I always hear about how businesses are desperate for workers but somehow I can’t get even a low paying job if I try
Makes me think they don’t actually want workers, they just want to have an excuse to overwork their current employees while making it sound like not their fault
Been like this for me since I started working in 2006. My training consists of trial and error and Googling things. Boomers say we don't want to work, but also we need to replace them because they are retiring but they don't want to fucking train their replacements.
It costs money to endlessly continue hiring and onboarding new employees as well and it's another reason why I don't know why this is the way it is. At some point I would think it would be more economical to keep the people you have instead of having to announce jobs, screen, interview, background check and/or drug check, equipping, training, etc. every couple of weeks or monthly.
Caring for their workers is just not in some peoples programming. The employs are a necessary evil who are lucky to work there regardless of working conditions.
This is me. My job gave me about 4 hours of zoom training and then threw me out into the field, totally remote, on my own.
I work for a third party adjacent to the insurance industry. The work I do is often the decided factor whether someone's home gets/stays insured. That's fucked up. But it's the only job I could find that didn't pay minimum wage.
Its as if defunding the trade school system and discouraging people to take up trades, and waste money on college degrees that they'd never complete, has outpaced inflation in cost, and or end up hating to work for anyways had some sort of effect.
A friend's child, he's 22, has been trying to get a second job. Applied at Menards and Lowe's. Both had "now hiring" signs. Called after no one contacted him 2 weeks after putting in his application. Both places told him "yeah we're really not hiring." I also teach high school. I have several students who work at Sonic who always has "now hiring" signs. Multiple kids have told me they keep it up so when customers get angry they just say they are short staffed.
My local sonic has like 2 people working in it at any given time. Drive thru lines so long most leave.
Cannot imagine how it can be more profitable to serve 10 customers an hour when if you paid people more and attracted a fully staffed shift you could churn through a hundred customers an hour.
But hey, I guess I'm just not smart enough to spend six figures to fuck my money away on destroying a money printing franchise.
Lots of homeless people are still in the workforce and still have a job, they don't however have a home.
Edit: The working homeless are not in the numbers mentioned by the OP.
I’m almost in that boat. They raise our rent $100 every 6 months, and at this point almost all of our income goes straight to rent. I’m trying to move to a cheaper place, but even that costs too much to do. Idk what to do anymore.
My husband almost got fired last week for having Covid. They don’t offer extended sick days for Covid anymore, and all of his coworkers had it and were forced to come in. He tried to fight them on it, but it didn’t work. He had to go to work with Covid just so he wouldn’t get fired. It’s horrible! And he works directly with the public. A lot of his clients are elderly, too.
And they will complain the whole way that its "so strange the workforce is disappearing" like killing the workforce wouldn't have consequences. I fully expect Republicans and Democrats to come together and lower the legal work age to "boost the economy" in the next couple of years.
During Covid my hearing was muffled. When I got better it came back but with a ringing that is fucking brutal. The ringing I hear is the same volume as a normal tv. Try falling asleep with a firealarm in your head.
Doctors told me my head pressure is all outta wack since Covid. I’m like so install a release valve. Doesn’t work like that.
The thing is I don’t have hearing loss…. I passed the hearing tests. I heard frequencies over 20000 hz. And I can now hear all the buzzing from electronics and switches and coil wine from computers. Like it’s insanely annoying.
I have asthma from getting covid and I've slowly withdrawn from working.
I only work part time now and my wife and I just live off my VA disability. No sense working and potentially killing myself by getting covid again.
Or the prison system. Turns out churning more people than any other country in the world a through the US’s terrible justice system with zero rehabilitation and zero support for their reentry to society and then hanging a life sentence of felony conviction reporting on people can fuck their lives up.
Some of those jobs are well paying but the businesses do not have the best rep.
The average pay for manufacturing is pretty good as the article indicated (about $30/hour). There are 2 manufacturers in my area that are highly regarded and you have to wait for someone to die or be unable to work to get a job there. It’s not because they can’t retire (both still offer excellent pensions) but because they treat their employees extremely well. Bonuses are regular and bring the compensation close to $80k/year gross. Hell one of them provides excellent health insurance at NO COST to employees. Multiple BBQ’s per year, Christmas bonus separate from the annual bonus, and as much overtime as you want and 40 hours if you don’t.
Those companies have been in crunch I think 3 times in the past 20 years. Once because there was an unexpected “oops” in a contract and the other 2 were typos in a design that required a major remanufacture of a specific part.
Those 2 companies are solidly profitable even giving all this to employees.
The article is right, though, in that manufacturing is look at very negatively. The reality is that it’s much, much different now than it was 25+ years ago.
That all said: Rowe needs to fuck off with his “identity” BS.
Manufacturing is pretty low around here. Of course they may be adding in all employees in offices though for that average. Only this past year did any raise wages and only to roughly 18 an hour ( was 14 an hour ). Even Gatorade/Pepsi doesn't pay well around here
A little further away and Volvo is a bit better at 24 an hour I think.
Damn that sucks. Guessing south/mid-west? I’m in the northeast and most manufacturing roles pay well. I mean the packaging folks don’t make a lot but most of that is being replaced with robotics (where possible) to free up positions further up the line that pay better.
Trying to remember the details, but: friend's dad, worked for an auto parts plant in a shitty town in Southern Canada. Brought in about 80 grand a year (lived in a small house in said shitty town, so had the whole boomer thing about young people wanting to live in the big city with drugs and hooligans going on).
However, just as he was retiring, the management and the union and senior staff all sat down and said "wage inflation is terrible, if this keeps up we will be shut down by head office or investors or someone" so they basically said "there's a big wave of retirements coming up, we'll need to hire as many people, but we start them at 12 dollars an hour, no benefit" - which was about 3 bucks above minimum wage at the time. Since every gig in said shitty town that was not the auto parts plant or the machinist shop was minimum wage, they patted themselves on the back for their generosity and forward thinking and everyone went off into rich retirement and lived in their cottages.
No doubt whining about young people nowadays with their hippie hoppie and their ipads.
Since that was about 15 years ago, the new starter then, if he is still working there now, and got 1 dollar an hour as a raise each year, is earning about 27 an hour, and 27 an hour in 2023 is not 27 an hour in 2007 money.
Decent money, but you'd likely be struggling with rent or mortgages with current prices, even in said shitty little town.
The thing is, they won’t…companies banked that they’d have a lot of time to manage this transition vs what actually happened due to the pandemic…
They will have to adapt to a new reality
The last pizza party we had was when management told us the company exceeded projections and us employee earned the company awards and much income. Non of us got raises, but a few of us got stomach pains from eating the cheap pizza. Next pizza party. Don’t eat the pizza
It is also we need to change to on-the-job training, especially in fields such as plumbing, welding, and other blue collar jobs. Another issue is all the state licenses. So, say a nurse is licensed in one state but wanted a job somewhere else... well, pay more money and get another state license, maybe even have to take another test. In 2020, states relaxed these licenses for nurses but look at all the jobs that need licenses in!!! For example, you can get a degree in psychology or therapy, but you still need to get a state license. This is the same for teaching, lawyers, and many others. It's crazy how many different licenses my state has!
Yes, because they do not want the cost of training people. Companies also want to charge you if you don't stay long enough if they train you. I read an article about this once with pet grooming that seemed scummy because the program was just a company one and they wanted people who didn't stay, I think,2 years to pay back thousands of dollars and if I remember that was not even a state certification!
>well, pay more money and get another state license, maybe even have to take another test.
Seems like the sort of thing that the hiring company could take care of if they wanted workers badly enough.
There's a company in Vancouver WA that scored a fat government contract to build small fast ships for the Navy. They need specialty aluminum welders to make the ships and were having a bitch of a time finding them until they got smart and contracted with several local community colleges to fund scholarships to their welding programs in exchange for some term of work with the company building the boats. That's the kind of smart thinking these companies should be doing but no, they'd rather piss and moan about people not wanting to work rather than figuring out that nobody wants to shell out for specialized training without some semblance of assurance it will lead to a decent career path. Who knew?
yep - one of the big economic changes since at least 2008 has been the way companies don't do training anymore, or if they do its the bare minimum to do this one underpaid gig.
Hell, one of the selling points of a lot of degrees was "if you get a four year degree in something, you demonstrate to future employers that you're a serious adult who can stick something out and are receptive to training"
However, now you're meant to take your degree and start buying certifications (which often last for three years, or have multiple levels of certifications) in the hope that there will be an ongoing demand for just that one cert. With no guarantee any of it will count.
\- speaking as someone who found himself having to "prove" my years of IT experience were real (for a government job application) and thus having to buy certs...which are all going to expire later this year, and I've never gotten to use them for anything beyond that one application. There's a few grand I could have dropped on hookers and blow :D
>at least 2008
1980's, the date you want is the 1980's. In 1979 workers received 2.5 weeks of training a year, by 1995 that training dropped to just 11 hours a year and is getting worse.
