair with Louis Rossmann" I don't know why the channel has to be only about right to repair, nor do i understand how these videos can distract from the right to repair message.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  How's all the NY/De Blasio negativity detract from the positive right to repair message? It made me, someone not from NY, unsubscribe. It doesn't only have to be about right to repair.
  - aaomidi 5y ago
    > It made me, someone not from NY, unsubscribe. If you're not going to support right to repair because you unsubscribed from a youtube channel then you didn't care about right to repair to begin with.
    - russelldjimmy 5y ago
      They said they cared deeply about right to repair. Can you show where they contradicted this?
breput 5y ago
He has addressed this recently. YouTube incentivises 10 to 20 minute videos and also there are more people interested in a shorter general interest video vs. a two hour long MacBook repair video. How many people who watch his videos aren't already 100% in favor of Right To Repair?

Ansil849 5y ago

The claims in this video are absurd. It suggests that there are no stable jobs, which is patently false. If you want the promise of a steady job, however, you need to pick a field which will always be in demand. Off the top of my head: corrections, sanitation, healthcare, and the legal system.

lph 5y ago

Sure, job security for many has collapsed in a way that makes traditional jobs less appealing. That's a good insight. But "everybody wants to follow their dreams and go into business for themselves!" is sort of an LOL Hacker News caricature. Low-wage workers already knew they had no job security. They didn't need a pandemic and recession to show them that. What I want to know is why aren't wages going up? Isn't that the textbook free market thing that should happen when the entire economy is having trouble hiring?

mst 5y ago
I remember reading about cases where a minimum wage increase in a particular area actually benefited employers because they've had less turnover as a result so saved on training and ramp-up costs - but (effectively) none of them could convince themselves to do that spontaneously. I keep wondering if a similar thing is happening here.
Beached 5y ago
in my area I have seen low wage jobs like McDonald's and stocking shelves advertised at 12$ before the pandemic, I now see them publicly advertising starting at 14/15 and even 18$ for the super market. from the outside looking in. it does appear to have gone up a little in those jobs, but it doesn't appear to have gone up in any other job (like mine)
axiolite 5y ago
> What I want to know is why aren't wages going up? Who says they aren't? Every business around here has a banner about hiring, usually listing a $1,000 bonus, and hourly wages are shown at least 20% higher than they were pre-pandemic. Amazon is pretty desperate to hire, with $3,000 bonuses, and talk of nation-wide $18/hr minimums. https://www.reuters.com/business/amazon-hire-125000-workers-pay-hourly-wages-18-2021-09-14/ https://www.reuters.com/business/amazon-hire-125000-workers-... It seems that still isn't quite enough. But perhaps with the end of summer vacation, that picture may soon change.

cyberpsybin 5y ago

Wait till they unlink the health insurance and employment. It's another thing that corporations use to keep their wage slaves around. That will hit like a nuke on the job market.

Ekaros 5y ago
I have wondered why hasn't that been pushed through? To me it seems it would fix multiple issues. Like employers not wanting to employ people full-time because of benefits. Removing the benefit trap could be very effective.
- m_ke 5y ago
  Because we live in the united corporations of America.
  - effingwewt 5y ago
    Goddammit, this is a perfectly succinct description and that enrages me so hard. What ever happened to the American Dream? Corporations happened.
    - dustingetz 5y ago
      “dream”
gruez 5y ago
>Wait till they unlink the health insurance and employment[...]That will hit like a nuke on the job market. Considering that's already the case in most other developed countries, have we seen that sort of effect there?
- bobsmooth 5y ago
  I've never had a person tell me they stayed at a job because of healthcare.

rickspencer3 5y ago

I enjoy Louis Rossmann and all, and I've learned a lot about computers from his videos. But this video is purely one lay person's opinion. I'd go as far to say "speculation."

BooneJS 5y ago

But how many people saw how pointless working 9-5 was when they’re making low pay that barely covers daycare? They changed their spending habits and one parent stayed home with the kids.