No One Wants to Pay Anymore
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Working conditions are especially horrible in pretty much all the cases of "nobody wants to work anymore" that I have seen. Even if you paid me a good wage, I might not want to work at a terrible employer. It doesn't help that the terrible employers also usually pay below-market wages.
I completely disagree with this. I have a friend who recently turned down a job that would have been a significant pay increase because he didn't like the sound of the working conditions (which would have also included relocation to a new place).
Many of the times that I recall when friends have left their jobs, the reason they left is not necessarily because they weren't being paid enough, but because they became tired of their job, or something changed at their employer that made working there less tolerable.
To generalize: I think there are situations where no amount of compensation will make the offer worth taking. How common they are ... that's a different story.
Of course, it’s still conditioned on the mentioned assumption.
But there's no way that a position cannot be filled with high-enough pay, provided the position isn't extremely unsafe or something like that. If you offer $1 billion per day for a job, someone will take it. This doesn't guarantee competency though, or that they'll come back the next day.
I had to work quite hard to make the team a pleasure to work at.
It seemed to have worked. When they finally rolled up US engineering, 27 years after I joined, the employee with the least tenure had a decade.
These weren't losers. They were highly experienced C++ image processing pipeline engineers.
Good managers make a difference.
People want to be happy. Once a person's financial needs are more-or-less met, it will be very hard to convince them to leave, even for substantially more pay, if they know their new job will make their lives materially worse for ~8h/day.
Also, a fair bit of device control stuff.
[EDIT] Oh, I just realized that you meant what kind of manager stuff.
It's a bit complicated, but, TL;DR, I insisted on treating each of my team as an individual. I learned about them, understood their personal priorities, learned what type of coding they were best suited for, got them involved in as much of the lifetime of the project as possible (not a little silo).
I also did not burn them out. I actually did stuff that the company HR people wouldn't like, like let them flex hours, and gave them slack, when they were going through personal stuff.
I also never lied to them; or to my bosses. It's entirely possible to keep secrets, without lying.
This would not work for many teams. I was fortunate, for having the types of employees that I did, and my company basically supported me, and gave me a fair bit of agency.
[2]: https://www.salary.com/research/salary/hiring/mining-machine... [1]: https://www.talent.com/salary?job=drain+cleaner
If someone can make six figures already as an electrical engineer or programmer or something, then even if you offer $1M/yr for your totally crappy job like another poster said, the best you'll get is that they'll do it for 6-12 months and quit. Try to put golden handcuffs on, and they'll just start coasting once they've gotten enough. Try to prevent that (e.g. have a clawback if you fire them), and they won't take the deal because they don't trust you not to screw them.
In this sense, on long-enough time scales, positions that cannot be filled no matter what compensation is offered don't exist. (QED/s)
There are bad condition scenarios that would require far more compensation than filling the position delivers value.
"Not worth it" is a very real thing.
[1] First rule of economics, humans are robots obsessed with money.
Just pretend that workers have a choice between working at a coal mine that exposes them coal dust for higher pay or one that doesn't. Same as pharmacists have to choice between working for companies that put them at risk for burnout, PTSD and panic attacks for more money and ones that don't.
Talking with their head of Engineering he was asking my advice on how to better hire Android devs; apparently they are having problems of candidates rejecting their offers at the end of their long hiring process.
The reason is because they are avoiding giving the law benefits: some companies in Mexico pay you the minimum in a "straight " manner and the rest they pay in different ways, all this to avoid some taxes.
When he explained me those reasons I straight told him: I'll give you 2 answers: as a person and as your advisor. As a person I would never work for your company, because what you are doing is shady. Even if it doesn't directly affect me (it actually does affect employees in several ways, but not many know), if you are open to that, what else are you open to.
It's crazy how little companies value their employees.
Wonder why no one wants to make me a dollar menu burger for $5 an hour anymore!!!
Utility companies, cell phone companies, student loan servicers, finance companies (mortgage and house), government...,
etcetera
Once theres no competition a customer needing help becomes a burden. These companies then usually outsource customer service to the most clueless people and have extra long wait times.
If you're a monopoly, you can spend the absolute bare minimum on both.
When it comes to restaurants, I'm absolutely 100% in control of those with whom I do business. Show me you're a liar or an asshole and I'll stop doing business with you.
So the local businesses get hurt from both ends. Their costs of inputs also rise, and the demand for the services decrease. The only businesses who can keep or lower prices and also pay more for labor are one's that have large profit margins.
And then even if there's enough profit margin to survive the hair cut, that may lead to a situation where the business owner's time and effort could be better spent on other opportunities. So even profitable businesses may close if the owner thinks they could do better.
https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-particip...
If you look at the monthly stats, the labor force participation rates for the younger groups seems like it goes down sharply with recessions and doesn't recover much. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1bBX7
The monthly data also makes it clear that this isn't a smooth trend over decades.
That said, my opinion is if rent was cheaper, a lot more people would be willing to do these service jobs of it meant they could live independently.
