More U.S. companies charging employees for job training if they quit
reuters.com
reuters.com
Sometimes doing business sucks. Holding on to your employees against their will in return for money also sucks for everyone involved.
Expensive training by the business is an investment in you. If you sign up for the training, you are telling the business that you will return their investment and benefit them. Thus, there is a degree to which leaving immediately after expensive training can be seen as theft.
This might not gain much sympathy when talking of mega corporations, but consider 48% of US Jobs are for small businesses, where the theft of your training can be much more real.
Edit: If I am a small business, imagine I had 10 employees. Training for a niche industry may be much more expensive because I can’t afford to have a standardized training program, and some employees have to be unproductive to teach the new employee how to be productive. Imagine this costs $8K, and then the employee leaves. Sucks. Now imagine 8 people in a row did this.
Additionally, certain education-related loans do in fact disappear! Loan forgiveness is a real thing.
So you get a junior developer for half the cost for whatever the length of the payback period is OR you get the cost of a couple of junior developers paid to you by that person.
Not to mention, you could only learn that they're severely underpaying you once you get into the industry.
And when you absolutely need a job, you'll get desperate enough to take some bad deals. Because the alternative is destitution.
2. People aren’t perfect. Does everyone know what they’re getting into? Do they know beforehand what kind of salary they’ll get from the company before training? Do they also know how competitive that salary is? Or how good the company is? Maybe it’s the most toxic company ever but is able to hide its negative footprints online.
It's not cool to take free training if you know you will be out shortly.
The reason people go out can be anything, could be something silly like moving house.
"just be a better company" sounds like people live in a fantasy world
It’s not cool to force training on someone and then force them to stay or pay it back either. Why does the corporation get off the hook?
Also, the companies should get some sort of insurance. Not screw over individual powerless people.
It's also not cool to hire people when you know layoffs are coming, but employers do this all the time. But, as you say "just be a better company" is fantasy world belief.
My ex- had this, applied for a job. "We want someone who is going to be here for the long haul, five years plus." She had aspirations for vet school in the next year or two.
To you, that's a commitment from an employee that is fair to expect.
"Is the company committed to giving me a job for the next five years?" ... well, why not?
You're very much in the mindset of "an employee should be happy to have a job".
Is the business offering a similar guarantee to the employee?
I have watched personally multiple household name companies go on hiring sprees when layoffs, that those line and department managers were aware of, were imminent.
Tacoma FD for one locally high visibility action: Advertised for the hiring of 30-44 firefighters. Had a few thousand applicants. Rented the Tacoma Dome for several days for testing applicants. Went through the selection process, got their candidates, put them through nearly six months of full-time training. They all graduate from Academy...
... and come to their station the next morning to get a pink slip. They literally trained these people and let them go the moment they finished training, before they could do one day of actual work.
Because there was no budget to pay them. A budget that had been signed off by the City nearly six months -before- the hiring process began.
A business won't necessarily realize benefit from training, but they do offer a similar guarantee to the workers that they may also not realize a benefit. If things turn out as planned, both will benefit. Benefit is not without risk. Those who can't handle the risk seek shelter elsewhere. Such is life.
More simply put, if it's not something that is readily verifiable and accepted by any other business in the same category, then I understand this as the employers' _choice_ to give their employees this business.
Would we consider the same reimbursement scheme for coffee/snacks and restroom breaks? These also are on paid time which costs the employer, but I don't think (yet) employers are trying to recoup such costs.
If we were talking about professional certifications, I would maybe understand some commitment agreement from the employees, but the trainings described are shop specific as per the article. I would not agree that this should require repayment, and seems the courts agree as well.
If you add back a component of risk, you are making the trade a lot less attractive.
It sounds like bullshit because it is - employers are trying to get employees to stay, and some use a stick to do so.
I vehemently disagree with this. If your training is so niche as to not be standardized (and thus, have value in the marketplace), you absolutely should not get to go after the employee. If they leave? Tough. Work on retainment if you wish your company to be successful.
With this line of reasoning, every business down to restaurants with fry cooks could argue they are imparting valuable wisdom and thus hold their employees indentured. This is not some hypothetical to me. My ancestors were indentured servants to the Jamestown colony.
So what? This affects your life how?
IF. In many of these cases, employees show up, are told that they are "required" to undergo training that the company has now enrolled them in and that they will be required to repay.
When you sign a lease you usually can't break the lease without penalty.yes, if a company makes up the training costs for in house training, making it astronomical, then that seems like it'd be up for litigation.
Frankly, then be a better employer. Pay more, foster a better culture, provide better working circumstances. Plenty of people stay at economically shitty places because of a sense of duty, a love for their co workers, a 4 day work week or excellent benefits, etc. Welcome to a competitive market.
Otherwise you'll end up with people who only barely work to not get fined, training new people (and you have to get new people because people leave asap, fine or not, some people might even pay the fine to leave) who are immediately entering a workplace culture where no one wants to be there. Smart enough people to google the company beforehand and see the shitshow in glassdoor reviews et al. will avoid the company, potentially even years after whatever management gets its head out of its ass and rights the ship. A total disaster.
I've seen this as an excuse avoid training people, which seems absurd. It reminds me of the apocryphal discussion between two managers:
Manager 1: "But what if we train them and the leave!?"
Manager 2: "But what if we don't train them and they stay!?"
Training your people is just part of what a good manager does.
I would ask what you're doing as an employer that creates an environment where the people you're paying literally can't wait to get away from you.
* Assumption based on the exact scenario happening every fucking time
Or you should be grateful for the opportunity to be contractually enslaved?
The other example from the article was nursing. Nursing is in huge demand. That woman most certainly had other options.
I worked in Europe. My contract said my company had to give me 3 months notice before quitting.
And I had to give 3 months notice before quitting. If I didn't, I had to pay the company the equivalent of 1 months salary for each month of notice I didn't give. So if I just up and quit, I'd have to pay 3 months salary.
Was I a "indentured servant" too?
That's pretty crazy. So if you apply to a new job you have to tell them: "I can start 3 months from now, no sooner"?
Edit:
This kind of clause seems so counter-productive to the employer. If I was forced to give 3 months notice, I'd be checked out for 2/3+ of that time. What are they going to do? Fire me?
So yeah, when you get a new job you either tell your new employer to wait or you get them to pay off your current contract.
Part of the problem is the people creating the contracts are perfectly willing to place the burden on existing nurses and allow patients to suffer. Even when already short staffed, hospitals are not under much pressure to renegotiate a contract.
Legally speaking it is as you say, but I was asking from a moral perspective.
But repaying training fees aren't one of them unless they don't make sense.
