Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: MillCreek on December 05, 2019, 04:47:11 PM
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https://www.npr.org/2019/12/05/784451583/despite-job-boom-more-men-are-giving-up-on-work?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr&fbclid=IwAR37Zs-O-FrLDrI3k2FILJthA8ZPawNYJuwMYPJS88TjfBLPbI8R8znSUPw
This can't be good for the country or the men involved, to have so much of the work force out of the work force. I remember very well how bummed out I was to be out of work for three months after a couple of financial restructurings that eliminated my job. My stepdaughter's husband just found another civil engineering job after being out of work for 13 months.
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My problem with this is they are reporting the numbers then throwing out a few anecdotal examples that tell me nothing. It is just filler since they don't have anything else to say.
I have no idea if those anecdotal examples represent the trend or are just stories they had. They actually sound like older guys who are having trouble due to health, age, or prison record.
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It depends on the job, and the technical requirements.
I'm an architect. I've been out of work for almost two years. I can find lots of advertisements for entry- and mid-level architects (which I'm not, but there are no openings for senior architects), but every architecture job I've seen requires the applicant to know Revit.
Revit is the next generation of CADD software after AutoCAD. I'm conversant with AutoCAD, albeit not fully up to speed on the latest 3-D aspects of it. But, if you can hum it, I can fake it. Revit is a whole different animal. A few months back I was chatting with a younger architect who is trying to build up his firm. His analysis: "I can teach anyone to use AutoCAD in a week. I can teach anyone to use Revit in a year."
So it has a steep learning curve. And it's not cheap -- I think an individual license for Revit costs something like $3,500 per year. They give it away to students, but to qualify you have to be enrolled in a college or university that assigns you an .EDU e-mail address.
The nature of technology is that businesses in the United States are eliminating jobs. People are being replaced by computers and robots.
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It depends on the job, and the technical requirements.
I'm an architect. I've been out of work for almost two years. I can find lots of advertisements for entry- and mid-level architects (which I'm not, but there are no openings for senior architects), but every architecture job I've seen requires the applicant to know Revit.
Revit is the next generation of CADD software after AutoCAD. I'm conversant with AutoCAD, albeit not fully up to speed on the latest 3-D aspects of it. But, if you can hum it, I can fake it. Revit is a whole different animal. A few months back I was chatting with a younger architect who is trying to build up his firm. His analysis: "I can teach anyone to use AutoCAD in a week. I can teach anyone to use Revit in a year."
So it has a steep learning curve. And it's not cheap -- I think an individual license for Revit costs something like $3,500 per year. They give it away to students, but to qualify you have to be enrolled in a college or university that assigns you an .EDU e-mail address.
The nature of technology is that businesses in the United States are eliminating jobs. People are being replaced by computers and robots.
That is the nature of technical progress everywhere, not just the US. I've spend 19 years working at my little piece of Maintenance in the Federal Government. I am very good at it. Last year my agency announced that we are divesting every platform that I work on. I'm still not sure what's going to happen. I've worked very hard (before I had to leave for deployment) to articulate to my command the value of the human capitol at my shop and how that value can be applied to the equipment they still have, and why it makes since not to close our shop, but they may yet close it.
If that happens, I suspect I will be in a position similar to Hawkmoon, in that while I'm by no means entry- or mid-level at what I do, I probably don't have the skills to jump right into a similar level job with another employer. I have several plans and back-up plans to hit the ground running if I end up out of work, but all require some version of identifying the training and skills an employer wants, and getting those skills. And, honestly, accepting that while I was pretty dang senior in the old job, coming into a new company and/or job is probably going to require coming in as a mid-level, with a short term loss in pay until I prove my worth. THat's a fact of life of living in a job market that has folks bouncing between companies and even industries during their working lifespan.
