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Monday, April 6. 2015

Why Are So Many Employers Unable to Fill Jobs?

Is it because American youth do not know how to do anything useful?
Posted by The News Junkie at 14:34 | Comments (16) | Trackbacks (0)

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re Is it because American youth do not know how to do anything useful?

It could be that. I have seen lots of examples that would agree with the premise.

It might also be that employers are reluctant to bid up wages for what the jobs are really worth. I recall seeing a similar story a couple of years back where manufacturers were baffled that they couldn't get tool and die machine operators for $20k.

Before 0bamacare, I used to see want ads for help for small business where the employee was required to wear a half dozen hats ... for a 38 hour week .... so the employer wouldn't have to pay benefits. And then they would wonder aloud why they couldn't hire people.

Jack up the wages sufficiently for a needed skill and you will have workers coming out of the wood work. Start paying truck drivers $150k and see how fast that supply shortage goes away.
#1 feeblemind on 2015-04-06 15:08 (Reply)
Wages aren't the only cost of labor to employers. You have to add in the other two elements, benefits and the government's cut. With Obamacare, a chunk that a could have gone to wages increasing take home is now in the benefits column. Perks and other benefits have been trimmed to accommodate it. Then you have the government's cut taken for the benefit of the employee, i.e., unemployment premiums, workers comp premiums, etc. All those have been rising. So the worker isn't getting the wages for his discretionary spending, but if you look at the amounts the government has moved into the other columns, you'll see labor costs have been rising.
#1.1 JK Brown on 2015-04-06 16:45 (Reply)
It isn't as easy as you like to say. If you paid each trucker a $150K per year, you know how much the cost of goods would go up? Also, you would have to get every trucking company to agree to that wage, or the one with high wages that would charge more for its services will go out of business.

1) We need to build up the tech programs in our high schools. Many schools raised teacher pay, but slashed tech classes. Ridiculous. We have several great tech programs at our high school that result in a student being employable right out of high school with welding certification, A+ certification, CNA certification and others. EVERY school should be able to do this. We are a small town with low state funding for schools, but still they manage to keep these programs going.

2) Loans for higher education should absolutely be tied to placement results for graduates. And colleges should charge MORE for certain majors. Shouldn't an engineering/science degree cost more than an English degree?

3) There should be a 'teenager' wage. High school kids should be able to make less than an adult. Offer a $1 less per hour for a kid between 14 and 18, and you will see a lot of kids get jobs and work experience.

I could go on. These are just a few thoughts on the topic.
#1.2 MissT on 2015-04-06 16:47 (Reply)
In our state, teens must get a work permit in order to work. The 'rules' are needlessly complicated and restrictive to the point that most employers won't bother hiring a kid in high school and instead hire college students. The work permits are handled on a case by case basis through the public schools, which, of course, puts homeschoolers in a very precarious position. Our kids have managed OK by doing odd jobs and simply waiting until they are over 18 to apply for work at bigger companies.

The government is not interested in putting people to work. It is interested in regulating them.
#1.2.1 weaver (Link) on 2015-04-07 13:43 (Reply)
The cost of employing a worker is too high owing to regulation.

Too high = more than the job is worth to the employer, if you pay what the employee will take.

What the employee will take is mediated by money for doing nothing from the friendly state.

So the state is in it at both ends.
#2 rhhardin (Link) on 2015-04-06 15:14 (Reply)
My gunsmith charges around $125/hr., discounted for longer jobs.

Our dog groomer charges $125/service.

My barber? $20 per 15-minutes.

Exercise trainers here charge $75/hr, more or less.

Finish carpenters? $80/hr.

Plumbers and electricians? Try finding one. A seller's market.

Dog trainers? $400/week.
#3 BD on 2015-04-06 15:15 (Reply)
They can fill jobs, they choose not to.
The idea is simple, by setting impossibly high standards for new employees, requiring far more and more advanced skills than needing for the job, while offering far lower pay than normal for that job, you don't get your job opening filled.
If that happens, you've a great excuse to get imported labour from low wage countries approved, so off you go to say India to hire programmers at 20% the cost of local ones (of which there are plenty, but you rejected all of them for not having the right skill set).
#4 J.T. Wenting on 2015-04-06 15:28 (Reply)
Don't ever underestimate the impact of heavy drinking and drug use. Most big construction companies test for drug use (and alcohol) both because they are required to but also because they can't have these guys screw up.

