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Comment by jellicle | Hacker News Reader

For those who aren't aware, this is an op-ed (meaning the newspaper doesn't stand behind any of the facts claimed) from a right-wing Koch brothers organization.

Several commenters have already noted that the fundamental "fact" here, that certain vocations are experiencing major shortages (the "skills mismatch" claim) is completely false, which it is. The Great Recession stretches across all job fields and locations in the United States and beyond.

Nutshell: this op-ed is from someone who hates broad-based education and wants to bring in a sort of reverse work-training system: you pay them for the privilege of working at various companies, and we call it modern vocational education.

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"...meaning the [normally liberal LA Times] doesn't stand behind any of the facts claimed."

"right-wing Koch brothers organization"

"from someone who hates broad-based education"

It doesn't seem to matter that these right-wing haters are praising an Obama program. It doesn't matter that these haters of broad-based education approve broadening education from the current one-size-fits-all college degree that leaves so many dropouts with a few semesters of useless film studies courses, no degree, no job skills, and enormous debt, to one that offers a much wider array of options for ending up with more value at less cost.

There are many skilled trades that offer much better career options than are available to most film studies dropouts, but there aren't many people getting the training needed to work in those trades, because they are all told that there is only one acceptable career preparation: a 4-year college degree in whatever studies.

Obama thinks this is a problem. The Manhattan Institute agrees and considers his program a step in the right direction.

Yet your main point seems to be a warning to us that, despite the usual reliability of the mainstream media, the source of this editorial is unexpectedly not one of the approved speakers of orthodox political doctrine, but is in fact a heretic, and we would be wise to cover our ears so as not to be deceived, and rely instead on your "nutshell" opinion.

Great that you noticed it's an op-ed by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, but, is the college for all model working?

The other option is college for the rich. So it's working better than the alternative.

How is that the only other option? How about college for those that will increase their economic productivity beyond the added cost?

Or how about an acknowledgement that it's becoming harder and harder for people to compete against machines?

What about college for those who want a career that demands a degree (realistically, not according to HR)? The discussion here should be about under what circumstances college is meaningful and appropriate, not whether author's world view. If the article is wrong, dispute it with sources.

Almost all careers are either certification-based or they create an arms race of education. When you have an arms race everyone has an incentive to get a degree but perhaps not everyone with said degree will get a job. Resources are wasted, but there isn't any incentive to stop the system from perpetuating itself. When you have a surplus of unemployed-educated people, why not hire over-educated workers? This reenforces the need for a degree.

Every time I see people saying "not everyone should go to college" during a non-economic-boom I wish they would start teaching game theory to high schoolers.

Another option could be "college for the intelligent, regardless of wealth".

There are skill shortages, just look to any job that pays over $100k. Data Scientists, Web Developers, Oil Rig Workers, Underwater welders, etc. The problem is that they arn't easy skills to learn or they arn't comfortable tasks to do.

Is it a skills shortage or a won't-pay-market-value shortage? If more MBA's and the like start choosing silicon valley will Wall Street cry shortage or will they just raise the rates of pay and bonuses? If someone making 100k a year couldn't find a helicopter to buy they would be laughed out of the room if they suggested it was due to a shortage of helicopters rather then them not having enough money to buy. But companies who have every incentive to keep wages down are listened to and believed whenever they proclaim that there is a skills shortage, rather than people questioning whether they're paying enough.

It's supply and demand man. The reason I don't own a helicopter is precisely because there is a shortage. Anything with a free-floating price is in shortage. I would totally buy a helicopter if they were $10k or less.

My point is that there isn't this magical jobs fountain that people are holding back from the masses, it's that there are large portions of the population that lack skills that are in demand in the work force.

I don't see how this is a controversial opinion.

The controversial opinion is that despite the 'shortage' (http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i... don't increase their pay rates substantially and instead complain that there's no one to hire.

I'm not sure what you think the "market value" is that employers won't pay. I'd guess it's something reasonable like the minimum you'd have to pay to get all the skilled workers you need. Raise your pay offer slowly, gradually attracting more people, until you have the people you need, and that amount of pay is the market rate.

