12 ms·

Same labor shortage as everywhere that the government likes to pretend doesn't exist. 10 million working-age men can't or won't work. Of the ones willing to wor

Same labor shortage as everywhere that the government likes to pretend doesn't exist. 10 million working-age men can't or won't work. Of the ones willing to work, almost none want to spend their time learning skills for back-breaking, barely-middle class skills jobs which they'll be forced to retire from at 55 because their knees give out. Same answer for the shortage as everywhere that the economists don't want to hear: pay more, allow more immigration, get better benefits especially for parents. Edit: also in this case universal healthcare, universal mandatory PTO, would also extremely help

bruceb 4y ago
Pay more yet also increase the supply of labor which drives down wages. Seems not the answer.
- draw_down 4y ago
  [dead]
- onion2k 4y ago
  Sometimes Econ101 supply and demand theory isn't nuanced enough. Wages can go up at the same time as the supply increases if the amount of money in the system also increases. How do you think software engineer wages rocketed up over the past 20 years?
  - bruceb 4y ago
    Apples and oranges. One assumes there is a relatively fixed supply of plumbing problems. Software in the last 30+ years has created new industries which require more software people.
    - falcolas 4y ago
      > One assumes there is a relatively fixed supply of plumbing problems. The volume of plumbing problems is going to increase at least linearly with the housing supply, which (theoretically) increases more-or-less linearly with population. Plus, people move around, so there will be concentrations of problems, and those concentrations will move with the population. That doesn't account for how technology and building codes and material changes have made previously simple plumbing problems more complex over time.
      - bruceb 4y ago
        On the other hand we now have waterless urinals. Maybe plumbing tech and equipment costs have eliminated some jobs and made some jobs less skilled as it cheaper just to replace than do repairs that take knowledge. Software jobs are many X what they were 30 years ago, while I doubt plumbing jobs have change that much above what they were relative to the population 30 years ago.
    - HDThoreaun 4y ago
      House sizes have doubled over the last 50 years. I would not assume a fixed supply of plumbing problems.
  - stcroixx 4y ago
    Outside of FAANG outliers and SV, have software engineer wages really rocketed up? I've worked outside the FAANG world at companies of various sizes and industries for 25 years and haven't seen it. If anything, I'd say wage growth has been kept artificially low by H1B competition from folks born in low cost of living countries under threat of deportation if they object to the abuse they receive. The average corporate IT dept. looks more like a sweatshop now than it did 20 years ago, the ones I've seen anyway.
    - jjk166 4y ago
      I'm in Philadelphia, software jobs around here pay about 2-3 times what other engineering disciplines pay for the same level of experience.
      - brewdad 4y ago
        How quickly do you hit the salary ceiling though? That's what I've seen. Software devs make a lot more than other engineers when starting out. By 7-10 years of experience, the gap is much, much narrower.
- throwaway5947 4y ago
  You could just do what happens everywhere else, price fixing. (I mean everywhere else as in the real world, not the soft interior of an “economics” textbook).
malandrew 4y ago
I’ve done both kinds of work on my own home. Calling it back breaking is pure hyperbole. Is it physical, certainly. But it’s something you can easily do until you’re 50 without issue and between 40 to 50, you can start taking apprentices that do the taxes that benefit from youth. Of the plumbers and carpenters I’ve hired, they are all in no worse shape than other adults their age. I sit at a computer all day and it’s not good for my body either as I’m more sedentary than is healthy. I would say that my work is equally unhealthy but in different ways.
- Ancalagon 4y ago
  Doing one-off projects on your own home is not equivalent to being a full time roofer or tile-layer, or even plumber or auto tech where you are constantly working on your back, hands, and knees. I have my own home too and the times I’ve done my own plumbing work were hard. And that’s one of the physically-speaking easier jobs, never mind Roofing, I wouldn’t last a week.
  - eddsh1994 4y ago
    My uncles a roofer and did it into his 40s but eventually started his own company when he wanted to stop carrying slate around on roofs in the miserable British winters. I think that's the usual progression - you're not literally laying tiles till you're 67.
    - Ancalagon 4y ago
      Is starting a roofing company a viable career path for _every_ young roofer that wants to make roofing their career? If not I think that still hits the "knees give out by 55" issue.
      - eddsh1994 4y ago
        No, but supervising/managing is pretty viable. Also these aren’t FTSE100 companies, these are small groups of like 3/4 people who spin off and have a few commercial clients.
bubblematrix 4y ago
Independent plumbers/local plumbing businesses can easily earn $1,000/day with 2-3 service calls. Not sure how universal healthcare, PTO, immigration, and more pay have to do with this. Edit: Thank you for all the downvotes for me calling out the weird correlation between tech benefits/politics and plumber skill-shortage + high-reward wages. Your wokeism will forever benefit society.
- teawrecks 4y ago
  What do independent plumbers have to do for healthcare for them and their families? Is there a better option than COBRA? I honestly don't know.
  - dangerwill 4y ago
    COBRA is for temporarily keeping employer provided healthcare after leaving a company and is basically a non-option except as a short term bridge to a new employer provided plan. I believe independent workers generally go to the health care exchanges and buy a private health care plan. Rates vary wildly by state, coverage details, and your age but I've recently looked in Washington state for midrange (silver) plans and they are around ~$400 a month (with no dependents).
    - r00fus 4y ago
      I know people who surfed the COBRA wave - ie, joined full-time for a company for a month every year or two to keep COBRA going and then going back to contract work in the interim.
      - convolvatron 4y ago
        I just left FTE and took COBRA and they are giving me 18mo!
        yamtaddle 4y ago
        "Giving". Normally it just means you get to pay the full cost of your health plan, which is often double or more what you were paying as an employee. It's just so you're not immediately ineligible for the employer's group. Unless yours is also paying the premium those 18 months, which I've never heard of but I suppose is possible.
SideQuark 4y ago
So instead of "barely middle-class" jobs, they choose no job? That will turn out well for them.
- Ancalagon 4y ago
