8 ms·

> “Hiring has been a problem since 2020,” Jennison said. “Hiring experienced candidates that understand the industry, and understand what they’re doing, has bee

> “Hiring has been a problem since 2020,” Jennison said. “Hiring experienced candidates that understand the industry, and understand what they’re doing, has been very difficult.” Business owner expects to pay experienced staff $20 per hour. There is no staff shortage, there is a failure to face reality among business owners.

sh4un 4y ago
barsonme 4y ago
What hourly rate do you think is fair for them to pay their employees? $20-$30/hour is ~130%-180% of the median income for Allegheny County, where the company is located. I honestly don't know what's fair for the jobs the company is hiring for. Maybe they're woefully underpaying! But at first blush it does not appear terrible. A totally not in-depth look at machinist hourly rates (in Seattle) looks fairly similar to what they're offering.
- tuatoru 4y ago
  The rate at which people start applying for their jobs. Clearly, higher than "$20 - $30", which we all know means $20. Something I left out in the interests of brevity is that there was no mention of taking people off the street and paying for their training. That is the indicator of staff shortages.
  - astrange 4y ago
    People are aware that every job you take or have to move for is an opportunity cost. Not just in getting paid, but also in other places you could live, or other skills you could be learning, or training you have to take. In other words, if you only get this job for a year or two and then lose it, it's not worth the risk. You'd have to be paid enough to retire on, like football players or anyone else whose career is expected to be a few years long.
- bsder 4y ago
  > What hourly rate do you think is fair for them to pay their employees? $20-$30/hour is ~130%-180% of the median income for Allegheny County, where the company is located. So? Why is it that capitalists can't seem to understand supply/demand curves when it comes to wages?
  - klyrs 4y ago
    Playing stupid is a surprisingly effective negotiation strategy when you're holding the dough.
  - chordalkeyboard 4y ago
    because they are neoliberal globalists, not capitalists.
    - stonogo 4y ago
      This sentence has no meaning. It's just pejorative buzzwords. What are you trying to say?
      - chordalkeyboard 4y ago
        I'm responding to this: > Why is it that capitalists can't seem to understand supply/demand curves when it comes to wages? If they were 'capitalists' they would use the same supply/demand curve logic to labor costs as everything else.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  Avoid using "fair" there is no fair rate because fair isn't really a measurable/definable thing. We use the market rate instead (not that that makes it a "fair" rate, it's just what we use for pragmatic reasons). If they're unable to hire, they're not paying/offering market rate pretty much by definition.
nostrademons 4y ago
That goes on up the chain, though. The reason manufacturing left the U.S. was because it was no longer cost-effective to pay American wages at the prices prevalent in consumer goods industries. Had we kept manufacturing on-shore, the price of goods would've mimicked services like health care, law, and education, all of which have undergone very significant inflation, much more than the economy-wide average. The result of this on-shoring craze (modulo automation) is that we're likely to see very significant inflation, basically taking us back to the cost structures we saw in the 1980s. No more cheap Chinese or Vietnamese goods at Amazon or Walmart; if we have to Buy American, expect to pay the differential between Vietnamese and American wages, roughly a 30-40x increase.
- LaserDiscMan 4y ago
  > The result of this on-shoring craze (modulo automation) is that we're likely to see very significant inflation, basically taking us back to the cost structures we saw in the 1980s. No more cheap Chinese or Vietnamese goods at Amazon or Walmart; if we have to Buy American, expect to pay the differential between Vietnamese and American wages, roughly a 30-40x increase. I theorise that it might also lead to a reversal of planned obsolescence and products with a short lifespan. Companies might compete by designing goods based around longevity to justify the higher cost. Household appliances, for example, might be a once in a decade (or longer) purchase as opposed to the throwaway approach.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    I have serious doubts that American companies can change their mindset and adopt this approach in any kind of timely fashion.
    - nirimda 4y ago
      Companies don't really have a choice. Employees retire and are trained up. Companies die and new companies are created. Foreign companies can expand into new markets. If there is a change of circumstance that leads to new avenues of profit, they will be taken up.
fny 4y ago
Lol. There are no experienced manufacturing staff in the US anymore, full stop. This isn't a matter of the price of labor. The US has forgotten how to manufacture things. Do you remember when Apple stopped making the Mac Pro in Austin because we couldn't manufacture enough screws? [0] Everyone gave up post '08. The attrition of blue collar work overseas has been painful, so the recommendation writ large has been to avoid going into blue collar work. Even now if a worker takes on a $20 an hour job, they have no guarantee their manufacturing job won't be shipped overseas again. So why choose that career path for even $25 or $30 an hour? It's risky. The energy sector has this problem more severely than any other in part because everyone keeps talking about phasing out fossil fuels. How much would I have to pay you to take a job that a quarter of the country wants removed? No one wants a blue collar job anymore either. That was the whole point of going to college: you become educated for the right to sit on your ass for eight hours and act like you're doing something worthwhile. And now you can do that from home. Compare that to working a skilled manufacturing job where your every movement is measured in a country. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/technology/iphones-apple-china-made.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/technology/iphones-apple-...
- lowbloodsugar 4y ago
  >they have no guarantee their manufacturing job won't be shipped overseas again. Indeed. This is all just temporary work until China recovers from COVID.
  - Phrenzy 4y ago
    IMO China is on the way out. Their real estate market is crashing, and that is bring down the banking industry. The Zero Covid policy is crashing their economy, and the younger generations would rather "Let it Rot." The CCP might not make it to the end of the 2020s. If they somehow get all the above sorted out, the demographic charts show that will be the time they run out of young people. But it is worse than that. The charts may have overcounted the younger generations by up to 100 million people. The de-globalization that is going on, and the fact they can't feed their population, means they will have to make drastic changes. They may even have to de-urbanize large sections of their population to keep hundreds of millions from starving. China is on the way out.
mc32 4y ago
There also might be a shortage in training or apprenticeship. You don’t export jobs and experience for 40 years and then expect workers to magically have the necessary skills from the get.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Yes, you do, if you're an MBA grad. From what I've seen over several decades, it seems like they've long expected qualified people to just magically appear whenever they need them, even after a big layoff.
legitster 4y ago
I have to believe that the quote must have been scrambled in the article. Why would an assembly line worker need to be experienced or understand the industry? I could see them having two separate problems - not finding enough unexperienced workers at $20 an hour, and separately not finding enough experienced engineering candidates at any salary.
daniel-cussen 4y ago
[dead]
systemvoltage 4y ago
Business owners are the last ones to blame here. With the current USD exchange rate, manufacturers are facing intense battle on both labor and supply fronts. Here is the root cause: > Panic led to lockdowns. Lockdowns led to fiscal stimulus. Stimulus led to inflation. Inflation led to monetary tightening. Tightening leads to recession. > The panic wasn’t free - and the bill is coming due. https://twitter.com/naval/status/1574638443237294080 https://twitter.com/naval/status/1574638443237294080 Stimulate the hell of out the nation's economy to the point where we have the "Great Resignation". Then go on to blame business owners who are trying to bring manufacturing back to US. Just completely preposterous, illogical and misplaced.
Tangurena2 4y ago
One of Trump's earliest actions was to stop immigrant work visas: that includes H1-2, EB1-3 visas. He was unable to block only Muslims, so instead he blocked everybody. That's about 2 million temporary workers that weren't able to come work here. The "problem" was building up before 2020, it has just come to be noticeable only after the change in administration.