But what if that rate of pay is more than the new employees are worth to the company, so hiring them would not benefit the company at all? Then it's not a market rate, because market rate isn't just the outer edge of what one side finds acceptable. If both sides don't find the rate acceptable, there's no market rate.

If a "greedy" employer refuses to pay what it takes to hire all the people they need, while their enlightened competitor does pay what it takes to get the necessary additional labor, one of those employers will have higher profits than the other, and the one with lower profits will be pressured by their investors to become more like the other.

That has been going on for centuries, and the result is a "labor shortage" in some areas, meaning companies (that always face competition from other companies) can't get all the labor they want at existing rates and wouldn't benefit from additional labor at higher rates. The problem may well be gradually driving the company out of business, but still, raising their wages would just drive them out of business faster.

What I'm saying is if you can't find employees at the current wage you're paying and increasing the wage means the employee is no longer worth it than you have the right amount of employees and there is no shortage. Companies aren't entitled to employees or entitled to be in business. Just because you can't afford something doesn't mean there is a shortage. But companies who are in this situation complain that there is a shortage when really they just can't afford the employees. All I meant was that I was annoyed at the constant talk of 'shortages'.

I understand your position, and I don't think your definition of "shortage" here is unreasonable. But shortage is a relative term--"short" relative to what?--and by some measures, there are real shortages in these situations. If we use corn instead of labor, for example, we might have a bad harvest one year, and the price of corn goes so high that it's not worth buying for certain products. The market still clamors for those products but isn't willing to pay what they would have to pay given the new price of corn. Your definition, if I understand it, would say that there is no shortage of corn; it's just more expensive than you can pay.

I'd still call it a shortage of corn, because I'm thinking of it relative to previous years, future expectations, the causes of the price change, etc. Rent control or earthquakes cause what many would consider a housing shortage, gov't price controls or bad weather create commodity shortages, and sufficiently generous welfare programs (you have to pay a lot more to make it worth working at all) or explosive increases in customer demand (not enough time for labor to learn new skills) can create labor shortages.

From the perspective of an employer, no longer being able to hire people at a wage that makes them worth hiring can be seen as a labor shortage, while from the perspective of a worker, no longer being able to get a job at a wage worth working for can be seen as a jobs shortage, but I agree with you that, especially if the changes are just the long-term evolution of the economy, there comes a point where it no longer makes sense to refer to something that will never come back as a "shortage".

Agreed the corn would be a shortage. But do you think there is a current shortage in STEM fields? A lot of people don't. http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i...

Thanks for that link. VERY interesting. My impression, subject to change, is that there is a STEM shortage at the bottom (technicians) that rapidly diminishes as you head toward the top (PhDs), where there is a significant surplus.

I think we are short technicians, because so many people who would have been happy with two years of technical training and a basic, working class wage after graduation are instead herded into 4-yr bachelor's programs, where they end up dropping out with a few semesters of Nonsense Studies classes and a mountain of debt, qualifying them only for welfare or Walmart. By the time they realize they would have been much better off with a skilled technician job and a working class lifestyle, it's too late. I think if we changed our attitude toward skilled tradespeople, we would almost all be better off. Since we used to do this, and the Germans still do, it's an artificial shortage in my opinion.

On the other hand, I think we're overloaded with PhDs, because so many want the prestige, but the marginal value to an employer of additional specialized education in a specialty other than the job itself falls off so rapidly. Someone who did years of PhD work on turkey feathers is not much more valuable to a drug company than he was when he got his bachelors in biology. For many, the prestige of the PhD will have to be its own reward.

Yea I'd'd agree that trades jobs/technicians are probably experiencing a slight shortage due to the reasons you said. In Australia trades people can easily clear 100k.

You bring up the Koch brothers simply because the author wrote a report for the Manhattan Institute?

That's like bringing up George Soros whenever you read an op-ed by someone who once worked for the Brookings Institute.

are you ok with the vast amount of money and time currently wasted on higher education? do you think the four year degree is really the most appropriate form of training in most cases?

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