If you're a cashier and after 2 hours know how to do your job, your employer can't write a contract that says "Training costs $500,000 and you must repay if you quit before 5 years".
Contracts law is well developed and you can't sign a contract where you don't receive consideration. And I assume if such consideration is small, but the obligation is huge, the courts won't enforce it.
If you want the employee to own the capital costs, then they better see capital returns as well.
You are right though in that's its just another way to socialise the costs and privatise the profits.
By this logic, should the government also stop helping banks collect debts (eg. garnishing wages or seizing property)? After all, lending is also a "speculative investment" and "Sometimes you invest capital in something and don't see returns".
okay but how is that relevant to this discussion? if the state refuses to assist in debt collection, it effectively makes failing to pay debts legal, which seems to be what you want?
An alternative arrangement to direct employment is that the pilot could pay for his/her own type rating, and work as a contract pilot. But that requires having $100k to plunk down, and taking the risk that the job market will be strong after the type rating.
In this case, the employee may prefer the "indentured servitude" route versus having to front 6 figures to get their own type rating.
If the pilot is unable to work because of disability, conviction, etc., they're 6 figures in the hole and unable to use the training to get out. Seems like a pretty bad deal.
Of course many other factors would sway my opinion of the matter into different directions. Who made the decision to change the fleet to Gulfstream multi-engine jets versus single-engine, or from flying cargo to adding the option to carry passengers, etc. Was the pilot already part of the company when these new qualification requirements were added, etc?
So, if you know how to fly Cessna Citations and Hawkers--- and you move to an employer with Gulfstreams, you're going to need expensive, type-specific training.
If you have $100k in type-specific training for what's now a popular jet, your employability and value to new employers grows.
It's zero-sum.
In fact, so many of these pilots prefer this indentured servitude that we've got record numbers! Incredible!
Your last line is like the mocked meme of “if you hate capitalism so much why did you buy a shirt”. The logic doesn’t work. Of course many anti-capitalists are going to consume capitalism because they live here and not everyone can leave.
The same logic would hold for pilots. Regardless of the numbers.
I have no problems with a business making a job offer contingent on the candidate doing something (i.e. acquiring a rating or finishing a college degree). Presumably the salary you offer would reflect the skills that they have as well (Plus this is way better than student loans since you actually have a legitimate job lined up). But if you want a current employee to have a set of skills or certificates that they don't already, it's on you to do that.
* Google has ~170k employees [1] with ~2.5k job openings [2] (~70x multiplier). clearancejobs.com has 20.5k job openings so with 70x multiplier is roughly 1.5M.
[1]: https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/20220726_alphabet_10Q.pd... [2]: https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/ [3]: https://www.clearancejobs.com/jobs?clearance=4
However, the DoD often does give these types of contracts for other training. A friend had to sign a contract for university training where they agreed to stay on for 3x the training length or reimburse the expenses.
To be clear, "sponsored by a private company" involves that private company paying either the government or some other private company money for you to get your clearance (not too sure how the money exactly moves about).
Sure you need to be working a job that actually requires a clearance to have one (but effectively there is a grace period if you get fired/quit). But if Company A and Company B both have a job that requires Tier 5 then you can move from A->B no problem. IIUC, the Jet example is even worse (for job mobility) because it's a rating for a plane so you'd need to go from a pilot at A to a pilot of that plane at B while for the DoD you could go from a programmer to a manager or janitor and it's all Tier 5.
The employers could, offer bonus payments for the employees tenure, top of market salaries, equity in the business, or secure private insurance to cover losses if the employee leaves.
Asking an employee, to pay you money so that you can make money from their labor shouldn't be legal.
Consider if you are an aircraft mechanic who is given a set of tools by the employer. Most people don't think it's unreasonable for the employer to ask for those tools back when you quit. In contrast, they can't ask for the training back.
Imagine if you agreed to work as a doctor for a charity if they agreed to pay for your training. Then upon completion of years of training, you quit to go work in the private sector to get more money. That seems like an extreme example, but it illustrates the point.
It would be interesting to see if employers give the equivalent funds as a bonus to an employee who comes onboard pre-trained. My guess is they don't, which would undermine their point somewhat.
It seems like an overall bad policy. If you hold someone against their will, you're bound to risk sub-standard work for the duration of the contract.
I can see the case for repayment agreements if the employer is (say) sending someone to a local university to get an MBA. That training transfers directly to other jobs and its price is set on the open market: you’d pay the same if you self-funded the MBA instead.
On the other hand, niche or employer-specific training doesn’t have either of those properties. Knowing the SOPs at Sally’s Beauty may not help much at other salons, let alone other industries. The price is also arbitrary and the employer has every incentive to inflate it.
The last example in the article, where the employee got a CDL, seems reasonably fair.
The first one though, where a licensed esthetician was charged $1,900 for pro-forma on-site training that she already had, seems like it should be legislated out of existence.
Even so, I’m not sure how legislation would work. It’s once thing if you can point to a license and say the training is unnecessary but I would venture a guess that the majority of training isn’t of that type.
It depends on what the skills are. At one extreme, the employee might pick up actual skills, like how to dye hair. I can also imagine some stuff that's much closer to "onboarding": how to use the in-house booking system, workplace safety training, etc. That doesn't really transfer, either practically or legally. The line is really thin and a cynic might be tempted to blur it to retain employees.
As for legislation, one really bright line might be whether similar training is available to the general public (and at what costs). People enroll in Javascript bootcamps all the time, so an internal one is probably fine--and the repayment should be similar to their costs. If it's MUMPS instead, tough break for the employer.
Then I think this undermines the employees stance that the trainings were unnecessary. The employer is essentially saying licensure isn't enough to ensure their quality standard, so additional training is necessary. (Granted, there's probably a likelihood of legal gamesmanship going on with both sides). To me, it would really depend on how "specific to the shop" it was. Since the lawsuit was dismissed, I'm assuming it was specific enough to be what you classify as "onboarding."
I get your point on the legislation, but just to illustrate my point about the lines being blurry: you brought up MUMPS and that being niche training. However, it's also the program that underlies the Veterans Affairs VISTA platform. Meaning, if you're trained in MUMPS you could foreseeably transfer those skills to one of the largest healthcare networks in the nation, as well as the companies that have gotten billions of dollars to upgrade that system. So even a "niche" program has plenty of wiggle room to determine if it's really transferable. Not only that, they've now trained you on a system that has billions of dollars in demand and little supply of programmers. That seems pretty valuable.
There are other ways to get around this problem either through deferred compensation or through the company being able to retain the certification lisence for a period of time as property that another company or the employee can buy out.
If that was paid, someone got ripped off. There are plenty of companies offering GIV/GV type ratings in the $20-30K range.