  You’d be surprised. Sometimes quality of life is better spent not working when you can lean on family and friends Or your own small retirement fund. Not saying someone’s life choices are right or wrong one way or the other in this case. I’m very grateful for my position but would be lying if I didn’t say I day dreamt occasionally about quitting work and living like a backpacker.
  - SideQuark 4y ago
    >Sometimes quality of life is better spent not working when you can lean on family and friends Or your own small retirement fund. And then when enough do, and the result becomes a lifetime of un/under-employment, then they want the retirements or lives of those before or around them, who do you think will pick up the slack? Sure, quit and be a backpacker. Doing it a while is fun, probably even healthy, but a lifetime of it will not end well for many people. And generally if enough people do it, then society as a whole will have to pay for it.
    - orwin 4y ago
      I mean, if enough enough refusing to enter the rat race makes society hurts, maybe a new way of social organization will be creted?
    - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
      > who do you think will pick up the slack? Machines? Volunteers? Hobbyists? Artists? Researchers? Bored people?
    - fleddr 4y ago
      Pretty funny thing to say on HN, which consists of people in the industry of automating things.
oceanplexian 4y ago
Fitting pipes together is not "back breaking". We're not talking about framing or roofing, in the contracting world plumbing is a light duty skilled trade that anyone with half a brain can earn a 6-figure income on. If you take care of yourself and wear protective equipment, you won't have a problem with your knees in middle age. There's no "forced retirement", someone working as an independent contractor for 25 years is likely more wealthy than the average software engineer in most LCOL or MCOL parts of the country. The problem isn't "lack of immigrants". The problem is that when surveyed, 25% of Gen-Z said they plan to pursue a career as "influencers". My opinion is that younger generations have been brought up in a world where they don't need to take personal responsibility or ever get their hands dirty.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  I see this line about kids wanting to be influencers. Is there a credible source? And is this any different than them wanting to be a rock star, movie star, etc.? Most who have this hairbrained dream can fail quickly and hopefully with minimal cost or embarrassment and move on with their lives.
  - nullsense 4y ago
    My 7 year old routinely tells me he is going to be a YouTuber. I routinely remind him about power law distributions. So far he has made 2 YouTube channels with a handful of videos each and even less subscribers. I can't recall if it was for his 6th or 7th birthday but he had been talking a lot about wanting his own "merch", so I asked him what kind of design would he put on his "merch" and he told me what he wanted. I whipped one up on a t-shirt making site and got it for him for his birthday. He still wears it and still refers to it as his "merch". I think it's mostly harmless and of course most kids will grow out of it. It's definitely like wanting to be a rockstar, but I think the scale is larger and the barrier to entry so much lower that they seem much more convinced it's actually a viable option than what I thought being a rockstar was when I was a kid. My guess is for many of them it will be a second "wait, Santa isn't real?" moment when they get a bit older and realize that power law distributions are a thing and that's just how it is. Followed by fun times reminiscing about it with each other as adults.
tgv 4y ago
> universal healthcare, universal mandatory PTO I'm all in favor, but that exists elsewhere, and there's a labor shortage too.
lumb63 4y ago
I don’t think it’s correct to characterize the 10 million men who can’t or won’t work as a labor shortage; it sounds more like excess supply. The solution to this is to increase the demand these laborers have for work. As you say in your post, paying more might do it. I’m sure businesses would pay more if they needed the employees and could profitably employ them at a higher wage. Surely they’d rather make less money per employee than not make any money. So, they must not be able to pay more than they are. We could lower the minimum wage; maybe there are employers who would employ those 10 million men if they could do it at a lower cost, but still the workers wouldn’t be willing to work any more than they are now. That leaves raising the opportunity cost of not working, e.g. not paying people who won’t work as much to not work. That’s the answer that the people who have answers “that the economists don’t want to hear” don’t want to hear. UBI/negative income tax or cutting welfare programs would help those folks get jobs, but with the risk that some might not, and would end up on the streets.
- Ancalagon 4y ago
  Looking at some random sources around [1], some of the studies on this conclude the issue is these men don't want to work for such low status/pay jobs, and the skill bars are too high for the jobs they would work. Many are dependent on wives/parents to get by. So not paying welfare probably won't help much because those men aren't on it to begin with. If you want people to work, you need to be willing to take on some of the opportunity risk and train them. If you want them to work in the trades, you probably need to train them and pay them well. Even then the status issue wrt blue-collar work is hard to get around without a significant cultural shift. [1]: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/08/15/men-not-at-work-why-so-many-men-ages-of-25-to-54-are-not-working/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/08/15/men-not-a...
uses 4y ago
What? Those are exactly the type of solutions economists would prescribe.
AngryData 4y ago
Yeah I grew up learning trades from my parents and neighbors and friends, worked in trades a number of years. I left the trades because it isn't worth it. The pay is not much better than working as a cashier or working in the local jail's kitchen around here. The work is inconsistent as hell both on a micro and macro level. And I am currently watching the ravages of their time in the trades on their bodies through my family and neighbors as they live with constant pain and are both literally and figuratively limping their way into retirement with not a whole lot to show for it as their compounding health issues drain most of their savings. Sadly most will never get to actually enjoy retirement, they look and feel 20+ years older than they are and can't afford to vacation or enjoy anything but the most barebones hobbies.
escapedmoose 4y ago
Yep. My partner and I come from blue-collar families. A major motivating factor for each of us getting a tech degree was that we saw how the blue-collar lifestyle physically destroyed our parents. The white-collar sedentary lifestyle requires some maintenance to stay healthy, but I don’t expect to lose any fingers or knees because of it.

