Skilled labor: A troubling article

[GOPFighter]

Edited subject line

Just read a troubling article in the WP. Frankly, I find it hard to believe. I'm a manager who works for the federal government and we have had no trouble attracting bright, motivated, hard working young people. We recruit nation-wide and those who get hired must move to the Washington, DC area - a very high cost of living area. Even so, our starting wages are somewhat less than the $20 an hour mentioned in the article, even though we require a BA at a minimum.

Does this article ring true for the area you live in?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30139-2004Aug24.html

David L. Hurley is eager to hire new workers at his Florida surveying company and isn't asking for much: Only a dozen or so people with enough basic math to learn the software he uses to make blueprints, and enough basic sense to show up on time.

But after weeks of want ads and recruiting, he has drawn a conclusion: The workers aren't out there. While there are plenty of people who "can fog a mirror" and might be able to do grunt work on a survey crew for $8.50 an hour, Hurley said the economy has run short of people with the types of basic skills he could mold into a $20-per-hour survey crew chief.

"I would add 15 people tomorrow if I could find them," said Hurley, president of Landmark Engineering & Surveying Corp. of Tampa. "We need people with some knowledge of trigonometry and geometry. It's really just arithmetic. We're turning down work because we don't have the people."

[Fovea]

1. The Republican solution

vouchers for faith based schools that teach divine arithmetic.

[Ruffhowse]

2. This is certainly NOT the situation in my area of the country (Portland,

OR). I have been unemployed for longer than I'd like to admit, and I have applied to many, many jobs outside my area of expertise (IT), and have had no takers. I have been VERY creative in this effort and in selling myself and my skills. I have a good college degree and over 20 years of work experience, not all of it IT, so I've done a wide variety of things. I've revised my resume multiple times and applied to many jobs that I know I could do, but no offers. The only interviews I get are in the IT arena, and none of those have resulted in any offers. So don't believe this crap about jobs going without takers. This is just RW propaganda trying to make the economy look better than it is.

[Warpy]

3. It's total bullshit

The US has the largest educated workforce in the world and a lot of it is out of work or underemployed, thanks to the fools like the one who wrote this article.

The problem isn't that he can't find qualified workers, the problem is that he can't find qualified workers who will take a higher stress job at WalMart wages. He's justifying his own greed and unwillingness to pay a living wage with that tired old excuse that Americans aren't good enough.

His other problem is that he wants some other company to train workers. Well, I'd suggest if he wants workers who do things his way, perhaps he might consider an apprenticeship program and treating journeyman workers with the respect they deserve so they don't leave.

We've been through a long period of oversupply in labor in this country, with an attendent overeducation and overqualification as baby boomers have needed not only training but constant retraining to stay employed. Perhaps that might be another factor at work, unrealistic managerial expectations.

In any case, the workforce isn't the problem. He is.

[sniffa]

4. that's what i do now for a Living

i don't know if i couLd move to fLorida for that pay though. but then again, fLorida is cheap cost of Living, no?

[finecraft]

5. Here they would want the crew chief for $8.50 hr.

Here in Louisiana we are losing all our highly- skilled/trained/educated because the employers still don't
realize that you need to pay people more than minimum wage to keep motivated workers.
We're a right-to-work state, so unions don't matter, and the employers
let the workers know that. The big push here is to get everyone to go to trade school (technical college), so we can have the "grunts" work for $6.00 per hour, but the survey crew chief, with his technical college training, can earn $8.50.

[KurtNYC]

6. They are offering less than $40K for a BA

That seems like the problem.

I offered to buy 20-dollar bills for $10 each and even though there were plenty of Twenties around I got no takers also.

[amazona]

8. exactly right -- they want that twenty for ten bucks!

My partner has almost 20 years experience to get $20 an hour. Many highly skilled laborers in Louisiana, no matter how many years of experience, could never hope to earn that much. So it's a good thing we have a low cost of living, I guess.

Investing tons of money in more and more credentials, and more and more degrees, is throwing good money after bad -- the opportunity is just not here. Sure, it would be nice to have more credentials, but when he does the math, it doesn't make sense -- more debt to get the credentials to earn no more money -- and sometimes even less money if he has closed doors for people who won't hire because "you are over-qualified and won't be loyal to the company."

I see people over-invest in expensive educations, only to end up struggling because they get no more money but have a lot more debt. I have no sympathy for employers in this market unless they are willing to offer training, apprenticeships, etc. If they want a worker to get (yet another) expensive credential, it's time they paid for it, frankly.

[mhr]

7. Dallas, TX

My CV

BSEE
MBA
Commercial Pilot
Honorably Discharged Naval Officer

18 years experience

Unemployed 4 years

2,500+ resumes out the door

No prospects, No Hope

[hackwriter]

9. This is horses**t

It's not that companies can't find intelligent workers, it's that they don't want to hire women, minorities, anyone over age 35, anyone with ambitions to go further, anyone who doesn't have ambitions to go further, anyone who is lacking any one of a skill set of 200 technologies.

I'm not kidding. This is the gambit companies are using to justify outsourcing and H-1Bs...they make up a job description no one fits exactly, and then they hire 5 H-1Bs at peanut wages instead.

10. Exactly--

Microsoft does the same thing to justify building HQ in India.

[Kenneth ken]

11. based on

the excerpts (I don't like registering at Wapo or the NYT)

I would point out that
a) trigonometry and geometry are not "basic math"
b) "mold into a $20-per-hour" is NOT the same as saying the job pays $20-per-hour to start.

May be shoddy reporting, or may be that the person quoted has a whiny agenda and really isn't willing to pay a decent wage.

In re FL as a cheap cost-of-living state; land is relatively cheap; I found everything else there was pretty much the same as in CO, where I had moved from. The first month or so I was there, I compared prices to what they had ben in CO and saw very little difference on most things. Unfortunatley, my wages did reflect a "cheap cost of living" - which is why I don't live there now.

[shrike]

12. Sounds like the florida I remember

There used to be a saying, "You get part of your pay in sunshine." I figured out pretty quickly that I can't eat sunshine, and it won't pay my electric bill.

[area51]

13. Folks can avoid annoying registration

by going to bugmenot.com (link opens in new window). I like it.