
Those Who Have a Job, Want to Quit. Those Who Want a Job, Can’t Find One. - robbiea
http://pointsandfigures.com/2012/05/31/those-who-have-a-job-want-to-quit-those-who-want-a-job-cant-find-one-blame-entrepreneurism/
======
achompas
_The chart shows progress, but when you dig into the text above from the BLS
website, there are some glaring metrics staring at you in the face._

"Dig into" a two-paragraph blurb? Instead of looking at raw BLS statistics?
Uh-oh...

 _Why are there so many people out there who can’t find jobs for a long period
of time? [...]The simple answer is: Those who want a job, don’t have the tech
skills that companies want._

Wat? No. This is head-spinning interpolation backed by zero real data.

People are unemployed because we're experiencing a significant structural
economic shift, not because these people have "generic business" skills (wow,
what a hand-wavey statement). Domestic manufacturing has been hit hardest, so
those with double-digit years of manufacturing experience have had their
responsibilities outsourced to other countries unless they're (a) building
aircraft, or (b) working on specialized, highly-precise, machine-produced
parts.

This is a great example of the tech-obsessed writing produced by the startup
craze. Does anyone really believe people are unemployed because they can't
code, given that software makes up _less than 5% of our GDP?_ [0]

I can't believe this type of self-congratulatory pseudo-economic article hits
the front page of HN. What a load of crap.

[0] See Table 3 of the latest BEA GDP release. Look for "information
processing equipment & software" on Table 3, compare to the level of GDP in
2012q1:

[http://bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2012/pdf/gdp1q12_2n...](http://bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2012/pdf/gdp1q12_2nd.pdf)

~~~
sedev
The article also hits one of my pet peeves about BLS stats: referring to "the
unemployment rate" without qualification. U3 and U6 unemployment are
distinctly different things - the main difference is that the average person's
idea of "unemployed" includes a lot of able-bodied willing-to-work individuals
who are counted in U6 and ignored by U3. Unfortunately, when someone talks
about "the unemployment rate," they're almost always talking about the U3
measure of unemployment, because that's the one that presidents, senators, and
congresscritters trumpet (on account of their incentive to understate
unemployment).

------
cageface
I remember hiring a sysadmin in 2002. We had stacks of hundreds of resumes
from people more than qualified for the job, but we had to whittle them down
to one. Most went straight into the bin after a glance. Just a few years
earlier people were knocking down your door if you'd ever booted a unix box.

We techies have it good right now but don't fool yourself into believing the
party will last forever.

~~~
SonicSoul
there is a difference between a candidate's resume, and their actual ability,
when making the assessment "qualified for a job".

There are positions that took us 6-12 months of full time interviewing to
staff. Finding good engineers is hard.

~~~
randomdata
_There are positions that took us 6-12 months of full time interviewing to
staff. Finding good engineers is hard._

And this is the real problem in the tech industry if you are looking for a
job. Unlike other industries, there are no externalities forcing companies to
hire a poorer employee.

Speaking as a farmer, there the job has to be done on time, no matter what. If
not, the food will spoil, or the animal will die, or what have you. I see
other farmers offering pretty decent wages (around $50/hr) for skilled talent.
If you're not skilled, you will be paid closer to minimum wage because your
contributions end up costing more to the farmer. But the job has to be done,
so in the absence of skilled labour, which is hard to find, you pick the
unskilled labour and do your best to make it work.

In tech, as you've highlighted, it doesn't really matter if the job gets done
and is often better if not done at all, if it was going to be done poorly. If
it takes a year for the very best to become available, it is worth the wait.
This puts us in a situation where only the top N% of talent is employable, no
matter how many have a degree of skill necessary to do the job.

~~~
jonathansizz
Interesting. Can you give us a description of what would make a $50/hr skilled
labourer versus a $10/hr unskilled one in your industry?

~~~
randomdata
Being able to operate heavy machinery with precision is a one. When talking
machines that cost half a million dollars, often with low operator visibility,
a simple mishap can cost a fortune to repair.

~~~
kfcm

      *When talking machines that cost half a million dollars*
    

Base unit, no accessories. A brand new John Deere combine can list for around
$450-500K--not including heads, precision ag systems, etc. Tack on a couple
hundred thousand more for those.

All for a piece of equipment used 3-4 weeks out of the year.

