4 ms·

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/magazine/skills-dont-pay-the-bills.html?hp http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/magazine/skills-dont-pay-t...

mooreds 13y ago
I would love to hear Mike Rowe's reply to this. His answers had plenty of anecdotes, as did this article. My question is, where's the data?
- protomyth 13y ago
  He mentions the data several times, go look at the US Labor stats. Infrastructure jobs are open and we don't have the skilled workers to fill them. ND is importing welders from Canada while road work on the eastern side of the state gets delayed. ND has stats on that too. Some jobs cannot be outsourced. [edit: skilled workers are need more in infrastructure / construction then factories]
  - ryandrake 13y ago
    "Number of available jobs" is a meaningless statistic. HN-ready example: I'd like to do a web start-up, if only I could find skilled engineers. I'm willing to pay 100 experienced, skilled Java programmers $10/hr to build the site. What? No takers? Not one?? Well, there you go! 100 jobs unfilled. Skills gap! You can't offer poverty-level wages for skilled jobs, then complain that "we don't have the skilled workers" when college educated workers instead choose to go sell shoes at the mall.
    - kareemm 13y ago
      Rowe addresses this in his article. He describes many of the available jobs as being well above minimum wage. Granted it's anecdotal data, but in the absence of better data, number of available jobs seems to be the best way to determine whether there's a skills gap.
    - macinjosh 13y ago
      That argument is a bit disingenuous if you ask me. A company that legitimately needs worker would be forced to raise their offered wages until they can find employees or would be forced to go out of business. I think the problem is that society has told young people that if they have a 4-year degree they should be making mid to high wages right out of school just because they have a degree. In the real world employers need people with skills not people with a piece of paper. If you were to learn a skill right out of high-school you could live off of $10 to $12 per hour for a few years while you live with parents or roommates and overtime as your skills improve you should be able to earn much more and become independent. But no people would rather goof off at university for four years and have their high wages handed to them.
      - stinkytaco 13y ago
        I think you might be a wee bit disingenuous as well. There are a few issues with so called "skilled labor" right out of high school: 1. Skilled jobs are hard jobs. They are often limited to men strictly due to the physical ability required (I used to work as a diesel mechanic and it was simply not a job that could be done by most women). This is obviously not universally true: machining, some welding, virtually all engineering can be done by women, but there's still a limiter for lots of jobs. 2. The work is hard. This isn't just an issue of "people preferring to goof off". It's hard labor. Given the choice of going to school and continuing that backbreaking work, I made the (wise) choice to go to school. 3. Because it's hard, it's not work for middle aged people. I live in North Dakota, a state that's attracting a lot of skilled labor right now, and it's predominantly young men because men into their 40s and 50s simply can't do it anymore. We need to consider the long term impacts of a workforce that doesn't extend into their 70s. 4. It's not always work that transfers well. Someone who is a computer programmer might be able to work for a long time and in many places, but a skilled laborer is more limited in their options. A machinist in Seattle when Boeing left? Tough break, move or find something else. Obviously this is true with many careers, and many skilled jobs have greater options (mechanics, some welders, engineers) but a skilled laborer is much more subject to the whims of nature than a white collar worker who's skills might be more transferable. I think it's as unfair to say young people want to goof off at college as it is to say that companies want to screw over workers. Young people make decisions for lots of reasons and though I agree that the systems in place to help them make those decisions (parents, school counselors, etc.) could advise them better, it's certainly not because they are goof offs who want a free ride.
