9 ms·

Think about doctors or nurses. We already have a shortage. Changing their workweek from 40 to 32 basically means a 20% reduction in healthcare workers. How a

by timmg 5y ago

Think about doctors or nurses. We already have a shortage. Changing their workweek from 40 to 32 basically means a 20% reduction in healthcare workers. How are we going to suddenly add 20% more workers to the industry? And if the idea was to keep the same pay for 32 hour workweek, it just means healthcare costs just went up 20%. It's not clear to me how this would make sense.

Miner49er 5y ago
The doctor shortage is artificial.
- celestialcheese 5y ago
  Care to elaborate?
  - Miner49er 5y ago
    Here's an article: https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-planning-of-u-s-physician-shortages/ https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-planning-of-u-s-physician... Anecdotally, I have a couple of friends in med school. They both had above average MCAT scores, one had like high 90s percentile. They both applied to multiple med schools, and got rejected by all of them. They both had to take a gap year and then applied again the next year, and then they got accepted. This is the norm (actually I think many have to take 2+ gap years), it is extremely difficult to get into med school. I'm not saying it shouldn't be hard, but it probably needs to be easier if we want more doctors.
vsareto 5y ago
Healthcare will still be working the same hours for the reasons you stated. They will just get 8 extra overtime hours instead of normal pay. You can still ask/require people to work 40 hours, you'll just be paying overtime to do it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mlyle 5y ago
  And for many professions, the rate of base pay will fall so that total comp doesn't move much. Where it gets most interesting is professions say 50% above minimum wage where it's customary for people to work long hours. This really increases pressure on employers to train up lower skilled workers to these roles and incentives for others to make the cut. It also has a big effect on what happens during economic upswings. If you have to stretch an existing worker pool further suddenly, it gets more expensive, and workers get a bigger piece of the pie.
  - vsareto 5y ago
    Maybe for new hires getting a lower rate, but if they try to cut back pay for doctors/nurses after the pandemic, you'll probably just end up with a strike. We already did jack shit for healthcare workers and a base pay decrease would infuriate people.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      I don't know where pressures for healthcare pay are going. I'm just saying that, if you are an employer facing a work week change, you can make this argument to higher paid workers: - Under the previous contract, most of you worked 50 hours and got 40 * $100/hour plus 10 * $150/hour = $5500/week. - Under the new contract, we expect most of you will still work 50 hours, and will get 36 * $100/hour + 14 * $150/hour = $5700/week. This is on the par with the 3.6% wage increase you expected. Vs. having to move base pay to $103-104/hour. It sure increases the pressure to find new employees, though, because you can save a whole lot of overtime pay.
- timmg 5y ago
  > Healthcare will still be working the same hours for the reasons you stated. Ok, so pay/costs go up 10%, then (time and a half for 8 hours is 4 extra hours worth of pay)? Or does the total pay stay the same? (In which case, what's the point.) I assume this would also be true of factory or construction workers. You can't suddenly make 20% more widgets an hour. So either we hire 20% more workers or pay 10% more for existing workers to work the same schedule.

by timmg 5y ago

Miner49er 5y ago

The doctor shortage is artificial.

celestialcheese 5y ago
Care to elaborate?
- Miner49er 5y ago
  Here's an article: https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-planning-of-u-s-physician-shortages/ https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-planning-of-u-s-physician... Anecdotally, I have a couple of friends in med school. They both had above average MCAT scores, one had like high 90s percentile. They both applied to multiple med schools, and got rejected by all of them. They both had to take a gap year and then applied again the next year, and then they got accepted. This is the norm (actually I think many have to take 2+ gap years), it is extremely difficult to get into med school. I'm not saying it shouldn't be hard, but it probably needs to be easier if we want more doctors.

vsareto 5y ago

Healthcare will still be working the same hours for the reasons you stated. They will just get 8 extra overtime hours instead of normal pay. You can still ask/require people to work 40 hours, you'll just be paying overtime to do it.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mlyle 5y ago
And for many professions, the rate of base pay will fall so that total comp doesn't move much. Where it gets most interesting is professions say 50% above minimum wage where it's customary for people to work long hours. This really increases pressure on employers to train up lower skilled workers to these roles and incentives for others to make the cut. It also has a big effect on what happens during economic upswings. If you have to stretch an existing worker pool further suddenly, it gets more expensive, and workers get a bigger piece of the pie.
- vsareto 5y ago
  Maybe for new hires getting a lower rate, but if they try to cut back pay for doctors/nurses after the pandemic, you'll probably just end up with a strike. We already did jack shit for healthcare workers and a base pay decrease would infuriate people.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    I don't know where pressures for healthcare pay are going. I'm just saying that, if you are an employer facing a work week change, you can make this argument to higher paid workers: - Under the previous contract, most of you worked 50 hours and got 40 * $100/hour plus 10 * $150/hour = $5500/week. - Under the new contract, we expect most of you will still work 50 hours, and will get 36 * $100/hour + 14 * $150/hour = $5700/week. This is on the par with the 3.6% wage increase you expected. Vs. having to move base pay to $103-104/hour. It sure increases the pressure to find new employees, though, because you can save a whole lot of overtime pay.
timmg 5y ago
> Healthcare will still be working the same hours for the reasons you stated. Ok, so pay/costs go up 10%, then (time and a half for 8 hours is 4 extra hours worth of pay)? Or does the total pay stay the same? (In which case, what's the point.) I assume this would also be true of factory or construction workers. You can't suddenly make 20% more widgets an hour. So either we hire 20% more workers or pay 10% more for existing workers to work the same schedule.