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The recovery puzzle: New factory in Ohio struggles to match jobs to job-seekers
- chrisbennet 13y ago"Bernie Coyle wants to hire people. In this hopeful moment in the recuperating American economy, he wants to give 40 new employees health insurance, dental insurance, good wages and a 401(k) plan with a company match.." Why do employers think they are "giving" people a job? Would they say the employee is looking to "give" them labor? Its business after all, both parties are exchanging something. Nothing is being "given".
- dropit_sphere 13y ago>Why do employers think they are "giving" people a job? Would they say the employee is looking to "give" them labor? Its business after all, both parties are exchanging something. Nothing is being "given". While I want to side with you in principle, for many workers this is their reality. For whatever reason, their own fault or not, they have trouble finding a job, and it is very easy to fall into the mental trap of relying on the generosity of others rather than one's own competence.
- fredgrott 13y agoYes, but he is in fact interviewing for competence.. Its probably the phrasing of the writer not Bernie
- rdtsc 13y agoEmployees and employers maybe legally have equal power, as in, on paper it is a peer to peer type relationship. But in practice it is not. There could be many reasons, low level of training required, lots of desperate candidates waiting at the door, jobs shipped overseas (so say local factory from another type of industry) was closed create a surplus of labor, and so on. Normally people will be lining out at the door to take the place of anyone fired and will also work extra and sacrifice their free time in order to not get let go. Another reason for what he said is the propaganda narrative that has been pushed through the ages -- "companies are good, they create jobs" "you should not unionize", "labor rights are wrong", "companies are benefactors and if you behave yourself you'll get a job from them". So this kind of mentality (even regardless of economic condition currently) is entrenched. Think about it, usually that kind of jobs would be filled quickly and it would be make for a news story. The fact that it wasn't, it kind of became an anomaly and is now in the news. Now he could probably change location (move to a more poor part of the country), raise the salary (to make it worthwhile to drive 2 or 3 hours a day), or few other things.
- joelrunyon 13y agoWell if people are looking for a job, he's giving them an opportunity to fulfill that desire. While a engineer in SV might have more leverage in a situation like this, in parts of the US that are still recovering and the unemployment is higher, finding these opportunities is definitely an area where an employer has leverage.
- joelrunyon 13y agoI don't get the downvotes. As someone from the midwest (and spent significant time in that area - Ft. Wayne), that's exactly the mentality that exists there.
- chrisbennet 13y agoIt just bugs me when an employee has the mindset that they are doing the employee a favor. It's an exchange of value. if anything, the employer is often exploiting a desperate employee in order to put even more money in their own pocket.
- joelrunyon 13y agoIf that's the case, you're better of educating that populace to change the position of leverage to be in their favor than you are complaining about the word choice that accurately reflects the current reality of the situation.
- chrisbennet 13y agoI know this thread is making me sound like a raving loon or communist and I'm not, honest! It's the sense of entitlement that bugs me. As to your point, better educating the populace has not been a solution so far. The glut of college educated people has not improved the employer/employee relationship. The lack of jobs is a systemic thing that more education is not going to fix unfortunately. Few people will admit that though.
- joelrunyon 13y agoI meant educating the populace in how to get into a position of leverage - not simply just getting education to get education.
- goatforce5 13y agoWhy so many no-shows for the interviews? Is it a sign that the economy is doing well and applicants (for these types of jobs in this area, at least) have multiple good offers on the table? Or that the applicants are so worn down that they don't bother to turn up because they think they have no chance of getting the jobs they're apply for?
- privong 13y agoIt would seem odd for the latter - why even bother applying, in that case?
- brandnewlow 13y agoTo keep their unemployment benefits alive maybe? I believe you have to show you're out looking for work.
- Mvandenbergh 13y agoNot showing up for interviews will also get your benefits stopped.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Zaephyr 13y agoAn article about having trouble filling jobs; but there is no indication that the hiring manager made any effort to determine why he is having trouble getting people to show for interviews. Makes me wonder if he knows why and just isn't saying. Small town? Too far from major cities? Wages that are an insufficient draw for the type/location/work schedule?