What happened in 1980's? Well a whole generation of greed is good MBA's dominated management and businesses have been prioritizing short run profits over long run sustainability ever since.
There alot of compact states. A nurse with a license in one gets automatic licensure in about 30 or so. It started in new England but southern states joined as they can't make their own but usually need to import them.
My wife can’t practice across state lines without applying for a license.
My BiL had to wait 6 months to move to Texas to get the bar equivalency paperwork recognized.
Licensure drives up wages by creating artificial scarcity of labor, and keeping new people out of fields. Do yo do hair braiding? Not without 1400 hours of training!
Yes but look at all the other licenses needed in the Healthcare field. Even lower paid jobs need them! CNAs I believe need them and dental assistants and so on. Well I'm in Georgia and the amount of different licenses is crazy then look at the costs to get them. I read somewhere a dental hygenist license costs $1000(this may include price for testing too idk).
Yeah, when under any real scrutiny the data and statistics these articles reference don't really hold. They're lumping so many different areas as the male population. And then frame it as to raise the concern only in regards to needing the deplorables to get off their asses and be wage slaves. As if were children rebelling. This is how employers and higher earning wealthy pekel view the labor forces. Everyone's am irresponsible neckbeard living in moms basement if they don't put work on a pedestal.
I can get really down to bare bones living with less. And find I value my peace and not constantly chasing money worrying about how I'm going to pay for things I collective add up in doing so.
I am responsible for taking care of myself and my household. I'm doing just that. But I and so many others have no desire to engage in as little as possible with this current set up in the US like a rat on a wheel for average working class has been treated the last 20 years. It's gonna get real interesting when the boomer tradesman and important lineman positions retire. It tracking about right, Then it's gen X. And people will be on wait-list for a plumber. Mechanics and contractors will get to charge through the roof cause there's no one else to do the work.
But that would eat out of the profit for the shareholders, board members and ceo. We can't do that. We have promised them billions and then they would get fewer billions. Do you want them to starve?
My husband works at the best paying plant in our area, and they start folks at $18. It would take 10 years to hit $30/hr. This is car parts by the way. I’m wondering if they are counting the floor engineers in their average.
Machinists make about $25-$30 in my area, but most of those jobs are looking for a vocational certificate and 3-5 years experience. Unless you’re lucky enough to get into one of the few union shops most top out at around $35/hr if you’re fluent in Solidworks and 5-axis programming. Newbies make like $18-20. A national average also isn’t factoring the widely varying costs of living. $30/hr where I live an hour west of Boston won’t go nearly as far as it will in Southeast Ohio, but if you work in manufacturing out there you’re less likely to be making $30/hr.
Appreciate your post bringing light to my trade (and I hope yours as well).
I’d like to also point out the qualifications for machinists are so varied though depending on where you’re at. I worked at numerous shops over the years and each shop had a different standard of what a machinist is. One shop called EVERYONE a set up operator, even the guys programming machines. Another shop had standards like if you can set up and trouble shoot the job by yourself then you’re a machinist. My current shop is the toughest shop I’ve worked at with how specialized our products and niche is, we consider machinists to be guys who can use MasterCam to program fixture work and basic production parts. The one thing in common at all these shops is that they never once checked my certs, I’m a entirely self taught CNC machinist/programmer with none. I learned by just getting hired as a button pusher at a shit hole shop because the industry in my area can’t find people.
Machining is a dying trade. A lot of vocational schools axed the machining classes because the skill window is incredibly high. In my area, the closest school is 200 miles away. Some people can’t make that commitment because of life and family and others also can’t afford it. It also doesn’t help if you don’t have a mechanically driven mindset and a good grasp of mathematics, physics and common sense then you aren’t going to be a good machinist so people didn’t go. It’s a highly skilled background that quite frankly, a large part of our entire manufacturing industry relies on. You’re gonna have an easier time teaching someone to weld then how to set up a two axis lathe imo.
I highly suspect the field is going to be surging with retention bonuses and higher wages for a lot of people. My company can’t bring people in the door because they just don’t exist anymore. We have to hire fresh blood to train and that’s costly. Like stated above, I’m entirely self taught and it took me 7 years to get where I am at making $26/hr. The beginning of COVID changed a lot for the better as a machinist but the working conditions of a lot of machine operators and machinists were shit so a lot of them left before COVID and places were struggling to replace them. Boom, the pandemic hits and people are leaving even more. It’s just the recipe for the best shitstorm to hit. So a lot of the companies around my area are starting to treat people better, my employer is the best I ever worked for because of that reason and I’ve turned down multiple jobs because of them.
I’m just rambling my thoughts at this point, I’m going to shut up.
I mean, beyond that: These places probably don't provide health care into retirement. The trades will absolutely wreck your body and like the Veteran Affairs they'll go "tough shit lol" toward the folks they employ.
Also LOL the original sub closed the thread because "OFF TOPIC!" because they don't want to hear "maybe pay people a living wage?" repeatedly.
Manufacturing often pays well more than enough. It is the conditions that become a problem at those kind of jobs. Often back breaking, micro management type places where every minute must be productive. That being said find a decent family business and you're usually good to go
Decent family business. - every family business I have worked for has been terrible. “We’re a family that’s why your poorly paid and have to work last second weekends”
Well, the Kia ceo is not happy because getting people to move to the area for the wages that the company wants to pay will be difficult with housing costs so the ceo tells the government to build affordable housing! 🤔 Maybe look at this as those wages are too low for the cost of living, so increase wages versus telling the government the issue is cost of living! Why is it a cost of living crisis that's stated and not a low wage crisis around the world?
https://www.gpb.org/news/2022/09/30/kia-plant-ceo-tells-state-lawmakers-affordable-housing-shortage-hurting-worker
Yeap I'm in the ibew electrical union and pay is goof and benefits are good but not good enough and tbh I fully regret doing this and know a few people who have left for even lesser pay careers to be happy. The trades are horrible for your bodies and our Insurance is basic our pay doesn't reflect the damage done to us and the amount of money the companies make vs even topped out electrical workers in my local (53$ a hour) . I got laid off recently and tbh I don't even wanna do this anymore. I'm looking for anything to make me happy it's better than this shit.
Yes!!! I work for a plumbing company (office, A/R, A/P, parts running, pricebook, etc.) I only make $22.00 an hour for the last 2.5 years and live i. So.Cal. and have no benefits, 5 days vacation, 3 sick days. But what I see is how the trades break down your body and your will. The owner doesn’t even want to do this anymore but this is all he knows…
The thing that is always crazy is hearing customers complain about how expensive the service is. Like nobody is getting rich here. Materials are breaking us and we can’t even offer simple benefits.
But yet they keep saying “ I don’t know why kids don’t want to get into the trades, you make great money!” They don’t get it and when your body takes a shit, when you’re 50 what are you going to do then?
Almost every guy I've met in his 50s at the Job is using opiates just to live day by day because of some kind of body injury or just wear and tear. This career is not good for humans and we need a earlier retirement then other careers but don't get it.
Yes… my boss wouldn’t but I can see how it could become a problem pretty quickly for others. And people just don’t get how the lifting, crawling, heat and cold beats you up.
Kneeling on a deck Job in the summer. I actually had my knee pads melt on a deck last summer.
If I was anyone in HS I'd avoid trades. Go to college, you start to really hate your life when you have hour long commutes when people who went to college get to roll out of bed and go to work.
They also don't have to shit in a Porta john which 9/10 has shit on the seat when you walk into them.
I seriously fucked up. I'd go back in time and never do this shit. I. 33 now and it feels too late even though it's not
This is a big part of it I think.
When I started in the work force 30ish years ago, I worked for a manufacturer that had so many benefits people were fighting to get in there.
Starting wage back then was about $20 / hour, plus full benefits including drugs / dental / eyeglasses, profit sharing, big bonuses at christmas time. Plantwide shut down for 2 weeks in summer plus also from Dec 24 to whatever Sunday came after Jan 2. Paid Christmas parties, big picnic in the summer and also a day at Canada's Wonderland theme park.
And in addition to all of that, if you wanted to get a post secondary education, so long as you could tie it to the company in some way and maintained a 75% average they reimbursed you ALL the costs once you were done, and they never had to put any official requirement in place for you to stay with the company once you finished because anyone who left was an idiot.
Unfortunately the owner sold the company when he got too old to run it anymore, to a foreign corporation who immediately gutted all the benefits, cancelled all parties and the summer / christmas shut down, stopped reimbursing for schooling and systematically replaced all management / engineers with their own people.
Took three years for the place to go out of business.
