8 ms·

In Ireland, the minimum wage is €10.50 per hour and the standard work week is 40 hours, that works out to €420 full time minimum wage per week. At Dublin Airpo

In Ireland, the minimum wage is €10.50 per hour and the standard work week is 40 hours, that works out to €420 full time minimum wage per week. At Dublin Airport, security staff are only guaranteed 20 hours per week, need to be available for 40 hours per week, and entry level workers are paid €14.14 per hour. Guaranteed pay: €282.80 per week, i.e. 67% of the minimum wage. Are there any surprises why there are staff shortages? 1. https://extra.ie/2022/03/31/news/daa-taoiseach-criticised-dublin-airport https://extra.ie/2022/03/31/news/daa-taoiseach-criticised-du...

hourago 4y ago
Many people were working these jobs without realising what a bad deal it was. They were kicked out during the pandemic and learned that any other job is better. The only thing that was keeping this jobs in place is imperfect knowledge. Most job seekers have a limited knowledge as only know their own past jobs and the ones from close people (and to talk about pay is quite taboo in many countries). And that is how we got here. Even when there is public information, many people have a hard time understanding the implications of the statistics and concrete job differences. Corporations have thousands of data points and share salary statistics between them. Staying at home and even firings have helped some people to gain that knowledge.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  People also get old advice that no longer applies. "Stay with a job, arrive early, go the extra mile and they will reward you down the road!" In these sort of things, your direct manager probably doesn't even know what you make. There is a tight pay band set by HR and virtually no room for differentiation between employees. There is no mechanism in most roles to truly be rewarded for going the extra mile. The only surefire way to increase your takings is to be active in the employment marketplace and always looking for a better deal. Working for someone is like this old Seinfeld bit[0], if you want to be rewarded you have to get someone to agree to it before you do the work, once the project is delivered and they are satiated they won't be feeling as generous. "We don't need labor now why are we giving this guy a raise?" [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-hk5turqgA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-hk5turqgA
  - Gibbon1 4y ago
    Friend of mine sat in a meeting between the CEO, CFO, and their senior store manager while they argue whether to give an assistant manager a $0.35/hr raise or a $0.25/hr raise. For 45 minutes.
    - willcipriano 4y ago
      That's a $21 annual delta at 40 hours a week, I knew retail had thin margins but sheesh.
      - waqf 4y ago
        In my math it's a $210 annual delta.
        willcipriano 4y ago
        Ahh you are right
    - mistrial9 4y ago
      there is a power relationship between those people, and they are being paid quite well to engage privately. Of course it is obnoxious if you have any empathy at all -- many employers remove empathy as "weak" .. they have key-word one liners between each other to signal about it. not fun
    - oefrha 4y ago
      My mother tries her best to pay her reports fairly and it’s been a constant source of conflict between her and her manager. The amount in dispute? Always <$100 a month — that’s the total across ~30 employees. It’s insane how petty some people can be.
- ctvo 4y ago
  > Many people were working these jobs without realising what a bad deal it was. Can you share some details on where you're getting this data? I'd like to dig into it more. Imperfect information certainly is a thing, but many public jobs have public wage information. Large corporate jobs also have public wage information (say a delivery driver or warehouse worker -- everyone knows what Amazon is paying for these positions). Claiming people stay in these jobs due to ignorance goes against my experience growing up poor, where my parents and their peers constantly hunted for better paying jobs. I don't know anything about Ireland, but a quick Google for "ireland jobs" leads me to https://ie.indeed.com/jobs-in-Ireland https://ie.indeed.com/jobs-in-Ireland where I can clearly see wages and salaries for many positions.