If your business depends on picking up newer pilots "off the streets", then why would you not do the type rating in-house?
A bunch of other new hires at that time took a "relocation package" where the company managed everything, including paying the moving company. The total cost to relocate just one individual was supposedly something like $20000. They were liable for that amount if they quit in the first year. This was the point in my career I decided I would never sign anything that left me liable for a bill I can't negotiate.
For context, I had a full move-and-pack for a one bedroom apartment (no temp housing, nothing extra, just the moving service) between two cities ~300mi away and total cost was $6k. Now, it was totally worth it, since I literally did not do any packing what-so-ever. They showed up to a fully furnished apartment with stuff in cabinets/bookshelves, and ~24 hours later they dropped off boxes of stuff and all my furniture in my new location.
This type of relo is much less common these days though, due to rules changes regarding reimbursement for relocation expenses. I think most companies prefer lump sum payments now, since you can't deduct ANYTHING for moving expenses. If a company does provide you $20k in relocation coverage (even if you never see the money), you're now on the hook for an extra $20k in 'income' which you have to pay taxes on.
Relocation expenses are deductible, but I don't think furnishing allowances are, e.g.
This is just not true.
The tax rules changed in 2018, any relocation-related expenses are considered taxable as income with no exceptions (unless you're in the military).
And during the red-hot job market and shipping expenses spiking during covid, relocations were sometimes running way more than $20k.
I’ve been trying to convince my wife to move because our house is too big, and we have tons of value in it, but she doesn’t want the work (understandably).
And then managers wonder why phenomena arise like "Quiet Quitting" and "Let It Rot".
Evidently, very few people think past the intended results of their actions to the secondary or knock-on effects, which can be far more significant.
Example: a company hires someone, expecting at least a year of labor, two weeks of training. Training cost is amortized across the year if the employee leaves early, the company is obliged to employ the employee for that full year unless terminated with cause.
The scam is to pretend the training has some absurd value relative to the wage, then hold it over the employee to retain their labor, while reserving the right to lay them off whenever it's convenient. Hey, training is on us, you're welcome!
That such arrangements constitute indentured servitude was decided by the Supreme Court in the 19th century. It's no different from the company store.
It would be hard to get away with actually decreasing wages and salaries, so they get effectively frozen against rising efficiency and inflation (which we've seen happening for the last 40 years). But soon this becomes the new ceiling, and labor costs must keep getting cut, otherwise profits don't increase (at the expected rate).
That's when we start seeing the laborer take on the costs of working: transportation, uniforms, training, etc. Did you know that car mechanics have to buy their own tools? Can you imagine developing software and having to bring your own computer and devices? Having to own the latest iPhone just to test on, because the company won't provide it but expects iOS compatibility?
This is why labor rights organizations matter. Employers are guided by a very simple algorithm, whose total application to all job markets leads to the immiseration of all people who have to work for a living. This is also why solidarity matters: when we are in a position to make demands of employers, we are morally obligated to make demands also in the name of those employees who are powerless.
First they came for the blue-collars, but I didn't care because my collar was white. Next they came for the wage workers, but I didn't care because I had a salary. When they finally came for me, there was no one else left to care.
IANAL at all, but from my own research a few years back, part of the contractor test in North America and other countries is “who is providing and paying for the tools”. And when the answer is “not me”, it’s a strong indicator you’re an employee. Ergo if you’re an employee, the employer must pay for the tools to do the job (as in legally must)
You’re much more likely to keep your tools in working order and not let them walk away if they’re your tools.
Equipment the shop supplies is less likely to walk away. Like a 100gal air compressor or car lift.
There are BYOD companies. They would probably be more common if licensing and security didn't matter.
Yes and no the the own tools thing. It depends on the shop and the type of tools. Their own wrenches, sockets, and other small tools might make sense (especially if they avoid Snap-On). The air tool infrastructure, lifts, alignment rack, tire mounting/balancing machine, etc are all shop supplied.
I think it is better characterized as demand for labor falling relative to supply of labor. Obviously everyone wants to cut all costs all the time, but whether or not they can depends on supply and demand.
Why would this be obvious? I've worked in companies whose revenue grew so quickly that no one could be bothered to cut existing costs. It literally wouldn't be cost effective to do anything but grow revenue.
Cutting costs is just one half of the equation.
It is possible that in an explosive growth business area with little to zero marginal costs, focusing solely on revenue and ignoring costs in the short term makes sense, but it is not sustainable. Even then, there is never a blank check for labor costs so someone somewhere will notice a number being too high.
A good set of Snap On wrenches are practically family heirlooms. My dad has a set from the 60s that he bought from a family friend, and they’re still going strong.
I personally wouldn’t mind doing BYOD, because I like investing in my own tools for my own purposes as well as employment. All the ceremony and corpware around “company data” is why I use company equipment.
Just another reason to cherish those old tools, they literally don't make them like they used to.
One other thing to mention is that there are companies that make hand tools that outperform snap-on handily these days, even if they struggle against some aged tools. If you are interested in an empirical look at this sort of analysis, side by side, Project Farm on Youtube has covered most hand tools by major brands at this point.
Also worth noting that while the ceiling on quality has lowered, the floor for most major manufacturers seems to have raised as well. A random modern hand tool is usually more likely to break the thing you are working against than to break itself, and I can't even remember the last time I've seen a hammer lose its head, a screwdriver tip get stripped out by a steel screw, a wrench snap at the neck, etc.
One of the things about mechanics hand tools where this is a challenge is that mechanics regularly use tools for purposes outside the specifications, because you need to get the job done, regardless of what happens to currently be in your toolbox. In the past, because tools were overbuilt, this wasn't an issue. For modern tools, they are much tighter in tolerance to their specifications, both in good and bad ways. A simple way to tell is simply weigh the tools, due to techniques like CAD modeling with FEA, you can reduce the materials needed to achieve the same targeted strength specification. Tool from 1960 and Tool from 2022 with the same SKU likely have the same specifications, but are built in /very/ different ways.
With the subscriptions, you're paying $600+ a year, every year, in perpetuity, and you're subjected to invasive DRM that'll do shit like delete fonts you haven't used recently.
Before subscriptions, upgrades were often cheaper than buying new, and you might only buy an upgrade every four or five years (the core requirements of a graphics app don't change majorly, so new versions are more about stability, optimizations, and the occasional niche feature).
... thankfully, there's enough competition in this space that I've managed to completely remove Adobe from my toolset, but it still sucks that I can't even activate my 2013 version of Adobe's Creative Suite (CS6) because the licensing servers no longer function.