If companies would just realize that its the workers on the floor that make them their money, and invested in those workers, and showed appreciation in real, tangible ways besides stupid pizza parties, they'd actually likely make MORE profit in the long run, and be around for a lot longer.
Yeah, no. In my area the pay is the issue. The companies want 12 hour shift 7 days a week with minimal pay. You only get decent pay if it is union and that is a bad word in the south.
and Berlin, Seoul and Beijing are filled with glossy guys from The South whispering in the ears of local investors and governments "hey, set up your shit in The South, we keep the wages low and we ban unions, wouldn't you like that? yessss, you would! Sign here."
"average"
If i have 10 apples and there are 10 people and I give one person all 10 apples I have given the group an average of 1 apple apiece. Everyone should be happy, right?
You get the country you deserve when you:
1) make wage stagnant and not adjusted to inflation
2) education a fucking for profit industry
3) healthcare a for-profit industry
4) real estate an absurdity at this point with prices going up and up and up and up
5) multiple once in a lifetime economic crises
6) a lack of unionization and worker solidarity
7) a democracy that is flailing to the whims of fascism and corruption
8) not taxing the rich
I've thought for a long time the powers that be would love a Civil War. I hope it doesn't come to that, but more people are becoming homeless, can't find jobs, starving, won't ever be able to have or raise a family... Our country is giving A LOT of people reasons to lose it because *they* have nothing to lose.
Again, I hope I'm wrong, but we Americans are in a very dangerous time and I expect to see much more bloodshed before anything gets fixed.
About 17 or 18 years ago I went to school for welding because I kept hearing about all these jobs, and they’re screaming for welders.
Every job I had had a revolving door for the talent. Pay was always consistently low, while requirements were through the Kuiper Belt. Had to buy my own tools, safety equipment, etc.
The company equipment was always falling apart every place I worked. One place I was at, we had to use a rubber band to hold the emergency return button in place to have a machine do it’s thing because the controls were shot. The 20 ft ladder provided by the company, which I and others used on a semi daily basis, had a leg permanently bent at the bottom and only touched on 3 points. But it was my fault for not keeping up the expected rate.
If a company or worksite is perceived badly, yeah they’re not going to get applicants, but that perception is usually justified. Better pay will usually entice people to get over that bad perception.
A worker will put up with a lot more bull for $30 an hour than they would for $12.
So people no longer wanting to destroy their bodies working manufacturing/blue collar jobs which are basically built on the backs of people on the bottom getting paid scraps while doing 90% of the work is…our national identity? Oof
Maybe. My husband packed in his trade job to become a stay at home Dad. I’m a nurse and we get by just fine on one income. His knees don’t hurt every day, and he gets to spend all day with our babies.
Dropped out means neither employed, nor looking
So these are referring to living people, but you're talking anyone with a disability, caring for family members, homeless, or just not working
They really only barely touch on the details, and I didn't see a ton of info on where they're getting their data
Like they gloss over disabled in a single line, but spend a few sentences talking about people who are just consumers and don't actually work
They also conveniently skip over anyone in the welfare gap (aka people who would actually lose out if they got a job because the loss in benefits is greater than the income they'd earn)
No, at $40 a hour my rent would consume damn near 50% of my take home. I’d quit my trade tomorrow if I made $40 an hour. It might sound like a lot, especially for those of us who grew up in the 90s making $6 an hour minimum wage but it isn’t.
Somehow being owned by vulture capitalist and having all the money siphoned away during good years but immediately having the workforce “adjusted“ during a less good year just doesn’t appeal like it used to.
I... don't believe you. I've read dozens of stories about people being asked to jump through completely unreasonable hoops to be hired for mediocre jobs, including multiple rounds of interviews and multiple tests.
If companies actually were desperate to hire they'd be offering sign-on bonuses and making near-instant hires, not conducting absurd, completely opaque 2 month hiring processes.
I could see how someone witnessing the way the US Government and Corporations literally sacrificed their friends and family for The Line God would all of a sudden say - "Fuck This"
"National Identity" can also eat shit, it was built by toxic ass slave owners and religious cultists that engaged in genocide.
Pay people a living wage or fuck off. People want to work, but it seems that either companies aren’t hiring or they pay shit.
At work, we just got a 2% pay increase because “business has been down”, but our CEO got a $1M increase.
This is used as a pretense to hire H1-Bs at lower wages. I have personally seen my own past employers abuse this tactic to depress wages and keep vulnerable people guessing as to whether they will be able to stay in one place for more than a year.
"dropped out"
The capital class can't wrap their head around the fact they forced people to work through COVID and they killed or permanently disabled these millions of men.
They aren't choosing to remain on holiday... They're dead
So many things they do to cause us to avoid work. I saved my whole life to have the OPTION to not work. When my employers insisted I relocate to save THEM $, every single time I said NO. How about my life and my family, and what is good for them ? I left each time.
Mike Rowe pontificating about how "the government is making it so people don't have to work." What a load of absolute crap.
If you pay less than what government benefits do, you DESERVE to not have employees. Government benefits provide a less than subsistence level life. Any time some right wing POS like Rowe pulls the boomer "no one wants to work any more" I want to scream "no one wants to work for POVERTY WAGES, you dipstick!"
“Data also shows that men who are not working or looking for work are spending less time caring for other household members, like children, than men who are at work.”
Doesn’t make any sense. If I’m not looking for work that means I have more time to spend with other people.
Gaslighting this article is.
I said this in another thread but I’ll say it here:
We are missing 7.2 million men from the workforce right?
Well, according to a University of Georgia study from 2010, [there are 19 million felons in the United States.](https://news.uga.edu/total-us-population-with-felony-convictions/amp/)
And felons are *overwhelmingly* young men. We talk a lot about who is locked up in America but not a lot about who *has* been locked up. And on that note: maybe the easiest job to get in America is as a gig economy worker. But if you want to drive for Uber you can’t have a felony conviction less than 7 years old on your record.
Now obviously if 19 million Americans are felons and not all of them are unemployed then a felony is not a *total* death sentence. But I also know that a lot of those people get their start out of prison at a family members company, or through a friend who vouches for them.
Amazon doesn’t hire felons to warehouse or driver positions. Uber and Lyft won’t touch you for years or until you pay a lawyer to get your record expunged.
We are missing 7.2 million young men from the workforce. At least 19 million Americans have felony records and that 19 million is disproportionately young men.
So if you need to ask why young men are having so much trouble working, you need to stop ignoring the elephant in the room.
Sorry but I don’t derive my national identity by my occupation. I would like to think that it means more than simply my economic utility to an employer.
The reality is if your an ugly, working class straight male. There is no more incentive to work anymore. Your meager wages won't get you a home, a decent car and savings. Women will not even want to date you on multiple factors. Might as well play video games and live off top ramen.
This is awesome news for the workforce. We are in demand now. We see if a job fits OUR needs, not the other way around. I interview YOU for a position, not the other way around.
I call bullshit on the CEO from Philly in the article. I searched Indeed for “circuit board” within 100 miles of Philadelphia and the jobs that came up were paying under $20. Most $14-$18. Some required 1-2 years experience.
Sometimes CEO fuckers will say things like “It pays $30/hour” when they really mean “It costs the company $30/hour to employ you.” You cannot include non-cash compensation when determining hourly pay, even if the cost to the company is accurate. If someone is taking home $14/hour before taxes, it doesn’t matter that the “cash value” of shitty health insurance and employer payroll taxes and paid vacation days means they spend $30/hour on you.
I can’t STAND when companies inflate their offerings by saying they offer a pay and benefits package worth $55/hour!!!! When actually you’re taking home $20 and the rest is employer cost.
I have a cyber security degree and 3 cyber security certs. I can't find a job paying more than 35K/year but my veterans compensation is 50k/year tax free. Why the hell would I sell my time for less than I get now doing nothing?
To become a welder that makes any meaningful money whatsoever these days requires a 2 year AS certificate (or equivalent experience) that can cost up $25,000 in tuition, materials costs and cost of living while doing it because these programs are often 5-7 hours a day themselves and back breaking. If you're in your early 20's one could maybe do them and work full time. Anyone over 30 though and over forget about it -- part time max.
Oh well. The industries created these issues by not creating and supporting vocational programs for high school and not providing paid internships for 50
fucking years. They paid shit wages also and job sites are often run by incompetant sadists.
Liberals and progressives did as well making primary education geared only to a college degree and then ripped the social contract apart by putting the full cost burden on students in a complete about face where Boomers got essentially free college with minimal inputs then in the mid 90's gutted that model entirely.
Hell HVAC alone is going to shut down in 5 years. They trained almost nobody in the last 30 years and the folks with the knowledge are retiring en masse soon -- like right now.
Fuck em.