On the anecdotes in the article, I don't have a clear picture on their issues and background. I do however know several men in the rural south that are in this demographic. One has low-level mental issues and is enabled by his wife to hide in the house and play video games instead of develop useful coping skills, one worked entry level manual labor jobs his entire life until he hurt himself, and was (at about 51) old and beat up enough that no company would hire him for manual labor anymore. He finally got on disability when he was 57 (I think). One was a trucker for 20 years and got a DUI. No other skills to speak of, and no HS diploma. These folks are going to be hard to employ.
The guy on disability will give you a long discussion on age discrimination in hiring if you ask (hell, even if you hold still for 45 sec), but I gotta say I kinda understand. If I was the hiring manager at the Amazon hub, or the place that makes mobile homes, or the WalMart distribution hub (all places that declined to hire him) and I saw an early 50's applicant that already has a back injury looking for a job throwing boxes around or heaving lumber around, I would be thinking about the fact that I'm opening the company to a likely workers comp claim, and at best, he's not going to sling boxes like a 20 something.
Hawk, you certainly didn't ask for advice, but have you run the cost analysis on auditing 1 class a semester at the local JC for the .edu address, and spending 8 or 10 months getting good at the software in question? It might end up a good investment. That's one of my back-up plans; use (in my case) my low cost access to software through .mil availability to spend some real effort learning CAD and CAM so if I need to fall back on my fabrication skills, I'm a CNC operator, not a production welder.
In the end I'd agree again with Hawkmoon. Technology, and it's pace, is going to change the shape of the work force in everyone's life. For younger folks, probably a couple times. If you are a worker, you need to have the mental agility to try and see these changes coming, and at minimum shift gears and learn new skills as the world changes.
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In my field, we are at war with China and India every single day. What I do can't really be replaced with automation, but can be replaced with cheaper labor. Companies in China and India make similar products, but their quality isn't quite to our level yet, but they are getting beter every year, and quality and impurity profiles are absolutely critical to the customers who use our products.
We are at a point where we are doing everything to cut our costs while maintaining our quality advantage, while on the other side of the world they are fighting us by trying to improve their quality. Neither proposistion is easy, I suspect that in 10 years, some company over there is going to eat our lunch, as their labor and infrastructure costs are almost nothing, if not outright subsidized by their governments.
This has been a huge driver for me to work towards and obtain business training and certifications to move into completely different roles, namely supply chain management.
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This has been a huge driver for me to work towards and obtain business training and certifications to move into completely different roles, namely supply chain management.
Why I switched careers when I did, I was looking for an agronomy or soil science job and ended up landing on a boots on the ground regulatory/investigative job. I don't see my job being replaced by automation or robots. I may end up investigating mistakes made by robots before I retire.
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Why I switched careers when I did, I was looking for an agronomy or soil science job and ended up landing on a boots on the ground regulatory/investigative job. I don't see my job being replaced by automation or robots. I may end up investigating mistakes made by robots before I retire.
Yes, go where the automation is not, unless you are a creator of the automation in the first place.
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So what is the benefit or more pointedly who benefits from the cheaper labor/higher profits?
Certainly not the high percentage of US men in that age category.
Can it be considered good for the "economy" if so many men in their prime are left with so few options?
Wouldn't this be considered bad for national security having a large pool of men disenfranchised from society?
Maybe they should learn to code.
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Maybe they should learn to code.
That sounds like too much personal responsibility. Can't we just revive the WPA?
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So what is the benefit or more pointedly who benefits from the cheaper labor/higher profits?
People/businesses/corporations that want to stay in business.
I think too many people assume that manufacturers or service providers are stagnant entities that keep pumping out widgets 24/7/365 and are simply 'sticking it to the workers' when they spend a lot of capital to find efficiencies and cost savings. Nothing could be further from the truth, for every 'X' corporation, there is going to be a 'Y', and likely a 'Z' , and a 1A, 1B... etc competing for the same market share, and this doesn't even include unknowns like future startups or black swans.
The union racketeering mentality of "you gibs us da raise or we busta your machinery and stops your productions" is pretty much and rightfully dead in the private sector. There are a few old, well established corporations where goons can still get away with it in the short term, but in the long term, the employee that is agile and can learn and be a bigger contributor is the one who is going to be an appreciated asset.