I prefer this, as a lot of companies provide crappy equipment. However, this doesn't work beyond the tiniest of companies because any COO worth their salt would flip their lid at having uncontrolled, outside equipment on their network. You really can't be sure about BYOC, especially with tech-savvy workers.
> Did you know that car mechanics have to buy their own tools?
The dealership also provides them with the expensive equipment they need to do their job. Yeah, mechanics have their own tool boxes with the basics, but they don't provide their own lifts, alignment racks, diagnostic software, etc.
It's pretty similar to the system I'm in, I provide my own monitors, keyboards, desk, chair, etc, while my company provides my laptop, software and cloud platform.
The issue being more, these things are removed without giving anything else in return.
William Gibson liked the term "Zaibatsu"[0].
See also the textbook definitions of "neoliberalism", and "fascism".
This is pretty much his Aristotle thought the planets moved … by angels/demons motivated by greed.
I loved studying Aristotle, but the man could think himself into a hole.
Edit: the intelligences move the celestial spheres “as ends” - that is, their being desired (not their desiring) causes them to move the the celestial spheres. Sorry for the confusion on that.
The previous company I was in did mostly require bringing in a personal smartphone to function. As I didn't own one, that caused all kinds of amusing (to me) commotion. Eventually some workarounds were set up.
But that should be non-negotiable. If company needs me to have $FOO to work, company must pay and give me said $FOO.
They pay for the privilege of being able to run antivirus on my workstation.
This might not be apparent in Silicon Valley, but it is much more real for the rest of America.
It's a free market, want better employees with a higher "work ethic" that will stick around? You will need to compete. This isn't new, my dad growing up worked in IB and would switch jobs, or use existing offers as leverage for salary benefits, once every 2-3 years, and he switched jobs multiple times in my childhood.
Drugs were not illegal, drunk driving was not illegal. Drinking lots was totally normal. No one thought any of it was an issue, so they likely were a lot more messed up and just didn't really care. People were taking smoke breaks constantly during the day which was certainly a drag on productivity. All the bad behavior was so normalized they didn't even think it was a problem.
Management sets the terms and tone of the workplace and employees provide the labor. If they can only hire drug users and alcoholics with poor work ethic maybe look into why that is the case and fix that. Chances are your best employees are getting recruited away with better pay.
When it affects white Americans it gets reported as a health issue, but is criminal vice when its infected black communities. But this isn't it. Workers with a clean record and can pass a drug screen have no problem finding work right now.
Just to comment on this specifically, it was pretty obvious to me from a young (<18 in the late 90s) age that the era of companies taking care of their employees and maintaining benefits like pensions was over. I'm sure I'm not the only one. If you treat employees as interchangeable cogs don't be surprised when employees treat you as interchangeable in return.
how could it be otherwise? The concepts of "company loyalty" from the employee and "being taken care of" by the company always baffled me. Why would you think a company is going to take care of you? Why would a company expect loyalty from an employee? A deal is a deal, if either side doesn't uphold their part of the agreement then the agreement is over. I don't see how it can be otherwise.
You would think that because 50 years ago it was the norm. Companies had pensions. Companies used to have cost-of-living wage increases in addition to annual performance increases. The reward for working at a company for 20 years used to be a cushy management position, less work and more pay. Now it's a coupon for $10 off at a chain restaurant.
If you put yourself in that mindset, company loyalty is obvious. Find a job you like, and stick with it until retirement. But that isn't the case anymore.
Compared to compensation vs. productivity over the last half-century, employers should expect further pushback.
Ooh, I know this one. Nixon came up with a new strategy for jailing and enslaving opponents to conservatism and corporatism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
It was also about when thatcher first had a cabinet seat.
After that we had the end of history and the glory of the invisible hand of the free market raining abundance upon all.
Nixon also took the dollar off the gold standard "temporarily", and government proceeded to debase the currency continuously since then, hand in hand with the financial sector.
The idea being that lobbyists were paying for certain types of votes when they were private, but that politicians could then vote their conscience anyway...because there was no way for a lobbyist to verify they got the vote they paid for.
But, once the specific vote by named representative became public record, the lobbyists could now see if they got the vote they paid for.
except now thanks to shale oil/fracking, we're actually producing more oil today than in 1971[1]. Why haven't we seen a reversion back to the good ol days?
Anyway, the OPEC started to control the oil price in 1971 too, didn't it?
Inflation adjusted oil prices were actually pretty close to pre-1971 oil prices between 1986 up until 2004. If the oil price theory was true, shouldn't we have seen a reversal in the trend during that time period?
https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/624487...
* End of Bretton Woods System - "On 15 August 1971, the United States terminated convertibility of the US dollar to gold, effectively bringing the Bretton Woods system to an end and rendering the dollar a fiat currency" [0]
* The Global War on Drugs - "The initiative includes a set of drug policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of psychoactive drugs that the participating governments and the United Nations have made illegal. The term was popularized by the media shortly after a press conference given on June 18, 1971" [1]
* Nixon's Southern Strategy that shifted the Republican base to the South 1970-1971 [2]
* Nixon' Visit to China and the Chinese economic reform, which resulted in China being the major economic power it is today, visit planned on July 15, 1971, visit in early 1972 [3]
* The Defunding of the Apollo program - "In August 1971, just after conclusion of the Apollo 15 mission, President Richard Nixon proposed canceling the two remaining lunar landing missions, Apollo 16 and 17." The two remaining already planned missions were completed, but the program ended in 1972 thereafter. [4]
Now you might say, correctly, that every presidential term has major, world-shifting elements that are consequential. However, something happened specifically in 1971 and 1972 across a very broad set of circumstances to global economics, trade policy, criminalization, space race, politics, and more, not to mention the Watergate affair which was during the 1972 campaign. These years were absolutely pivotal to where we are today.
Further follow-on actions to the above included the devaluing of the dollar in 1972, vetoing of US National Child-care (1972), continuation of the Vietnam war, Phase I and Phase II price freezes for wages and costs (1971, 1972), Economic Stablization Act of 1971[5], Revenue Act of 1971 [6], and more. 1971 was a hot year indeed.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_visit_by_Richard_Nixon_to...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_...
Because the workforce has had enough of the lopsided equation and is starting to push back.
Because there is no sentiment. Information does not have feelings.
Does that excuse employers from treating you like shit? No, but it also doesn't excuse you from staying there if they do. You can always communicate with your employers about your grievances, and if they are not addressed your ultimate power is to leave that job. You should not underestimate what employers will do to retain someone...
Well that customer must be a real moron to pay so much money for a CEO, which apparently they pay more money than they spend on whatever the actual product is.
The board works for the shareholders. The shareholders are the employee of the next customer in line.
