These "just pay more" arguments seem to assume all employers have infinite money, and only refuse to pay employees more because they're mean.
Or am I missing some more sophisticated angle?
Or am I missing some more sophisticated angle?
Means the same thing.
The percent of the population working a job has dropped 6‰ since a peak in 2000.
If you can't pay people a wage to match how bad the job you want them to do is, your business shouldn't exist
I fully agree that some jobs aren't worth doing at a given price. But this is all relative to someone's next best option. You have take both sides of the decision into account and there are more factors at play.
Of course some business models are unsustainable. That said, I think it is dishonest to claim people are finding better pay elsewhere.
If people think they can have a better life by not working at all, I think it is relevant to discuss why that is the case and if that is problem that needs to be discussed.
But I don't think that's what the "your business should not exist if you can't pay!" people actually mean.
"Labor shortage" frames the issue in a way that faults workers, not the business.
I've never thought of that as assigning fault to either engineers or employers. More how non economists describe demand being stronger than supply.
If that is how some people are actually reading it, I understand the confrontational responses more, though!
The job itself is not easy and the locations (as mentioned in a different thread) aren't in the most desirable locations. Typically you're working outside, you have to deal with seniority when getting shifts (which eventually does pay off if you stick with it), and you'll be dealing with the NSTB if anything goes wrong.
This is entirely a quality of work/throw cash at it problem. If you can't make the job better ("You'll be on call all week and will have to report within 3 hours notice if we call you at any time of the day to ride around in a port-a-potty in all the weather") then you better pay up.
(See also the labor shortage in the trucking industry if you were considering other modes of shipping)
I agree you certainly wouldn't want to lower your expected profits just to have more employees.
So I think in this particular case, it's pretty fair to disregard their complaints about "labor shortages". I also doubt they're competing with Silicon Valley for IT talent, for example, so their labor costs shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary.
Your criticism would be more valid when it comes to restaurant business, where margins are slim and companies are small, and less able to weather economic pitfalls.
I do hear it a lot of "your business should not exist!" for working class enterprises like restaurants.
Even Wal-Mart who is often seen as being in an ultra low profit margin industry, has over 2.3m employees and yet could have paid each one an additional $7,000 just from profit in a given year.
Companies without infinite money should be making up the difference by offering other things, like flexible hours