Why Is It So Hard for Employers to Fill These Jobs?

The Daily Signal ^ | August 23, 2014 | Stephen Moore

[2ndDivisionVet]

America has a deficit of workers. Willing workers. Capable workers. Skilled, or at least semi-skilled workers, who can do a job and do it well. There are at least one million jobs that go begging day after day if only employers could find workers to fill them.

This probably seems hard-to-believe. After all, how can America have a worker shortage when we have about 18 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed? When the real unemployment rate is 12 percent?

Well certainly the economy isn’t creating nearly as many jobs as it should – in large part because of regulatory and tax restraints on hiring workers. Obamacare’s anti-employment impact, including the rule that caps employment at 50 workers or less at many firms to avoid the law’s higher costs, is just one example of a law that adds to unemployment lines.

But there are also millions of unemployed Americans who don’t have the skill sets to match what employers are in need of. To make matters worse, a lot of these frustrated job searchers have college degrees that are about as marketable as the paper diploma they are written on.

So what kind of jobs are going unfilled?

* Manufacturing – We always hear we are losing good manufacturing jobs in America and those bedrock middle class jobs aren’t coming back. Gregory Baise, the president of the Illinois Manufacturing Association, tells me that there are “some 500,000 jobs we can’t fill. It’s the biggest problem our industry faces.”. The industry needs welders, pipefitters, electricians, engineers. It needs people skilled in robotics and basic engineering.

* Trucking – At any time over the last several years there have been about 30,000 too few truckers to run long haul routes. The American Trucking Association tells me the number could be closer to 50,000. This is admittedly a tough and high-stress job with lots of time away from friends and family. But they are jobs that pay $50,000 and up, and a lot more than that with overtime.

* Energy – Bloomberg reports that “Gulf Coast oil, gas and chemical companies will have to find 36,000 new qualified workers” by 2016. Many energy towns have unemployment rates of less than 3 percent – in other words, there’s a worker shortage.

These aren’t menial or “dead end” jobs. They typically pay between $50,000 and $90,000 a year and with benefits the compensation can climb to $100,000. That’s rich in most nations.

Bob Funk, CEO of Express Employment Professionals, one of the nation’s largest temporary employment agencies located in Oklahoma City, places more Americans into jobs than just about anyone. With nearly half-a million hires a year he tells me, he can find a job for “any American with a strong work ethic and can pass a drug test.” He also estimates that the worker shortage – those with skills to fill available jobs – “is at least one million and probably higher than that.”

Why is it so hard to fill these jobs?

One reason is the curse of the so-called “skills mismatch.” American workers with high school or even college degrees just aren’t technically qualified to do the jobs that are open. This is a stunning indictment of our school system at all levels considering that all in parents and taxpayers often invest as much as $200,000 or more in a child’s education. We’re not turning our kids into competent workers.

Some governors like Mike Pence of Indiana have moved to make vocational education more standard in the Hoosier State. It’s a great idea and it’s a start.

But this won’t solve the whole problem because many companies are already willing to offer 3 to 6 months on the job training for trucking and manufacturing jobs. They will teach them men and women how to operate the machinery, the computers, and the scientific equipment. These aren’t sweatshop jobs.

Mr. Funk cites figures that more than half of the applicants for these kinds of jobs in the temporary job market can’t pass a drug test. “They are unemployable in that case,” he says regretfully.

Then there is the issue that these jobs don’t get filled because the work lacks glitz and glamour.

Too many Americans have come to view blue collar jobs or skilled artisan jobs as beneath them.

Contributing to this attitude is the wide availability of unemployment insurance, food stamps, mortgage bailout funds and other welfare. Taking these taxpayer handouts is somehow seen as normal and a first, not a last resort. One owner of a major trucking company told me last year, “drivers who get laid off don’t come back until their unemployment benefits run out.” This is documented by research from my colleagues at the Heritage Foundation who have found that “4 million Americans laid off in the recession faced effective marginal tax rates near or above 100 percent [because of welfare benefits], significantly reducing their attachment to the labor market.”

There’s no doubt America needs millions of more jobs. But we could put one million more people in jobs tomorrow if we get schools to train our kids with core competencies and if we could instill in Americans an old-fashioned work ethic. The only dead-end job is no job at all.

[ctdonath2]

As a part time professor of an intro to programming class, I was struck by a consistent and full 1/4 of my students would simply not do the work. They would sign up for class, show up to class, and ... just not do the work. The work was in no way difficult. I don’t mean what they did was inadequate (so long as they submitted _something_ I’d go to great lengths to correct and let them resubmit), they wouldn’t even try. These are kids capable enough to actually get into college - yet proved practically dysfunctional.

[DManA]

Just a guy who knows what eugenics is really all about.

[cornfedcowboy]

We have a surplus of labor, skilled and unskilled.

---

I disagree. I know many metal working shops and manufacturers that cannot find near enough people to work. Not even close.

[kabar]

Robert Rector of Heritage described how immigration helps expand GDP, which is natural when you increase population. He said you increase the pie, but everyone's slice of the pie gets smaller. His seminal 2006 article, Importing Poverty: Immigration and Poverty in the United States: A Book of Charts should be required reading for anyone involved with formulating public policy.

In effect, they're being brought here to replace the 50+ million Americans we've killed off since Roe v. Wade.

Although immigration drives 80% of our population growth, this country has no shortage of population. In 1970 we had 203 million people ; today it is 317 million. In 1970 one in 21 was foreign born; today it is one in 8, the highest in 90 years; and within the next decade it will be one in 7, the highest in our history.

