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 ...
I enjoy these stories due to the recent relevance in my life.
I lost my job back in November 2011 and was unemployed for 6 months. I was interviewed for 39 different positions over the course of those 6 months and landed in a great job.
In IT, there’s a HUGE problem with “skillset relevance.” In most companies where I’ve worked, the high-level engineers had no certifications or degrees in relevant fields (myself included), but they had decades of experience in the field.
When I was attending college from 98-02 as a computer science student, we were pretty much promised jobs netting us $70K-$90K out the gate. While I graduated with a degree in English, I had 10 years of IT experience at graduation. I found that MOST IT jobs, esp. in programming, would start you in the neighborhood of $40K-$50K, obviously depending on the company. Local, smaller companies just don’t have the budget to pay you the salary your professor promised you.
Next, as operating systems, programming languages, hardware platforms, and mobile technologies mature, so does the need for training on newer technologies. I applied for jobs in 2004 and had minimal experience with servers. I had an old desktop I used to run Linux and Windows Server 2000. When I interviewed for the job I eventually I got, I had no idea that Microsoft had a Server 2003 operating system. The fact that I had expertise in documentation and experience with at least some sort of server operating system, I got the job.
Most college graduates have very specific, razor-thin knowledgebases that groom them for a very specific, razor-thin job. The more you diversify your skillsets, the more apt you are to find jobs that you’d enjoy. When I interviewed for IT positions recently, I was always one of the finalists due to the fact that less than 5% of IT professionals do documentation, let alone LIKE it. I transformed my hobby love for computers and my educational credentials in the written language into a job that allows me to do both.
My advice to job seekers: diversify. You spent your whole life building houses or highways? What others activities do you enjoy? You like fishing? How about applying to a local dock builder or wharf?
The problem going forward is that so many kids have lost the knack for hobbies. Social media has become a hobby, but it’s nothing more than a way for those of us with other hobbies to mine data on you. The upcoming generations are going to have problems with skills as they become more enmeshed and interested in each others’ lives and less interested in their own interests, hobbies, and dreams.
The skills gap is in middle management because the MBA having CEO wannabe executive teams injected by the venture capitalists have fired all of them who had any knowledge and enough balls the shine a light of common sense on the “outsource it all to the the lowest bidder” gravy train.
Businesses don’t want to train because they can’t. The capable middle managers who grew up and have deep knowledge in the business have been $#!T canned because somebody thought they were over paid and underworked. All that’s left are powerpoint emailing yes men who’s primary skills are sucking up and avoiding blame. And I say this not as one who has been cast off, but as a lowly cube dwelling engineer with 5 bosses.
That’s true, but here’s the problem, bcsco. (& I can only speak for the insurance industry)
I don’t know if it is because women have come to dominate the workforce or what, but the jobs that are out there are offering salaries equal to, or below, those in the 1980s. In 25 years, everything has gone up. To offer someone with 25 years experience the same or less than they made when they began is pretty outrageous. Salaries went up for a time, slightly, but they are now back down to that point. Companies who were offering the low to mid 50s in 2002 are now “doing good” to offer around 40,000. Many are in the upper 30s.
The quality of production among co-workers is terrible! Which makes doing their jobs more difficult. The quality of service to consumers is, generally, not much better. The whole system is deteriorating.
I am a firm believer in the free market. You get what you pay for. (This is a key phrase” You Get What You Pay For) And if you don’t, you go elsewhere. Just because the “going rate” for a very bad deal is the only option doesn’t ultimately mean success for anyone.
Isn’t this playing into the hands of the socialists? Not to mention hurting the economy.
The advantage goes back and forth, ideally, with the law of supply and demand. Ask a home-improvement contractor to compare his ability to pick and choose among customers for any reason (size of job, distance to job, difficulty of job, perceived customer PITA factor), and his ability to dictate his price, in 2004 vs today.
Yep, it doesn't matter the job. For some positions that are listed every week for months, just keep re-applying until the application is seen.
Rather than seeking a "right fit", they seek a "first fit".
Seems odd for both employer and employee considering it will take a large commitment of time and resources and may become a relationship lasting decades.
We have found that many of the long-term unemployed have gone feral. They start and immediately want time off. If they don’t have the time built-up, they freak out. They are so used to going when they want to go, they can’t abide a schedule.