Nearly 40 years ago when I was in engineering school, I worked for a German firm that imported high tech machinery for the summer. They offered me as much as I got after graduation to be a lead tech for them. When I said I didn't have the craft experience, they said they would teach me because they couldn't get anyone who was either a drunk or doper. This wasn't a government or legal requirement to not use or drink, but that these guys wouldn't show up or otherwise would be unreliable. Henry Ford paid the astonishing rate of $5/day to work on his line to get sober workers. They needed to agree to home inspections by his "Sociological" Bureau that made sure you were sober and your wife got he household money.
#5 DirtyJobsGuy on 2015-04-06 16:21 (Reply)
Well, everyone keeps going on about getting "educated" in the Liberal Arts. Which is not a terrible thing, if you get the classical Liberal Arts.

But the one thing the Liberal Arts have never done is teach students how to do anything useful in the wage earning area of life. That doesn't mean that a student might not enhance some innate or otherwise provided skill with his "education," but, with Liberal Arts, they got lots of grease but no gears.


At the lower education levels, as was mentioned by others, reliability is key and the permissive drug and alcohol environment makes that a rare trait. Not to mention the accommodation kids receive in their schooling for being unreliable. Your boss is never the understanding sort, at least not at profitable enterprises. Unless you've proven yourself a valuable worker.
#6 JK Brown on 2015-04-06 16:51 (Reply)
Hey, maybe it is because the employers are all competing for the same 100,000 or so graduates (Ivy League?

Economist via Stuart Schneiderman:

QUOTE:
Employers are not much interested in the education universities provide either. Lauren Rivera of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management interviewed 120 recruiters from American law firms, management consultancies and investment banks. Their principal filter was the applicant’s university. Unless he had attended one of the top institutions, he was not even considered. “Evaluators relied so intensely on ‘school’ as a criterion of evaluation not because they believed that the content of elite curricula better prepared students for life in their firms…but because of the perceived rigour of the admissions process,” Ms Rivera wrote. After the status of the institution, recruiters looked not at students’ grades but at their extracurricular activities, preferring the team sports—lacrosse, field-hockey and rowing—favoured by well-off white men.
#7 JK Brown on 2015-04-06 18:48 (Reply)
This prompts the question of why not someone replicating a selective university filter process for the non-elite? Perhaps a competency certification process? People test out on topics of value to demonstrate competency. And independent certification that isolates the employers from the Left's attacks on all sorting they don't dominate?
#7.1 JK Brown on 2015-04-06 18:53 (Reply)
Truck drivers and plumbers do not need college degrees
#7.1.1 bd on 2015-04-06 19:38 (Reply)
True, but truck driving really sucks if you don't have the disposition for it. Life on the road is not for everyone. I've seen it as I did life at sea and have seen some people stress out and one who went all Jesus. Interesting being trapped on a small ship with psycho "Jesus" for the few weeks before he can be put ashore.

But there is no reason a third party competency tester couldn't include modules that demonstrated non-college competencies such as reliability, etc. The driving schools only indicate technical competency.
#7.1.1.1 JK Brown on 2015-04-06 20:55 (Reply)
Another reason is the "perfect fit" syndrome, or the search for the "fantasy date".

https://davidhuntpe.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/is-no-loaf-really-better-than-half/

http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/perfect-fit-perspectives/
#8 David Hunt on 2015-04-06 21:45 (Reply)
If your only childhood activity is, sitting, using a remote, joy stick or key board....need I say more.
#9 Dennis Lukas on 2015-04-06 22:34 (Reply)
Perhaps too many of the younger generation are 'snowflakes', indoctrinated as to their specialness and with an enormous sense of entitlement. No one has ever seen fit to point out that said snowflakes will need marketable skills in order to earn a living, and that their specialness does not entitle them to live off others' hard work.

It's several years ago, but one offspring ended up viewing a video about how the upcoming generation (as in same age as younger sibling) expected to be treated in the workforce. Older sibling appalled; younger sibling, when consulted, said that the video reflected the attitude of far too many contemporaries. Not that younger sibling agreed with this attitude; the concept
of a proper day's work for a day's wages - pounded into all the offsprings - had taken hold.

Knew a small business owner who came too close to comfort to losing the business by the conduct of pregnant employees. Again, snowflakes who figured that being pregnant meant you couldn't be fired, and behaved accordingly. Unfortunately, said employees had family money behind them and so could confidently threaten to sue; business owner not so financially comfortable and suffered accordingly. Have heard that one snowflake moved on to another company and - when pregnant - got a doctor's note stating she couldn't work most of the shifts required, couldn't do most of the work required, and could really only be there when there was sufficient staff to make for an adequate social environment. Needless to say, got sent off on mat leave at earliest possible moment, and is since pursuing other means of harassing the former employer.
#10 Frances on 2015-04-06 22:59 (Reply)

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