bruceb 4y ago

Pay more yet also increase the supply of labor which drives down wages. Seems not the answer.

draw_down 4y ago
[dead]
onion2k 4y ago
Sometimes Econ101 supply and demand theory isn't nuanced enough. Wages can go up at the same time as the supply increases if the amount of money in the system also increases. How do you think software engineer wages rocketed up over the past 20 years?
- bruceb 4y ago
  Apples and oranges. One assumes there is a relatively fixed supply of plumbing problems. Software in the last 30+ years has created new industries which require more software people.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    > One assumes there is a relatively fixed supply of plumbing problems. The volume of plumbing problems is going to increase at least linearly with the housing supply, which (theoretically) increases more-or-less linearly with population. Plus, people move around, so there will be concentrations of problems, and those concentrations will move with the population. That doesn't account for how technology and building codes and material changes have made previously simple plumbing problems more complex over time.
    - bruceb 4y ago
      On the other hand we now have waterless urinals. Maybe plumbing tech and equipment costs have eliminated some jobs and made some jobs less skilled as it cheaper just to replace than do repairs that take knowledge. Software jobs are many X what they were 30 years ago, while I doubt plumbing jobs have change that much above what they were relative to the population 30 years ago.
  - HDThoreaun 4y ago
    House sizes have doubled over the last 50 years. I would not assume a fixed supply of plumbing problems.
- stcroixx 4y ago
  Outside of FAANG outliers and SV, have software engineer wages really rocketed up? I've worked outside the FAANG world at companies of various sizes and industries for 25 years and haven't seen it. If anything, I'd say wage growth has been kept artificially low by H1B competition from folks born in low cost of living countries under threat of deportation if they object to the abuse they receive. The average corporate IT dept. looks more like a sweatshop now than it did 20 years ago, the ones I've seen anyway.
  - jjk166 4y ago
    I'm in Philadelphia, software jobs around here pay about 2-3 times what other engineering disciplines pay for the same level of experience.
    - brewdad 4y ago
      How quickly do you hit the salary ceiling though? That's what I've seen. Software devs make a lot more than other engineers when starting out. By 7-10 years of experience, the gap is much, much narrower.
throwaway5947 4y ago
You could just do what happens everywhere else, price fixing. (I mean everywhere else as in the real world, not the soft interior of an “economics” textbook).

