this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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I don't think shortage means what they think it means. Just because you can't find people at the price and working conditions you're willing to offer doesn't mean there's a shortage. It might just mean that you're cheap.
Well there can be a genuine shortage of people able to do a job, but that’s likely companies fault for not investing in training people to do the job in the first place.
If there aren’t enough humans to do work it’s a shortage. In fact every year more people move into retirement than young people enter the workforce. Europe is aging fast, US not that fast. Even China faces the demografic change: Average age of warehouse workers in China is 45 years.
There's plenty of people to do work. People don't want to do your work, if the job sucks and the pay matches. Shitty job? Pay a high wage. We don't have a shortage of sanitation workers because those guys are paid like kings. We DO have a shortage of Burger King employees because not one person in the world wants to deal with that bullshit for less than $10 an hour. People have shown time and time again that they're willing to work the most soul crushing bullshit jobs in existence if they're paid well enough to make it worth their time. But no one wants to pay a wage that an employee can survive on, so "nobody wants to work". No, just nobody wants to work for you.
In addition to that, the reason the population is declining is because the younger generation can't afford to have kids because nobody wants to pay a livable wage. I can barely support myself and my partner with both of us working and living with another couple as roommates, and we all have pretty good jobs that pay well over minimum wage. If any one of the four of us had a child we would all four enter poverty. This is extremely common, and we're better off (if only moderately) than most people in a similar situation.
The minimum wage was last raised 14 years ago where it was taken to $7.25 an hour, which already didn't keep up with the cost of living at the time but since then inflation has continued to grow unchecked and many employers still don't want to pay out any higher than they are forced to by law.
I bet this will come very soon. Still employers are resistant to recognize the changed landscape. Who isn’t willing to offer a decent pay, won’t get employees. All shitty jobs will fade away. Only needed jobs will stay. With better pay. And everything gets more expensive.
Food delivery? Go, get it yourself. Or pay double the price of today. Supermarket? Only self checkout and a single cashier for the entire wallmart. Hospital? Telemedicine. Craftman for repair? You’d better learn it at YT Diy.
Here in Germany, every then and now are some news about an industry that can’t find enough people. Typically solution: Better working conditions, more flexible work times, and yes, better pay. However it’s everywhere.
If one stands up in a theatre to have a better view. Others will follow. And soon the view is as it was before.
On my team there are three guys 2 years out from retirement. Last time we posted one of their positions we had one applicant that passed the background checks. So when all three of them go I'm not sure we will be able to replace all of them. It's gonna be a bitch.
What do the background checks check for?
I work in high security IT and you can't have had a Felony in the last five years and a huge list of specific offenses that you can't have had for 15 years. Then there is something about large debt and who you owe it to as you could be compromised via financials. We didn't have a huge applicant pool to begin with so when so many bombed the background I was pretty sad.
Edit: I want to note that I don't get to see why someone failed nor any specifics. We go out of our way to avoid violating privacy as it is a big deal where I work.
China faces the largest demographic collapse of all. It's a ticking time bomb not just for them, but also for the global economy.
Wait, are you saying you think CEO getting paid millions (for doing very little if anything at all) is fine, but paying teachers and nurses and so on a living wage is "cheap"?
I believe what they're saying is that the issue isn't a lack of people able to do the job, it's a lack of people willing to do the job under the current system
I thought that at first, but the more I read it the more I got confused about who they were directing their comment at.
Could be I just misunderstood (E: though it looks like I'm not the only one, so maybe there is something a little off in the phrasing?).
Which raises a separate question, whose responsibility is comprehension?
All CEOs earning millions will insist that being a CEO of just as much of a full-time job as any other position... while being CEOs for multiple companies they own.
How many people who wanted to be pilots are marketing managers or something? How many people who could be nurses are working in health insurance? Eliminating bullshit jobs would create more workers for non-bullshit jobs
As a UX designer who decided not to be a doctor though I could have, I don't think this is how it works.
There’s entire billing departments in hospitals that are full of people who could be nurses but have jobs dealing with insurance, so it does work like that a bit.
That doesn't mean if you get rid of insurance jobs, they would be nurses.
That's what I mean. If they didn't have all these people pushing paper they could be helping patients.
Or they'd be pushing paper somewhere else.
bullshit jobs are a compelling concept, but not one i really find convincing. we can say paper pushing isn't a real job or whatever, but large organizations do require staff to manage the complexity of their infrastructure. if those papers don't get pushed, nobody gets paid and nobody doing the non-bullshit jobs know where to go or what to do. not to say that advertising isn't on its own of dubious social value, but profit-seeking corporations wouldn't invest in paying those folks if they didn't make them money or otherwise facilitate the making of money.
Well understaffed then.