It has always been a them-vs-us situation. It's just that 'them' (management/ownership) have been in a hugely advantageous position for a while and so were able to exercise their power discretely. Now that economic circumstances have tipped slightly in favor of laborers, 'they' have to exercise their power in ways that are more obvious.
Always has been.
They've never thought of you as anything other than a resource to be exploited as much as possible then discarded. Capital just gets more brazen when it has more power.
If you don't like it, stop voting for open fascists.
And often times that "market number" dominates whatever numbers an employer might have that they keep to themselves,
Just rewatched The Century of the Self and restarted Can't Get You Out of My Head by Adam Curtis/BBC, which seem very much aligned to this. Highly recommend if you haven't seen either yet. Free to watch on youtube
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)
I am an h1b from India. Was talking to a colleague about the 100 year wait period for greencards through employer's MS teams. I shared him some twitter links (where people say they would be 115 when they get greencard and such) through whatsapp. While I was talking about it, Teams got disconnected. Didn't think anything about it, just thought its just a network issue.
Same day, while talking to another colleague, mentioned same thing, and shared the twitter links over whatsapp. Again, MS teams got disconnected. I thought it was an odd coincidence that it got disconnected twice when I talked about this subject.
Same day, at around 9.30 pm, I get an email from Twitter saying they have blocked a suspicious login from a city in US. So, someone knew my user name & password. I am guessing my employer was monitoring the conversation, and had my social media passwords.
this feels ridiculous that it is even a thing; do they force 2fa as well?
Because the threat of unemployment isn't so severe right now, so they have to do things the older way by just scamming people into indentured servitude.
In my experience, the people who say that all companies are evil are just too lazy to do the work required to find a decent one. Or are projecting their own insecurities or lack of trustworthiness outward.
They aren't. This is one unexpected headline. Most companies are being very nice to their employees because they know the job market is tight.
We had the "great resignation" where employees were the ones holding the cards. Many places like McDonalds and other low-wage jobs had essentially bidding wars for employees and if you weren't keeping your wages at the current market rate, folks would quickly bounce to greener pastures.
Some employers rightly saw this as them just needing to pay more, offer greater benefits, and attract employees in a "positive" way. But for every business that did it in the "positive" way, you had many more that did it in a "negative" way by coercing their existing workforce to stay.
If you're running a McDonalds and you're paying your employees $12/hr while all your competitors are going to $15/hr, your only option for retention is to either raise your wages or to coerce your employees from leaving. Some places did it the right way by offering more money because that what the market demands, others did it in a coercive way of making employees pay for training and other BS.
A recent example that almost made me laugh in the meeting, some of our senior living businesses have had major staffing issues (the industry pays nothing to do what is a difficult and disgusting job). Employees basically gave up working overtime or picking up extra shifts, etc. When asked why we don't leverage them more, the operations guys gave a couple politically correct answers but they kept getting drilled by some members of senior management (basically telling him to do what ever is needed to force these people to work and do it with no extra budget! ) so the guy said something like "look, we pay these people $12/hr to wipe old people's asses. They all have second and third jobs and we're almost certainly not even their #1 employer if given a choice. They literally can not get called in or pick up extra shifts when it's needed by us. They're already working a shift somewhere else. We need to pay them enough to give a damn or overstaff so there's always someone available. Both costs money but our businesses problems are not theirs so you choose"
I've also seen employees fighting to avoid paying back optional signing bonus that were given under the condition of staying for a couple of years...not attached to training at all.
It's difficult to separate "I don't think I should have to pay back anything, period" from "I don't think I should have to pay for training".
The training case can be made sure, but when somebody accepts some form of benefit with the explicit terms: if you leave before X you have to pay it back, I don't see the issue if the terms were clear.
EDIT: Now I'm curious about the down votes? Where is the issue with an expectation that people follow through with signed agreements?
The number of completely unenforceable non-compete clauses I've seen in California is astonishing. Likewise, I've seen blatantly illegal lease agreements. The common factor? One party has far more negotiating power than the other.
Here's an extra 5-10% of your first year's salary (optional) if you commit to hanging around for 2 years.
I don't see the asymmetry there?
Think about it.
Them - If you leave, you're going to pay for your training. You - Ok then, I don't want to learn anything new.
As long as Humans are positioned as just another Resource, we're going to see this type of (i.e., clueless) self-defeating decision making.
Like, why the hell would you not want to collectively bargain? You really think you have more leverage with your employer as an individual? What negotiation book taught you that strategy, the one called "what not to do"? Its always ironic seeing threads about how software engineers are fed up with stupid corporate stuff, like the interview song and dance or whatever else, then fail to see that by unionizing, software engineers could dramatically change how the entire industry works, and by continuing to just jump ship in hopes of finding better pastures they perpetuate this broken system that just finds another worker to exploit.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/where-t...
If you want a forklift driver and you hire somebody that doesn't know how to then you're on the hook to train them. If you're worried they'll just turn around and quit either don't hire somebody without the training. If said forklift driver wants to go back to college and say learn electrical engineering I think the employeer could add stipulations on that.
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Charging them for training you didn't actually provide is a bit ridiculous. Too bad the case only got dismissed and nothing punitive.
It should also be something highly subject to review by the governmental legal board.
That would be quite unfair to the worker who misses out on opportunity throughout the year for not having access to the money. The business is actually incentivized to structure it this way since they can realize the opportunity themselves, but in practice workers would run away as fast as possible if a business tried this, more than negating the potential upside.
> mainly because people are just really bad at saving for known "rainy day issues".
One can always negotiate this if they are willing to trade opportunity for less risk in managing their personal finances. A business is unlikely to say no as it is to its benefit. It wouldn't be a sensible default for either party, however.
What is better for employees - to have the option to get training and have to stay at the company one year, or to not have the option at all?
What is better for employers, provide free training to cheaper employees, or choosing more expensive employees from a smaller pool of trained people?
There was a similar story linked a few weeks ago. My comment then still applies. If the value of the training accrues primarily to the employer then the employer should be footing the cost with no strings attached.
A common example is paying for a Masters degree or an industry certification. The value accrues primarily to the employee (or at least, the value is shared). The training is transferable. It's standardized. Etc. Requiring a pay-back period is reasonable here.
The counter-example are training courses as described in the article. The employee was already certified/licensed in the field. The training offered no value to the employee. The employer should be paying for it (but isn't, because this is just an end-run around debt peonage laws).
What seems more to be happening is that A is trying to say "Your salary is X during and after training" and then after training is done pocketing Y.
The requirement of industry credentials is only slightly better in my opinion but at least they are transferable, e.g., Sec+, CCNA, etc.