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Maybe they should learn to code.
Or welding, plumbing, or wiring.... but those all require a level of physical effort that urban lumberjacks are uncomfortable with.
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That sounds like too much personal responsibility. Can't we just revive the WPA?
We seem to conflate the bottom line/economy with what's best for the actual people in the country.
The most efficient way isn't necessarily the wisest or highest quality way.
Being reliant on the global economy for so much of our first world lifestyle makes our country very fragile to unexpected shocks that we have no control over.
The nations instead should focus more on national self suffiency. That builds in some redundancy against one nation collapsing causing a worldwide domino effect.
Sacrificing the most productive years of so many mens lives on the alter of global corporation profits is criminal.
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Or welding, plumbing, or wiring.... but those all require a level of physical effort that urban lumberjacks are uncomfortable with.
Stop importing people from poorer nations who will work on the cheap.
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So what is the benefit or more pointedly who benefits from the cheaper labor/higher profits?
Do you have a 401k or pension? Than you do.
Perhaps they should learn to code. That's what I'm doing. (not software writing, but actual motion controls) Or as was mentioned learn something that isn't easily automated. There's a lot of work out there. It might not be exactly what some folks are trained for, or exactly where they live, but it exists.
One of the very few pieces of welfare I'm not knee jerk against is subsidized job/skill training. It's not great, but it's better than just giving folks food and cash.
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Stop importing people from poorer nations who will work on the cheap.
There is that. Perhaps we could imply some of these men in wall building for a couple years. Two birds/one worker as it were.
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Maybe they should learn to code.
That sounds like too much personal responsibility. Can't we just revive the WPA?
That may be an option for mind-workers (but as many people have noted, those jobs will find competition from cheaper foreign labor, either in this country or externally), but not really for laborers.
My father worked for 40 years as a laborer. There was absolutely ZERO chance he could "learn to code." He did his job there well, and worked very hard. He could have possibly been a plumbers assistant, but I doubt he would have been able to learn the skills as an electrician or the like. Maybe welder.
He wasn't an aberration. There are a lot of men like him who can work hard (we can talk about declining work ethic elsewhere) and can move large, heavy objects. If we just tell this kind of man "there's no more work for you, period", our country will be in for upheavals like Rome saw when they put all (ok, probably just a majority, not all) of the able-bodied citizens out of work.
I'd prefer we find a way to employ them, rather than just pay them to sit around on disability. It's healthier for everyone in the long run.
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Can't we just revive the WPA?
I have often thought we should have the 21st century equivalent of the WPA and/or the CCC. I was just reading a notice from the regional National Forests office about how access to some of my favorite trailheads is going to be out for yet another year due to road washouts, and they don't have the budget to fix them.
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It depends on the job, and the technical requirements.
I'm an architect. I've been out of work for almost two years. I can find lots of advertisements for entry- and mid-level architects (which I'm not, but there are no openings for senior architects), but every architecture job I've seen requires the applicant to know Revit.
Revit is the next generation of CADD software after AutoCAD. I'm conversant with AutoCAD, albeit not fully up to speed on the latest 3-D aspects of it. But, if you can hum it, I can fake it. Revit is a whole different animal. A few months back I was chatting with a younger architect who is trying to build up his firm. His analysis: "I can teach anyone to use AutoCAD in a week. I can teach anyone to use Revit in a year."
So it has a steep learning curve. And it's not cheap -- I think an individual license for Revit costs something like $3,500 per year. They give it away to students, but to qualify you have to be enrolled in a college or university that assigns you an .EDU e-mail address.
The nature of technology is that businesses in the United States are eliminating jobs. People are being replaced by computers and robots.
Revit is a beast. My company has been using Revit for ~15 years. During that time we ran both Revit and AutoCAD, but 3 years ago we totally ditched AutoCAD and do 100% of our design in Revit. We now have 6 full time programmers and 6 programmers/engineers working on customizing Revit. The automation that we are looking at inside of Revit is incredible. The gentleman that you spoke to is correct the learning curve between the 2 is waaaay different.