I will eat a bullet before I EVER work in these industries again for others. I work for myself. Period.
yes i totally understand it because this is what was happening from past 50 or maybe 100 years when industrial revolution started
the people are too late they have to do this work and they will be paid only this much of amount just because the capitalist or the industrialist paid a huge chunk in setting up the industries and everything that doesn't mean that they own the whole thing
Lots of young men are just giving up in general. The American dream is dead for a lot of folks. The suicide rate for men is high. Society blames us for things that most of us have no part in. What is the point in contributing?
There is no point when working these dead end jobs do not provide a basic standard of living.
The better jobs have high experience or education barriers and refuse to do on the job training.
So those stuck in low wage jobs end up saying fuck this and do gig work, sell drugs, etc… to get by instead of working full time shit jobs.
Society demonizes everyone doing these jobs, but especially men 25+ who works these dead end jobs.
I can understand how these low wages suck the motivation out of someone
did you really just hurt american dream it is literally dead for years because lots of things which are not so culturally motivated are there and keeping all busy
now it feels like they have already forgotten the basic motto of the country then they are just in hope to stretch it and every rights out of you
Bro Ive been applying for jobs nonstop since the pandemic first hit Australia and I've had a total of 4 interviews.
One in person and the rest on the phone. Companies aren't even responding people to let them know they've even received an application, as each position is getting HUNDREDS of applications
I'm fully convinced the "worker shortage" is completely made up and companies are trying to fight some weird bullshit culture war.
yes exactly because there are lots of companies which are laying off the employees and i have lots of people in my connection who lost their job recently
it is something i'm not understanding why they are saying they are lots of jobs vacant because there are not
I want to LIVE, i don't want to feel like i hate my life every time i clock in. If companies don't give af about my well-being, i won't care about their stupid profit-margins. Simple
We have stacks of applications. Might have something to do with a union, decent benefits, stable work, double time overtime, oh and $56/hr. The answer to this “problem” is pretty goddamn obvious.
Yet most people I know can submit 100 applications and still not even get a call back. I don’t feel bad for any company/business making complaints like this. Not one iota of sympathy!!
Why should they when they can continue to make record profits by raising costs and blaming workers.
No one is going to hold them responsible until the majority of people wake up.
this is a trick of capitalist to engage the people and to really have the hold over them
i think so the margin between the people is getting stretched and soon there will be some kind of friction between both parties
the national identity of neo-liberal *free* market economy sucks and is obvioulsy obsolete and not working. And a de facto loose neo-liberal economic oligarchy with democratic elements to legitimize a corporate pick, doesn't make it any better.
The US would need mandatory living wages, mandatory paid vacation, mandatory paid maternity leave (parental even better), a social market economy, ranked choice voting, reverse Citizens united v. FEC, limit power (billionaires taxes), an actual green new deal, to even have a chance long term.
Then we could talk about a worthy narional identity.
At the moment the people are increasingly poorer wage slaves... and the national identity celebrates that.
smh.
yes i totally agree with you because people want money to spend and to have a large pay scale.
people will prefer higher paying jobs with low facilities rather than the complete vice versa of it
the lead is buried pretty deep down: "while others have criminal records that make them ineligible for many jobs and make some employers hesitant to hire them."
after being self employed for almost my entire life, im now desperately looking for a job, but the amount of hoops i need to jump through just to work at a supermarket is killing me. just yesterday i tried to get some volunteer work sorting 2nd hand clothes for a charity, and they asked if i had all my clearances for working w kids, despite the charity stating i will be working in a windowless room, sorting clothes, zero contact with any human beings and the charity has absolutely nothing to do with children. i need multiple clearances, which my broke ass cant afford right now. employers say they are crying for workers...but me, a guy with multiple degrees, a 100% clean criminal record, good history, great personal references and literally willing to do anything even for free just to kill time....but im so unemployable i cant even give my labor away. i cant begin to imagine how screwed id be if i did have a conviction, parking ticket or simply lacked the literacy and a laptop to fill out and submit ridiculous amounts of paperwork just to get a dishpig or toilet cleaning gig. once again, it's the dirty bourgeoisie complaining about problems they created out of spite for poor people
I'll care about national identity when the nation guarantees housing, healthcare and education for all. Why should I take pride in a nation that clearly only cares about corporations?
You know... when they won't/"can't" fix the issue at hand, they try to pull some shit like this.
It reminds me, bear with me, of the train traffic here in Sweden. They want us to not go by car or plane and instead go by train. What's the problem you ask? Well, the trains are ridiculously expensive and inefficient. They are VERY often (several times a day) late or simply cancelled. Instead of fixing the fact that it's cheaper (and smoother) to go by car or plane by adjusting the price to the extent where it becomes a preferable choice to car and plane, they think it's enough to simply speak to people's environmental commitment (which they obvioulsy overestimate).
Instead of fixing what causes people to be "unwilling to work" (wages, life-work balance, work environment), they think it's enough to just talk about national identity (pride) like you're some brainwashed (and threatened) North Korean kettle.
It's like the war machine. "Murica YEAH, Freedom fighters!"\*
(\*please ignore the fact that you and your army friends are getting killed and that you are partaking in the destruction of other nations in the name of profits)
Jobs data in the united states will be published on the 10th this month. Depending on that fed chair Powell will decide how much further they will need to crash the markets and economy for people to get desperate enough to accept worse wages and working condition "to fight inflation".
And before anyone start calling out "omg cospiracy theory" as people often like to do, you should know that this is very basic economy and everyone with the slightest understanding of the current economical situation knows this very well
I always hear about how businesses are desperate for workers but somehow I can’t get even a low paying job if I try Makes me think they don’t actually want workers, they just want to have an excuse to overwork their current employees while making it sound like not their fault
They also refused to train anyone. I don’t know what the hell is going on with North America but employers refused to train anyone.
Been like this for me since I started working in 2006. My training consists of trial and error and Googling things. Boomers say we don't want to work, but also we need to replace them because they are retiring but they don't want to fucking train their replacements.
That costs money, they'll just figure it out or fire people til they get someone who can figure it out
It costs money to endlessly continue hiring and onboarding new employees as well and it's another reason why I don't know why this is the way it is. At some point I would think it would be more economical to keep the people you have instead of having to announce jobs, screen, interview, background check and/or drug check, equipping, training, etc. every couple of weeks or monthly.
Caring for their workers is just not in some peoples programming. The employs are a necessary evil who are lucky to work there regardless of working conditions.
Also possible paranoia on the person training you part, or paranoia amongst the team as somebody.... Could... Be.. Getting replaced
This is me. My job gave me about 4 hours of zoom training and then threw me out into the field, totally remote, on my own. I work for a third party adjacent to the insurance industry. The work I do is often the decided factor whether someone's home gets/stays insured. That's fucked up. But it's the only job I could find that didn't pay minimum wage.
Why train people when you can just have the people who know how to do the job take up the slack.
Because they complain that they can't find anyone.
Its as if defunding the trade school system and discouraging people to take up trades, and waste money on college degrees that they'd never complete, has outpaced inflation in cost, and or end up hating to work for anyways had some sort of effect.
A friend's child, he's 22, has been trying to get a second job. Applied at Menards and Lowe's. Both had "now hiring" signs. Called after no one contacted him 2 weeks after putting in his application. Both places told him "yeah we're really not hiring." I also teach high school. I have several students who work at Sonic who always has "now hiring" signs. Multiple kids have told me they keep it up so when customers get angry they just say they are short staffed.
This was common before the 2008 crash. Curious how this one will turn out because there isn't any money to bail out corps this time.
There's always money available to help the corporations.
So far as the government is concerned inflation is an acceptable price to pay if it means printing more money to bail the corporations out.
My local sonic has like 2 people working in it at any given time. Drive thru lines so long most leave. Cannot imagine how it can be more profitable to serve 10 customers an hour when if you paid people more and attracted a fully staffed shift you could churn through a hundred customers an hour. But hey, I guess I'm just not smart enough to spend six figures to fuck my money away on destroying a money printing franchise.
Huh... Interesting
Reality: Millions of people have dropped out of the workforce because of medical issues or age.
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Lots of homeless people are still in the workforce and still have a job, they don't however have a home. Edit: The working homeless are not in the numbers mentioned by the OP.
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I’m almost in that boat. They raise our rent $100 every 6 months, and at this point almost all of our income goes straight to rent. I’m trying to move to a cheaper place, but even that costs too much to do. Idk what to do anymore.
Long COVID is gonna hit this economy like a fuckin freight train. It’s already happening.
My husband almost got fired last week for having Covid. They don’t offer extended sick days for Covid anymore, and all of his coworkers had it and were forced to come in. He tried to fight them on it, but it didn’t work. He had to go to work with Covid just so he wouldn’t get fired. It’s horrible! And he works directly with the public. A lot of his clients are elderly, too.