  - throw93232 4y ago
    Some friends I know returned to Poland and other countries. It does not make a sense to stay in ultra expensive Dublin, if there is no work during covid. When you were younger, it was worth it to work. Today basic wage often does not even cover rent and other living expenses. You loose money by working. To get some perspective go to www.daft.ie and try to find studion near airport...
  - corrral 4y ago
    I've known lots of tech workers who went as much as years without realizing how badly they were being underpaid, even by the standards of their weak local market. It can take a surprising amount of pushing to get someone who thinks their current pay is OK to realize that it's very much not—I think there's a certain amount of disbelief people tend to default to. "Well, those others must be more skilled, or got lucky". Nope, you're just getting fucked. And that's a segment of people who ought to be very good at using technology to find out that kind of stuff. I would be very surprised if this didn't hold for most other fields. I'd expect the only markets in which this kind of thing isn't common is ones that are extremely comp-focused (finance, say, and maybe sales).
    - ctvo 4y ago
      > I've known lots of tech workers who went as much as years without realizing how badly they were being underpaid, even by the standards of their weak local market I agree that white collar jobs obfuscate salaries and that power dynamic overwhelmingly favors employers. That isn't the situation with lower paying jobs, especially ones that aren't salaried, which was what the OP was about. Those low skill jobs (I'd argue baggage handler making minimum wage at the airport to be in that category) openly list wages on the advertisement. Thinking those folks stay in their jobs due to the same information asymmetry is what I'm questioning.
- acchow 4y ago
  > Many people were working these jobs without realising what a bad deal it was. They were kicked out during the pandemic and learned that any other job is better. > The only thing that was keeping this jobs in place is imperfect knowledge It's not just knowledge. Many of these jobs are TIRING jobs because you are physically on your feet a lot. You just don't have the energy to go looking for another job at the end of the day. The break COVID gave people was a huge boon to job mobility.
- JamesAdir 4y ago
  In my country many young people people found out that delivery apps are a much better deal. Working for Wolt has given them enough money to live and total flexibility over their schedules. In the case of airport security and information jobs the salary offered now is between 1.5-2.0 the minimum wage with some seasonal bonuses added and they can't still have huge difficulty to fill those positions.
rtkwe 4y ago
> guaranteed 20 hours per week, need to be available for 40 hours per week This I think is part of the huge problem with modern "low level"/minimum wage jobs. Companies don't pay enough to live of of one salary but expect to have full say over their employees time just for their own convenience in scheduling and staffing.
- verisimilitude 4y ago
  God, this is such a good point. This gap between scheduled hours (~20) versus expected dictation of 'available' hours (~40) is one of the things powering the obnoxious "side hustle" idea...
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    You should be paid for those extra 20 on-call hours.
- brianbreslin 4y ago
  Wait till you dig into companies forcing non-competes on non-full time staff like this. Jimmy Johns didn't let their minimum wage sandwich cooks work at other fast food places. So not only are you not getting full time hours, you aren't getting health coverage, and have to find a job outside of QSR (quick serve restaurants) to make ends meet.
  - vanattab 4y ago
    There is no way this is enforced though.