- logn 13y agoBeing from this region, I'm guessing it's the location, Fort Recovery. The nearest cities are Fort Wayne and Dayton, which are both small cities, and they're about 1.25 hours away. Fort Recovery isn't near any interstate highway. The job ads probably show up for everyone in Cincinnati, Columbus, and Indianapolis, and once they GPS it, they probably realize how far it is (2.25 hours from those cities). The salary and benefits are competitive though ($65-70K/yr is what a mid-level software engineer makes), which is probably why a lot of people fire off an email.
- w1ntermute 13y agoIn order to entice petroleum engineers to work above the Arctic circle or on an oil rig, energy companies compensate them accordingly. The wages offered in the story just aren't sufficient for this location.
- rdtsc 13y agoGood point. You are comparing rural Ohio to the Arctic circle, which, if you are from Ohio makes for a funny side note.
- x0x0 13y agoNot to mention the two body problem. Dude wants to hire an experienced supervisor; that sounds to me like someone 10+ years into his or her career. That person most likely has a spouse, and maybe kids. The plant is in the middle of nowhere, so there's poor job prospects for the spouse. And a teeny little town often doesn't have the best school districts either. The ad [1] also doesn't mention relocation support, so it's presumably up to the worker to self-finance a $10k or more move. And before anybody complains about the price, have you recently priced a move with a grownup life, including real furniture -- beds, couches, dressers, a lease to be broken or a house to be sold, job search expenses for the spouse, etc. http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.aspx?Job_DID=JB78B86N4XPB0ZX3PNY&siteid=cb001&showNewJDP=yes&ipath=EXINDsep_google_feed%2cEXGOO http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.aspx?...
- tsuyoshi 13y agoThe only puzzle here is why the author of this story thinks these jobs are any good. Maybe because the journalism job market is so shitty that reporters actually think $50k/year is a great salary, and living in the midst of more chickens than people is enticing.
- astrange 13y ago$50k/year is more than the median household income of the US, and out there with no culture or people the houses must be quite cheap!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Mvandenbergh 13y agoIn the middle of the chickens, $50k/yr is enough to buy a good sized house as a household income, let alone an individual one.
- bambax 13y ago> Bernie likes to think of his job as if he’s building a baseball team. (...) Can the guy who applied for first base play right field instead? What about the pitcher? Please don't do this. This makes this part of the article incomprehensible for a non-American person. First base? Right field? I have no idea what this means and will never learn (even if one told me today what it means, I would have completely forgotten tomorrow).
- roel_v 13y agoWho cares about non-Americans on 'washingtonpost.com' ? (besides that anyone with 4th grade reading comprehension skills can understand what the point of the analogy is)
- joelrunyon 13y agoI bet you're a smarter individual than you're letting on. You might know what those mean right off the bat - but I'm sure you can infer the reference via some pretty good critical thinking skills. I pay no attention to soccer, hockey or cricket, but if a fan uses a position term as part of a broader analogy, I could infer the overall context of his point. Besides all that, baseball is hardly just an American sport, it might not be as widely popular in Europe, but it's quite popular in Central / South America as well as Japan / Taiwan.
- pessimizer 13y agoRight off the bat?
- Mvandenbergh 13y ago1) It's an American newspaper, you might as well complain that it's incomprehensible to people who can't read English. 2) I know nothing about baseball but I didn't have a problem with this. There are different positions in lots of professional team sports (football, cricket, rugby, etc).
- thaumasiotes 13y agoI'm an American with only the vaguest idea of what goes on in a baseball game. That has no effect at all on the language you're spuriously complaining about; it reads as "Can the guy who applied for [a position] play [a different position] instead? What about [a third position]?" No analogy is being drawn to the actual requirements of baseball positions -- those are just names. To understand the sentence as written, the only requirement is that you recognize that "pitcher" is a different word than "first base". Perhaps you just like feeling indignant?
- pessimizer 13y agoI don't see the struggle. tl;dr: A factory, way out in the sticks, offering low-moderate wage jobs requiring minimal skills but sometimes high responsibility, attracts numerous candidates. Some don't show, some are awful, a couple are good, and one seems fit for management. This takes a day.