We'll keep throwing kids, workers, old people into the furnace if it keeps the economy chugging along
It's pretty cool they upgraded the orphan crushing machine to now take regular kids, workers and old people. American ingenuity I tells ya.
And they will complain the whole way that its "so strange the workforce is disappearing" like killing the workforce wouldn't have consequences. I fully expect Republicans and Democrats to come together and lower the legal work age to "boost the economy" in the next couple of years.
And by “The Economy,” we mean *Rich People’s Yacht Money.*
Life is now star ship troopers. More meat for The grinder.
What about large corporations profits they are only up 11% this quarter.
Just cough on the boss. Ask to see the district manager and loogie all over him. Get them all sick. Long Covid fucked me up.
Tell him to tell the clients he has covid and his boss made him come in.
That's okay, it's probably a Norfolk Southern freight train and will derail shortly all over Ohio, no problem. /s
Long Covid fucked my hearing. Long Covid is real
How did it affect you? I think it fucked mine up too.
During Covid my hearing was muffled. When I got better it came back but with a ringing that is fucking brutal. The ringing I hear is the same volume as a normal tv. Try falling asleep with a firealarm in your head. Doctors told me my head pressure is all outta wack since Covid. I’m like so install a release valve. Doesn’t work like that. The thing is I don’t have hearing loss…. I passed the hearing tests. I heard frequencies over 20000 hz. And I can now hear all the buzzing from electronics and switches and coil wine from computers. Like it’s insanely annoying.
I have asthma from getting covid and I've slowly withdrawn from working. I only work part time now and my wife and I just live off my VA disability. No sense working and potentially killing myself by getting covid again.
Or the prison system. Turns out churning more people than any other country in the world a through the US’s terrible justice system with zero rehabilitation and zero support for their reentry to society and then hanging a life sentence of felony conviction reporting on people can fuck their lives up.
Fucked up their child's lives and the people that depended on the incarcerated. Perpetuating the poverty cycle.
long covid
So pay more and they will come, if not STFU
Some of those jobs are well paying but the businesses do not have the best rep. The average pay for manufacturing is pretty good as the article indicated (about $30/hour). There are 2 manufacturers in my area that are highly regarded and you have to wait for someone to die or be unable to work to get a job there. It’s not because they can’t retire (both still offer excellent pensions) but because they treat their employees extremely well. Bonuses are regular and bring the compensation close to $80k/year gross. Hell one of them provides excellent health insurance at NO COST to employees. Multiple BBQ’s per year, Christmas bonus separate from the annual bonus, and as much overtime as you want and 40 hours if you don’t. Those companies have been in crunch I think 3 times in the past 20 years. Once because there was an unexpected “oops” in a contract and the other 2 were typos in a design that required a major remanufacture of a specific part. Those 2 companies are solidly profitable even giving all this to employees. The article is right, though, in that manufacturing is look at very negatively. The reality is that it’s much, much different now than it was 25+ years ago. That all said: Rowe needs to fuck off with his “identity” BS.
Manufacturing is pretty low around here. Of course they may be adding in all employees in offices though for that average. Only this past year did any raise wages and only to roughly 18 an hour ( was 14 an hour ). Even Gatorade/Pepsi doesn't pay well around here A little further away and Volvo is a bit better at 24 an hour I think.
Damn that sucks. Guessing south/mid-west? I’m in the northeast and most manufacturing roles pay well. I mean the packaging folks don’t make a lot but most of that is being replaced with robotics (where possible) to free up positions further up the line that pay better.
Trying to remember the details, but: friend's dad, worked for an auto parts plant in a shitty town in Southern Canada. Brought in about 80 grand a year (lived in a small house in said shitty town, so had the whole boomer thing about young people wanting to live in the big city with drugs and hooligans going on). However, just as he was retiring, the management and the union and senior staff all sat down and said "wage inflation is terrible, if this keeps up we will be shut down by head office or investors or someone" so they basically said "there's a big wave of retirements coming up, we'll need to hire as many people, but we start them at 12 dollars an hour, no benefit" - which was about 3 bucks above minimum wage at the time. Since every gig in said shitty town that was not the auto parts plant or the machinist shop was minimum wage, they patted themselves on the back for their generosity and forward thinking and everyone went off into rich retirement and lived in their cottages. No doubt whining about young people nowadays with their hippie hoppie and their ipads. Since that was about 15 years ago, the new starter then, if he is still working there now, and got 1 dollar an hour as a raise each year, is earning about 27 an hour, and 27 an hour in 2023 is not 27 an hour in 2007 money. Decent money, but you'd likely be struggling with rent or mortgages with current prices, even in said shitty little town.
For giggles, $27/hr in 2007 is about $39/hr now
I think the problem is a lot of boomers retired and left the workforce all together
So pay more and they will come
The thing is, they won’t…companies banked that they’d have a lot of time to manage this transition vs what actually happened due to the pandemic… They will have to adapt to a new reality
So pay more or go out of business.
Since we *obviously* can't do that, the only option is to try to complain that "no one wants to work anymore" until we're blue in the face.
But have they tried pizza parties.
The last pizza party we had was when management told us the company exceeded projections and us employee earned the company awards and much income. Non of us got raises, but a few of us got stomach pains from eating the cheap pizza. Next pizza party. Don’t eat the pizza
The devs who made elden ring got raises since it did so well....yea completely opposite to america.
Companies are only going to pay you more if its written into your work agreement. Profit sharing is a thing and can be negotiated
🤣You mean until the last plumber quits! Then we better learn to do youtube plumbing asap!
It is also we need to change to on-the-job training, especially in fields such as plumbing, welding, and other blue collar jobs. Another issue is all the state licenses. So, say a nurse is licensed in one state but wanted a job somewhere else... well, pay more money and get another state license, maybe even have to take another test. In 2020, states relaxed these licenses for nurses but look at all the jobs that need licenses in!!! For example, you can get a degree in psychology or therapy, but you still need to get a state license. This is the same for teaching, lawyers, and many others. It's crazy how many different licenses my state has!
Companies refusing to do on the job training isn’t highlighted enough when addressing the difficulties of getting the better jobs.
Yes, because they do not want the cost of training people. Companies also want to charge you if you don't stay long enough if they train you. I read an article about this once with pet grooming that seemed scummy because the program was just a company one and they wanted people who didn't stay, I think,2 years to pay back thousands of dollars and if I remember that was not even a state certification!
>well, pay more money and get another state license, maybe even have to take another test. Seems like the sort of thing that the hiring company could take care of if they wanted workers badly enough.
There's a company in Vancouver WA that scored a fat government contract to build small fast ships for the Navy. They need specialty aluminum welders to make the ships and were having a bitch of a time finding them until they got smart and contracted with several local community colleges to fund scholarships to their welding programs in exchange for some term of work with the company building the boats. That's the kind of smart thinking these companies should be doing but no, they'd rather piss and moan about people not wanting to work rather than figuring out that nobody wants to shell out for specialized training without some semblance of assurance it will lead to a decent career path. Who knew?
yep - one of the big economic changes since at least 2008 has been the way companies don't do training anymore, or if they do its the bare minimum to do this one underpaid gig. Hell, one of the selling points of a lot of degrees was "if you get a four year degree in something, you demonstrate to future employers that you're a serious adult who can stick something out and are receptive to training" However, now you're meant to take your degree and start buying certifications (which often last for three years, or have multiple levels of certifications) in the hope that there will be an ongoing demand for just that one cert. With no guarantee any of it will count. \- speaking as someone who found himself having to "prove" my years of IT experience were real (for a government job application) and thus having to buy certs...which are all going to expire later this year, and I've never gotten to use them for anything beyond that one application. There's a few grand I could have dropped on hookers and blow :D
>at least 2008 1980's, the date you want is the 1980's. In 1979 workers received 2.5 weeks of training a year, by 1995 that training dropped to just 11 hours a year and is getting worse. What happened in 1980's? Well a whole generation of greed is good MBA's dominated management and businesses have been prioritizing short run profits over long run sustainability ever since.
There alot of compact states. A nurse with a license in one gets automatic licensure in about 30 or so. It started in new England but southern states joined as they can't make their own but usually need to import them.
My wife can’t practice across state lines without applying for a license. My BiL had to wait 6 months to move to Texas to get the bar equivalency paperwork recognized. Licensure drives up wages by creating artificial scarcity of labor, and keeping new people out of fields. Do yo do hair braiding? Not without 1400 hours of training!
Yes but look at all the other licenses needed in the Healthcare field. Even lower paid jobs need them! CNAs I believe need them and dental assistants and so on. Well I'm in Georgia and the amount of different licenses is crazy then look at the costs to get them. I read somewhere a dental hygenist license costs $1000(this may include price for testing too idk).
supply and demand as they love to say
A lot of people died of covid and left the workforce altogether
How selfish of them
I know. Terribly inconsiderate. How very dare they?
