Unemployment Is High And Employers Are Still Struggling To Fill Low Wage Jobs

Slate Magazine:

But the Journal article seems to overlook one important factor. Even in an age of historic underutilization of the labor force, the laws of supply and demand apply. Hiring is a negotiation between employers and employees over the terms at which they'll agree to come to work--wages, benefits, working conditions, length of commute, relocation requirements. Maybe some of these employers just aren't offering terms that are good enough.

Read the whole story: Slate Magazine

Comments

[Sundialsvc4]

01:41 PM on 08/13/2010

Don't remember the author of the song but I do remember two lines:

"Ain't gonna eat your rice and beans. Ain't gonna suck on a chili dog ..."

[Mik McAllister]

07:50 AM on 08/13/2010

Thank you!

My rent, plus utilities, currently run about $900 a month... for a one-room "studio" apartment with only a microwave for kitchen facilities. According to *federal guidelines* for affordable housing, housing should be 30% of your income or less (it used to be, before the Bush-shiite, 25%). That means my *net* monthly income should be 3000 a month to *afford* this place. That's more than $10 per hour.

And if I have to pay $300+ a month in payroll deductions to pay for health care, my required wage goes up.

However, that is predicated on a 40 hour work week, which a lot of employers are not allowing. I have friends who work as nurses who are not allowed to work 40 hours, and friends in assembly plants (much more rare these days) who are not allowed to work 32 hours. WinCo, an "employee owned" grocery chain, announced last winter it was forcing all employees to reduce their hours to 30.

Employers do not believe I am worth this money. As an employee, my services to customers or my work on actual products sold by the company are not relevant. Executives serve the investors, and that's where the "real" money is.

[WOODSTOCKER51]

07:05 AM on 08/13/2010

.........MOST EMPLOYERS ARE LIKE SHARKS.."SMELLING BLOOD".THEY KNOW IN TIMES LIKE THESE.THEY HAVE THE UPPER HAND...THEY OFFER BELOW LIVING WAGES...AND ZERO BENEFITS....AND IF YOU DONT TAKE THE JOB..THEY OPENLY COMPLAIN ABOUT HOW THEY HAVE JOBS BUT EVERYONE IS TOO LAZY TO WORK FOR THEM!...JUST TRY PAYING 1/2 YOUR MORTAGE...1/2 YOUR ELECTRIC BILL...1/2 YOUR FOOD BILL....SEE IF THEY "REALIZE YOUR PLIGHT AND GIVE YOU THOSE SERVICES AT WHAT YOU CAN AFFORD"..............ROFLMAO.NEVER HAPPEN!......AND SEE HOW GREAT IT IS TO BE "EMPLOYED AT SERF LEVEL"...........ITS A SAD STATEMENT FOR AMERICANS AND AMERICA!.....

[hey0there]

12:48 AM on 08/13/2010

get rid of the H1B Visa. Anyone reading this I want you to look up H1B Visa if you don't know what it is then wonder why Obama not out there spreading the word that there are plenty of high paying jobs in these fields that they import foreigners to do. We used to fill these positions ourselves with our bright tech-savvy graduates. We can again.

Thats one program that can be eliminated and simply througu education can be for American citizens again

[kirkland]

08:53 PM on 08/12/2010

Americans have been so disabused by employers that they're no longer willing to be exploited.
The remedy is a no brainer : pay your employess a LIVING wage ( few do ) for starters and don't exploit an experienced machinist by offering him a job at entry level wage.
I heard some nasty GOP rhetoric tonight concerning " lazy americans who won't go off unemployment INSURANCE ( note to Repubs: not *welfare* ) to accept minimum wage jobs ".
I'd love to see a Senator with 20 years experience work for $13.00 per hour. A machinist actually effects the bottom line . I don't know that i can say the same for a majority of the Georgetown crowd.

[WOODSTOCKER51]

07:08 AM on 08/13/2010

ALL CONGRESSMEN AND THEIR STAFFS........SHOULD WORK AT MINIMUM WAGE..AND GET BENEFITS THAT ARE NOT "LIFE LONG".....{TOTAL TERM LIMITS OF 6 YEARS,LIFETIME}.