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There is that. Perhaps we could imply some of these men in wall building for a couple years. Two birds/one worker as it were.
Well, that is one problem, and sorry if I sound like I'm giving a commie line, but they are also the people who will do crap work and hard work. At least during the commie pinko WPA and NRA, US born citizens would actually grab a shovel. IMO, far, far, too many people on assistance now are there because they won't take a job unless it's easy and pays a lot.
We should probably look at reducing benefits to give some of those people more of an incentive to take the McDonalds job. If I can get free smart phones, etc. not working that I couldn't afford at a crappy job, why should I work? Hence multi-generational welfare.
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On dogmush's point above regarding age discrimination, I think it is a real thing. I am not actively seeking another job, but I do keep my eyes open for local opportunities that would reduce or eliminate the four hour round trip commute to the office in downtown Seattle. Over the past year, I put in for a risk manager position at a local rural hospital and an oncology research center. I got the standard 'overqualified' email and never got an interview. I subsequently learned that both positions were filled by someone in their early 30's: one a database administrator and one a medical staff coordinator. No risk management, patient safety or quality experience or training whatsoever. Compared to me, approaching 60, with 35 years experience and science, legal, business and risk management degrees. I am pretty sure people look at my resume or my Linkedin profile, do the math, figure out how many years left I have in the workforce and delete my application. I am of the opinion that 'overqualified' or 'too experienced' or 'too expensive' is often a proxy for age discrimination. No regulatory agency gives a *expletive deleted*it about receiving a discrimination complaint from a middle-aged straight white male.
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I'm 57, I've been doing electronics/telecom work of some kind my entire adult life, working on everything from vacuum tube RADAR systems to current leading edge optical multiplexers. I worked hard to stay current for the first 30 years or so but somewhere along the way I just got tired of it. Keeping up the skillset got to be drudgery. I'm still learning new skills almost daily as the tech advances and the company brings new equipment online but where there was once enthusiasm for such now there is only...it's my job, it's what they pay me for.
Gotta keep trudging along, feeding the 401K and supporting my 500 mile a week commute so I can reach "pension eligable" next year.
Then, who knows.
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On dogmush's point above regarding age discrimination, I think it is a real thing. I am not actively seeking another job, but I do keep my eyes open for local opportunities that would reduce or eliminate the four hour round trip commute to the office in downtown Seattle. Over the past year, I put in for a risk manager position at a local rural hospital and an oncology research center. I got the standard 'overqualified' email and never got an interview. I subsequently learned that both positions were filled by someone in their early 30's: one a database administrator and one a medical staff coordinator. No risk management, patient safety or quality experience or training whatsoever. Compared to me, approaching 60, with 35 years experience and science, legal, business and risk management degrees. I am pretty sure people look at my resume or my Linkedin profile, do the math, figure out how many years left I have in the workforce and delete my application. I am of the opinion that 'overqualified' or 'too experienced' or 'too expensive' is often a proxy for age discrimination. No regulatory agency gives a *expletive deleted*it about receiving a discrimination complaint from a middle-aged straight white male.
At 47, I just want to make it another 15 years without anyone figuring out that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing (I've hit full blown imposter syndrome over the last few years).
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I guess one lesson in this for younger workers is to save as much as they can manage and try to develop income/investments outside of the main job so you are not quite as dependent on that one job late in your career.
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I guess one lesson in this for younger workers is to save as much as they can manage and try to develop income/investments outside of the main job so you are not quite as dependent on that one job late in your career.
Diversification has always been a good strategy.
Specialization is for insects. :)
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I guess one lesson in this for younger workers is to save as much as they can manage and try to develop income/investments outside of the main job so you are not quite as dependent on that one job late in your career.
