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When I was looking for work last year, someone from a engineering firm asked me if I was applying for an admin or an engineering job. (I have an engineering degree. I left engineering in 1999 because there was no work available.) She mentioned the salary for the admin job was $15 and hour, and the salary I was seeking was more towards what their engineers made. I told her that what they paid engineers was around what I'd been making as an admin. The wage they were paying admins was what I was making 15 years ago. I'm sure someone there is complaining that they just can't find qualified workers.
I've also noticed the "perfect candidate" mentality, multiple interviews for low-level jobs, job listings that look like two or three job descriptions rolled into one, and declining wages (especially when you take housing costs into consideration).
Seriously, how bright do you have to be to run up $75,000 in student loans to get a degree in history or psychology anyway?
You should really ask conservative pundits like Tucker Carlson or Dinesh D'Souza this. They majored in history and english, respectively. And there are plenty of others out there whose opinions you value quite dearly who majored in "useless" majors. Also, constitutional history isn't all that bad. After all, who will be tomorrow's leaders continuing the Ron Paul revolution and spreading your libertarian love?
One of my close friends has had an excellent career that all started with his English degree... he is a technical writer and has worked for most of the big players in Silicon Valley.
When in school many thought he was going into teaching like most in his family... he surprised them when he went to work for a start up...
One comment on the flip side... it can be much harder to rid yourself of an employee... just like it is with residential tenants here which greatly intensified the screening process.
For some the key was temping until they found just the right match...
I think the HR convention was run by an ignorant short term employee. Everything I have read and learned suggests the opposite. Common sense also suggests the opposite. Consider how much time and money is spent on training new employees. Plus experienced employees have to take time out of their work training newbies. Sure, the long term employees require benefits, but they are also more likely to remain loyal to the company in anticipation of receiving these benefits, thus not requiring replacement for another new employee who needs interviewing, vetting, training, etc. And the company morale and stability suffers with high turnover.
Perhaps, when it's time for layoffs, the short term employees take it better.
My only experience is with commercial units such as built-up DX or Carrier Package units.
I'm in California and have never lived in a home with A/C and only one home in my neighborhood has it.
All the trades here have help wanted... not a long interview process... who did you work for, show me what you can do and pass Drug and Physical and be acceptable to Insurance Carrier.
If you know someone and ready to jump it might only be a clean driving record that is checked.
So why don't you start your own business? Then you can show those greedy companies and clueless managers how it's done.
Once you start offering those "fair wages", all the talent will come flocking to your business.
Sorry, but no. That argument is like receiving a rotten steak at a restaurant, rightly complaining about it, and being told, "Well, you have no right to complain until you've opened a restaurant that serves steak of your own!" It's a tired and invalid argument.
No, the reason companies are having a "hard time" filling jobs is entirely self-inflicted. I've been on both sides of the situation - the company looking to hire and the guy looking for a job - the past 5+ years, and it's the company's problem, not the people looking for work. Countless examples include:
Companies who refuse to hire the unemployed
Companies who practice age discrimination
Companies who only want "local candidates" - a pool of previous layoff victims from their own company, half the time
Companies who demand absurdly narrow requirements, down to which software versions you've used, that rule out anybody who doesn't already work there.
Companies who post fake jobs; ones already filled by internal candidates or jobs that are perpetually unfilled just to maintain the department budget or some illusion of "creating jobs."
Companies who pay horrible wages and expect to get miracle workers in return.
Endless contract jobs that pay poorly and offer lousy wages and no benefits replacing real work. You can't make a real living off this type of no-future crap.
Recently attempted to hire for an engineer position. This position was specifically designed for new college grads. Started with several hundred resumes. Most were eliminated in the first cut lacking basic qualifications. There's part of the problem -- some folks apply to everything in hopes of getting a random hit. Weeded it down to a group of candidates to interview. Over half of them turned down the interview. Made an offer to one. Couldn't come to agreement even though we offered a pretty generous package, someone else still beat us out. Tried again, made second offer. Same result.
Now we're on our third try.
With regard to the part in bold, unemployment insurance requires you to prove that you're looking for work, and our culture demands that the unemployed "take any job!" or they are "useless welfare bums."
So, until those cultural issues change, expect an endless number of people applying for the "wrong" job. Of course, corporations' general refusal to actually hire qualified candidates is a bigger part of the problem, but I've already addressed that in an earlier post.
I think largely what is happening is most of the hiring is at the tech and educated level. Our team is all MSs or PhDs in CS, statistics, analytics, or social sciences with a very strong quantitative background. There aren't an abundance of people from the US with those types of qualifications.
There aren't an abundance of people from the US with those types of qualifications.
I recently read a book about Argonne National Labs and their project to invent an electric-car battery. The team leader was from Morocco and he refused to hire US citizens. He said their work ethic was insufficient. He hired Chinese and Moroccans, instead.
Now I think this person should be working for the Moroccan Department of Energy, not at an American-funded research lab. But what happens is these H-1B holders get into management and hire their fellow Elbonians, or whatever. They say Americans don't have the qualifications, don't get along with the aliens, don't speak their language, don't work hard enough. But it comes down to hiring their buddies. Making up arbitrary requirements is one way it works.
Another way is a variation of the old "courtesy bid" scam. Your manager from Elbonia narrows the field down to his cousin's brother-in-law and two Ag graduates from UCal-Davis. He then points out that the Americans don't have the necessary qualifications and he therefore has to hire his relative. What he doesn't say is that he already rejected all the qualified American applicants for trivial reasons.
My brother made the mistake of hiring several Chinese CS PhD's for his automation company. They spent all their time surfing the Internet. Doing actual work was beneath their dignity.
Meanwhile, Argonne has not produced anything useful. But they are sucking up the money the last Administration threw at the problem.
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