My other favorite was the woman who had “extensive Microsoft computer experience” but later needed help because she didn’t have “Dell experience”. She had been out of work so long she forgot how to use a computer.
“Applicants don’t set the price for their ability. ‘
Sure they do, its basic supply and demand. If the company won’t pay what people want then they won’t be able to ‘buy’ someone for that position.
Either the applicants will find someone willing to pay their price or they’ll have to adjust their pricing.
I think that there is an issue with willingness to pay for the skill set, but I also think that increasing numbers are graduating from college without a basic set of skills.
For example, what I do (and I’ll be retiring in a few years) requires good grammar and spelling. It is hard to find folks these days who have been taught - and the abbreviated messages in texting don’t help.
A friend of mine works in a small 4-year college where the sole entry qualification appears to be breathing enough to fog a mirror. He teaches basic accounting and the effort applied by his students and their expectation of a good grade are amazingly dissonant.
In the past few years, the instances I have experienced and seen have been mind-blowing.
” Hello my FRiend :~) “
Well, Hi, Workerbee - long-time-no-see... ;)
Sorry to hear about your changed circumstances - prayers that you find suitable - and lucrative - employment soon...
Do ya still have the boat???
Employers need jobs done right now, and they don’t want to invest in training, because in this economy, they don’t know how long they will need the employee. Employers are also running on the margin, and they can’t pay much, because the economy sucks, and they can’t raise their prices. So the solution is for them to hire Obama’s illegals for part time positions requiring minimal training and peon wages. It all still boils down to the fact that this economy is the worst it has ever been, and it won’t be fixed until Obama is run out of the White House.
The first thing I do is drive through the parking lot and see what everyone is driving. If the lot is full of junkie old cars you don't even apply.
“If that’s not the goal for corporations today, then they’re cutting their own throat.”
No, it’s not. They’ll offer cut-rate salaries and ask for considerable experience in the position. They price the folks with experience out of the job, and seem surprised when they get lots of folks without experience apply.
Take general labor in agriculture, picking vegetables. Farmers complain that they can't hire Americans because they wont take the wage or are not hard workers.
The usual chain of events would be to increase the salary or innovate. There is a cost difference between them. As of now, there is not a technology to replace some forms of labor.
So Ag lobby to get foreign workers or simply use illegal immigrants. They could advertise for higher wages, but they wont push up the salary enough to hire those needed wages. So the imported workers then work at a reduced, but not 'market' salary.
I work with several programmers who tell me they have learned their last language. Which sucks because we are converting to Groovy and Grails so they will have to retire.
Also I know programmers who are terrified of their computers. They ask me if it is OK to “click OK to install” when they are installing something. “How do I move this icon?”. It’s amazing how many times I fix something just by standing in their cubicle.
If you hire a programmer, make sure they own a computer.
“think a job offer of anything less than $60,000. per year and perks is an insult because they have a degree (in ‘woman’s studies’ or ‘fine art’). I suspect that’s where the issue of applicants not wanting to accept the ‘going wage’ is coming from.”
As we get a little further on:
“even if they were not college educated, someone in their 30’s, 40’s or 50’s is not ready to accept $9.00 an hour for their labor in an ‘entry level’ job”
We get the truth. So, you’re offering college graduates 9 an hour? That’s a pretty large gap between the ‘60k’ that you think they think they are entitled to, and what you’re actually offering.
Offer crap wages, get crap applicants.
RE: “Nunchuck skills... bow-hunting skills... computer hacking skills...”
You forgot: Must be a king-fu expert and know the following : crane-style, preying-mantis style and eagle’s claw.
Doesn’t work. A lot of programmers drive junkers. I worked with one that drove a Beetle that was so old, you could see the road going by under your seat. He was using his car payment for gambling.
I recall listening to a podcast of a presentation by the author of the Ruby on Rails framework.
He said that he saw job ads looking for 5 years experience in Rails applications 3 years after he released it.
Exactly-you can’t expect to pay people in peanuts, and that’s exactly why our IMMIGRATION has to stop. Wages will never rise when you have a continuous flood of people coming in who will work for $5.00-8.00 hr., live people 15 to a house OR can be fired at the drop of a hat and have their visas revoked by their employers. It’s hard enough to compete against 150 million or more of your own citizens for a job, but even worse when you have to compete against millions of foreigners. Remember the Katrina cleanup? There were job agencies with Americans willing to work for 10$ an hr., but they hired Mexicans instead.
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