There's no reason to lament the destruction of a nation that has done so much to cause its own demise.

When historians write about the rise and fall of the American empire, they will point to the Immigration Act of 1965 that sowed the seeds of our destruction. Demography is destiny.

[kabar]

Our black population would be at least twice the size it is now without abortion. How many of them would be givers rather than takers?

[kabar]

I disagree. I know many metal working shops and manufacturers that cannot find near enough people to work. Not even close.

Anecdotal information is meaningless. How many jobs are not being filled in metal working shops nationally? Are wages going up or down in this area?

Download the excel occupations spreadsheet from this report, Are There Really Jobs Americans Won’t Do? a detailed look at immigrant and native employment across occupations and let me know specifically of the 472 occupations listed where the shortages are by job code.

[Alberta's Child]

You're missing the point here.

The U.S. already has the highest standard of living in the history of mankind. If we import large numbers of people on the left side of the bell curve (in terms of income, net worth, or any other financial measure), our per-capita standard of living is likely to decline. But that decline will not be across the board. It will be the result of importing an entirely new lower class.

In effect, what has happened in the last 50 years is that the American middle class has largely disappeared -- by rising into the upper class. This does not mean that everyone is extremely wealthy, but when you look at how the "middle class" lives today you'll find that even the wealthiest people in the world couldn't live like that as recently as a few decades ago.

[cornfedcowboy]

My territory covers 15 states in the Midwest. Finding mildly skilled labor is tough.

[kabar]

The U.S. already has the highest standard of living in the history of mankind. If we import large numbers of people on the left side of the bell curve (in terms of income, net worth, or any other financial measure), our per-capita standard of living is likely to decline. But that decline will not be across the board. It will be the result of importing an entirely new lower class.

Per capita GDP is not calculated on averaging incomes or net worth. It is the value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year, converted at market exchange rates to current U.S. dollars, divided by the average (or mid-year) population for the same year.

Our standard of living is among the highest in the world, but it comes at a price. We are borrowing from future generations to continue a lifestyle that we can't afford. We are living beyond our means. In addition to over $17 trillion in the national debt, we have over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities in the form of our entitlement programs. Our standard of living will go down. The primary function of the USG is now wealth redistribution. The entitlement programs, other mandatories (means tested welfare programs), and debt servicing costs consume two-thirds of the federal budget. One out of every two households receives a check from the federal government. And government at all levels controls 40% of GDP--this is European welfare state level.

In effect, what has happened in the last 50 years is that the American middle class has largely disappeared -- by rising into the upper class. This does not mean that everyone is extremely wealthy, but when you look at how the "middle class" lives today you'll find that even the wealthiest people in the world couldn't live like that as recently as a few decades ago.

Nonsense. The middle class is descending into the lower class. The middle class is being destroyed for a number of reasons:

A. Many good paying jobs in manufacturing have been transferred abroad.

B. Real wages have been declining since 1969.

D. The importance of education and skills as related to wages and employment has increased.

E. The tax burden on the middle class has increased making it more difficult to move up the economic ladder.

The bottom line is that the destruction of the middle class will destroy the economy and reduce consumption of goods and services. We are taking on the profile of a third world country.

[kabar]

You will have to be more specific about the numbers and occupations involved.

So what is your company doing about the lack of skills available? Training? Increasing wages? Importation of foreign labor?

[Wyatt's Torch]

Manufacturing and Trucking - having worked for both a manufacturer and a trucking company I’m going to go with “failing drug tests”...

[cornfedcowboy]

So what is your company doing about the lack of skills available?

---

Selling them CNC automated equipment.

[kabar]

So what’s the problem?

[lavaroise]

Indeed. These corporations do not hire US workers because of government affirmative actions or specific psychological criterias. They want easy labor. Go to Frankfurt Indiana, and the Sheriff will tell you: unless your name is Jose, do not apply.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Yep, that was my experience way back when when I worked at 3M Sandpaper, Bournes Plastics and with FoxxConn.

[Vigilanteman]

Not just potheads, substance abusers of all types. Add in the former union types who are still using their last xy units of unemployment and you have a small qualified labor pool.

When I was a pup, you got scores of applications even for McDonald's type jobs.

[AuH2ORepublican]

“Why is it so hard to fill these jobs?

Too many potheads.”

---

Surely, the problem is that employers discriminate against potheads. Why, drugs are harmless—Rand Paul told me so. What could possibly go wrong if a pothead got a job as a long-haul trucker? Or working on an oil rig?

[zeestephen]

Re: “In some cases the wages are not a valid indicator because a higher wage doesn’t necessarily reflect higher productivity. “

That is an indictment of business owners and business managers.

They cling to an out-of-date business model that cannot support current labor costs.

40 years ago, owners and managers would have increased capital spending or started a new business.

Today, owners and managers bribe politicians with campaign donations and beg the government to supply them with low cost foreign workers.

[familyop]

So what kind of jobs are going unfilled?

* Manufacturing...The industry needs welders, pipefitters, electricians,..."

That kind of statement is either foolish or dishonest. Many of the positions going unfilled are for gypsies destined to spend all of their pay on hotel fees or take on insane mortgages for equipment for short term jobs.

But that's okay. Their are not so many lackies remaining to be laid off in the default process. Then, there will only be the increasingly naked propaganda.

[familyop]

"Why is it so hard to fill these jobs?

Too many potheads."

Potheads are preferred by pothead bosses in CO.