If you ban the capacity to do this, then the role stops existing.
Just like the marketing 'department' of a startup SaaS calculates a Cost Per Customer, figure out what your on-boarding process is costing the company and adjust your salaries across the board to be competitive in that arena. If you're not being competitive - figure out why. Maybe you'll save more money in the long run by providing better leadership training that motivates employees to stay longer, effectively making your cost of on-boarding training worth it. Or, here's a shocker, maybe that training just sucks and you shouldn't put your employees through it anyways.
And if you cannot find a way to be competitive whilst doing so, just like employers have learned to be with health, life, pension, and leave benefits, then your company will sink. There are many professions that many seek employment solely because they don't have the capital to invest into themselves and their training. Why should one open themselves to the burden of both, if there's an alternative?
It is not - the choice is on you to pick this employer or another one.
I find no individual value in meetings, but I still accept participation a lot of the time as it appears that others derive benefit from my contributions. Perhaps direct individual benefit misses the forest for the trees? Clearly there is some kind of benefit found else nobody would accept and we wouldn't be there to talk about it.
The indirect benefits aren't always obvious, of course. Perhaps someone in HR is your friend and they being happy from having a less complicated job allows for you to gain a stronger friendship, and so you don't mind helping them out to your ultimate benefit.
Who knows what is specifically motiving people, but we do know that not even the greatest saint can successfully push himself to do something that is completely free of benefit.
You can ask to see if the benefit is a strong enough one for you to make the same agreement, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. No two people are the same. Everyone has different goals and desires.
Although there isn't much of a modern day parallel there given that citizenry of the US have already agreed to afford each other that benefit for an exchange in kind. Individuals need not worry about additional transactions deriving a hunger resolving benefit.
Obviously forcing established employees to pay for unneeded training is just taking advantage of the power employers have in the relationship, but I can see where training that workers pay for can be useful.
I imagine that companies can't just be used for free education. There has to be some middle ground. If there is a middle ground found, then both sides (the employees and the employers) will both end up in a better place. If there is no protection for the employer, well then they will just not provide any as much education as the situation calls for. And if employees are given a fair deal, they will be more likely to apply for these jobs. Maybe let the free market solve this.
If you want to be an employer, you're the one taking the risks. Don't want to take risks? Don't become an employer, or better yet, don't do business, because that comes with risks too.
And just in case people haven't thought about externalities or a more basic factor: people can be desperate, that doesn't mean you should therefore exploit them as an employer. We're not living in the 1400's anymore.
There also is no "we all lose" scenario because of the same reason companies have been able to exploit desperate (or extremely poor) people; companies can be discarded and traded in for more respectful ones in the same fashion. Sure, a bunch of megacorps will not function any longer without a disposable workforce, but that's not really bad for society, or at the very least 'less-bad' when compared with disposable employees.
The same "we have to give them tax breaks or they will move away" logic fails here; if you give a company that sort of leverage, you're essentially blackmailing yourself because they can use that leverage for anything they want. As long as there are locations to move to, that is. If there are no more locations, be it because they have used them all up, or because it's made useless by law, that leverage ceases to exist.
Downside-wise there is only one thing I can consistently come up with, and that is the benefit of having a high concentration of resources and purpose (or vision perhaps) to develop something completely new (like re-usable rocket boosters fit for human flight). While I don't think we should trade that for disposable humans, there should probably some sort of avenue where we can have that benefit without having the human-downside factor. I'm not sure how such a thing would be implemented or work out in detail, but not having it (and in turn also not have people get discarded with great ease) might still be a net positive in the grand scheme.
Rolling over going all "welp I guess this is just how it is" gets everyone nowhere, so before someone comes along and suggest that a better way is a waste of time and energy to look for: you're wrong. (not aimed at you, jmartrican ;-) )
At some point, there's some back and forth with her trying to pay it off and Hamlin refusing and choosing to forgive it instead. And in the end, Great Value Humperdink pays it off for her as a sort of signing bonus.
HHM could likely either get a more conventional loan or just use cash on hand to pay the tuition up front. With a conventional loan, they could get a more reasonable interest rate, start paying immediately, etc. And there are reason HHM would still take a loan for the amount even if they had cash on hand to pay it up front.
It's likely if HHM took any loans, they're technically paid off by now. Kim's debt is solely between her and HHM by this point. How they structured the deal could affect things. They could have charged her like a 3% interest and started the clock the day she graduated and counted every day worked as $X towards her loan. Or a portion of her billing.
Typically places that will totally fund expensive degrees (JD, MBA, etc.) will have you sign a contract and you typically are required to stay on for X years after you finish the degree they paid for.
It is not free education if the employee is working for them business. All benefits are part of the compensation in exchange for the employees’ time.
That's not the same as a company specific trainings for people who are already licensed for the job.
There is definitely some sort of gray area between education and on-the-job training, but Kim's case isn't in that area IMO.
Now any of those companies in the past could have said, "Hey we recognize that you've been here xx months and that your skills have increased. You can likely go get a job at another firm doing x and earning y. We want to offer you that here." But none of them have. At least not until I've gotten an offer elsewhere and decided to make that move already.
The businesses have two benefits to offering these programs:
1) The amount paid is a benefit to the employee but is not subject to payroll taxes.
2) The amount is also qualified as a business expense and can be calculated as such for tax purposes.
So companies have serious tax benefits from offering these programs and generally end up being no-cost due to offsetting tax burden. Even if an employee leaves after earning their degree (mine have always had a 12-month payback period) the company still comes out on top.
This keeps coming up and is a gross misrepresentation.
These companies provide a driving school where you train to even be able to sit behind the wheel of a big truck.
If you show up with CDL in hand they don’t charge for any training but in fact pay you while you learn how to be a solo driver. Chances are they will also pay off your CDL school in this instance too if you work for them for a year or whatever.
If you want a CDL you have to pay for a CDL either out of pocket or some kind of tuition reimbursement scheme.
Any trucking company that hired people who were able to jump into the driver’s seat after the requisite day of bullshit video watching and said you’d have to pay for training if you quit before a certain amount of time would have drivers literally laughing at them. Like, “you’re f-ing kidding, right?” and hanging up the phone.
Hmm, I'm definitely not proposing people should work for free.
> It's an okay deal for managing the risk around hiring, say, an entry level employee...
This is what I had in mind. Mitigating risk on the employer side isn't such a bad thing if it helps more people penetrate the skillset barrier who'd otherwise be excluded. Rank-and-file who train new hires benefit as well. It's soul-draining to invest myself into someone who ends up just using that investment as a stepping stone to other things.