sh4un 4y ago

barsonme 4y ago

What hourly rate do you think is fair for them to pay their employees? $20-$30/hour is ~130%-180% of the median income for Allegheny County, where the company is located. I honestly don't know what's fair for the jobs the company is hiring for. Maybe they're woefully underpaying! But at first blush it does not appear terrible. A totally not in-depth look at machinist hourly rates (in Seattle) looks fairly similar to what they're offering.

tuatoru 4y ago
The rate at which people start applying for their jobs. Clearly, higher than "$20 - $30", which we all know means $20. Something I left out in the interests of brevity is that there was no mention of taking people off the street and paying for their training. That is the indicator of staff shortages.
- astrange 4y ago
  People are aware that every job you take or have to move for is an opportunity cost. Not just in getting paid, but also in other places you could live, or other skills you could be learning, or training you have to take. In other words, if you only get this job for a year or two and then lose it, it's not worth the risk. You'd have to be paid enough to retire on, like football players or anyone else whose career is expected to be a few years long.
bsder 4y ago
> What hourly rate do you think is fair for them to pay their employees? $20-$30/hour is ~130%-180% of the median income for Allegheny County, where the company is located. So? Why is it that capitalists can't seem to understand supply/demand curves when it comes to wages?
- klyrs 4y ago
  Playing stupid is a surprisingly effective negotiation strategy when you're holding the dough.
- chordalkeyboard 4y ago
  because they are neoliberal globalists, not capitalists.
  - stonogo 4y ago
    This sentence has no meaning. It's just pejorative buzzwords. What are you trying to say?
    - chordalkeyboard 4y ago
      I'm responding to this: > Why is it that capitalists can't seem to understand supply/demand curves when it comes to wages? If they were 'capitalists' they would use the same supply/demand curve logic to labor costs as everything else.
LatteLazy 4y ago
Avoid using "fair" there is no fair rate because fair isn't really a measurable/definable thing. We use the market rate instead (not that that makes it a "fair" rate, it's just what we use for pragmatic reasons). If they're unable to hire, they're not paying/offering market rate pretty much by definition.

nostrademons 4y ago

That goes on up the chain, though. The reason manufacturing left the U.S. was because it was no longer cost-effective to pay American wages at the prices prevalent in consumer goods industries. Had we kept manufacturing on-shore, the price of goods would've mimicked services like health care, law, and education, all of which have undergone very significant inflation, much more than the economy-wide average. The result of this on-shoring craze (modulo automation) is that we're likely to see very significant inflation, basically taking us back to the cost structures we saw in the 1980s. No more cheap Chinese or Vietnamese goods at Amazon or Walmart; if we have to Buy American, expect to pay the differential between Vietnamese and American wages, roughly a 30-40x increase.

