Uncertainty- the jobs killer. Or... maybe just the liberal mindset...

[makattak]

I've talked and posted about this over and over. Uncertainty is terrible for business. Here's an nice anecdote supporting that:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-26/carter-economic-stagnation-explained-at-30-000-feet.html

However, this comment from that article is what really caught my attention.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-26/carter-economic-stagnation-explained-at-30-000-feet.html#comment-212742739

Unfortunately, you want business to co-opt government, at the expense of the rest of us.  The last time that happened, businesses made a point to band together, and kill/neutralize/jail workers that spoke up.   That is not something that needs to even come close to happening again.

You just want desperate workers who will think your rotten deal is anything but rotten.  The government deserves to be able to thwart that, and to make sure that it can continue to do so.  Productivity does not come from desperate workers, it comes from workers who have certainty.   

Washington needs to make it harder for this guy to not hire directly, for full-time, and over a long time.  The only certainty he deserves is that if he does not do that in the US, is that he will not benefit.  Either he can be a part of the recovery, or he can be made to pay for his arrogance.

If they want to complain that people don't have the perfect skillset matches, step back and train those people to have them.  Make the long-term investment that will pay off, instead of trying to pass on uncertainty to workers. 

If someone has been out of work for a long time, that should not be held against them at all.   Either you're going to get productive value out of a person who has the certainty of long-term work, not desperation. 

Either you're going to be paying for the unemployed - through your taxes if you do not hire them, or through your payroll if you choose correctly.  Stop thinking you're the Almighty, start hiring directly/fully/long-term, and perhaps regular people will have anything but contempt.

What frightens me is how many people think this way. We need to punish people for NOT HIRING!!111!.

Of course, why didn't we think of that before. It's not like those people who create jobs want "certainty from long term" employment/profits/regulations even. Nope, they're just cogs that we use to make jobs!!!! I mean, it's not like they have a choice on whether to run a business or not!

[TommyGunn]

....Productivity does not come from desperate workers, it comes from workers who have certainty.....

Says who?  It seems to me that workers who feel their job is "certain" may have a greater tendency to become slaggards at their job.  Of the various jobs I've had, while I've sometimes felt pretty content, never was I certain.  I worked for a major American health care company during the 1980s.  In the late 80s it was purchased by Proctor & Gamble.  They "promised" that employees would retain their jobs, careers, etc.
Yeah, sure.  Right.  And to a degree they actually tried to keep the promise.  But soon our major HQ was shut down and the remaining jobs were moved from Weston Ct. to Shelton.  Even that didn't last for more than a little more than a year, when the whole place was shut down and the lucky few who weren't terminated were moved to Cincinnati, IIRC.  

If they want to complain that people don't have the perfect skillset matches, step back and train those people to have them.  Make the long-term investment that will pay off, instead of trying to pass on uncertainty to workers.  

If someone has been out of work for a long time, that should not be held against them at all.   Either you're going to get productive value out of a person who has the certainty of long-term work, not desperation.

Who pays for them to "re-educate" the employees?  The second is not even a complete sentence, so I am not sure what it means.  How do you get productive value out of a person?  How do you assure "certainty of long-term work" if the guy is nearing retirement age?
While I agree that being out of work a long time should not be held against anyone, the reality is that it likely will be.  That's the way things work.  People are  dealing with long term unemployment.  One key may be to remain as active as possible.  Even if it's volunteer work, it could pad a resumé and help -- atleast show that the worker wasn't watching hours of TV each day while living off of unemployment benefits.
  
A lot of pie-in-the-sky stuff here.

And, why aren't businesses hiring?  They're scared of the future.  Obamacare, new regulations, uncertainty over an economy that's only improving at a rate of 1.8% yearly in ther GDP.  Economists say we need a 5-7 % improvement rate to get out of a recession.  This is the slowest "recovery" (if that's even what it can be called) since World War Two.  
The horrible thing is that we're told that Obama is a shoe-in for re-election unless the repubs do everything juuuuuuussst right.  Oh boy.   Think there's a big chance THAT will happen?