2. When I wrote the objection, I was more thinking about the retention of established employees: it's relatively common in my industry to offer a bonus of some kind in exchange for your experienced employee committing to not leave in the next, say, two years.
In that context, replacing the immediate bonus with a promised raise / promised bonus is problematic in that it benefits the employer (employee is more motivated to stay), while not restricting the employer (the employer can still lay off the employee at any time, having spent nothing). In contrast, most of the time the retention bonuses are only forfeit if the employee quits or is fired with cause, so if the employer has given an employee such a bonus it serves as a level of commitment to not lay off the employee, because they've already paid extra to retain them.
Some of them had multiple layers of management - they were placed at our company by an agency, who was getting them from a subcontracting agency. Sometimes the management layers were even a level more - the subcontracting agency had a subcontracting agency.
Also for one guy I talked to, the agreement was not just if they quit, but if they were not re-upped for the contract, which they were not. The agency was unable to place them again, and laid them off. The agency did not go after him for the "training" money, although according to the agreement they could have. He had gone to a six month bootcamp, but that was at his own expense and before he connected with the agency. He said the "training" the agency gave him was worthless.
2000 USD for a certified trainer come to the office give you a lecture
200 USD for a subscription on e-learning service
20 USD (times x) for books on specific topics
What would the employee choose if they had to pay, what would the company choose (for whatever reasons they have)
Example from personal experience: Over a decade ago I hired someone for a sales position at the request of a customer. The guy had no experience in sales and just-about zero domain knowledge.
It took about a year to get him comfortable with the domain and the sales process. I think I can say I personally devoted hundreds of hours to this task.
What happened?
He sucked as a sales person. Never sold enough product to even cover his salary. Armed with all that training and new domain knowledge, he left 18 months after starting.
Where did he go?
He landed himself a job with a competitor. Of course! He sounded like a f-ing expert! He used my words (the real domain expert) to get hired. He has made a ten+ year career on top of what we taught him. We never recovered any of the time, money and effort expended to help him out.
Why did you hire him?
What kind of an idiot keeps someone like that around?
His son had a brain tumor.
One of our customers told me this guy needed a serious break because of the medical bills and being a single dad of two kids.
That's why.
I was just trying to help someone out. Instead, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars training and paying him, only to, quite literally, train an employee for a competitor. Imagine my surprise when a competitor, quite literally, gets someone we spent an entire year training.
Brilliant.
I am one of those people who has always liked helping others. This guy blew that fuse in my brain, likely permanently. I have never gone out of my way to help an employee since. Small things here and there, sure, nothing more.
This is why I say you can't reduce reality to single-variable explanations. There's a word for that: Fantasy.
Just don't pay it. Let them take you to small claims over an unpaid bill and then show up and say you can't afford it. Or just don't show up and let them flounder over the bill.
This is just simple intimidation. "Job training" is not the same as signing an agreement for say being put through school or get certifications. In those cases, there's sometimes significant monetary value added to the employees total comp (in the form of those certification payments). So many times an employee will sign an N year work agreement w/ repayment clause because they dont plan on leaving anyway. I signed one of these for the same reason a few jobs ago. Got some stuff paid for, they laid me off and I walked with what I bought for free. Always make sure that you red line any agreement and always get a termination clause written in. If they're unwilling to put one in, you are being scammed.
In this case initial job training is a "cost of doing business". There's no justification for such a fee. Imagine having the balls to charge a McD's worker $3000 for learning to flip a patty. It's not brain surgery.
Why must the practice be prevalent in order to be addressed? It is a self-serving and unfair policy, unless the skill is generally applicable across many job skills. For example, the company providing a commercial drivers license is not beneficial to an employee who leaves for a position in another field like restaurant management.
My previous 2 cents was "I worked for a company that did this in a white collar capacity - FDM. I basically regard them as the scum of the Earth. However, unlike the article, they usually rent out their trainees as consultants to big companies with broken hiring practices. Myself and a lot of other people I know got an impressive name to put on our resumes and spun that into decent careers. So maybe I shouldn't be so harsh."
I'll add that I also add that I have acquaintances who took 2 other paths out of the agreement:
1) Get training, get experience, break contract, get a much better paying job, lawyer up, don't pay company anything anything.
2) Get training, get experience, break contract, get a much better paying job, lawyer up, settle with company for a reduced training fee using a fraction of the wage increase.
the only thing i can think of is if the training is entirely optional, and not a requirement for the job or a requirement to get a promotion. seems to me that it would be pretty easy to make charging for required training illegal, and only allow charging for it if it is truly optional
In those cases, it can be a good deal if you land in a good company - you get a paycheck and a free education that increases your earning potential for the rest of your career.
The article is not about those situations though.
for example, if pilot training costs $100,000, and a pilot is expected to stay for 5 years, then essentially each year pays off $20,000. if a pilot quits before the training is paid off, then how about an industry agreement that the new employer continues the payment?
so basically, if an airline doesn't want to pay for the training, they can only hire pilots that have the training already paid off. if they want to hire someone fresher, they will simply have to take that into account. it's almost like paying for insurance. the only difference is that this only has to be paid until the full cost is paid off.
and if the pilot doesn't find a new job or changes industries, then that's just a risk the employer has to take.
in germany the practice appears to be that the cost for the training is deducted from you salary like you pay back a loan. i see no problem there to transfer that loan to a new job, because that's simply what it is. you just continue paying.
if an employer decided to gift that loan to you they can do the same, while you work there the employer pays back the loan without deducting it from your salary. if you switch jobs, the new employer can continue paying the loan, or not. but in either case you know from the beginning that there is a loan to be paid, and the payback terms are reasonable.
You're making your own value judgements in your response which is fine. It just means you may not opt for it if you were in that situation. If both parties are qualified to evaluate the offer and make a decision to move forward, then I don't see what's wrong with it. Cases like I mentioned are closer to a private loan, which in America is often the only other way you could get the education you're looking for. In those cases, it can often make sense to move forward with an employer paid option instead.
The article, however, was about much more predatory ways of manipulating employees into staying to pay back poor on-job training closer related to typical employee onboarding than industry-wide training. I think we can all agree that's awful.
i wonder how you could make that conclusion (just curious, no offense taken), but i can ensure you, i am only talking out of interest because this issue is totally new to me, so i have no preconception how this should be handled and making my own value judgement is the only thing i can go on until i learn more about this.
i agree with you, there is absolutely no problem for an employer to pay for education that i want and would otherwise have to pay for myself anyways, and to limit that with certain conditions.
i think any law against pay-back clauses should be able to limit the application of the law appropriately.
what i was trying to point out was that even if the law went to far and prevent even situations where having employees pay back for education is appropriate, workarounds can be found to still make paying for that education possible.
so while the original comment seems to suggests that such a law would be a bad idea, i am trying to explore if things can be made to work, even if such a law is in place.
the comparable situation in germany appears to be that mandatory training should be paid by the employer unconditionally, unless (grossly simplified) the training provides a clear advantage to find a new job. for training that is more like onboarding this would rather not be the case, and so a pay-back clause would be invalid.