{IMAGINE,WE PAY FOR THEIR HEALTHCARE BENEFITS EVEN IF ONLY ELECTED TO ONE TERM!.THATS OUTRAGEOUS}

[Sundialsvc4]

01:50 PM on 08/13/2010

Congressmen "work for" more than $1 million per person per day in bribes ... and this is just the bribes that they admit to. This just happens to be a documented, provable fact.

Now, the US Constitution says that's a "high crime." But, no, we are supposed to believe and to accept that it's really "constitutionally protected corporate freedom of speech."

There was a reason why the Constitution called "bribery" and "treason" High crimes. One is "the enemy within," the other, "the enemy without." Both have the power to deliver an entire nation to its Doom for the personal benefit of corrupted Civil Officers.

Bribery is an "enabling crime." Virtually every form of ORGANIZED CRIME depends on it. And I chose to upper-case those two words, simply to emphasize that this is really the thing that we are dealing with here: organized crime.

The "too big to fail banking" is a none-too concealed numbers racket, grown so large and so swaggeringly confident that it no longer attempts to conceal itself.

If you want to send 30 million American citizens to the soup line, you can do it and with Congress's blessings (and their defense), AS LONG AS the proper wire-transfers go to the proper false-front accounts every single day WITHOUT fail.

[halfpricefaustian]

05:22 PM on 08/12/2010

So this is "Atlas Shrugged" in reverse. Instead of the wealthy refusing to work and carry the rest of a lazy and unmotivated society, this is the people who actually do all the grunt work refusing to work for the crumbs that the elite want to give them. Ayn Rand is gone, but someone should forward this to Alan Greenspan. I outgrew Ayn Rand when I moved out of my parent's home.

[trishann51]

01:28 PM on 08/12/2010

We should jump for those low paying jobs, or any job, especially if it comes with benefits. But I understand the ones that are holding out for the better jobs, especially if you are getting the maxium unemployment check. I think it is being smart, not lazy when you have a family to support by not taking the $8.00 an hour job as opposed to the few hundred dollars or maxium unemployment benefit.

[clearthinker2008]

07:14 AM on 08/13/2010

Yeah 8 bucks (more like $7.50) an hour isn't going to support one independent person let along family. Not in this Country.

[denbeath]

10:31 AM on 08/12/2010

My plan: Find a cheap Mobile Home Park, buy a 'pre-loved' mobile home for under $4,000. Grow my own vegetables, preserve veggie (canning) for the winter, dig a root cellar (not as hard as you think), forget cable TV, Netfix is the best deal in town & http://freedocumentaries.org/index.php is, well..free. There are lots of free ebooks. Put in a rain barrel to preserve H2O to water veggies, buy LED light bulbs ..my objective is to live as independently as possible for as cheap as possible. I never, ever want to be put back in the position of being exploited by an employer again, working for low wages, disrespected & being treated as if they are doing me a big favor by allowing me to work for them for a mere pittance, having doctor's note ignored, getting written up for taking a sick day when 8 have already been accrued, etc. You think you own your big beautiful house, two cars, and other luxuries when in fact; THEY OWN YOU. Live simple, live free.

"The borrower is the slave of the lender."

[MyOpine]

01:12 PM on 08/13/2010

are you aware that once you buy that mobile home, they still charge you a monthly rent in order to park that mobile home.

I understand the thought and premise though - it should be what we all strive for at some level. I do have a small vegetable garden that grows enough for me and a few friends and neighbors. I have very little debt other than my home (which I paid a low price for - because I wasn't greedy).

[denbeath]

07:29 PM on 08/13/2010

yes, I'm aware that a mobile home park charges lot rent. my goal is to eventually buy a couple acres with an exsisting well....baby steps :)

[TracerTong]

09:56 AM on 08/12/2010

This article makes a reasonable point that I think will largely be missed. The job market is still subject to supply and demand. Simply because unemployment is high does not mean that every job opening will immediately be filled. With the machinist example, we're looking at a specific skill set, which isn't well represented locally. In the airline example, we're looking at a job that requires people to travel half-way across the world, which is especially difficult thanks to the housing crisis.