malandrew 4y ago

I’ve done both kinds of work on my own home. Calling it back breaking is pure hyperbole. Is it physical, certainly. But it’s something you can easily do until you’re 50 without issue and between 40 to 50, you can start taking apprentices that do the taxes that benefit from youth. Of the plumbers and carpenters I’ve hired, they are all in no worse shape than other adults their age. I sit at a computer all day and it’s not good for my body either as I’m more sedentary than is healthy. I would say that my work is equally unhealthy but in different ways.

Ancalagon 4y ago
Doing one-off projects on your own home is not equivalent to being a full time roofer or tile-layer, or even plumber or auto tech where you are constantly working on your back, hands, and knees. I have my own home too and the times I’ve done my own plumbing work were hard. And that’s one of the physically-speaking easier jobs, never mind Roofing, I wouldn’t last a week.
- eddsh1994 4y ago
  My uncles a roofer and did it into his 40s but eventually started his own company when he wanted to stop carrying slate around on roofs in the miserable British winters. I think that's the usual progression - you're not literally laying tiles till you're 67.
  - Ancalagon 4y ago
    Is starting a roofing company a viable career path for _every_ young roofer that wants to make roofing their career? If not I think that still hits the "knees give out by 55" issue.
    - eddsh1994 4y ago
      No, but supervising/managing is pretty viable. Also these aren’t FTSE100 companies, these are small groups of like 3/4 people who spin off and have a few commercial clients.

bubblematrix 4y ago

Independent plumbers/local plumbing businesses can easily earn $1,000/day with 2-3 service calls. Not sure how universal healthcare, PTO, immigration, and more pay have to do with this. Edit: Thank you for all the downvotes for me calling out the weird correlation between tech benefits/politics and plumber skill-shortage + high-reward wages. Your wokeism will forever benefit society.

teawrecks 4y ago
What do independent plumbers have to do for healthcare for them and their families? Is there a better option than COBRA? I honestly don't know.
- dangerwill 4y ago
  COBRA is for temporarily keeping employer provided healthcare after leaving a company and is basically a non-option except as a short term bridge to a new employer provided plan. I believe independent workers generally go to the health care exchanges and buy a private health care plan. Rates vary wildly by state, coverage details, and your age but I've recently looked in Washington state for midrange (silver) plans and they are around ~$400 a month (with no dependents).
  - r00fus 4y ago
    I know people who surfed the COBRA wave - ie, joined full-time for a company for a month every year or two to keep COBRA going and then going back to contract work in the interim.
    - convolvatron 4y ago
      I just left FTE and took COBRA and they are giving me 18mo!
      - yamtaddle 4y ago
        "Giving". Normally it just means you get to pay the full cost of your health plan, which is often double or more what you were paying as an employee. It's just so you're not immediately ineligible for the employer's group. Unless yours is also paying the premium those 18 months, which I've never heard of but I suppose is possible.

SideQuark 4y ago

So instead of "barely middle-class" jobs, they choose no job? That will turn out well for them.

Ancalagon 4y ago
You’d be surprised. Sometimes quality of life is better spent not working when you can lean on family and friends Or your own small retirement fund. Not saying someone’s life choices are right or wrong one way or the other in this case. I’m very grateful for my position but would be lying if I didn’t say I day dreamt occasionally about quitting work and living like a backpacker.
- SideQuark 4y ago
  >Sometimes quality of life is better spent not working when you can lean on family and friends Or your own small retirement fund. And then when enough do, and the result becomes a lifetime of un/under-employment, then they want the retirements or lives of those before or around them, who do you think will pick up the slack? Sure, quit and be a backpacker. Doing it a while is fun, probably even healthy, but a lifetime of it will not end well for many people. And generally if enough people do it, then society as a whole will have to pay for it.
  - orwin 4y ago
    I mean, if enough enough refusing to enter the rat race makes society hurts, maybe a new way of social organization will be creted?
  - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
    > who do you think will pick up the slack? Machines? Volunteers? Hobbyists? Artists? Researchers? Bored people?
  - fleddr 4y ago
    Pretty funny thing to say on HN, which consists of people in the industry of automating things.