    - Crito 13y ago
      This is a terrible analogy; If I were a Java programmer who was unemployed, struggling to find any job at all, I would take your shitty $10/hr programming job in a heartbeat. Of course I am not under/un-employed, so I have the luxury of telling you to take your shitty job offering and shove it. Your little scenario seems absurd to all of us because we all know that there are plenty of far better programming jobs available. We are not looking at a job shortage.
      - pavel_lishin 13y ago
        Unless you were collecting unemployment, in which case the shitty $10/hour job would result in a net loss.
        Locke1689 13y ago
        Or the Java market is in the process of undergoing systemic changes and you're not yet a Java programmer, just someone with some technical skill who could spend time and money to becoming proficient.
        Crito 13y ago
        More than worth closing the resume employment gap.
      - randomdata 13y ago
        There are better programming jobs out there precisely because there are fewer capable programmers than there are jobs. If we had more programmers than jobs, you would be looking at the $10/hr job right now, because if you didn't take it, someone else would jump all over it.
    - gaadd33 13y ago
      Wow, six figures for a welder in the Dakotas is poverty level? I can't imagine what you consider a livable wage.
    - EpicEng 13y ago
      Except they're not shitty jobs. You start low, yes, but you work your way up. Most of them are union. Soon you're making $25+ / hour with benefits and overtime. Yes, God forbid, what a horrible life.
  - mooreds 13y ago
    Are these the us labor stats that you are referring to? http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag23.htm http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag23.htm. Because, if so, it seems they paint a more nuanced picture than either side (shocker!). There are plenty of openings (113k), but the median pay is in the 40k/year range, not 55k starting mentioned. The unemployment rate is also higher than the national average. Not a bad career, but hardly the land of milk and honey.
  - Iftheshoefits 13y ago
    Anytime I hear "we have a shortage of workers" my first thought is, "for what jobs, and at what wage/working conditions?" Usually when a person says "I have a shortage of workers" they mean "I can't find enough chumps/desperate people to work for the ridiculously low wage I want to pay."
    - taeric 13y ago
      There is also the difference between jobs and careers. For many it is not enough to have a job that pays decently. They need one that is stable. Preferably with benefits that can make future planning easy. (And, by easy, I mean possible.)
evanrich 13y ago
It seems to me that these articles are talking about different sorts of jobs. They are both quoting the same numbers, but choose to use different application for those numbers. I would think there is some truth in both sides. For Rowe's part, he is talking about jobs that can not be outsourced and are not optional to those who need the work finished. Pipe fitting, maintenance through welding, and vague post-Katrina engineering jobs are jobs and skills that have to be done on site, and therefore can not be moved overseas. They also pay well. These are jobs that make up part of that 3.5M jobs number, but I would guess a small portion of it. The NYT article talks about machining and factory work. In this field, work can be done here or abroad, so the cost of workers is a commodity. Unless tax breaks help these factories bring higher wages or the owners are altruistic, in my mind we can count these jobs as already gone. Someone could take that job for a bit, making $10-15 an hour but as soon as the commodity cost of wages exceeds the cost of added transportation abroad or the cost of transportation falls or any number of little pieces that fall into the outsourcing equation change, those jobs are gone just like the rest. The issue with these jobs are that they are still considered skilled when technology is quickly making them unskilled.