    - rtkwe 4y ago
      It's a convenient cause to point to if they're being annoying about scheduling though and the threat of even a nonenforcable contract clause will stop most people, who can afford to fight it just to go back to a job where they'll make up another reason to fire you later anyways, assuming you're in a reasonable state that even forces them to do that.
mabbo 4y ago
I feel employers should be forced to pay an extra tax, something like a dollar/euro per hour of work, for employees who are given less than 35 hours per week. And do the same for minimum wage: an extra dollar/euro per hour for weeks where the employee works less than 35 hours. I know there's some details to work out- vacation, employers forcing employees to say they don't want to work, and so on, but on the whole I think those could be smoothed out, and large employers wouldn't be able to get away with cheating it for long.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Gibbon1 4y ago
  Be amusing to set the corporate and capital gains tax based on employee compensation. The less you pay you employees the higher the rate.
  - ebiester 4y ago
    Conceptually great idea, but I think setting the cap of top employee compensation as a multiplier of the lowest paid employee is a better start, as well as requiring full benefits for any employee rather than a minimum. (You will have to tweak other things, and make sure to crack down on wage theft for overtime, etc, but this will remove the disincentive to hiring full time.) It isn't so much that we want to discourage investment in food supply and other service sectors but rather to increase the living conditions of those working in them. It will mean increased labor costs, decreased stock market profits, and a bit of inflation. I argue that for humane labor practices, this is an acceptable compromise for a civilized society.
    - Gibbon1 4y ago
      Thinking mode you could adjust the corporate tax rate, tax on officers salaries, dividends, and capital gains to account for the lower tax rate on lower paid employees. Would also help for the government to tax stock buybacks as profit and dividends.
cersa8 4y ago
Wow, that really brought home how fortunate I and probably many others on HN are.
rahimnathwani 4y ago
> Are there any surprises why there are staff shortages? Heathrow is in the UK, not in Ireland, so I'm not sure how Ireland's minimum wage, and Dublin Airport's work contracts for security, could possibly create shortages of staff at Heathrow? In any case, the number of security staff at Heathrow isn't the bottleneck. From the article: "by the end of July, we will have as many people working in security as we had pre-pandemic".
- kingofpandora 4y ago
  > Heathrow is in the UK, not in Ireland, so I'm not sure how Ireland's minimum wage, and Dublin Airport's work contracts for security, could possibly create shortages of staff at Heathrow? Of course the poster is not saying Dublin airport's wages affect staffing at Heathrow. But I think you know that. What is happening is something called a comparison or perhaps an analogy. We are being presented with another airport with staffing shortages and then presented with a cause which possibly applies to the airport in question. But I think you know this, too.
  - rahimnathwani 4y ago
    It would be a reasonable analogy if the point made (low hourly pay combined with lack of guaranteed hours) applied to Heathrow, but it doesn't appear that it does[0]: * The starting salary for Security Officers at Heathrow is 28% above the UK's minimum wage (12.13/hour vs 9.50/hour). * They employ people as either full time (40 hours/week) or part time (20 hours/week). For the latter, there are two shift patterns available, but they don't seem to vary week by week. [0] - https://encd.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX/requisitions/job/421 https://encd.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperienc...
    - kingofpandora 4y ago
      I didn't say it was a good analogy (I have no idea), and you are free to pick holes in it. But the intent was clear.
    - shaicoleman 4y ago

