Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

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Could only do it because of structural demographics (excess COVID deaths + retirements + ~3.6M Boomers retiring per year). Note shortages across various industries (teachers, bus drivers, healthcare workers, air traffic controllers, etc). New York City walked back its remote and flexible work policy due to hemorrhaging talent. The Federal government is holding onto a substantial cohort of workers because of its telework allowances (because those folks could simply retire instead).

Citations:

https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/cleveland-fed-dist...

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4405350-telework-is-a...

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-remote-work-eric-a...

https://www.axios.com/2023/08/27/labor-shortages-air-traffic...

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4531829-older-workers-propp... | https://archive.ph/sKeyE

https://www.marketplace.org/2022/01/24/how-much-labor-force-...

https://www.axios.com/2023/05/08/us-labor-shortage-older-wor...

https://www.businessinsider.com/baby-boomer-retirement-surge...

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/21/american-workers-are-demandi...

Yeah, we also only have structural disruptions in the first place because of the global pandemic.

All of the factors you've mention are in play in peer economies are managing things less well.

Bunch of my friends have gotten seconds jobs doing wfh govt jobs. Problem isn't labor shortages, problem is bullshit jobs. Some even have three jobs.

We would have enough bus drivers and train operators if we eliminated all bullshit white collar jobs.

If the job is going unfilled, it isn't paying enough (either for conditions or to meet worker needs at some level), simple as that. There is a market clearing price, and unemployment is not at 0.

900+ US school districts have moved to a four day week to retain teachers [1] [2], for example, because they have no other choice.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/school-districts-4-day-week-tea...

[2] https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1211632901/schools-across-the...

Bullshit jobs and productive jobs that do not pay enough to outbid bullshit jobs is the same problem - misallocation of resources.

The market is allocating; to allocate more efficiently, move towards central planning where you can allocate more intelligently. Otherwise, this is the economy you've got.

Big fan of Graeber, agree there's lots of bullshit jobs.

Are you suggesting the government does not have bullshit jobs? Surely there are bullshit white collar government jobs while at the same time the government is not paying teachers and bus drivers enough.

No, bullshit jobs are everywhere (gov, private industry, etc). I'm suggesting that the metrics we have currently to evaluate if a job is bullshit or not are insufficient to capture the true value of a job and its outcomes, leading to the inefficiencies of bullshit jobs.

Central planning is likely the wrong phrase, I just don't have something better cooked up at the moment to describe, "Should this job really exist? Is it creating value in some way? Or is it just existing for some other suboptimal purpose?" Clearly, the market itself is not allocating efficiently if bullshit jobs exist in such great number. What is the solution? I don't know.

> move towards central planning where you can allocate more intelligently

My understanding is that there's a lot of historical evidence to suggest that central planning would do the opposite of better allocating resources. Besides, with US government spending at around a third of the GDP[0] now, plenty of that is going on, already.

[0]: https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP

>If the job is going unfilled, it isn't paying enough (either for conditions or to meet worker needs at some level), simple as that.

For an individual Role, yes. for an economy, no, because you run into supply limitations.

But anyways, that isnt the question. The question is which jobs add value and how to structure an organization so that it is efficient and effective.

If your organization is crappy enough, you might not be able to get net value out of roles, even if you fill them.

>900+ US school districts have moved to a four day week to retain teachers [1] [2], for example, because they have no other choice.

From what I have seen in California Schools, there is more than enough money for teacher salary, but the grift and organization is the problem. State funding is ~ 23k per student, you have 30 students per class, or $700k/class. The average salary of public school teachers in 2021–22 for the State of California was $88,508.

> Some even have three jobs.

Sounds like the problem is that people need three jobs to be comfortable.

“Comfortable” is far too nebulous of a metric to be useful in this discussion. How do you know they don’t have 3 jobs to afford an unnecessarily large/extravagant/showoff vehicle/house/etc? How do you define unnecessary?

who says they weren't comfortable?

if by comfortable you mean owning 4 rental properties then yes.

The second comment is deleted.

Specifically, in what direction did New York roll back the policy?

EDIT: Citations revamped to point directly to sources instead of my previous comments containing them.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-remote-work-eric-a...

> Gov. Kathy Hochul said it has been a longer transition back to office work than anyone expected, as she too had predicted (if not demanded) a more robust return to work schedule. But now it sounds like she is opening up to the idea, whether she likes it or not.

> "I think the mayor is simply acknowledging the reality. We have a shortage of workers especially in government," Hochul said, adding that a more robust office pattern could still arrive down the line. "I believe all this is transitional, it does not have to be the death sentence in five days a week ever again, but we are not quite there yet."

Just gotta give people a few more years to become more comfortable and effective at home and to be better supported by tools/infra/culture for remote work… then they’ll be ready to come back.

1.8M people over the age of 55 die every year in the US, half of which are in the labor force. Progress is inevitable as these workers age out, and younger workers take their place.

Why do people need to return to the office? I have Teams, Zoom, email, Slack, and a cellphone. I also don't have an hour commute each way. I've gotten more done "at work" at home than I ever did in the office. Meetings are now as long as they need to be, not the full 1-2 hours scheduled whether we need it or not. While the opportunities for chit-chat and out-of-band conversations are not as spontaneous, using all the tools we have for communications can be just as impactful for one's mental health.

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