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The American employee is becoming too expensive. We cost too much.
When products cost too much, what happens? You look for alternatives... cheaper products... more efficient methods... maybe you just go without the products.
More and more business owners are looking for alternatives to the American employee. What are the alternatives?
paying illegal immigrants under the table
operating in countries where the labor and tax rates are cheaper
more automation to perform job tasks
they shove more work on less employees
they use temp agencies for their labor pool
simply reduce the workforce
How have we overpriced ourselves?
increasing the minimum wages
attaching a full suite of benefits for full time employment
401K plans help manage our savings (instead of doing it ourselves)
having the employer share the tax burden of the employees
I think we need to change the requirements on employment if we want more people working. We are too expensive. We have to bring the cost of employment down, otherwise it will continue to get worse.
Big business has been out sourcing for decades. In some cases it is a matter of not having reliable workers or they cost too much. Another reason might be environmental. Setting up a large company in America is expensive and there is a near endless amount of red tape to cut through.
The cost of healthcare is a big one for companies to pay out.
Americans expect more. They want more pay and better treatment. In many corners of the world people live with and on so much less. It is really insane how many of us live in large houses and have several cars in the driveway.
We are used to a higher level of living and now there is a push to give the basic wage earners more money where many of those jobs were meant to be stepping stones and not careers.
The American employee is becoming too expensive. We cost too much.
When products cost too much, what happens? You look for alternatives... cheaper products... more efficient methods... maybe you just go without the products.
More and more business owners are looking for alternatives to the American employee. What are the alternatives?
paying illegal immigrants under the table
operating in countries where the labor and tax rates are cheaper
more automation to perform job tasks
they shove more work on less employees
they use temp agencies for their labor pool
simply reduce the workforce
How have we overpriced ourselves?
increasing the minimum wages
attaching a full suite of benefits for full time employment
401K plans help manage our savings (instead of doing it ourselves)
having the employer share the tax burden of the employees
I think we need to change the requirements on employment if we want more people working. We are too expensive. We have to bring the cost of employment down, otherwise it will continue to get worse.
you are worse than too expensive. many college graduates don't want to work for a company. they want to work for a non-profit. you are so entitled that you don't even want opportunities. you want to be directly given an income and benefits.
corporations know this attitude. do you think they are thrilled by it?
you are worse than too expensive. many college graduates don't want to work for a company. they want to work for a non-profit. you are so entitled that you don't even want opportunities. you want to be directly given an income and benefits.
corporations know this attitude. do you think they are thrilled by it?
Not sure about the non-profit comment... I am not aware of what you stated.
What I said has nothing to do with entitlements. I would rather people to be able to handle their own affairs and not expect employers to be forced to handle this stuff.
The cost structure for health care is way out of whack. It should be affordable enough for people to generally handle on their own. People should be able to handle the own retirement funds and investments. We put all of these burdens on the employer and then wonder why they move operations out of the country and people have a hard time finding jobs in a shrinking job market.
Companies move out of the country because they want to increase profits for their shareholders. They couldn't care [i]less[i]about the people who need to work in this country, they are out of touch with those who live and work below the ivory tower. People are numbers and the fewer people you have the greater the profit margin.
Moderator cut: Off Topic It is this kind of thinking, that Americans are over paid, that hurts the hard working Americans who no matter what they do or how hard they work, they never have enough to cover expenses of day to day existence. We blame them because these companies are choosing to leave rather than pay their fair share of taxes and a livable wage? Why not address the real issue, which is corporate greed and the enabling of a morally corrupt system of worker exploitation?
Instead of moaning and groaning because an American family has 2 cars sitting in the driveway and a house that isn't a 3rd world tin shack on a dirt road, focus on the CEO that has 4 cars in his garage and a summer house in the Hamptons and ask him why he has to have so much to get by?
I don't think the whole problem is that we cost too much. People will pay higher prices for higher quality items. iPhone for example.
I think the problem is that we (the US) does not make high enough quality workers for the higher costs that we demand. Our school system is putting out kids with the same level of skill that they had decades ago, while other countries are putting out kids with increasing levels of critical thinking, problem solving skills, and work ethic. We cannot command the same salary that we used to, on average. We either need to bring our skills and work ethic up, or lower our expectations on standards of living.
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DRob4JC
The American employee is becoming too expensive. We cost too much.
It this is true, then the same can be said of any European Employee.
Quote:
How have we overpriced ourselves?
increasing the minimum wages
attaching a full suite of benefits for full time employment
401K plans help manage our savings (instead of doing it ourselves)
having the employer share the tax burden of the employees
I think we need to change the requirements on employment if we want more people working. We are too expensive. We have to bring the cost of employment down, otherwise it will continue to get worse.
