US Employees Say They’re Losing the Upper Hand as Layoffs Mount
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
sad trombone noises
Serious question but like... the people I interact with at like... Chipotle, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks... They're still making $14-$16/hr no matter what, right? Tight labor market or not? Is that "upper hand"?
The fact is most of these jobs would normally be staffed by young and uneducated people who have few other prospects at that stage in life. However shifting demographic trends mean that there simply aren't as many such people to fill these positions as there were in the past. There are fewer people entering the workforce than exiting it due to retirement, and a greater percentage of young people pursue higher education. Before the pandemic even hit, the US achieved full employment and it was becoming difficult to hire unskilled labor. A lot of low wage positions were only filled by virtue of people not wanting to leave to look for other opportunities. With the pandemic, the decision to move was made for a lot of them. Further, a lot of people who were on the cusp of retirement did so slightly early, and many who would have gotten jobs just for the sake of having something to do did not. Combined with an unanticipated boom in various industries like online shopping, there was an has been a severe worker shortage for some time now. Low wage earners are seeing the largest improvement in the current job market.
If you want a better company culture, when I worked for a consulting company we had people all over the city so they way they did it was to have a company meeting once a month at a hotel or restaurant and some kind of after party.
It's interesting to me that so many people post their amazement at why employers (more specifically, middle and upper management) would want employees back to office, without actually thinking about why. So let's try that. Here are some possibilities:
1) They are sadists who just like to make life worse for their employees. But this makes little sense because it means that the middle managers, upper management, etc.'s lives are also miserable because they will also need to come into office.
2) They are control freaks who just want to control their employees. Even assuming this is broadly true across the majority of companies, it's fairly evident that online tools provide far more control than anything in person. But let's keep this as a possibility.
3) They want to save costs. Doesn't pan out. Getting rid of expensive office space, and offloading the rental, electricity, internet, etc. costs onto the employees seems much cheaper.
4) They are resistant to change. Also doesn't make sense. All these companies made massive changes within the span of a few weeks to ensure everyone can work remotely. If anything, bringing people into the office is the change.
5) They wrongly believe that employees would be more efficient in the office. This is a possibility.
6) They correctly believe that employees would be more efficient in the office. Also a possibility. Also, the fact that tech firms like Google and Facebook, which have some of the most sophisticated employee tracking/measuring systems were among the first to push for RTO there may be some data behind this, although the accuracy of the data depends on how it's being measured.
7) They just want to hang out with the only friends they have. People at work. Does not track either. Why not use the cost savings of RTO to have weekly or biweekly meetups if this is what they want.
8) They think that employees will be easier to retain if they bring them to the office. Doesn't make sense since so many have resisted coming to office.
9) They are worried that with remote work the more expensive US employees will be easier to replace and they don't want to fire their friends/colleagues. This can be a possibility but seems too "emotional".
Of these options that I could think of right now the following seem possible.
1) They are control freaks who need people to be around to be physically. 2) They wrongly believe employees are more effective in the office. 3) They rightly believe employees are more effective in the office. 4) They are sentimental and don't want to make it easier to fire their friends/colleagues.
Any other ideas? Why are companies insisting on RTO if it's such a slam dunk?
They may be thinking that they'll be competing for jobs with people in lower cost of living locations and that this is likely to affect their career earnings and/or ability to stay in their current high cost location.
They may just be lazy and find their job easier in the office.
Note these are all entirely selfish and nothing to do with whether the employees are more productive - I think this kind of explanation is more likely to be true!
senior manager that resides in nice neighbourhood near the office (purchased with downpayment after “frugally saving” for 2 years on starting salary) can’t understand why their staff dread trips to the office.
If work gets completed in islands of production, it will become clear what executives and managers contribute.
So, whether or not the executives and middle management are fluff or not, the existential fear of being "found out" drives them back.
It's almost an after thought to their business reasoning that office leases are an execuse
A Bloomberg poll has a 5% change from January. I won’t say that’s insubstantial, but there’s been a suspicious uptick in “workers are losing power” stories from the corporate mouthpiece pubs. Feels like a narrative is being pushed prematurely.
Many Americans, especially among those calling themselves "patriots", will loudly proclaim their pride in how free citizens of America are. And at least as many Americans, if not more, will tout the glories of capitalism as the best economic system in existence, and even demonize socialism (which they often conflate with communism).
And yet, to summarize the headline and those two first paragraphs: "Capitalist overlords are threatening employees with potential poverty, starvation, and homelessness at such high rates that they are now more scared to disobey or leave said overlords, even if they're miserable under them."
Ah, yes. Capitalism in the US: a bastion of freedom, where slavery has been illegal since 1865 (unless it's economic slavery as opposed to physical force).
the s&p is up 2,000% since i was born. property use to be 2-3x of salary, now for me its closer to 20x. gambling on crypto shit-coins is literally my only hope.
Are theorizing that women wanting to be more than just a domestic servant and baby factory _devalued_ household earning potential by splitting it between two people?
That's not a value judgement. It's just a consequence.
Almost as if there was an non-invisible hand that is weighing all that.
Western Society injected more labor and there was the same amount of profit to share, or it was captured in a way that prevented fair distribution of profit?