hourago 4y ago

Many people were working these jobs without realising what a bad deal it was. They were kicked out during the pandemic and learned that any other job is better. The only thing that was keeping this jobs in place is imperfect knowledge. Most job seekers have a limited knowledge as only know their own past jobs and the ones from close people (and to talk about pay is quite taboo in many countries). And that is how we got here. Even when there is public information, many people have a hard time understanding the implications of the statistics and concrete job differences. Corporations have thousands of data points and share salary statistics between them. Staying at home and even firings have helped some people to gain that knowledge.

willcipriano 4y ago
People also get old advice that no longer applies. "Stay with a job, arrive early, go the extra mile and they will reward you down the road!" In these sort of things, your direct manager probably doesn't even know what you make. There is a tight pay band set by HR and virtually no room for differentiation between employees. There is no mechanism in most roles to truly be rewarded for going the extra mile. The only surefire way to increase your takings is to be active in the employment marketplace and always looking for a better deal. Working for someone is like this old Seinfeld bit[0], if you want to be rewarded you have to get someone to agree to it before you do the work, once the project is delivered and they are satiated they won't be feeling as generous. "We don't need labor now why are we giving this guy a raise?" [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-hk5turqgA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-hk5turqgA
- Gibbon1 4y ago
  Friend of mine sat in a meeting between the CEO, CFO, and their senior store manager while they argue whether to give an assistant manager a $0.35/hr raise or a $0.25/hr raise. For 45 minutes.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    That's a $21 annual delta at 40 hours a week, I knew retail had thin margins but sheesh.
    - waqf 4y ago
      In my math it's a $210 annual delta.
      - willcipriano 4y ago
        Ahh you are right
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    there is a power relationship between those people, and they are being paid quite well to engage privately. Of course it is obnoxious if you have any empathy at all -- many employers remove empathy as "weak" .. they have key-word one liners between each other to signal about it. not fun
  - oefrha 4y ago
    My mother tries her best to pay her reports fairly and it’s been a constant source of conflict between her and her manager. The amount in dispute? Always <$100 a month — that’s the total across ~30 employees. It’s insane how petty some people can be.
ctvo 4y ago
> Many people were working these jobs without realising what a bad deal it was. Can you share some details on where you're getting this data? I'd like to dig into it more. Imperfect information certainly is a thing, but many public jobs have public wage information. Large corporate jobs also have public wage information (say a delivery driver or warehouse worker -- everyone knows what Amazon is paying for these positions). Claiming people stay in these jobs due to ignorance goes against my experience growing up poor, where my parents and their peers constantly hunted for better paying jobs. I don't know anything about Ireland, but a quick Google for "ireland jobs" leads me to https://ie.indeed.com/jobs-in-Ireland https://ie.indeed.com/jobs-in-Ireland where I can clearly see wages and salaries for many positions.
- throw93232 4y ago
  Some friends I know returned to Poland and other countries. It does not make a sense to stay in ultra expensive Dublin, if there is no work during covid. When you were younger, it was worth it to work. Today basic wage often does not even cover rent and other living expenses. You loose money by working. To get some perspective go to www.daft.ie and try to find studion near airport...
- corrral 4y ago
  I've known lots of tech workers who went as much as years without realizing how badly they were being underpaid, even by the standards of their weak local market. It can take a surprising amount of pushing to get someone who thinks their current pay is OK to realize that it's very much not—I think there's a certain amount of disbelief people tend to default to. "Well, those others must be more skilled, or got lucky". Nope, you're just getting fucked. And that's a segment of people who ought to be very good at using technology to find out that kind of stuff. I would be very surprised if this didn't hold for most other fields. I'd expect the only markets in which this kind of thing isn't common is ones that are extremely comp-focused (finance, say, and maybe sales).
  - ctvo 4y ago
    > I've known lots of tech workers who went as much as years without realizing how badly they were being underpaid, even by the standards of their weak local market I agree that white collar jobs obfuscate salaries and that power dynamic overwhelmingly favors employers. That isn't the situation with lower paying jobs, especially ones that aren't salaried, which was what the OP was about. Those low skill jobs (I'd argue baggage handler making minimum wage at the airport to be in that category) openly list wages on the advertisement. Thinking those folks stay in their jobs due to the same information asymmetry is what I'm questioning.
acchow 4y ago
> Many people were working these jobs without realising what a bad deal it was. They were kicked out during the pandemic and learned that any other job is better. > The only thing that was keeping this jobs in place is imperfect knowledge It's not just knowledge. Many of these jobs are TIRING jobs because you are physically on your feet a lot. You just don't have the energy to go looking for another job at the end of the day. The break COVID gave people was a huge boon to job mobility.
JamesAdir 4y ago
In my country many young people people found out that delivery apps are a much better deal. Working for Wolt has given them enough money to live and total flexibility over their schedules. In the case of airport security and information jobs the salary offered now is between 1.5-2.0 the minimum wage with some seasonal bonuses added and they can't still have huge difficulty to fill those positions.

rtkwe 4y ago

> guaranteed 20 hours per week, need to be available for 40 hours per week This I think is part of the huge problem with modern "low level"/minimum wage jobs. Companies don't pay enough to live of of one salary but expect to have full say over their employees time just for their own convenience in scheduling and staffing.