New tractors are running around $150-$250K. Even 30+ year old tractors with
good hours on them run about $27-30K at auction.

Some ag dealership labor rate for repair will make you wish you were paying
car dealership rates.

------
mgkimsal
"Sell the dream and sell it hard. It’s your dream vs. their dream. Benefits
are no longer a factor. The best dream wins. Good Luck."

I've _hated_ for years how words lose some of their original meaning/intent.
"benefits" is one. A "benefit" of working at XYZ company is that you get ABC
handed to you at no charge. Fair enough. But when all jobs (in particular
fields) come with 'benefits', there's no 'benefit' any more. I dunno - the
word just bugs me. Oh, maybe it's because it's not a 'benefit' - it's just
something that they're providing to you, whether you want it or not. More
often than not, it's not a 'benefit' to me or my family.

"Scholarship" is another one - having "athletic scholarships" seems an
oxymoron, but that's for another day...

Yes, your 'benefits' packages don't matter to me. Not really. Not much.
Matching 401k contributions are nice, but often they're restricted to some
lame company with too-high fees and poor choice of investment options.
Healthcare? Currently, I can get it for half what most companies are paying,
and personally, I think the continued involvement of employers in providing
healthcare insurance is distorting the market way out of whack.

So... sell me on _the dream_. Tell me that your vision _and ability to
execute_ on that - and _where you see me in your company's execution of that
vision_ and we'll talk.

Hint: "Looking for senior PHP developer to work on our Magento store! $75k
plus foosball table and weekly movies with the team and XBox in the office!"
isn't it.

~~~
sailfast
Benefits have a huge impact and should definitely be considered as part of
compensation / hiring. 401K matching - as you said above, if you're getting a
poor match with a bad set of funds, then a company that offers a large flat
contribution regardless of your contribution (say 6-10%) and had access to
thousands of funds / direct stocks would be preferred and provide a
significant benefit to you.

Similarly, benefits like Dental, Medical, etc especially if you've got a
family means less risk and money in your pocket if it's paid for and you have
a great plan. While it would, of course, be better to just get "straight cash
homey" and try to deal with it yourself I would argue that benefits are still
a signficant factor in the job decision process.

As for the foosball table et al - that's more a cultural thing and less a
direct benefit in my mind.

That said - totally agree that benefits are secondary to the dream and the
vision of the company as a part of one's decision.

~~~
mgkimsal
How many people turn down a job because of a benefits administrator? Do you
take a job based if they have their 401k administered by Vanguard vs Fidelity?

Similarly, I've never known anyone to take or refuse a job based on a
comparison of dental plans or vision plans or medical plans. They're sometimes
nice side perks, but if I like the company/job/position, I'm taking it. If I
don't like it, the fact that they have a better dental plan than where I'm
currently at is a non-factor for probably almost everyone who'd be in that
position.

tl;dr - I've never known anyone take or refuse a job because of any specifics
in a benefits package.

~~~
ajdecon
_I've never known anyone take or refuse a job because of any specifics in a
benefits package._

How many people do you know with families, or with serious health conditions?
Differences in benefits can make a real difference in cost-of-living if anyone
in your family falls outside the "healthy 20-something with no chronic issues"
bracket.

It may be hard to see these people in the startup world, because they often
steer clear of even speaking to companies that can't provide these benefits.

~~~
mgkimsal
i'm not really in the 'startup world' myself.

I've known people who've taken jobs with benefits vs jobs without benefits.
But I've never known someone comparing two jobs and saying "well, this one has
a $500 deductible and this other one has $1000 deductible, but the first one
also has 2% matching vested over 4 years, and the second one has 4% matching
vested over 3 years, so I'll go to job X".

~~~
groby_b
No, but there are people who say "this one offers to cover costs for my
medical condition, and this one doesn't". And if those costs run into 10s of
thousands of dollars, that kind of matters.

And if you're bringing any smarts to the table, you know what conditions
you're especially at risk for, too, so presumably you do pick the insurance
plan that is most likely to protect you from catastrophic financial losses.

(And if you make less than the tech industry usually does - say, only $25K a
year - that $1000 deductible sure is a lot more expensive than the $500 one)

~~~
mgkimsal
"I've known people who've taken jobs with benefits vs jobs without benefits."

