Do folks sometimes forget that real people have to actually do jobs for them to be done?

[gulliver]

I see a lot of, "Well, so-and-so didn't do their job!" or "fire so-and-so for doing their job wrong!" or "hold so-and-so accountable!" Familiar examples of "so-and-so" are teachers, cops, and politicians. I'm sure we can all think of tons of others.

A lot of people appear to assume you can gripe and fire and "accountability" your way to getting quality workers to do necessary work. Nope. People have to want to do the jobs you want done, and they won't want to do them if they are getting grief all the time.

On the flip side, a lot of people also seem to assume that if only there were monetary resources, every important job we need done would be done. Nope. No matter how much money is available, you can only hire from the available pool of people. Those people have to both be able to do the job you want done and want the job in the first place.

[Delphinus]

1. Interesting.

I was thinking something along these lines earlier today when I was out.

[Farmer-Rick]

2. Sort of

Last edited Mon Apr 10, 2023, 09:48 PM - Edit history (1)

The more you offer higher monetary resources, the bigger the available pool of people.

If you offer $10,000 a year your pool of people who can afford to work for such low, low wages isn't very big. If you offer $80,000 a year, your pool of people who can afford to work at that wage just got a whole lot bigger.

It's like offering a house with a leaky roof up for sale. The pool of people who can afford to buy a new house then immediately turn around and fix a roof isn't very big. But by fixing the roof, you just expanded the pool of people who can afford to buy your house.

[Meadowoak]

4. +1

[meadowlander]

6. It depends on how common the skill set is.

Most people can pick tomatoes so if you increase wages from $10,000 to $80,000 you'll have a lot more candidates.

Not many people are qualified to do surgery or nuclear physics or civil engineering or IT security. So even if you triple or quadruple wages there's still only so many people qualified to do those jobs. The higher wages may be an incentive for more people to train in that field, but there's still a 4-8 year lag time while they are training.

[Farmer-Rick]

8. Yes but

If you offer a larger salary for a nuclear physicist, surgeon or civil engineer, you may lore people to come out of retirement, move to your location or finish up their studies sooner for the larger salary. There maybe a limited quantity of those people but you will attract them. People won't do those things for average salaries.

[Freddie]

3. Had this discussion with my brother yesterday

The “labor shortage” is 2 things - people our age (boomers) retiring, and fewer and better educated younger people, many of whom don’t want to do those jobs that need to be done (cook, health aide, etc) and have the education required to NOT do those jobs. The solution? Somehow make those jobs pay a living wage and make immigration and citizenship easier. The R’s will have a shitfit.

[crickets]

5. This. nt

[zipplewrath]

7. Employment is fungible

Employers tend to think that means that they have the upper hand. They think they can hire and fire at will. But it is also true that employees can view each job as fungible. That there are other jobs, just as crappy, that they can do for the same money, or less, but without the hassles that the current job offers. Not all employees see things this way, but it is a not so insignificant number.

When you have crappy jobs to offer, you will be surprised how people will tend to look for less crappy jobs. Alternately, people will tend to appreciate a low crappy level job and have a tendency to resist leaving it for fear of ending up in a terrible place.