oceanplexian 4y ago

Fitting pipes together is not "back breaking". We're not talking about framing or roofing, in the contracting world plumbing is a light duty skilled trade that anyone with half a brain can earn a 6-figure income on. If you take care of yourself and wear protective equipment, you won't have a problem with your knees in middle age. There's no "forced retirement", someone working as an independent contractor for 25 years is likely more wealthy than the average software engineer in most LCOL or MCOL parts of the country. The problem isn't "lack of immigrants". The problem is that when surveyed, 25% of Gen-Z said they plan to pursue a career as "influencers". My opinion is that younger generations have been brought up in a world where they don't need to take personal responsibility or ever get their hands dirty.

unethical_ban 4y ago
I see this line about kids wanting to be influencers. Is there a credible source? And is this any different than them wanting to be a rock star, movie star, etc.? Most who have this hairbrained dream can fail quickly and hopefully with minimal cost or embarrassment and move on with their lives.
- nullsense 4y ago
  My 7 year old routinely tells me he is going to be a YouTuber. I routinely remind him about power law distributions. So far he has made 2 YouTube channels with a handful of videos each and even less subscribers. I can't recall if it was for his 6th or 7th birthday but he had been talking a lot about wanting his own "merch", so I asked him what kind of design would he put on his "merch" and he told me what he wanted. I whipped one up on a t-shirt making site and got it for him for his birthday. He still wears it and still refers to it as his "merch". I think it's mostly harmless and of course most kids will grow out of it. It's definitely like wanting to be a rockstar, but I think the scale is larger and the barrier to entry so much lower that they seem much more convinced it's actually a viable option than what I thought being a rockstar was when I was a kid. My guess is for many of them it will be a second "wait, Santa isn't real?" moment when they get a bit older and realize that power law distributions are a thing and that's just how it is. Followed by fun times reminiscing about it with each other as adults.

tgv 4y ago

> universal healthcare, universal mandatory PTO I'm all in favor, but that exists elsewhere, and there's a labor shortage too.

lumb63 4y ago

I don’t think it’s correct to characterize the 10 million men who can’t or won’t work as a labor shortage; it sounds more like excess supply. The solution to this is to increase the demand these laborers have for work. As you say in your post, paying more might do it. I’m sure businesses would pay more if they needed the employees and could profitably employ them at a higher wage. Surely they’d rather make less money per employee than not make any money. So, they must not be able to pay more than they are. We could lower the minimum wage; maybe there are employers who would employ those 10 million men if they could do it at a lower cost, but still the workers wouldn’t be willing to work any more than they are now. That leaves raising the opportunity cost of not working, e.g. not paying people who won’t work as much to not work. That’s the answer that the people who have answers “that the economists don’t want to hear” don’t want to hear. UBI/negative income tax or cutting welfare programs would help those folks get jobs, but with the risk that some might not, and would end up on the streets.

Ancalagon 4y ago
Looking at some random sources around [1], some of the studies on this conclude the issue is these men don't want to work for such low status/pay jobs, and the skill bars are too high for the jobs they would work. Many are dependent on wives/parents to get by. So not paying welfare probably won't help much because those men aren't on it to begin with. If you want people to work, you need to be willing to take on some of the opportunity risk and train them. If you want them to work in the trades, you probably need to train them and pay them well. Even then the status issue wrt blue-collar work is hard to get around without a significant cultural shift. [1]: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/08/15/men-not-at-work-why-so-many-men-ages-of-25-to-54-are-not-working/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/08/15/men-not-a...

uses 4y ago

What? Those are exactly the type of solutions economists would prescribe.

AngryData 4y ago

Yeah I grew up learning trades from my parents and neighbors and friends, worked in trades a number of years. I left the trades because it isn't worth it. The pay is not much better than working as a cashier or working in the local jail's kitchen around here. The work is inconsistent as hell both on a micro and macro level. And I am currently watching the ravages of their time in the trades on their bodies through my family and neighbors as they live with constant pain and are both literally and figuratively limping their way into retirement with not a whole lot to show for it as their compounding health issues drain most of their savings. Sadly most will never get to actually enjoy retirement, they look and feel 20+ years older than they are and can't afford to vacation or enjoy anything but the most barebones hobbies.

escapedmoose 4y ago

Yep. My partner and I come from blue-collar families. A major motivating factor for each of us getting a tech degree was that we saw how the blue-collar lifestyle physically destroyed our parents. The white-collar sedentary lifestyle requires some maintenance to stay healthy, but I don’t expect to lose any fingers or knees because of it.