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1- The government has made it too expensive to hire employees through the normal process.
2- COVID lockdowns and free money incentivized laziness.
3- A decreasing amount of young Americans aren't getting a proper education.
I would say that it's the opposite. An increasing number of children are not getting a proper education.
With the lockdowns came the message to millions of people that they were "unessential." People were already having issues and now the government is sending the message that they are not essential to anything.
Outsourcing or subcontracting. It's all about controlling expenses including labor costs. Companies can also take on more work/projects than their core company/physical capabilities can handle.
When everyone proved that you no longer need to be in a physical office in America to do your job, everyone failed to prove to these corporations why they necessarily needed to be the one's who are hired. Our blue-collar factory workers once thought their jobs were secure, too...
I saw this happening 20 years ago. There are still challenges with this however and the work from home aspect actually may help make US workers more cost competitive due to shrinking the cost of office space.
Jack Welsh, former CEO of General Electric set off the soon to be avalanche of American jobs offshore, back in the 80's. I was still elementary school at the time so don't know much about when it all started. Where were the Unions, and our politicians ? Why didn't they stand up for American jobs ?
And this is a big part of the problem, you asked about the Unions and Politicians...who the hell do you think created the problem. It's like asking the arsonist who burned your house down for help putting the fire out. Unions pushed for unsustainable wages and benefits driving costs thru the roof and politicians fell in line and also pushed thru one regulation after another increasing costs. Sure it was great for a while, i remember an Uncle who worked for years for GM who described making 3 times what a teacher or cop did and hanging out at BBQ's with work friends laughing about it.
Fortunately he retired as his job and many more are now overseas. Those millions of workers are now regulated to saying "you want fries with that" aren't laughing now but hey now they demand 20 bucks an hour for flipping burgers as fast food joints are slowly figuring out how to ditch them thru automation. Not sure what those workers will do next accept go on the public dole. And heck as a perk lets just bring in an extra 10 or 20 or 30 million more unskilled labor.... WHAT COULD GO WRONG.
They were never cultivated, molded, sculpted, etc into highly efficient model employs. You don't get a competent workforce for nothing. In fact, the rich and the poor are going to be made to understand, there will be very little in the way of free lunch in America going forward. This is the end of the road as far as living off the scraps of a formerly great nation. Hence, we can either work towards making America great again, or we can throw our hands in the air and surrender to the forces that have brought down many a great nations, peoples and empires before.
Yesterday, I had an argument with a couple of co-workers on why companies like Motorola outsourced their manufacturing jobs from the US to abroad, as well as why companies also keep hiring foreigners over Americans.
My argument is because the companies want the cheaper labor and in this day and age, the American worker needs a good salary to make ends meet. Companies can either hire foreigners on an H1B1 work visa where they also get government assistance with housing and food so they don't have to work for as high a wage, and the companies who moved out of the country did it due to cheaper labor costs, cheaper taxes and regulations.
The 2 co-workers, one from Vietnam, the other from Guatemala, say that the companies are doing this because foreign workers work harder and more efficient than their American born counterparts, and that also the labor unions also hurt the American worker. The guy from Guatemala says that he was working for a machine shop in another company when it decided to close up shop and move it's plants to Spain, where the workers are more efficient. I looked into this and the reports I seen says it's because the cost of living, taxes and regulations are 200 percent less than the US, but the guy keeps saying it doesn't matter when the American worker is mostly lazy and doesn't care about what they do. He says it's why service jobs are taking a hit too since people don't care about the customer anymore and are more into socializing on their phones or office romance.
So, are companies choosing non-American workers due to the cheaper labor, or because the workmanship is far superior?
I saw this happening 20 years ago. There are still challenges with this however and the work from home aspect actually may help make US workers more cost competitive due to shrinking the cost of office space.
It opens up US workers to international companies, which can be perceived as a benefit, but it also means US companies can outsource entire departments to Mexico, India, and China, where they can get substantial salary savings. It's a catch-22. Conversely, why would any company hire Americans at $100,000+ when they can pay Indians, Mexicans, or the Chinese a fraction of that? I think it's somewhat of a perilous time to be a white-collar employee in America, but most of the white-collar people I talk to don't see a problem and think their job is secure. That's when I tell them, "so did the factory workers of the '70's." I think the difference of opinion is because they're taking things for granted, when I try to live my life not taking things for granted.