This is 100% it. The housing market in the Anglosphere is the root of all problems. At least in the UK, I'm anticipating a single issue party to form in the coming years, like UKIP but solely for housing and renting reform. It would have the potential to steal votes from both the left and right and become a formidable power.
Hopefully, unlike UKIP, not into disgrace.
The jobs that that people "don't want to work anymore" no longer pay a living wage. Between rent hikes squeezing the low end, high interest rates squeezing the middle class, and every major company from oil down to Kellog's raising prices but not wages, people can't _afford_ to take menial, minimum-wage jobs anymore.
Oh, and a bunch of people died because of COVID, so supply has been affected too.
https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1725234349111721992
Low rent was both commercial and housing.
Immigration to Japan is much, much, much easier than the US, as long as you have a job offer here. Immigrating to the US is an expensive nightmare for most. The big difference is that the US prioritizes family members, so it's easy to bring your 2nd cousin after you've gotten in. In Japan, there's absolutely no preference for relatives, except spouses and minor children of course.
That’s not true about the US. You can’t just “bring” whatever family member you feel like over “after you’ve gotten in”. Where did you hear that?
https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility/gree...
I was exaggerating about the 2nd cousin bit, but check out preferences F3 and F4: you can bring over your married adult children and your siblings too.
Also, here: https://mx.usembassy.gov/visas/family-based-immigration/
Parents can be brought over too.
Very few young people have housing security. You simply cannot live on your own anymore (and yes, I'm counting having roommates) without paying huge amounts of money in rent. There is no financial cushion to be had; at least one roommate must personally make 3x rent, or know someone who does and is willing to cosign. You must pay for an automobile and repairs, gas, insurance on top of that, Uber when your car is in for repairs, because public transit is laughably poor if it exists at all, and the cost of groceries and eating out are so high that we're starting to reduce total food consumption.
These aren't inevitable problems; they are self-inflicted political own-goals. Cities inflict insane restrictions on land, causing rents (commercial and residential) to skyrocket, and underfunding public transit, forcing everyone to spend huge amounts of money on automobiles + insurance + now high interest rate loans.
The vast majority of this problem would be solved if only we had an abundance of cheap and amenity-rich housing, as well as functional public transit. Our society is culturally much poorer, and we have far fewer artists and creatives, because the amount of work, effort, and money required to not go hungry or go out on the streets increases every year. By making housing more abundant and cheap, we can reduce the cost of living directly, since people would no longer have to pay 80% of their income in rent, and meals+groceries would be cheaper since commercial rents would go down.
Half a million Americans are homeless, largely due to the cost and scarcity of housing.
And who is served by this status quo?
There is a large voting constituency of homeowners who want to see the value of their property and the price of their rents continue to increase. Not to mention the very large constituency + lobbying arm (Oil&Gas, Auto industry) supporting the one-person:one-car model of transportation. Politicians do not want to rock this boat, not only because it would be very unpopular and cost them campaign contributions, but because the vast majority of them are well-to-do and benefit from rising housing prices. As the saying goes, it's difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary (or net worth, in this case) depends upon them not understanding it.
In California, we see this coming to a head where the state is finally stepping in (at least on housing) due to being much further along than the rest of the country in facing extreme living costs. They are slowly battling the powerful layers of vetocracy and bureaucratic cruft that has accumulated over the past 60+ years, but it is paying off. Granted, most housing being built remains automobile-dependent or exposed to noise and sound pollution due to proximity to highways, but it is progress in a state where 50 year old shit shacks sell for $1,500,000.
https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1725234349111721992
We see from Tokyo that the current state of the west is neither permanent, nor inevitable. By simply legalizing housing and mixed-use (retail) development, we can have much better and cheaper urban areas. They also have a huge high speed rail network, which makes a huge amount of land available to commuters. Highways clog and get congested during rush hour, which reduces speeds drastically. Trains run the same speed all day, every day.
Slight nitpick from Tokyo: the commuter trains here aren't "high speed rail", they're just trains and subways, and are pretty slow since they usually stop at every stop. There is high-speed rail (called shinkansen), but it goes between cities, it's not something for commuting unless you're really rich; it's not cheap at all.
However, what you see here in Tokyo isn't really workable in America anytime soon. It's not just housing and mixed-use development: you need to get rid of cars too, or else you just won't have the density you need for all those trains/subways to work and be economical. To get density, you need to build everything very close together, and to do that you need to get rid of parking lots, as well as most automobile traffic. There's simply very little parking here, and what parking there is is usually expensive (and probably not all that convenient). So taxis are very common since they're usually faster than trains, and don't need to park and so can take you directly to your destination, but they're expensive too. Trains are cheap, but usually require some walking since lots of places aren't that close to train stations. A 15-minute walk to the station is pretty typical for many people's commute. Many people end up riding bikes to their nearest train station to save time; many stations have large bicycle parking garages for this (expect to pay 100Y/day for this).
The trains really do work like clockwork here, but it's really hard to imagine that ever being the reality in America, or most other places to be honest. It's not normal in Europe, even though there are lots of trains there.
