Posted on 06/19/2012 12:15:12 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last week’s disappointing unemployment report has refocused attention on the question of why, despite modest signs of economic recovery in recent months, American companies aren’t hiring.
Indeed, some of the most puzzling stories to come out of the Great Recession are the many claims by employers that they cannot find qualified applicants to fill their jobs, despite the millions of unemployed who are seeking work. Beyond the anecdotes themselves is survey evidence, most recently from Manpower, which finds roughly half of employers reporting trouble filling their vacancies.
The first thing that makes me wonder about the supposed “skill gap” is that, when pressed for more evidence, roughly 10% of employers admit that the problem is really that the candidates they want won’t accept the positions at the wage level being offered. That’s not a skill shortage, it’s simply being unwilling to pay the going price.
But the heart of the real story about employer difficulties in hiring can be seen in the Manpower data showing that only 15% of employers who say they see a skill shortage say that the issue is a lack of candidate knowledge, which is what we’d normally think of as skill. Instead, by far the most important shortfall they see in candidates is a lack of experience doing similar jobs. Employers are not looking to hire entry-level applicants right out of school. They want experienced candidates who can contribute immediately with no training or start-up time. That’s certainly understandable, but the only people who can do that are those who have done virtually the same job before, and that often requires a skill set that, in a rapidly changing world, may die out soon after it is perfected.
(Excerpt) Read more at business.time.com ...
Amen!
Every place I've worked since Personnel Departments disappeared has been strangled by HR. In my opinion, Human Resource staffers are nothing but frustrated sociologists. Unfortunately, they spread like weeds because government keeps piling on regulation after regulation and it requires expertise to navigate them.
HR people, incidentally, usually agree fully with those regulations.
I agree. Just the fact that's it's called "Human Resources" instead of "Personnel" (like it used to be in the good old days) gives you a peek into the mindset that goes into that department. HR operations are almost always run by liberal women, too.
I've noticed the same phenomenon with network programmers/administrators. That's not exactly idiot's work, but those guys are clueless when it comes to the very computers they work on daily.
I appreciate the approbation, bean counter. So many classify English degrees as “throwaway,” but I like to think of myself as the exception that disproves a generality.
English as a subject of study in most collegiate environments requires application approval by the faculty, and in my case, for composition, a very comprehensive portfolio of capable narratives, poetry, and non-fiction. It’s very a cutthroat degree field in many accredited universities.
Corporations are cutting their own throats, in many cases. I'm in aerospace. For certain specialties, a competent individual on contract can command 3-4 times the hourly rate (including benefits) than the company is willing to pay direct. These companies grouse about contractors, because they can't "control" their schedule, and they cost a lot. Giving 20% more to the direct employee would solve a lot of the issue.
But they prefer to pay less and lose their competent direct employees, apparently.
Not sure of what you want me to remind you of, but I certainly received training when I was a young kid starting out. Anyone working as a helper is getting training of a sort. Halliburton dumped a good deal of money into me, sending me to classes, training me on equipment and trucks. I guess my early work experience was different than yours, but yes, companies train employees.
First, and axiom on product development:
Better, faster, cheaper. Pick any two.
Now, an observation:
Employers want all three.
Of course not - and I won't question your experience. However, the salary/wage offered is likely reflected by the job requirements. If a college graduate presents him or herself to an employer without a specific skill set, e.g. licenses or certification in a given field or at least some college experience in the field they wish to enter, they are not going to be offered a big salary because their education doesn't enhance their value to the employer.
Simply holding a four-year degree, perhaps from a second-tier college and with no specific skill set, will not equate to being offered a well paying job by any employer. The days of simply being a college graduate equating to a comfortable position in some company and a track to senior management are long gone. Today, one needs an MBA and some kind of business experience (albeit volunteer) to have a shot at that kind of job. Even then...
Those college students with a clear focus that aim to enter specific fields and make sure they have some previous contact with that field e.g. summer internships, certifications, etc usually do well. However some fields are overcrowded and not a good choice unless the work means a lot more to the young person than the money.
While the $9. per hour wage you keep claiming I want to hypothetically offer college graduates reflects a misconstrued understanding of my original post, it will be the wage offered to some college graduates if they have no specific skills and simply walk in to an employer with a degree - and little else. In this poor economy, a potential employee has to offer more than a college education to command a decent salary because with the high unemployment rate there are many applicants with degrees and experience that will work relatively 'cheap' and not assume that their degree is a ticket to a big salary. Not anymore.
that, sir, is a brilliant observation! I fully intend to steal it from you (although I will admit that it is not originally mine)!
