The hypocrisy pointed out though, is one random person in an online forum making a comment, and then we see a similar thing here. So wouldn't the hypocrisy be existent on both sides? That the right wouldn't have mocked it then, but does now, whereas the left mocked it then, but doesn't now? It's not just hypocritical from the left. Both sides suck. It happens in political conversations ALL THE TIME. Each side thinks whatever is happening, it's the first time it has ever happened to anyone.
There are plenty of examples of McJobs being mocked when Bush was President. It wasn't just one post on an internet forum.
Wouldn't it be a better economy if the faster growing sectors weren't food service and census workers?
yes it would. It'd also be an awesome economy if there was no unemployment at all. Should McDonalds wait to hire, until others have hired first?
Remember when the smarmy answer to low paying jobs was "Yeah, I'm working three of them."? Now just one low paying job seems like manna from Heaven. Times have changed.
to paraphrase something Denny said a while ago: if you'd have taken 1/10th the stimulus ($80B) and put it into full-ride scholarships to get M.S. Eng. degrees (assuming $160-200k for 7 years of really good private school), you might be able to have 4-500,000 new engineers/researchers. If you get tuition at public-school rates then you can get around a million. Think of the civil engineering, energy research, materials technology research, etc. that you could be coming up with with a million trained brains working the problems. And I'm not an economist, but it seems like for each one of those people getting a job there's some multiple of job growth at all levels, from McD's to car salesmen to teachers to doctors.
Are there engineering jobs that can't be filled due to lack of labor supply? If not, I don't see how this helps. As many recent graduates will testify, having an education doesn't necessarily mean having a job. barfo
A few points. Unemployment can never be zero. There is always going to be maybe 3% or 4% of the 120M workforce that is between jobs. When we had ~4% unemployment, places like Burger King had to pay quite a bit higher than minimum wage because of supply/demand (supply being few available workers, demand being lots of people able to afford burgers). When employment is near full, bigger govt. means govt. is starving the private sector for employees. So yeah, it would be a great thing if McDonalds was hiring after others hired first. It would also be a great indicator for the economy if the fastest growing sectors were high paying jobs.
There are many engineering jobs that aren't filled right now due to lack of labor supply. I'd submit that there aren't many engineering graduates who can't find a job, and fewer still with a Master's in a field and/or some research experience. English majors, sure. PoliSci? You bet. Metallurigical engineers? Materials designers? Nuclear physicists? All hiring right now.
There was a Clinton joke along those lines... Clinton jogs into a McDonalds. The guy behind the counter recognizes him and tells him he's not going to vote for him next time around. Clinton says, "you do realize I've created millions of jobs!". And the guy responds, "yeah, I have 3 of them." During his first term, jobs like food service and janitorial were the fastest growing sectors. After the Internet was privatized, a huge number of high tech jobs were created.
A LOT of engineering jobs are being filled by foreigners here on visas. Michio Kaku says we have a serious brain drain going on because those guys end up going home.
I'm an independent business owner/contractor who doesn't pay my corporate taxes until the end of the year. I think I may be considered "unemployed", at least by the current standard used by the government. I wonder how many others like me dropped out of the traditional job market and went to a more streamlined business model? The venture capital days of 15 years ago are over, and now small businesses are being built largely by contracting out work to independent contractors and consultants, such as myself. It saves on payroll, benefits, and mostly, a large capital investment for the start-up. I work with two multi-million companies right now. One guy has one salaried employee (a director of engineering), and 2 independent consultants (one guy back east, me here in the west). The other guy has a secretary, and 3 independent consultants working on 2-year contracts. Yet we're generating revenue at a decent rate, and without any real overhead for any of us, and both businesses are growing rapidly. It's how entrepeneurs are trying to survive right now. Trim costs, because there isn't much money out there to bankroll new projects.
500,000 new engineers?! I suppose if the goal is to educate our unemployed, then fine. But you're going to end up with a lot of overqualified people looking at lower jobs. Who is going to employ these new 500,000 skilled workers?
I think this sums it up well. The Gov says the unemployment is 9% when in fact it does not take into account those who no longer have benefits or are underemployed. Jobs that had produced living wage incomes have all been shipped over seas. Companies like HP who once employed 13k employees at the location in Corvallis alone, only have retained ten percent of that workforce. Far too many tax breaks for companies to "help developing " countries. We now produce at a historic low.
Well, good news for engineers then! Are salaries going up due to the shortage? Or are companies generally unwilling to bid up salaries in order to fill their open positions? Is this shortage a new phenomenon, or has this been the status quo for N years? barfo
don't know what it was before---I've only been in the civilian workforce for a few years. But it's not that salaries are going up, it's that projects are taking longer because a man-year design project takes, say, a year instead of 3 months (if you had 4 guys instead of 1) And one of the first things cut to maintain schedule is R&D. It's kind of a vicious cycle. But as someone with an engineering degree and a clearance, I had my pick of a few offers.
That suggests that the shortage of engineers isn't considered a serious problem. "Ah, we can do without". It's still good news for those with the credentials to take one of those jobs - but it would be even better news if the employers felt they had to fill those jobs. Then there would be a bidding war for the services of the engineers who do exist. I'll note that given that circumstance, your plan of training many more engineers is likely to drive down the salary of engineers. That's good - but not great. Jobs which might get cut at the whim of the bean-counters are definitely better than no jobs at all, but tend to make one save money rather than blowing it on the lastest whatever-it-is-that-excites-engineers. And it's better for the economy if you engineers blow your money. barfo
as far as the government figures, that is correct. If you listen to how they report the figures its always based on jobless claims. You ar not counted once you fall off for any reason. Makes the numbers look better..
