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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 em

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.
- randomdata 13y ago
  Can you clarify #4? I'm actually struggling to see how my programming skills can apply to other jobs in any meaningful way outside of the realm of programming. I mean, sure, if Microsoft left Seattle today, I could probably find another software company in town to work for. However, I expect at one point in time, machinists could walk into another shop with ease too. There is no reason to believe programmers will always be in high demand.
  - ams6110 13y ago
    Rowe didn't mention it, but I think that in addition to a number of people who simply aren't willing to work hard, there are a number of people who aren't willing to move to where the work is. This is another change from 40–50 years ago.
    - pnathan 13y ago
      This is a big deal! A documented major shift in US society is that we are no longer moving around as much. It has been fascinating looking around and seeing the mentality differences between people willing to move (aka adapt) to the world they live in and the jobs they want and the people who are unwilling. IMO, the adaptable people do remarkably better.
  - stinkytaco 13y ago
    I think that most "skilled labor" is more specialized than people realize. As a diesel mechanic I could go a lot of places (urban areas were generally out; I would need to live in the suburbs, where there were truck stops). A programmer, on the other hand, has the option to freelance, work from home, even start his own business with limited or no capital. Any company of any decent size probably hires programmers once and a while or even has a few on staff, but it's not really that easy if your specialty is hyperbaric welding (which you can make a small fortune doing, to be fair). No one "bootstraps" a mechanic's shop, too much space and specialized equipment. But that's still pretty flexible. I'm thinking about all these super industry specific jobs Rowe talks about on his show. Agricultural specialties, oil rig workers, aircraft mechanics and so on. Just not that easy to live close to home and family and do that for a living.
macinjosh 13y ago
@stinkytaco fair point. "Goof off" was a poor choice of words. You pointed out that the work is very hard. I agree but why is that bad? I think that is one of Rowe's biggest points. Doing hard work should be glorified, it should be honorable, it should be something we admire. But American culture has made it a bad thing that should be avoided at any cost. I don't think that is a good thing in the long run.
- eropple 13y ago
  It's bad because it cause physical damage. Virtually every long-term practitioner of a "hard work" job is damaged: back, knees, neck, hands. It's very often a career that you can't outside past 50.
  - pnathan 13y ago
    A good deal of that is alleviated and managed by care at the job site and personal fitness. Growing up around construction workers, all too many of them did not take care of themselves and the debt was called in later in life. Quite sad, but largely preventable. Of course, this does not protect from non-mitigatable risks, which are non-negligable.
    - pwthornton 13y ago
      Can you give us an example of how this is preventable? Repeatedly physical stress wears down the body. This is why you see long time weight lifters and runners with worn out joints in middle age.
      - pnathan 13y ago
        There are a large number of people who have terrible fitness and are 50+ pounds overweight. Many people smoke. I don't have numbers on the correlation with socioeconomic status, but I'm pretty sure that worse fitness and smoking correlate with lower status to a degree (can't recall the news articles on such things, I've read occasional notes on such things). That's borne out by my personal observation. So basically, if you take the intersection of "bad habits" and "physical work", you wind up with "worse body" as a result. On the other hand, careful maintenance of your body & health habits allows you to do better than your unmaintained colleague. It's hard, but doable.

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.

randomdata 13y ago
Can you clarify #4? I'm actually struggling to see how my programming skills can apply to other jobs in any meaningful way outside of the realm of programming. I mean, sure, if Microsoft left Seattle today, I could probably find another software company in town to work for. However, I expect at one point in time, machinists could walk into another shop with ease too. There is no reason to believe programmers will always be in high demand.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Rowe didn't mention it, but I think that in addition to a number of people who simply aren't willing to work hard, there are a number of people who aren't willing to move to where the work is. This is another change from 40–50 years ago.
  - pnathan 13y ago
    This is a big deal! A documented major shift in US society is that we are no longer moving around as much. It has been fascinating looking around and seeing the mentality differences between people willing to move (aka adapt) to the world they live in and the jobs they want and the people who are unwilling. IMO, the adaptable people do remarkably better.
- stinkytaco 13y ago
  I think that most "skilled labor" is more specialized than people realize. As a diesel mechanic I could go a lot of places (urban areas were generally out; I would need to live in the suburbs, where there were truck stops). A programmer, on the other hand, has the option to freelance, work from home, even start his own business with limited or no capital. Any company of any decent size probably hires programmers once and a while or even has a few on staff, but it's not really that easy if your specialty is hyperbaric welding (which you can make a small fortune doing, to be fair). No one "bootstraps" a mechanic's shop, too much space and specialized equipment. But that's still pretty flexible. I'm thinking about all these super industry specific jobs Rowe talks about on his show. Agricultural specialties, oil rig workers, aircraft mechanics and so on. Just not that easy to live close to home and family and do that for a living.

macinjosh 13y ago

@stinkytaco fair point. "Goof off" was a poor choice of words. You pointed out that the work is very hard. I agree but why is that bad? I think that is one of Rowe's biggest points. Doing hard work should be glorified, it should be honorable, it should be something we admire. But American culture has made it a bad thing that should be avoided at any cost. I don't think that is a good thing in the long run.

eropple 13y ago
It's bad because it cause physical damage. Virtually every long-term practitioner of a "hard work" job is damaged: back, knees, neck, hands. It's very often a career that you can't outside past 50.
- pnathan 13y ago
  A good deal of that is alleviated and managed by care at the job site and personal fitness. Growing up around construction workers, all too many of them did not take care of themselves and the debt was called in later in life. Quite sad, but largely preventable. Of course, this does not protect from non-mitigatable risks, which are non-negligable.
  - pwthornton 13y ago
    Can you give us an example of how this is preventable? Repeatedly physical stress wears down the body. This is why you see long time weight lifters and runners with worn out joints in middle age.
    - pnathan 13y ago
      There are a large number of people who have terrible fitness and are 50+ pounds overweight. Many people smoke. I don't have numbers on the correlation with socioeconomic status, but I'm pretty sure that worse fitness and smoking correlate with lower status to a degree (can't recall the news articles on such things, I've read occasional notes on such things). That's borne out by my personal observation. So basically, if you take the intersection of "bad habits" and "physical work", you wind up with "worse body" as a result. On the other hand, careful maintenance of your body & health habits allows you to do better than your unmaintained colleague. It's hard, but doable.