1. Convince employers to require college degrees
2. Expect employees to assume the cost of attaining a degree
3. Employers offset cost only when the employee sticks around
4. Employee eats the cost if they choose to no longer work for said employers
Now... if I say I don't want it, then they will be suspicious, but in reality, it makes me super uncomfortable to get this money now, which they will deduct tax, but if I decide to bounce, I have to pay a full amount.
I am pro worker's rights and proud to live in a state with a decent balance of protections, but I am surprised at the amount of people in this comments section who seem to think that there is nothing an employee can do to hurt a company - I have personally heard some of my more "mischievous" friends discuss these tactics, and have seen the cost of grifters who use them to take advantage of companies, from fraudulent (but hard to prove) worker's comp claims, training/benefit poaching, outright theft, etc.
1) This may be tied to licensing in some cases.
2) If it truly is valuable, and companies can’t tie it to contracts, then they may require people to pay out if their pocket for it up front.
As a similar model, look how few companies do tuition reimbursement any more.
PS: I'll never understand these practices. Happy employees make a happy workplace, where everybody spends so much of their lifetime. Maybe that's a millenial vs boomer thing again?
It's basically an attempt to turn regular employment into indentured servitude.
Getting training without any up front payment is great for least privileged and those without education.
It was clearly stated in the hiring contract. I was more than welcome to not take the job if I didn't feel like I could meet the obligations.
Not everyone has this privilege. For too many people, if they get a job offer and don't take it, that means they don't eat that week.
Remember, friends, market solutions only work in an idealized free market, which requires the buyer to be under no pressure, information to be perfect, and alternatives that are just as good without the negative aspect under question to be available without significant extra costs.
I most certainly judge the job by the offer - if I didn't like the manager, location, work conditions, I kept looking.
Unless you were foolish you would likely be okay. Your previously high wage would have allowed you to acquire the things that low-wage workers have little choice but to continually pay for. Housing being a prime example. When all you are paying is property taxes and some incidental maintenance costs your cost of living can be tremendously lower than someone who is paying rent.
Life is a lot cheaper when you are rich.
You conspicuously left out mortgage. Life insurance. Provisions for the family. Vehicle payment. etc.
Mortgage is rent – the rental of money. This was explicitly mentioned. However, having a high paying job for a reasonable amount of time means that being left with a mortgage is unnecessary. Being able to avoid rent allows for a tremendous reduction in cost of living.
If you blew it all on hookers and blow instead of setting yourself up while in your favourable position, I guess you are out of luck, but the foolish scenario was already addressed.
> Life insurance. Provisions for the family. Vehicle payment. etc.
None of those are related to the housing example, so they wouldn't be applicable. They are applicable more generally, of course, but not within context. But all those too are much cheaper when you are rich. If you have the capability to front load food purchases in bulk, for example, they can be purchased for much less (not only the immediate cost, but also against inflation), reducing your cost of living. It is amazing how cheaply one can actually live when they are rich. Very different to when one is poor.
It was, but only on the opposite side of the equation from the one slothtrop was pointing out. You explicitly compared "property taxes and some incidental maintenance costs" to "rent".
Mortgage is not property tax, and it's somewhat disingenuous to try to claim it should be considered an "incidental maintenance cost".
No, I explicitly contrasted them. Mortgage is rent. Rent is what you have to pay if you haven't been able to acquire the assets of your own. If you had a high salary for a reasonable number of years, you would have your own money to work with. There would be no need to rent it. Taxes/maintenance is what you have to pay when you have assets.
Even in the era of overpriced housing, a modest home is still only 1x-2x a typical tech salary. A small handful number of years working in tech and you don't need a mortgage. That's the point. Dropping down to minimum wage after that is very different to someone starting out life at minimum wage. The simple fact of the matter is that cost of living is dramatically lower when you are rich.
> Mortgage is not property tax, and it's somewhat disingenuous to try to claim it should be considered an "incidental maintenance cost".
I don't follow. Mortgage is on the rent side of the equation. It literally is rent. When you've had a high income for a reasonable amount of time, and didn't blow that high income on hookers and blow, you don't need to rent. You at that point have built up assets of your own. Thus, your only real housing costs are taxes and maintenance.
I mean, you could have invested that money instead, but the equivalent investment income more than pays the mortgage, else you would have just paid the mortgage to realize the gains on that side, so for all practical purposes that cancels out. This possibility is ultimately moot.
Squandering it all on hookers and blow is also a real possibility. This isn't a suggestion that every single person in tech is rich, because that is definitely not true, but we already addressed that in the original comment. The real takeaway here is that cost of living isn't a constant. Every person will experience cost of living differently, often very differently, and generally the richer you are the cheaper life gets. There are so many ways to save on or eliminate costs when you have assets to leverage. With that leverage, a low income can go quite far. Much, much further than it goes for someone without that leverage.
It's not a given that everyone working in software is rich. Notwithstanding, cost of living can be high and people stretch themselves to pay the mortgage. I don't think you've genuinely thought about the numbers.
I worked a few minimum wage jobs, got a few small raises, then jumped ship for more money a few times.
I was living paycheck to paycheck, but it was manageable.
is it to have trained employees do stuff and sell this?
or is it to find people in dire need of a job, and after tiring them out through meaningless pointless "training", charge them for this money, and quitely sell this as debt out in the 'financial market'?
The fact that we spend 15-18 years just "learning" and then spending all your time on the job seems like almost the worst possible system except no education at all. Starting work much earlier (I know I could have been doing something useful at 15-16) and accepting that professionals can take a month off just for development could have become normalized if the job market weren't as exploitative as it is right now.
Given how easy high-skill employees jump ship today, I can see why companies would naturally become this defensive. It's a terrible system that's broken by a lack of trust on both sides.
High-skill employees jump ship because the old school system of promotions etc. is all but dead. The days when people used to work for one company for 30 years, gradually moving up the ladder, are over. The vast, VAST majority of increases of pay today are due to people moving from one employer to another employer. The widespread corporate culture of refusing to significantly increase pay of existing employees is to blame. If the only option for people to get these double digit % pay bumps is to leave, then they will leave.
There's a reason marriage appeared as an institution, since it forces more loyalty from both sides. We'd need new mechanisms that build trust on both sides, but it's not clear how those would look like.