One little-known fact about the US is that we used to have a widespread streetcar/commuter rail network. Many of these right-of-ways still exist in the form of current roads and bike paths. Some would have to be reestablished, but it's not like the ISHS doesn't habitually eminent domain people's property to build even more and wider roads.
I've also thought for a while now that many communities would benefit from (at least) a corner store. Most housing and apartment developments have space that could be used for this purpose (a vacant ground-floor apartment or two, a section of the parking lot, a house).
In general, Americans need to start getting used to in-fill development and purpose-shift renovation, because we can't afford new and sprawl anymore.
Those are express trains, not "high speed rail". HSR means bullet trains. Express commuter trains simply skip stations; they're not especially fast.
>In general, Americans need to start getting used to in-fill development and purpose-shift renovation, because we can't afford new and sprawl anymore.
It's not going to happen anytime soon, because too many Americans love their zoning laws and suburban sprawl and SUVs. The ones with the most political power are all NIMBYs who don't want more development or walkability.
I didn't say they were. I was replying to the assertion that there were no alternatives to slow trains that stop at every station, as far as regular people and their commutes are concerned.
>It's not going to happen anytime soon, because too many Americans love their zoning laws and suburban sprawl and SUVs. The ones with the most political power are all NIMBYs who don't want more development or walkability.
I'm not exactly optimistic, either, but there are definitely places making an effort. The problem extends beyond NIMBYs to a large swath of people who profit from the pain. Pensioners with auto and energy blue chips in their funds' portfolio, REIT investors, zero-tolerance nature lovers who have no hope of stopping existing industry and so focus on nascent projects, etc. We are far beyond NIMBY; a lot of people don't want anything in anyone's backyard.
This is partly why I think in-fill and purpose-shifting is important. If you really need a parking lot there, build it under the economically-useful structure.
There are no alternatives, for many, many lines. Anywhere inside the Yamanote line, there are generally no express lines; all the Tokyo Metro lines stop at every station. It entirely depends on which line you're taking; some lines have express trains, many don't. There are over 120 train lines in the Tokyo metro area; you can't make generalizations like that about them.
>This is partly why I think in-fill and purpose-shifting is important.
In-fill is necessary if you want America to have the kind of density needed to make public transit economically viable, but it's almost impossible to do as long as car culture is so important and parking requirements exist.
Personally, I just gave up on the idea of America being a nice place to live within my lifetime, and moved to Tokyo. Why bother pining for the kind of lifestyle I wish existed in America, when I can just move to a place where it already is the norm?
That makes sense, because it's the ring line surrounding and regular lines serving historically dense portions of Tokyo. Express trains to what count as suburbs in Japan are efficient. The point is to keep commutes less than an hour each way (which is more tolerable than the ~30 min in America since you're not driving).
>but it's almost impossible to do as long as car culture is so important and parking requirements exist.
There's been movement on that front. But, again, the problem isn't the rules themselves, but the benefit people get from them being so widespread (essentially forcing other people to subsidize their lifestyle). The true culprit is that so many Americans profit from impoverishment (of their neighbors and municipalities).
And agreed: too many Americans profit from making things worse for others. Though it's kinda hard to see how it's really better. Sure, in terms of absolute USD it's profitable, but in terms of healthy lifestyle, a safe society to live in, etc. it's terrible. I guess if all you care about is having a huge house to stay inside all the time, it's better.
Actually, you did. You wrote:
>They also have a huge high speed rail network, which makes a huge amount of land available to commuters.
Express trains are not high speed rail. The bullet trains do NOT make a huge amount of land available to commuters; they cost a lot to ride on, so no one who isn't very rich could afford to commute on one every day. Not many people can afford USD$100-200 per day for commuting.
>>They also have a huge high speed rail network, which makes a huge amount of land available to commuters.
That wasn't me.
And many people who studied for years and used to work as honest engineers or scientists are now out of jobs don't want to work as waiters or do blue collar work, especially for such a corrupt system. Is it bad though? You want them to spit in your food?
Unfortunately, in our capitalist system, people are demonized for choosing to work less or not at all. It’s viewed as immoral not to work, because the institutions view humans as cattle that must be milked to the maximum. I expect new policies will be created beyond the ones already in place to force people to work. We should resist this, so I support the sentiment of the blogpost even though it’s misleading on a factual basis.
Wholesaler: "That's $x per team."
Business: "The market price has gone up. That means people don't want to sell paper anymore!"
THAT'S HOW YOU SOUND, OUT OF TOUCH WHINERS
I love when people say this. Why do you get to decide what someones time is worth? Just because you like $2 cheeseburgers doesn't mean someone has to toil in the kitchen for $7 an hour for you.
Trump handed out cash like candy to the already wealthy, not sure what that has to do with low wage workers. Or are you claiming that people getting $1200 once a few years ago is keeping them out of the workforce today, because that's hilarious.
I would suggest getting a little perspective and more importantly, compassion for your fellow humans. Things like food are actually one of the things you need to stay alive.