Bravo!!!
A US citizen willing to actually WORK 8 hours, that shows up consistently and not be on drugs and/or take a smoking break every 15 minutes is more rare than a 4 leaf clover. Even when you pay $100 cash at the end of each day (tax free)
Unfortunately, job seekers don't have the ability to check what the job normally pays, so are left to GUESS. So it's easy to miss the mark, either on the high or low side.
Another problem for young folks just graduating college is that they don't yet have experience in their field, so it's hard to get that foot in the door so that they CAN work themselves up to a higher paying job. Our daughter and I were looking for Entry Level positions in her field (Economics Major/Math Minor), and invariably, on the job search websites, positions kept popping up that were called Entry Level, but when the qualifications were listed, they asked for 2-3 years of experience! Hello?
So how does the new graduate GET experience if there are no Entry Level positions?
Nonsense. You see it all the time. People don’t want to admit the market has changed and they have to pay more for something than they used to pay.
Doesn’t matter whether it’s a commodity or an employee.
If you want quality people, you have to pay them quality money.
Yeah, as I posted a little while ago, our daughter is running into this problem of the ‘Entry Level’ job that requires two years or more of experience.
Put out requirements like that and you are going to get the over 40 crowd.
There are not that many people who go to college, get a four year degree and immediately start in a management position. It generally takes a couple of years at least of taking orders before they want you to give them
There was an American Management Association article in about 1999 that I thought I had saved. It was about downsizing, right sizing and all that we went through. The thesis of the article is that:
1. Experience was purged
2. Replacements for experience were yes men who went along with the program
3. Like hires like and we could expect more of #2
4. There would become a bias to not make hard decisions
5. The MO for improving the bottom line would be the learned process of decreasing cost because the persons in #2 weren’t taught anything else and had nobody to teach them anything else.
6. Persons in #2 were picked green
7. This would shape U.S. industry for at least 2 if not 3 decades
I’ve seen a lot of supporting evidence. YAHOO! It just makes my business better because I’ve hired a lot of people who were purged. We can still do things.
That is what happened at most places I have worked.
So have I, I’ve worked all kinds of jobs. I’ve worked for minimum wage, put myself through school for it, and supported myself that way.
I am a teacher. I apply for teaching positions, for which I am qualified. I volunteer as a teacher, have started my own business tutoring for the last 5.
I’m tired of working temp positions for 8-9 dollars an hour because that is all that is available. But, I have to work. I can’t just sit here and do nothing and life off welfare.
Then I get the comment from HR folks about how I’ve worked so many jobs.
“Umm, yeah” That’s what happens when you temp. I’ll work anywhere for anybody. They usually come back and assume that means that I’m unable to hold a longterm job.
I haven’t been hired for a longterm job, just contract work. I’ve applied, but haven’t been picked up. I’m supposed to be picky?
This is why I started my own business, I got tired of HR bullshit. I make anywhere from 2-3x what any business has been willing to shell out for me.
I still want to teach full time, but it’s looking increasingly unlikely that I’ll ever get hired. By anyone. :(
Sounds like the kind of idiocy I saw at my former employer before I got laid off. Even bigger problem was the politicization going on...instead of experienced leaders at the helm (who at least stayed for a few years and sorta knew what was going on) we had a succession of two-year-wonders who were there just long enough to raise hell and make names for themselves.
Between the layoffs and retirements (as people saw the building stupidity and decided it was time to go) they’ve lost—and continue to lose—a lot of their knowledge base.
I've been fortunate to have spent enough time at each place of employment so that I'm seen as well rounded in my experience.
In technical fields, I don't think that varied experience is a negative as much as nontechnical fields.
I work in Afghanistan as a contractor now, but, prior to this, I worked at the Kennedy Space Center EML (Eletro-Magnetics Lab). My first supervisor (Jacobs) used to comment to me frequently how much experience I had with a face that expressed he wasn't used to dealing with people with that much experience. My lab Boeing supervisor stated that I was the last person he wanted to see leave, even though I had been there for only 3.5 years and most of the others were there for greater than 20 years.
When I talk to Marines here and they talk about college, I emphasize that they may want to get a technical background with licenses first and an AS degree, then work on a BS degree while they are gainfully employed obtaining experience.
In the long run, I think they will fair better.
Business Socialism...where business now are dependent on the govt for training (schools, colleges, tech centers)....is killing enterprise in this nation
Used to be that a business trained their employees based on the skills they needed...even right up to management. Now that government schools fill this demand...businesses cannot wean themselves off of this Business Socialism
No sympathy for a business that refuses to hire...there are plenty of people out of work
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