We're living in interesting times.  And I think they will get more interesting.....

[Hutch]

My favorite description of the job/demand process I swiped from someone, but I have no cite for it.  To whoever wrote it, thanks.  You know who you are.

Why does a new (private sector) job get created? A new job is an investment by an employer based on the expectation of a return in the from of incremental profits. You want me as an entrepreneur to make those investments? Give me regulatory stability; predictable and low taxes on profit; a labor pool with a strong work ethic; keep my non-labor costs low by making sure my suppliers - utilities, telcos, banks - have to compete for my business. Make me want to invest here vs. somewhere else by efficiently managing the roads, schools, parks and community services (rather than using them as tools for patronage or redistribution).

That says it all.

[Lee]

“Because I don’t know how much it will cost,” he explains. “How can I hire new workers today, when I don’t know how much they will cost me tomorrow?”

So how is that any different now than 50 years ago?  Nothing is ever certain over the long term.  How predictable is China, India or S. Korea?   I'm not big into financials, and generally only read business headlines in trade journals, but much of the serious investment in US manufacturing seems to involve European or Asian companies.  I'm always curious why companies like Nestle or KIA would rather build here, than in the places preferred by US manufacturers.  I think it might be related more to realistic long term planning rather than short term profit taking.   

[TommyGunn]

Fifty years ago there was a lot less regulations than today.
Obamacare does not fully come into existance until 2014, and the law is a couple thousand pages long and has ramifications no one is sure of at this point.  When it hits, it is going to COST.
Plus, we are right now at a very "tender" point in our recovery -- if it can be said to be one.  Our GDP is increasing at a rate of 1.8% and that is pretty anemic.  5-7% would be better if you want a sustainable recovery.  
Businesses have cut a lot of "excess" and right now are profitable in many areas, but only barely so.  When bad economies hit, they are slow to let people go because they were hard to train, they have experience, and despite the fact that corporations are viewed as cold hearted evil villains, many do care about the people who work there.  But they are equally slow to rehire because they want some assurance there won't be a "double dip" recession (such as happened in the 1930s, for example) and they will be again required to trim the "excess."
You make ask how predictable things are now over 50 years ago .... but people were doing the same thing back then.  Do you think no one got laid off during the 1960s, or 40s?   A heckuva lotta people got "fired" late in 1929 and in the years immediately after.  At the end of FDR's second term the rate of unemployment was about the same as when he entered office.  Like Obama, FDR's policies did great damage to our economy, as many other countries had a much earlier recovery than America.  
What's past is prologue; history is repeating itself, and George Santayana is laughing at our assininity from the grave.  

[makattak]

“Because I don’t know how much it will cost,” he explains. “How can I hire new workers today, when I don’t know how much they will cost me tomorrow?”

So how is that any different now than 50 years ago?  Nothing is ever certain over the long term.  How predictable is China, India or S. Korea?   I'm not big into financials, and generally only read business headlines in trade journals, but much of the serious investment in US manufacturing seems to involve European or Asian companies.  I'm always curious why companies like Nestle or KIA would rather build here, than in the places preferred by US manufacturers.  I think it might be related more to realistic long term planning rather than short term profit taking.   

You're right that China and other less than first world countries are very unstable as to the future conditions for employers/businesses.

That's SUPPOSED to be what sets the US apart. You can get cheap, unskilled labor in those other countries, but the trade-off is unpredictability. In the US, you can get expensive, but skilled labor and a predictable environment. Except we don't offer that anymore. All we offer is expensive skilled labor and an unpredictable regulatory state.

Let's see, unpredictable and expensive or unpredictable and cheap. Which would you choose?

[MechAg94]

And you see it on the state level.  States that have business friendly laws and taxes are doing much better overall than states with high taxes and onerous regulation. 

The thing that I think most of those liberals forget is that Free Market Economics is supposed to apply to the labor market as well.  Competition between companies in the consumer market as well as competition in the labor market.  That said, what I think some of these people really want is guaranteed jobs with guaranteed pay with no guaranteed effort.