I have hammered into the kids about starting retirement saving on day one of their jobs. Participate in the retirement plan, go for the matching, pick a 70/30 investment split when you are younger and transition to 60/40 as you get older, don't take out any loans, never cash out the balance, and rollover the balance into a 401(k) when you leave. If the company doesn't have a retirement plan, you can start your own 401(k) and start salting the money away. Compound interest and dividends are a wonderful thing over the span of decades.
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A friend of mine's son graduated last year from college, I think his degree is poly-sci and Chinese. I know the Chinese part is correct, second might be international relations. His dad is pissed at him for not just taking any job until he finds something permanent. His son refuses to take any job that might require weekend work or outside of day working hours. He thinks his parents are going to pay for him to go to China in March and try to get a job over there, so far they aren't going to foot the bill and keep suggesting that he takes any job to pay for his travel and living expenses for a trip to China. He did work at a dairy farm for a while, but found it too hard of a job, so he quit.
His other two kids are the complete opposite. They were both home owners before 30, work fulltime + and don't mind non normal hours.
I think some younger folks just don't understand you have to pay your dues for awhile or a long while to get the M-F day shift job.
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I want off M-F day shift. I want the graveyard shift again. The shift where I would routinely go whole weeks without having to interact with another human being. All this people time I do now is gonna put me in an early grave. Too much stress.
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A friend of mine's son graduated last year from college, I think his degree is poly-sci and Chinese. I know the Chinese part is correct, second might be international relations. His dad is pissed at him for not just taking any job until he finds something permanent. His son refuses to take any job that might require weekend work or outside of day working hours. He thinks his parents are going to pay for him to go to China in March and try to get a job over there, so far they aren't going to foot the bill and keep suggesting that he takes any job to pay for his travel and living expenses for a trip to China. He did work at a dairy farm for a while, but found it too hard of a job, so he quit.
His other two kids are the complete opposite. They were both home owners before 30, work fulltime + and don't mind non normal hours.
I think some younger folks just don't understand you have to pay your dues for awhile or a long while to get the M-F day shift job.
Or you are going to have to travel which ought to be good for a younger man who doesn't have as many home responsibilities.
I have often found the regular 8-5 working hours comes with experience in knowing how to get your work done in 8 hours a day.
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Or you are going to have to travel which ought to be good for a younger man who doesn't have as many home responsibilities.
I have often found the regular 8-5 working hours comes with experience in knowing how to get your work done in 8 hours a day.
I like the travel part of my job, I drive 35-40k a year, but I'm home 95% of the nights with normally 8hr days. Pays the same if I'm on the ground or behind the wheel.
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heh. I remember when I liked traveling for work...….
I will say that being prepared to jump career's in the latter half of that age range is a challenge. I feel for them in part because, as I said, I'm doing it. To crib from Ben Shapiro though, Facts don't care about your feelings. The job market is changing at a more rapid pace then in the 20th century, in ways that aren't 100% predictable. That's just the way it is, and decrying that it sucks won't change it.
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Economists are scratching their heads over continued high employment rates but low or non-existent wage growth: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/12/06/this-is-hottest-job-market-since-s-why-arent-wages-growing-faster/
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Economists are scratching their heads over continued high employment rates but low or non-existent wage growth: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/12/06/this-is-hottest-job-market-since-s-why-arent-wages-growing-faster/
The article doesn't say anything about executive salaries and bonuses. IMHO, that's where all the money goes, and there's nothing left for the workers. Mid- and top-level managers get rewards for keeping wages down. They do a lot of that by offshoring jobs or whining to Congress that they need more H1-B visas.
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The article doesn't say anything about executive salaries and bonuses. IMHO, that's where all the money goes, and there's nothing left for the workers. Mid- and top-level managers get rewards for keeping wages down. They do a lot of that by offshoring jobs or whining to Congress that they need more H1-B visas.
Is that really it though?
Walmart, for example, employs over 2 million people. The Walmart CEO receives ~$22 million. $22,000,000 / 2,000,000 = $11.
It's kinda like Warren's (and others) "tax the rich". You take every dime that the 1% (or a CEO) make, and it doesn't get you very far, whether you're talking about higher wages or "free stuff".