LaserDiscMan 4y ago
> The result of this on-shoring craze (modulo automation) is that we're likely to see very significant inflation, basically taking us back to the cost structures we saw in the 1980s. No more cheap Chinese or Vietnamese goods at Amazon or Walmart; if we have to Buy American, expect to pay the differential between Vietnamese and American wages, roughly a 30-40x increase. I theorise that it might also lead to a reversal of planned obsolescence and products with a short lifespan. Companies might compete by designing goods based around longevity to justify the higher cost. Household appliances, for example, might be a once in a decade (or longer) purchase as opposed to the throwaway approach.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  I have serious doubts that American companies can change their mindset and adopt this approach in any kind of timely fashion.
  - nirimda 4y ago
    Companies don't really have a choice. Employees retire and are trained up. Companies die and new companies are created. Foreign companies can expand into new markets. If there is a change of circumstance that leads to new avenues of profit, they will be taken up.

fny 4y ago

Lol. There are no experienced manufacturing staff in the US anymore, full stop. This isn't a matter of the price of labor. The US has forgotten how to manufacture things. Do you remember when Apple stopped making the Mac Pro in Austin because we couldn't manufacture enough screws? [0] Everyone gave up post '08. The attrition of blue collar work overseas has been painful, so the recommendation writ large has been to avoid going into blue collar work. Even now if a worker takes on a $20 an hour job, they have no guarantee their manufacturing job won't be shipped overseas again. So why choose that career path for even $25 or $30 an hour? It's risky. The energy sector has this problem more severely than any other in part because everyone keeps talking about phasing out fossil fuels. How much would I have to pay you to take a job that a quarter of the country wants removed? No one wants a blue collar job anymore either. That was the whole point of going to college: you become educated for the right to sit on your ass for eight hours and act like you're doing something worthwhile. And now you can do that from home. Compare that to working a skilled manufacturing job where your every movement is measured in a country. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/technology/iphones-apple-china-made.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/technology/iphones-apple-...

lowbloodsugar 4y ago
>they have no guarantee their manufacturing job won't be shipped overseas again. Indeed. This is all just temporary work until China recovers from COVID.
- Phrenzy 4y ago
  IMO China is on the way out. Their real estate market is crashing, and that is bring down the banking industry. The Zero Covid policy is crashing their economy, and the younger generations would rather "Let it Rot." The CCP might not make it to the end of the 2020s. If they somehow get all the above sorted out, the demographic charts show that will be the time they run out of young people. But it is worse than that. The charts may have overcounted the younger generations by up to 100 million people. The de-globalization that is going on, and the fact they can't feed their population, means they will have to make drastic changes. They may even have to de-urbanize large sections of their population to keep hundreds of millions from starving. China is on the way out.

mc32 4y ago

There also might be a shortage in training or apprenticeship. You don’t export jobs and experience for 40 years and then expect workers to magically have the necessary skills from the get.

midoridensha 4y ago
Yes, you do, if you're an MBA grad. From what I've seen over several decades, it seems like they've long expected qualified people to just magically appear whenever they need them, even after a big layoff.

legitster 4y ago

I have to believe that the quote must have been scrambled in the article. Why would an assembly line worker need to be experienced or understand the industry? I could see them having two separate problems - not finding enough unexperienced workers at $20 an hour, and separately not finding enough experienced engineering candidates at any salary.

daniel-cussen 4y ago

[dead]

systemvoltage 4y ago

Business owners are the last ones to blame here. With the current USD exchange rate, manufacturers are facing intense battle on both labor and supply fronts. Here is the root cause: > Panic led to lockdowns. Lockdowns led to fiscal stimulus. Stimulus led to inflation. Inflation led to monetary tightening. Tightening leads to recession. > The panic wasn’t free - and the bill is coming due. https://twitter.com/naval/status/1574638443237294080 https://twitter.com/naval/status/1574638443237294080 Stimulate the hell of out the nation's economy to the point where we have the "Great Resignation". Then go on to blame business owners who are trying to bring manufacturing back to US. Just completely preposterous, illogical and misplaced.

Tangurena2 4y ago

One of Trump's earliest actions was to stop immigrant work visas: that includes H1-2, EB1-3 visas. He was unable to block only Muslims, so instead he blocked everybody. That's about 2 million temporary workers that weren't able to come work here. The "problem" was building up before 2020, it has just come to be noticeable only after the change in administration.