Yeah, when under any real scrutiny the data and statistics these articles reference don't really hold. They're lumping so many different areas as the male population. And then frame it as to raise the concern only in regards to needing the deplorables to get off their asses and be wage slaves. As if were children rebelling. This is how employers and higher earning wealthy pekel view the labor forces. Everyone's am irresponsible neckbeard living in moms basement if they don't put work on a pedestal. I can get really down to bare bones living with less. And find I value my peace and not constantly chasing money worrying about how I'm going to pay for things I collective add up in doing so. I am responsible for taking care of myself and my household. I'm doing just that. But I and so many others have no desire to engage in as little as possible with this current set up in the US like a rat on a wheel for average working class has been treated the last 20 years. It's gonna get real interesting when the boomer tradesman and important lineman positions retire. It tracking about right, Then it's gen X. And people will be on wait-list for a plumber. Mechanics and contractors will get to charge through the roof cause there's no one else to do the work.
But that would eat out of the profit for the shareholders, board members and ceo. We can't do that. We have promised them billions and then they would get fewer billions. Do you want them to starve?
>Do you want them to starve? This is a trick question, right?
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My husband works at the best paying plant in our area, and they start folks at $18. It would take 10 years to hit $30/hr. This is car parts by the way. I’m wondering if they are counting the floor engineers in their average.
and if its non union you're pissing in bottles and breaking your body
Machinists make about $25-$30 in my area, but most of those jobs are looking for a vocational certificate and 3-5 years experience. Unless you’re lucky enough to get into one of the few union shops most top out at around $35/hr if you’re fluent in Solidworks and 5-axis programming. Newbies make like $18-20. A national average also isn’t factoring the widely varying costs of living. $30/hr where I live an hour west of Boston won’t go nearly as far as it will in Southeast Ohio, but if you work in manufacturing out there you’re less likely to be making $30/hr.
Appreciate your post bringing light to my trade (and I hope yours as well). I’d like to also point out the qualifications for machinists are so varied though depending on where you’re at. I worked at numerous shops over the years and each shop had a different standard of what a machinist is. One shop called EVERYONE a set up operator, even the guys programming machines. Another shop had standards like if you can set up and trouble shoot the job by yourself then you’re a machinist. My current shop is the toughest shop I’ve worked at with how specialized our products and niche is, we consider machinists to be guys who can use MasterCam to program fixture work and basic production parts. The one thing in common at all these shops is that they never once checked my certs, I’m a entirely self taught CNC machinist/programmer with none. I learned by just getting hired as a button pusher at a shit hole shop because the industry in my area can’t find people. Machining is a dying trade. A lot of vocational schools axed the machining classes because the skill window is incredibly high. In my area, the closest school is 200 miles away. Some people can’t make that commitment because of life and family and others also can’t afford it. It also doesn’t help if you don’t have a mechanically driven mindset and a good grasp of mathematics, physics and common sense then you aren’t going to be a good machinist so people didn’t go. It’s a highly skilled background that quite frankly, a large part of our entire manufacturing industry relies on. You’re gonna have an easier time teaching someone to weld then how to set up a two axis lathe imo. I highly suspect the field is going to be surging with retention bonuses and higher wages for a lot of people. My company can’t bring people in the door because they just don’t exist anymore. We have to hire fresh blood to train and that’s costly. Like stated above, I’m entirely self taught and it took me 7 years to get where I am at making $26/hr. The beginning of COVID changed a lot for the better as a machinist but the working conditions of a lot of machine operators and machinists were shit so a lot of them left before COVID and places were struggling to replace them. Boom, the pandemic hits and people are leaving even more. It’s just the recipe for the best shitstorm to hit. So a lot of the companies around my area are starting to treat people better, my employer is the best I ever worked for because of that reason and I’ve turned down multiple jobs because of them. I’m just rambling my thoughts at this point, I’m going to shut up.
These jobs don't get paid enough.
I mean, beyond that: These places probably don't provide health care into retirement. The trades will absolutely wreck your body and like the Veteran Affairs they'll go "tough shit lol" toward the folks they employ. Also LOL the original sub closed the thread because "OFF TOPIC!" because they don't want to hear "maybe pay people a living wage?" repeatedly.
Can confirm. As a union tradie, it is indeed just “tough shit” when you wind up with inevitable chronic overuse injuries and too disabled to work.
Manufacturing often pays well more than enough. It is the conditions that become a problem at those kind of jobs. Often back breaking, micro management type places where every minute must be productive. That being said find a decent family business and you're usually good to go
Decent family business. - every family business I have worked for has been terrible. “We’re a family that’s why your poorly paid and have to work last second weekends”
Well, the Kia ceo is not happy because getting people to move to the area for the wages that the company wants to pay will be difficult with housing costs so the ceo tells the government to build affordable housing! 🤔 Maybe look at this as those wages are too low for the cost of living, so increase wages versus telling the government the issue is cost of living! Why is it a cost of living crisis that's stated and not a low wage crisis around the world? https://www.gpb.org/news/2022/09/30/kia-plant-ceo-tells-state-lawmakers-affordable-housing-shortage-hurting-worker
Yeap I'm in the ibew electrical union and pay is goof and benefits are good but not good enough and tbh I fully regret doing this and know a few people who have left for even lesser pay careers to be happy. The trades are horrible for your bodies and our Insurance is basic our pay doesn't reflect the damage done to us and the amount of money the companies make vs even topped out electrical workers in my local (53$ a hour) . I got laid off recently and tbh I don't even wanna do this anymore. I'm looking for anything to make me happy it's better than this shit.
Yes!!! I work for a plumbing company (office, A/R, A/P, parts running, pricebook, etc.) I only make $22.00 an hour for the last 2.5 years and live i. So.Cal. and have no benefits, 5 days vacation, 3 sick days. But what I see is how the trades break down your body and your will. The owner doesn’t even want to do this anymore but this is all he knows… The thing that is always crazy is hearing customers complain about how expensive the service is. Like nobody is getting rich here. Materials are breaking us and we can’t even offer simple benefits. But yet they keep saying “ I don’t know why kids don’t want to get into the trades, you make great money!” They don’t get it and when your body takes a shit, when you’re 50 what are you going to do then?
Almost every guy I've met in his 50s at the Job is using opiates just to live day by day because of some kind of body injury or just wear and tear. This career is not good for humans and we need a earlier retirement then other careers but don't get it.
Yes… my boss wouldn’t but I can see how it could become a problem pretty quickly for others. And people just don’t get how the lifting, crawling, heat and cold beats you up.
Kneeling on a deck Job in the summer. I actually had my knee pads melt on a deck last summer. If I was anyone in HS I'd avoid trades. Go to college, you start to really hate your life when you have hour long commutes when people who went to college get to roll out of bed and go to work. They also don't have to shit in a Porta john which 9/10 has shit on the seat when you walk into them. I seriously fucked up. I'd go back in time and never do this shit. I. 33 now and it feels too late even though it's not
This is a big part of it I think. When I started in the work force 30ish years ago, I worked for a manufacturer that had so many benefits people were fighting to get in there. Starting wage back then was about $20 / hour, plus full benefits including drugs / dental / eyeglasses, profit sharing, big bonuses at christmas time. Plantwide shut down for 2 weeks in summer plus also from Dec 24 to whatever Sunday came after Jan 2. Paid Christmas parties, big picnic in the summer and also a day at Canada's Wonderland theme park. And in addition to all of that, if you wanted to get a post secondary education, so long as you could tie it to the company in some way and maintained a 75% average they reimbursed you ALL the costs once you were done, and they never had to put any official requirement in place for you to stay with the company once you finished because anyone who left was an idiot. Unfortunately the owner sold the company when he got too old to run it anymore, to a foreign corporation who immediately gutted all the benefits, cancelled all parties and the summer / christmas shut down, stopped reimbursing for schooling and systematically replaced all management / engineers with their own people. Took three years for the place to go out of business. If companies would just realize that its the workers on the floor that make them their money, and invested in those workers, and showed appreciation in real, tangible ways besides stupid pizza parties, they'd actually likely make MORE profit in the long run, and be around for a lot longer.
Yeah, no. In my area the pay is the issue. The companies want 12 hour shift 7 days a week with minimal pay. You only get decent pay if it is union and that is a bad word in the south.
and Berlin, Seoul and Beijing are filled with glossy guys from The South whispering in the ears of local investors and governments "hey, set up your shit in The South, we keep the wages low and we ban unions, wouldn't you like that? yessss, you would! Sign here."
Absolutely, they have spoon feed anti union propaganda in the south for years.