verisimilitude 4y ago
God, this is such a good point. This gap between scheduled hours (~20) versus expected dictation of 'available' hours (~40) is one of the things powering the obnoxious "side hustle" idea...
- nerdponx 4y ago
  You should be paid for those extra 20 on-call hours.
brianbreslin 4y ago
Wait till you dig into companies forcing non-competes on non-full time staff like this. Jimmy Johns didn't let their minimum wage sandwich cooks work at other fast food places. So not only are you not getting full time hours, you aren't getting health coverage, and have to find a job outside of QSR (quick serve restaurants) to make ends meet.
- vanattab 4y ago
  There is no way this is enforced though.
  - rtkwe 4y ago
    It's a convenient cause to point to if they're being annoying about scheduling though and the threat of even a nonenforcable contract clause will stop most people, who can afford to fight it just to go back to a job where they'll make up another reason to fire you later anyways, assuming you're in a reasonable state that even forces them to do that.

mabbo 4y ago

I feel employers should be forced to pay an extra tax, something like a dollar/euro per hour of work, for employees who are given less than 35 hours per week. And do the same for minimum wage: an extra dollar/euro per hour for weeks where the employee works less than 35 hours. I know there's some details to work out- vacation, employers forcing employees to say they don't want to work, and so on, but on the whole I think those could be smoothed out, and large employers wouldn't be able to get away with cheating it for long.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Gibbon1 4y ago
Be amusing to set the corporate and capital gains tax based on employee compensation. The less you pay you employees the higher the rate.
- ebiester 4y ago
  Conceptually great idea, but I think setting the cap of top employee compensation as a multiplier of the lowest paid employee is a better start, as well as requiring full benefits for any employee rather than a minimum. (You will have to tweak other things, and make sure to crack down on wage theft for overtime, etc, but this will remove the disincentive to hiring full time.) It isn't so much that we want to discourage investment in food supply and other service sectors but rather to increase the living conditions of those working in them. It will mean increased labor costs, decreased stock market profits, and a bit of inflation. I argue that for humane labor practices, this is an acceptable compromise for a civilized society.
  - Gibbon1 4y ago
    Thinking mode you could adjust the corporate tax rate, tax on officers salaries, dividends, and capital gains to account for the lower tax rate on lower paid employees. Would also help for the government to tax stock buybacks as profit and dividends.

cersa8 4y ago

Wow, that really brought home how fortunate I and probably many others on HN are.

rahimnathwani 4y ago

> Are there any surprises why there are staff shortages? Heathrow is in the UK, not in Ireland, so I'm not sure how Ireland's minimum wage, and Dublin Airport's work contracts for security, could possibly create shortages of staff at Heathrow? In any case, the number of security staff at Heathrow isn't the bottleneck. From the article: "by the end of July, we will have as many people working in security as we had pre-pandemic".

kingofpandora 4y ago
> Heathrow is in the UK, not in Ireland, so I'm not sure how Ireland's minimum wage, and Dublin Airport's work contracts for security, could possibly create shortages of staff at Heathrow? Of course the poster is not saying Dublin airport's wages affect staffing at Heathrow. But I think you know that. What is happening is something called a comparison or perhaps an analogy. We are being presented with another airport with staffing shortages and then presented with a cause which possibly applies to the airport in question. But I think you know this, too.
- rahimnathwani 4y ago
  It would be a reasonable analogy if the point made (low hourly pay combined with lack of guaranteed hours) applied to Heathrow, but it doesn't appear that it does[0]: * The starting salary for Security Officers at Heathrow is 28% above the UK's minimum wage (12.13/hour vs 9.50/hour). * They employ people as either full time (40 hours/week) or part time (20 hours/week). For the latter, there are two shift patterns available, but they don't seem to vary week by week. [0] - https://encd.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX/requisitions/job/421 https://encd.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperienc...
  - kingofpandora 4y ago
    I didn't say it was a good analogy (I have no idea), and you are free to pick holes in it. But the intent was clear.
  - shaicoleman 4y ago