Basically, this isn't a reflection on unemployment. Its a reflection on the job market still being subject to normal laws of supply and demand.

[graffitijoe]

08:05 AM on 08/12/2010

THis is good news, right? After all, this is the Summer of Recovery.

[cef911f1]

07:54 AM on 08/12/2010

The $13/hr machinist job in Il is a prime example of "free trade". The likely reason for the low wage is that the company has to compete now globally. Before I was laid off from a mid-management position, the company I worked for was outsourcing machining work to the far east. We could get parts machined to print and shipped to SC cheaper than having them machined locally ini non0union shops (and shipping steel isn't cheap). I suppose my opposition to this is one of the reasons I'm not there anymore.

[satanlite]

07:01 AM on 08/12/2010

"And here, too, corporate America hasn't been delivering. The median income in 2008 was below what it was in 1998."

This is how Republicans roll. They have succeeded in lowering the American workers wage and salaries and the American worker is not particularly happy, especially when they see the concentration of wealth and wretched excess exhibited by the CEOS and company owners who are making a sweet, sweet life while they are relegated to comparative squalor.

Empoloyer-employee is predator-prey. The only thing that can help the prey is a UNION. We need more and stronger employee unions in this country to turn this around and make the country great once again for all it's people - not just the 2% squatting on top of the heap.

[Snarliechell]

01:14 AM on 08/12/2010

That is a good point but by extending unemployment are we just making it worse.

[mariusvinchi]

04:07 AM on 08/12/2010

Put down the crack pipe, turn off Faux News and put down the Wall Street Journal...
My ex-wife has been looking for a job for the last year, after her company shuttered its doors and "outsourced" to Mumbai India. She has sent out countless resumes and applied for hundreds of jobs. None remotely close to her previous earnings. With a MBA, she has been told that she is "grossly over-qualified" when applying for menial jobs, and no one is looking for someone with her experience in this region. She has applied for positions as far as 200 miles away and still nothing. Her benefits expired, she is in a panic, and still no end in sight.
ANYONE who thinks people are simply sitting on their butts, collecting benefits and not interested in getting a job are simply delusional!
Now I ask you the same question the author of that article asks. How far would you travel/commute/uproot your family to take a job that pays $13.00 per hour without benefits?
What if you are in a two income household and your spouse cannot relocate?
My point is that nothing is that cut and dried....

[clearthinker2008]

07:16 AM on 08/13/2010

Well said. Fanned.

[marijam]

07:42 AM on 08/13/2010

What if you own your home and it won't sell? Thousands, if not millions of two income households are in this exact situation.

[satanlite]

07:03 AM on 08/12/2010

Yeah, right. It's making employers reconsider their incredibly low wage and salary structures if they want quality employees. Aww, poor employers.

[Tenley]

11:53 PM on 08/11/2010

Um, it's a $13 an hour job in DUBAI. Of course local U.S. machinists aren't flocking to sign up.

[amdezurik]

12:30 AM on 08/12/2010

female ones inparticular, if they would even be considered

[jmdziuban1]

05:38 AM on 08/12/2010

$13/hr in Illinois, $26,000/yr. for skilled labor. Not much. $30.000/yr in Dubai, and all that comes with moving to Dubai. Authoritarian government, high cost of living, prohibition except in the foriegn tourist areas, etc.

[satanlite]

07:04 AM on 08/12/2010

Not to mention you'll be a 3rd class citizen and treated as such.

[sueinmn]

11:07 PM on 08/11/2010

The GOp believe if you do away with the minimum wage requirements, their would be no unemployed. Are THEY willing to work for pennies on the doollar?

Congress votes themselves raises ane does so in such a way that next year, we will never hear a word about it. Different standards for different classes.

Hypocrits!

[MsWoman]

01:44 AM on 08/12/2010

Obama Signs Bill to Freeze Congressional Pay Raises
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2010/05/14/obama-signs-democrats-bill-to-freeze-congressional-pay-raises/

[WOODSTOCKER51]

07:12 AM on 08/13/2010

.THAT SAME THINKING WAS USED BY THE CZARS OF RUSSIA..........