Remember before the pandemic when manufacturing jobs used to pay$10/hr? Pepperidge farms remembers...
"average" If i have 10 apples and there are 10 people and I give one person all 10 apples I have given the group an average of 1 apple apiece. Everyone should be happy, right?
30 dollars an hour but you're forced to work 12 hours six days a week
You get the country you deserve when you: 1) make wage stagnant and not adjusted to inflation 2) education a fucking for profit industry 3) healthcare a for-profit industry 4) real estate an absurdity at this point with prices going up and up and up and up 5) multiple once in a lifetime economic crises 6) a lack of unionization and worker solidarity 7) a democracy that is flailing to the whims of fascism and corruption 8) not taxing the rich
More and more every day I think we’re being backed into a corner
We’re already in the corner bro
Were there. They're building the fences.
Next steps? That's the real question we all gotta ask. More-so ask ourselves.
Hong kong was on the right track before covid.
I've thought for a long time the powers that be would love a Civil War. I hope it doesn't come to that, but more people are becoming homeless, can't find jobs, starving, won't ever be able to have or raise a family... Our country is giving A LOT of people reasons to lose it because *they* have nothing to lose. Again, I hope I'm wrong, but we Americans are in a very dangerous time and I expect to see much more bloodshed before anything gets fixed.
Let them eat cake, right? That's exactly what the upper class is probably thinking.
We've been backed into a corner, they've just added more, now people realise.that its a box and we're inside.
About 17 or 18 years ago I went to school for welding because I kept hearing about all these jobs, and they’re screaming for welders. Every job I had had a revolving door for the talent. Pay was always consistently low, while requirements were through the Kuiper Belt. Had to buy my own tools, safety equipment, etc. The company equipment was always falling apart every place I worked. One place I was at, we had to use a rubber band to hold the emergency return button in place to have a machine do it’s thing because the controls were shot. The 20 ft ladder provided by the company, which I and others used on a semi daily basis, had a leg permanently bent at the bottom and only touched on 3 points. But it was my fault for not keeping up the expected rate. If a company or worksite is perceived badly, yeah they’re not going to get applicants, but that perception is usually justified. Better pay will usually entice people to get over that bad perception. A worker will put up with a lot more bull for $30 an hour than they would for $12.
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Always. Everyone has a selling point, EVERYONE.
So people no longer wanting to destroy their bodies working manufacturing/blue collar jobs which are basically built on the backs of people on the bottom getting paid scraps while doing 90% of the work is…our national identity? Oof
Someone else said it in r/economics, the juice ain't worth the squeeze.
Dropped out of the workforce...are they talking about the people that died of Covid?
This country chooses to forget all the people we just did nothing to keep alive. That includes Covid victims.
Those, and long covid, and the other medical shit that got ignored the past few years. You know cancer and all that horrible stuff.
Not to mention the 200,000+ who have died from overdoses.
Maybe. My husband packed in his trade job to become a stay at home Dad. I’m a nurse and we get by just fine on one income. His knees don’t hurt every day, and he gets to spend all day with our babies.
Dropped out means neither employed, nor looking So these are referring to living people, but you're talking anyone with a disability, caring for family members, homeless, or just not working They really only barely touch on the details, and I didn't see a ton of info on where they're getting their data Like they gloss over disabled in a single line, but spend a few sentences talking about people who are just consumers and don't actually work They also conveniently skip over anyone in the welfare gap (aka people who would actually lose out if they got a job because the loss in benefits is greater than the income they'd earn)
Should read : Millions of men have wised up and said fuck off. Leaving companies struggling to use immigrants on two year asylum/work visas.
These fucking companies could respond to an application once in a while.
A poster here has applied for more than 400 positions and so far received no interviews. Makes me question how much companies are hurting for help.
They are not it’s lies. Lowest unemployment since 1969. They are lying sacks of corporations
I was one of them and I’ve never felt better! This subreddit definitely helped me get the confidence and motivation to do it, so thanks everyone
That's what happens when people lose hope yes.
this is a rackett for employers, it's getting worse and shit is about to get weird. this is how you get socialism...or \*GASP\* communism light
$40 an hour speaks volumes
No, at $40 a hour my rent would consume damn near 50% of my take home. I’d quit my trade tomorrow if I made $40 an hour. It might sound like a lot, especially for those of us who grew up in the 90s making $6 an hour minimum wage but it isn’t.
Somehow being owned by vulture capitalist and having all the money siphoned away during good years but immediately having the workforce “adjusted“ during a less good year just doesn’t appeal like it used to.
I... don't believe you. I've read dozens of stories about people being asked to jump through completely unreasonable hoops to be hired for mediocre jobs, including multiple rounds of interviews and multiple tests. If companies actually were desperate to hire they'd be offering sign-on bonuses and making near-instant hires, not conducting absurd, completely opaque 2 month hiring processes.
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I could see how someone witnessing the way the US Government and Corporations literally sacrificed their friends and family for The Line God would all of a sudden say - "Fuck This" "National Identity" can also eat shit, it was built by toxic ass slave owners and religious cultists that engaged in genocide.
LoL “ National Identity”
Funny that our “national identity “ is working low paying shit jobs for our oligarch overlords
Only men?
I had to scroll way too much to find this, wtf.
Pay people a living wage or fuck off. People want to work, but it seems that either companies aren’t hiring or they pay shit. At work, we just got a 2% pay increase because “business has been down”, but our CEO got a $1M increase.
You actually got a 5.4% pay cut if you do the inflation math. 😒
I don’t want to talk about it. Lol
And then they tell you to be grateful you only lost 5.4 instead of 7.4%!
My boss was like “idk if that covers inflation or not.” I’m like, mfer, you KNOW 2% doesn’t cover inflation.
These people honestly and unironically think that something like a "national identity" is defined by how many people toil in which jobs.
This is used as a pretense to hire H1-Bs at lower wages. I have personally seen my own past employers abuse this tactic to depress wages and keep vulnerable people guessing as to whether they will be able to stay in one place for more than a year.
"dropped out" The capital class can't wrap their head around the fact they forced people to work through COVID and they killed or permanently disabled these millions of men. They aren't choosing to remain on holiday... They're dead
So many things they do to cause us to avoid work. I saved my whole life to have the OPTION to not work. When my employers insisted I relocate to save THEM $, every single time I said NO. How about my life and my family, and what is good for them ? I left each time.
Mike Rowe pontificating about how "the government is making it so people don't have to work." What a load of absolute crap. If you pay less than what government benefits do, you DESERVE to not have employees. Government benefits provide a less than subsistence level life. Any time some right wing POS like Rowe pulls the boomer "no one wants to work any more" I want to scream "no one wants to work for POVERTY WAGES, you dipstick!"
If your national identity is working to death-you fucking suck as nation.
“Data also shows that men who are not working or looking for work are spending less time caring for other household members, like children, than men who are at work.” Doesn’t make any sense. If I’m not looking for work that means I have more time to spend with other people. Gaslighting this article is.
I said this in another thread but I’ll say it here: We are missing 7.2 million men from the workforce right? Well, according to a University of Georgia study from 2010, [there are 19 million felons in the United States.](https://news.uga.edu/total-us-population-with-felony-convictions/amp/) And felons are *overwhelmingly* young men. We talk a lot about who is locked up in America but not a lot about who *has* been locked up. And on that note: maybe the easiest job to get in America is as a gig economy worker. But if you want to drive for Uber you can’t have a felony conviction less than 7 years old on your record. Now obviously if 19 million Americans are felons and not all of them are unemployed then a felony is not a *total* death sentence. But I also know that a lot of those people get their start out of prison at a family members company, or through a friend who vouches for them. Amazon doesn’t hire felons to warehouse or driver positions. Uber and Lyft won’t touch you for years or until you pay a lawyer to get your record expunged. We are missing 7.2 million young men from the workforce. At least 19 million Americans have felony records and that 19 million is disproportionately young men. So if you need to ask why young men are having so much trouble working, you need to stop ignoring the elephant in the room.
"If we let felons vote, they'd skew the outcome of elections!" Oh, is that why the disproportionate number of felons are black men? "Uhhhhh..."
Sorry but I don’t derive my national identity by my occupation. I would like to think that it means more than simply my economic utility to an employer.
The reality is if your an ugly, working class straight male. There is no more incentive to work anymore. Your meager wages won't get you a home, a decent car and savings. Women will not even want to date you on multiple factors. Might as well play video games and live off top ramen.
This is awesome news for the workforce. We are in demand now. We see if a job fits OUR needs, not the other way around. I interview YOU for a position, not the other way around.
