This article is hard to believe. We have 92 million people out of work in this country and companies can’t find talent?
They don’t just need a pair of hands. They need specific skill sets that are in short supply, compared to the current demand. My company has the same problem and we do pay above market rates.
....with experience...in a particular field that has little crossover expertise...
America's been painted into a corner with our job market. Over the years, unskilled labor positions have been outsourced while skilled labor positions have required more specific skillsets. I can point to my own industry, IT, as a perfect example:
When I started in IT in the mid-90s, anyone who could code a simple HTML web page was considered an "IT guy." Over the years, the understanding of computer basics has become commonplace to the point that Indians with a basic grasp of the English language could talk your 80 year old grandmother through clearing her Internet cache or rebooting her computer.
Now, even the Indians are starting to show their lack of advanced skills while lower-level IT positions such as help desk and desktop support are being "insourced" with many companies contracting their support for those roles to American workers. Sadly, the skillsets required for domestic help are higher than what was expected of the Indians, so you have many help desk positions going unfilled due to lack of basic IT functional understanding (i.e. the difference between RAM and disk space).
I'm seeing more and more often that the "low end" IT people are, to be frank, really dumb. They know how to shuffle around work orders to their engineers or do basic, scripted IT support, but overall, they have no drive to be better, they are just happy to have a job. Meanwhile, the rest of us are becoming more specialized in our disciplines, leaving gaps in certain specialties.
I have to imagine this all translates to other industries as well.
Most can’t pass a drug test. I have 70% failure on drug tests - even when you tell them there will be a test. Had one last week show up and blow a 0.14 at he clinic.
I now have two relatives working in the energy industry. Both took the jobs within the last 6 months. Prior to taking the jobs one was an underemployed college grad, the other was self employed but got out of it as being too expensive and hard to be a one man small business.