I wasn't aware that the minimum wage had increased for some time.
I work for a multinational with coworkers in 20+ other countries. Companies in the US, in general, provide relatively poor benefits.
It used to be pensions. You think those were cheaper?
This has always been the case, and corporations pay a LOT less tax these days than they used to even in the Reagan years.
Companies move out of the country because they want to increase profits for their shareholders. They couldn't care [i]less[i]about the people who need to work in this country, they are out of touch with those who live and work below the ivory tower. People are numbers and the fewer people you have the greater the profit margin.
I would venture to guess the OP makes 6 figures a year and votes conservative, because his post is what most of them think like. It is this kind of thinking, that Americans are over paid, that hurts the hard working Americans who no matter what they do or how hard they work, they never have enough to cover expenses of day to day existence. We blame them because these companies are choosing to leave rather than pay their fair share of taxes and a livable wage? Why not address the real issue, which is corporate greed and the enabling of a morally corrupt system of worker exploitation?
Instead of moaning and groaning because an American family has 2 cars sitting in the driveway and a house that isn't a 3rd world tin shack on a dirt road, focus on the CEO that has 4 cars in his garage and a summer house in the Hamptons and ask him why he has to have so much to get by?
Oh yes. And entitlement. Don't forget about entitlement. People who think they are entitled to work for companies who don't care about profits but they are still entitled to get paid. And unicorns and rainbows.
Companies outsource not because they are "greedy", but because they do not get their money's worth with the average American worker. Do you pay top dollar for cheap plastic crap? No? Why not? Same thing.
We have some of the best universities in the world--and people still tell us we need to be better educated, we have one of the highest living standards in the world and people still tell us we could do with less, the poor who are well educated from places like India and Asia still come here to ply their trade, we are told to welcome them, all the while denigrating our own citizens as lazy and "entitled" when compared to the hungry foreign born coming here from dire straits.
This is simply the hyper moralizing that has resulted from the notion that workers are supposed to be "competing" while the corporate world is doing their damnedest to quell any competition among themselves. The countries around the globe that are attracting the world's poor have achieved a special kind of freedom, the kind that has diminished the notion of an "overlord system" that proposes itself as a superior form over that of labor. Labor and capital are supposed to have a symbiotic relationship in democratic America, a type of "mutuality" that benefits both entities. THIS, is the freedom we celebrate on the fourth of July, it's our democracy that we are celebrating even though we have so little of it left.
This thinking that includes the view of labor as merely a thing to utilize, not unlike the "natural resources" that this same class has taken for their own advantage, and often by political force--think WTO, GATT, G7, NAFTA, serve to create the client state mentality that seems to be the focus of these western capital dominant constructs. America was formed in a crucible of discontent, seeking to form a new nation free from the edicts of royal power, only to morph into a nation ruled by corporate power.
The question on the minds of many in America is one that relates to this corporate dominance and the impact it has on our supposedly democratic political system, the question is not whether "we" have out-priced ourselves, but moreover, have "we" lost our will to rein in that dominant construct of corporate power in order to maintain the kind of country that so many foreigners find so promising. Living here with American labor laws won by American workers, maybe they have out-priced their labor at home, coming here instead, where workers have carved out their stake in things.
If we have priced our labor too high in comparison to the under developed nations we need to ask ourselves if we should be advocating for a better economic reality in those nations, and whether we want to compete with those whose living standard has driven them to America. We were told that working and consuming was the "American way" and now we suffer the indignity of being called out for our "overindulgence".. This "overindulgence was the very thing that grew American business to the power levels that enabled them to have the resources to utilize the world's labor force.
Let those who say we need to be competitive go to those nations that they herald as bastions of labor "efficiency" and bask in the glory of low wage reality. If the foreign (competitive) wage is so great for those nations economies why are so many coming here? They come because they hate their poverty, and now people tell us we should have some of that poverty for ourselves?
American labor history is replete with tales of indentured servitude, slavery, poverty, violence, powerful measures taken against unions, etc, and those who know this history are not buying the corporate line of labor competition as an acceptable race to the bottom. American workers were capable, hard working, honest, and determined to have their fair share, and through their democracy they garnered that share. The question should be--Who rules America..Not to mention the rest of the world.
Another issue is our entitlement attitude about suing employers, for this violation and that violation. Companies are in business to make money and the more people that sue them for every little violation (in order to make a quick buck for themselves), companies will lose profits and make the hiring process harder and more selective.
I'm not saying that someone should never sue, sometimes there are violations that are so egregious, that one must sue.
What I am saying is to watch the potential ramifications.
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