It's easier now than it's ever been, too. When Disney outsourced all those jobs twenty years ago, they physically had to bring those Indians to the United States on visas. That's not necessary anymore.
Yesterday, I had an argument with a couple of co-workers on why companies like Motorola outsourced their manufacturing jobs from the US to abroad, as well as why companies also keep hiring foreigners over Americans.
My argument is because the companies want the cheaper labor and in this day and age, the American worker needs a good salary to make ends meet. Companies can either hire foreigners on an H1B1 work visa where they also get government assistance with housing and food so they don't have to work for as high a wage, and the companies who moved out of the country did it due to cheaper labor costs, cheaper taxes and regulations.
The 2 co-workers, one from Vietnam, the other from Guatemala, say that the companies are doing this because foreign workers work harder and more efficient than their American born counterparts, and that also the labor unions also hurt the American worker. The guy from Guatemala says that he was working for a machine shop in another company when it decided to close up shop and move it's plants to Spain, where the workers are more efficient. I looked into this and the reports I seen says it's because the cost of living, taxes and regulations are 200 percent less than the US, but the guy keeps saying it doesn't matter when the American worker is mostly lazy and doesn't care about what they do. He says it's why service jobs are taking a hit too since people don't care about the customer anymore and are more into socializing on their phones or office romance.
So, are companies choosing non-American workers due to the cheaper labor, or because the workmanship is far superior?
From what I've heard, the people in India and Mexico, generally speaking, cannot do the job as well as an American. However, the savings in salaries still makes it lucrative.
And this is a big part of the problem, you asked about the Unions and Politicians...who the hell do you think created the problem. It's like asking the arsonist who burned your house down for help putting the fire out. Unions pushed for unsustainable wages and benefits driving costs thru the roof and politicians fell in line and also pushed thru one regulation after another increasing costs. Sure it was great for a while, i remember an Uncle who worked for years for GM who described making 3 times what a teacher or cop did and hanging out at BBQ's with work friends laughing about it.
Fortunately he retired as his job and many more are now overseas. Those millions of workers are now regulated to saying "you want fries with that" aren't laughing now but hey now they demand 20 bucks an hour for flipping burgers as fast food joints are slowly figuring out how to ditch them thru automation. Not sure what those workers will do next accept go on the public dole. And heck as a perk lets just bring in an extra 10 or 20 or 30 million more unskilled labor.... WHAT COULD GO WRONG.
Can you explain further ? What kind of push for unsustainable wages was going on in the 70's ? When all this offshoring nonsense was starting to spark up. A couple of years ago, when we were going through some of my late Dad's stuff, we found a paystub from 1971. He was employed by Chrysler, and at that time, was just a line worker, he was making $3.50 an hour. And are you talking about blue collar or white collar jobs ? This just isn't about those auto workers on an assembly line, this is also about white collar jobs, service jobs, etc. many that have nothing to do with the auto industry.
Back then, the Unions were more responsible for a safer workplace than they were trying to push wages up, at least as far as I know. You can't compare a the standard of living here in the US, and the wages for it, to countries that pay there workers a penny and a bowl of rice a day, and have zero concern for their workforce.
Yes, has the Unions and our politicians caused the price of doing business in this country to go up ? Yes, but I don't think that started taking hold until offshoring was well under way. And the relatively recent drive for non skilled jobs to make $15 plus an hour is definitely hurting things.
Then add in the millions of legal and illegal immigrants that are willing to work for less, work harder, that come here to take advantage of our country, it's like we are on a downward spiral. It's only a matter of time before things implode.
Granted, this was probably 20 years ago, and those facilities are probably state of the art factories now, thanks to our country sending them all our work.
Can anyone help me understand how our country and it's workforce thrived in the 50's, 60's and 70's ? It even thrived before WWII , so that can only partially be used as an excuse.
It seems to me, when companies started looking to the end of the next quarter, instead of the next 20 years, things started to unravel.
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