mooreds 13y ago

I would love to hear Mike Rowe's reply to this. His answers had plenty of anecdotes, as did this article. My question is, where's the data?

protomyth 13y ago
He mentions the data several times, go look at the US Labor stats. Infrastructure jobs are open and we don't have the skilled workers to fill them. ND is importing welders from Canada while road work on the eastern side of the state gets delayed. ND has stats on that too. Some jobs cannot be outsourced. [edit: skilled workers are need more in infrastructure / construction then factories]
- ryandrake 13y ago
  "Number of available jobs" is a meaningless statistic. HN-ready example: I'd like to do a web start-up, if only I could find skilled engineers. I'm willing to pay 100 experienced, skilled Java programmers $10/hr to build the site. What? No takers? Not one?? Well, there you go! 100 jobs unfilled. Skills gap! You can't offer poverty-level wages for skilled jobs, then complain that "we don't have the skilled workers" when college educated workers instead choose to go sell shoes at the mall.
  - kareemm 13y ago
    Rowe addresses this in his article. He describes many of the available jobs as being well above minimum wage. Granted it's anecdotal data, but in the absence of better data, number of available jobs seems to be the best way to determine whether there's a skills gap.
  - macinjosh 13y ago
    That argument is a bit disingenuous if you ask me. A company that legitimately needs worker would be forced to raise their offered wages until they can find employees or would be forced to go out of business. I think the problem is that society has told young people that if they have a 4-year degree they should be making mid to high wages right out of school just because they have a degree. In the real world employers need people with skills not people with a piece of paper. If you were to learn a skill right out of high-school you could live off of $10 to $12 per hour for a few years while you live with parents or roommates and overtime as your skills improve you should be able to earn much more and become independent. But no people would rather goof off at university for four years and have their high wages handed to them.
    - stinkytaco 13y ago
      I think you might be a wee bit disingenuous as well. There are a few issues with so called "skilled labor" right out of high school: 1. Skilled jobs are hard jobs. They are often limited to men strictly due to the physical ability required (I used to work as a diesel mechanic and it was simply not a job that could be done by most women). This is obviously not universally true: machining, some welding, virtually all engineering can be done by women, but there's still a limiter for lots of jobs. 2. The work is hard. This isn't just an issue of "people preferring to goof off". It's hard labor. Given the choice of going to school and continuing that backbreaking work, I made the (wise) choice to go to school. 3. Because it's hard, it's not work for middle aged people. I live in North Dakota, a state that's attracting a lot of skilled labor right now, and it's predominantly young men because men into their 40s and 50s simply can't do it anymore. We need to consider the long term impacts of a workforce that doesn't extend into their 70s. 4. It's not always work that transfers well. Someone who is a computer programmer might be able to work for a long time and in many places, but a skilled laborer is more limited in their options. A machinist in Seattle when Boeing left? Tough break, move or find something else. Obviously this is true with many careers, and many skilled jobs have greater options (mechanics, some welders, engineers) but a skilled laborer is much more subject to the whims of nature than a white collar worker who's skills might be more transferable. I think it's as unfair to say young people want to goof off at college as it is to say that companies want to screw over workers. Young people make decisions for lots of reasons and though I agree that the systems in place to help them make those decisions (parents, school counselors, etc.) could advise them better, it's certainly not because they are goof offs who want a free ride.
  - Crito 13y ago
    This is a terrible analogy; If I were a Java programmer who was unemployed, struggling to find any job at all, I would take your shitty $10/hr programming job in a heartbeat. Of course I am not under/un-employed, so I have the luxury of telling you to take your shitty job offering and shove it. Your little scenario seems absurd to all of us because we all know that there are plenty of far better programming jobs available. We are not looking at a job shortage.
    - pavel_lishin 13y ago
      Unless you were collecting unemployment, in which case the shitty $10/hour job would result in a net loss.
      - Locke1689 13y ago
        Or the Java market is in the process of undergoing systemic changes and you're not yet a Java programmer, just someone with some technical skill who could spend time and money to becoming proficient.
      - Crito 13y ago
        More than worth closing the resume employment gap.
    - randomdata 13y ago
      There are better programming jobs out there precisely because there are fewer capable programmers than there are jobs. If we had more programmers than jobs, you would be looking at the $10/hr job right now, because if you didn't take it, someone else would jump all over it.
  - gaadd33 13y ago
    Wow, six figures for a welder in the Dakotas is poverty level? I can't imagine what you consider a livable wage.
  - EpicEng 13y ago
    Except they're not shitty jobs. You start low, yes, but you work your way up. Most of them are union. Soon you're making $25+ / hour with benefits and overtime. Yes, God forbid, what a horrible life.
- mooreds 13y ago
  Are these the us labor stats that you are referring to? http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag23.htm http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag23.htm. Because, if so, it seems they paint a more nuanced picture than either side (shocker!). There are plenty of openings (113k), but the median pay is in the 40k/year range, not 55k starting mentioned. The unemployment rate is also higher than the national average. Not a bad career, but hardly the land of milk and honey.
- Iftheshoefits 13y ago
  Anytime I hear "we have a shortage of workers" my first thought is, "for what jobs, and at what wage/working conditions?" Usually when a person says "I have a shortage of workers" they mean "I can't find enough chumps/desperate people to work for the ridiculously low wage I want to pay."
  - taeric 13y ago
    There is also the difference between jobs and careers. For many it is not enough to have a job that pays decently. They need one that is stable. Preferably with benefits that can make future planning easy. (And, by easy, I mean possible.)

evanrich 13y ago

It seems to me that these articles are talking about different sorts of jobs. They are both quoting the same numbers, but choose to use different application for those numbers. I would think there is some truth in both sides. For Rowe's part, he is talking about jobs that can not be outsourced and are not optional to those who need the work finished. Pipe fitting, maintenance through welding, and vague post-Katrina engineering jobs are jobs and skills that have to be done on site, and therefore can not be moved overseas. They also pay well. These are jobs that make up part of that 3.5M jobs number, but I would guess a small portion of it. The NYT article talks about machining and factory work. In this field, work can be done here or abroad, so the cost of workers is a commodity. Unless tax breaks help these factories bring higher wages or the owners are altruistic, in my mind we can count these jobs as already gone. Someone could take that job for a bit, making $10-15 an hour but as soon as the commodity cost of wages exceeds the cost of added transportation abroad or the cost of transportation falls or any number of little pieces that fall into the outsourcing equation change, those jobs are gone just like the rest. The issue with these jobs are that they are still considered skilled when technology is quickly making them unskilled.