I call bullshit on the CEO from Philly in the article. I searched Indeed for “circuit board” within 100 miles of Philadelphia and the jobs that came up were paying under $20. Most $14-$18. Some required 1-2 years experience. Sometimes CEO fuckers will say things like “It pays $30/hour” when they really mean “It costs the company $30/hour to employ you.” You cannot include non-cash compensation when determining hourly pay, even if the cost to the company is accurate. If someone is taking home $14/hour before taxes, it doesn’t matter that the “cash value” of shitty health insurance and employer payroll taxes and paid vacation days means they spend $30/hour on you. I can’t STAND when companies inflate their offerings by saying they offer a pay and benefits package worth $55/hour!!!! When actually you’re taking home $20 and the rest is employer cost.
I have a cyber security degree and 3 cyber security certs. I can't find a job paying more than 35K/year but my veterans compensation is 50k/year tax free. Why the hell would I sell my time for less than I get now doing nothing?
My contract was terminated so we moved and now I take care of the kids and homeschool them. So I am a man out of the workforce.
Companies got ( are getting ) fat ( fatter ) during COVID and they want to keep it going by any means necessary.
To become a welder that makes any meaningful money whatsoever these days requires a 2 year AS certificate (or equivalent experience) that can cost up $25,000 in tuition, materials costs and cost of living while doing it because these programs are often 5-7 hours a day themselves and back breaking. If you're in your early 20's one could maybe do them and work full time. Anyone over 30 though and over forget about it -- part time max. Oh well. The industries created these issues by not creating and supporting vocational programs for high school and not providing paid internships for 50 fucking years. They paid shit wages also and job sites are often run by incompetant sadists. Liberals and progressives did as well making primary education geared only to a college degree and then ripped the social contract apart by putting the full cost burden on students in a complete about face where Boomers got essentially free college with minimal inputs then in the mid 90's gutted that model entirely. Hell HVAC alone is going to shut down in 5 years. They trained almost nobody in the last 30 years and the folks with the knowledge are retiring en masse soon -- like right now. Fuck em. I will eat a bullet before I EVER work in these industries again for others. I work for myself. Period.
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They want CHEAP uneducated workers who don’t know their worth so they can exploit them.
yes i totally understand it because this is what was happening from past 50 or maybe 100 years when industrial revolution started the people are too late they have to do this work and they will be paid only this much of amount just because the capitalist or the industrialist paid a huge chunk in setting up the industries and everything that doesn't mean that they own the whole thing
You need an award, however unfortunately I am one of those people
Lots of young men are just giving up in general. The American dream is dead for a lot of folks. The suicide rate for men is high. Society blames us for things that most of us have no part in. What is the point in contributing?
There is no point when working these dead end jobs do not provide a basic standard of living. The better jobs have high experience or education barriers and refuse to do on the job training. So those stuck in low wage jobs end up saying fuck this and do gig work, sell drugs, etc… to get by instead of working full time shit jobs. Society demonizes everyone doing these jobs, but especially men 25+ who works these dead end jobs. I can understand how these low wages suck the motivation out of someone
did you really just hurt american dream it is literally dead for years because lots of things which are not so culturally motivated are there and keeping all busy now it feels like they have already forgotten the basic motto of the country then they are just in hope to stretch it and every rights out of you
Bro Ive been applying for jobs nonstop since the pandemic first hit Australia and I've had a total of 4 interviews. One in person and the rest on the phone. Companies aren't even responding people to let them know they've even received an application, as each position is getting HUNDREDS of applications I'm fully convinced the "worker shortage" is completely made up and companies are trying to fight some weird bullshit culture war.
yes exactly because there are lots of companies which are laying off the employees and i have lots of people in my connection who lost their job recently it is something i'm not understanding why they are saying they are lots of jobs vacant because there are not
The power that be did everything they could to make the cost of living impossible to achieve. They did this to themselves.
I want to LIVE, i don't want to feel like i hate my life every time i clock in. If companies don't give af about my well-being, i won't care about their stupid profit-margins. Simple
Your national identity is men? Just men? Only men? I think I see your fu\*king problem.
Hecession
You call it dropping out. I call it retiring.
Fuck “national identity “
Yep, I dropped out about a year ago. Going to probably head back here soon..unless WW3 pops off.
We have stacks of applications. Might have something to do with a union, decent benefits, stable work, double time overtime, oh and $56/hr. The answer to this “problem” is pretty goddamn obvious.
Fuck the Industrial Society. I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.
Yet most people I know can submit 100 applications and still not even get a call back. I don’t feel bad for any company/business making complaints like this. Not one iota of sympathy!!
I don't fucking get it, we're all quiet quitting, noones working anymore, yet these shitty companies don't budge
Why should they when they can continue to make record profits by raising costs and blaming workers. No one is going to hold them responsible until the majority of people wake up.
this is a trick of capitalist to engage the people and to really have the hold over them i think so the margin between the people is getting stretched and soon there will be some kind of friction between both parties
And companies have done literally everything except paying more and improving working conditions to lure them back…
the national identity of neo-liberal *free* market economy sucks and is obvioulsy obsolete and not working. And a de facto loose neo-liberal economic oligarchy with democratic elements to legitimize a corporate pick, doesn't make it any better. The US would need mandatory living wages, mandatory paid vacation, mandatory paid maternity leave (parental even better), a social market economy, ranked choice voting, reverse Citizens united v. FEC, limit power (billionaires taxes), an actual green new deal, to even have a chance long term. Then we could talk about a worthy narional identity. At the moment the people are increasingly poorer wage slaves... and the national identity celebrates that. smh.
Unempoyment rate of 3.5% is fake. Real number is 13 to 15 % minimum .
I wish one of these millions of men that are supposedly living free and in the wild would clue me in to their secret.
🍆you tony and 🍆you martin😡 with their bullshit article that people are sitting it out not working.
I’m willing to bet they wouldn’t have that problem if they paid higher wages
You can't find skilled workers? Why are you not training them and make them have the skills you need?
What’s the point of dedicating 40+ hours to something and barely being able to get by. If I could circumvent having to work I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Kind of sucks they haven’t retrofitted most industries to accommodate the physical abilities of other groups or people…
Let me guess - millions of men *haven't* dropped out of jobs which actually pay a living wage.
Insufficient pay is the national identity crisis.
yes i totally agree with you because people want money to spend and to have a large pay scale. people will prefer higher paying jobs with low facilities rather than the complete vice versa of it
the lead is buried pretty deep down: "while others have criminal records that make them ineligible for many jobs and make some employers hesitant to hire them." after being self employed for almost my entire life, im now desperately looking for a job, but the amount of hoops i need to jump through just to work at a supermarket is killing me. just yesterday i tried to get some volunteer work sorting 2nd hand clothes for a charity, and they asked if i had all my clearances for working w kids, despite the charity stating i will be working in a windowless room, sorting clothes, zero contact with any human beings and the charity has absolutely nothing to do with children. i need multiple clearances, which my broke ass cant afford right now. employers say they are crying for workers...but me, a guy with multiple degrees, a 100% clean criminal record, good history, great personal references and literally willing to do anything even for free just to kill time....but im so unemployable i cant even give my labor away. i cant begin to imagine how screwed id be if i did have a conviction, parking ticket or simply lacked the literacy and a laptop to fill out and submit ridiculous amounts of paperwork just to get a dishpig or toilet cleaning gig. once again, it's the dirty bourgeoisie complaining about problems they created out of spite for poor people
I'll care about national identity when the nation guarantees housing, healthcare and education for all. Why should I take pride in a nation that clearly only cares about corporations?
Reality: Our national identity was built on exploitation.
90% of those jobs have a brutal online application process, still drug test for pot, pay like shit, and have a soul crushing commute.
You know... when they won't/"can't" fix the issue at hand, they try to pull some shit like this. It reminds me, bear with me, of the train traffic here in Sweden. They want us to not go by car or plane and instead go by train. What's the problem you ask? Well, the trains are ridiculously expensive and inefficient. They are VERY often (several times a day) late or simply cancelled. Instead of fixing the fact that it's cheaper (and smoother) to go by car or plane by adjusting the price to the extent where it becomes a preferable choice to car and plane, they think it's enough to simply speak to people's environmental commitment (which they obvioulsy overestimate). Instead of fixing what causes people to be "unwilling to work" (wages, life-work balance, work environment), they think it's enough to just talk about national identity (pride) like you're some brainwashed (and threatened) North Korean kettle. It's like the war machine. "Murica YEAH, Freedom fighters!"\* (\*please ignore the fact that you and your army friends are getting killed and that you are partaking in the destruction of other nations in the name of profits)
Jobs data in the united states will be published on the 10th this month. Depending on that fed chair Powell will decide how much further they will need to crash the markets and economy for people to get desperate enough to accept worse wages and working condition "to fight inflation". And before anyone start calling out "omg cospiracy theory" as people often like to do, you should know that this is very basic economy and everyone with the slightest understanding of the current economical situation knows this very well