Here's why there is no "happy dance" for firms moving in the region...

[IrishIllini]

Thoughts Chet? Most new jobs in L.A. County will be low-paying, report warns - LA Times

[LeotheOrangeCat]

Originally Posted by chet everett

The news was filled about the how much more "hip" it will be to work in the West Loop instead of out at the intersection of the tollways, but the real story is the cuts that highlight the perilous fiscal condition of once vital firms in the region --

I went over to the Fulton Market area last night around Green Street and Morgan Street. Huge crowds of the young and fashionable dining in scores of new restaurants. Haven't seen anything like it elsewhere in the city. I did not fit in.

[JacksonPanther]

Originally Posted by chet everett

The biggest factor is "confidence" -- I know dozens of folks that own / manage businesses where they would really like to add some staff but they ZERO CONFIDENCE that by increasing their payroll now they would be exposing the firm to a whole range of obligations that shackle them to more costs for healthcare coverage, forced retirement benefits, expanded unemployment costs and bigger taxes. The business decision-makers don't want that hassle. Similarly they do not want to go along with any kind of "worker training program" that sends them people looking to get rich off a false worker's comp claim, hassles with not having appropriate "gender identification" bathrooms, or any other nonsensical "discrimination".

The reason they do not increase wages is that paying more will not result in any magical creation of the kind of experienced and motivated workers that would be more productive. It is smarter for a good business person with a large investment in their capital intensive manufacturing to pick out a handful of motivated workers and let them work a couple extra shifts. Easier to give the proven go-getters a little more overtime pay than taking the risks that come from expanding employment...

This falls way short of being a true "shortage" doesn't it?

Not willing to hire, not willing to raise wages, and surprise, surprise, not enough workers. That sounds like a business person who wants his cake and wants to eat too. What business doesn't want cheap workers that you don't have to give benefits to? That doesn't mean there's a shortage, unless you mean we have a shortage of the desperate to exploit.

[chet everett]

The article cited includes these nuggets --

Part of the reason Los Angeles is producing lower-paying jobs may be that the county has a large immigrant population seeking blue-collar gigs, which disappeared during the great recession and have not come back in full force...
Most companies will tell you that the problem they have isn’t that they can’t find workers, it’s that they can’t find workers with the skills they need,” said Thornberg.

It is not about greedy business owners wanting low wage workers, but rather the fact that urban areas, be they LA or Chicago, have too many unskilled workers and not enough of the old fashioned low skill / high wage jobs that used to be the bastion of mindless factories and strong-back / weak-mind Union thug types...

The sorts of jobs that are created in Silicon Valley go to people with technical abilities far more advanced than the tightening the small three bolts on a continuous line of junky cars. Those jobs are gone and folks that may not know the history of LA manufacturing might not understand that once upon a time GM actually had lots of assembly line workers that were able to have a middle-class in LA putting together cars...

The shift to areas with more motivated workers and a lower cost of doing business is why GM has been able to survive while investing in robotics and advanced manufacturing.

Efforts to the increase wages for minimally skilled workers will serve only to drive firms to more quickly adopt robot replacement workers -- given the existing issues with minority unemployment the negative consequences if shifts will probably make violent inner city areas more subject to trouble..