Yeah... I mentioned that eventuality.

~~~
groby_b
If you redefine "benefits", you might have a point.

Many jobs have health insurance, and thus "benefits". Many health insurances
are rather picky with what they do/don't cover. If you claim that only
"insurance that covers what I need covered, at a price I deem acceptable", can
be called a "benefit", then sure, your mention is valid.

It's also a pointless statement.

------
tmuir
"Today, there is another competitor that hiring managers have to compete
against: Entrepreneurship."

For the first time in the history of civilization, people are starting their
own business.

~~~
TDL
Your statement confuses me. Where did all the existing businesses come from if
'people' did not start them in first place? The costs of starting a new
business might be dropping considerably, but this hardly the first time in
history that entrepreneurs were being so greatly rewarded.

~~~
Kluny
(I think he was joking)

~~~
keithpeter
I thought that as well.

Might be worth pointing out that before the rise of manufacturing in large
scale with assembly lines &c casual work was normal. Not much in the way of
benefits or security.

------
moocow01
If there is anything I've learned over having a "successful" career as an
employed person its that it eventually comes to a point where the benefits of
moving forward/up in my opinion outweigh the benefits. (and in my experience
this happens pretty quick in tech)

You get to a point where you increasingly can take on responsibility but the
relative upside is no longer commensurate with the increasing value you are
adding to the company. On top of it you inevitably start to become at odds
with your employer in that as your abilities expand you wonder why you work
for the person above you.

I guess from my perspective, its become apparent to me that moving up is
generally a fools game at a certain point while "moving out" is the real
version of moving up. I'm not going to say that taking that step of being
independent is easy in that I'm still working on it myself but its hard for me
to get excited about that next promotion these days no matter what perks it
comes with.

~~~
verisimilidude
Here, here. Watch this problem explode among traditionally non-tech
professions.

Increasingly, you see super smart late-20s–early-30s professionals, with five
or six years of solid domain-expertise, teaching themselves to code. They
start using their programming knowledge to solve big problems and generally
kick ass. Sounds great, right?

The problem: it's much better politics for the leadership to stuff these
forward-thinkers into the lower castes, take credit for all their awesome
work, and poach all their wisdom by proxy. Few entrenched managers will admit
that "the help" has become the master. Moving out is the only way for these
new hybrid-pros to move up.

(Thank your deity for YC, etc.)

~~~
GFischer
Domain experience is VERY valuable in some fields. For some years, I've
believed that hybrid degrees or education are the way forward for
CS/programming.

Maybe someday we'll see accountants, medical doctors, civil engineers,
researchers from all over science with a double major or mixed major (I think
those are the correct US terms).

Also, a double degree with business knowledge as well (more general), kind of
what programmers turn MBAs do, or the various Management of Technology
degrees.

~~~
kfcm
This is exactly was MIS--or Management Information Systems--is: a hybrid major
between CS and some sort of Business focus.

Up until the dot-com boom of the late-'90s, this was the preferred degree for
many corporate IT departments. In fact, the CFO was head of IT/MIS in many
companies up until the mid-/late-90s.

Other hybrids are bioinformatics and cognitive science/computing.

------
lysol
They're using general labor statistics to demonstrate some kind of specific
point with the tech sector. This post doesn't make any sense.

~~~
ctdonath
And it overlooks that in the "6+ month" category, some/many aren't in a hurry
given the guaranteed living wage for 99 weeks.

Awfully simplistic & authoritative conclusion based on very little data.

~~~
michaelochurch
I think very few people want a 23-month employment gap on their resume if they
can help it. Some people get discouraged and perhaps apply less vigorously
than they should, but I don't think there are many people using the
"guaranteed living wage" to slack off. I'm sure there are a few, but I doubt
it's a sizable contingent.

The time over which an employment gap is a liability increases dramatically as
a function of the size of the gap. At 0-3 months, it's near zero because
that's a typical interval between jobs. At 3-6 months, it's about a year
(which means it doesn't matter if you hold the next job for that long). At
6-12 months, it's about 2 years; at 12-24, it's 5 years or more. A 99-week
employment gap is just too damaging for slacking off to make any economic
sense.

~~~
adambyrtek
Do you think that people who are comfortable slacking off care about
hypothetical future repercussions?

~~~
michaelochurch
Yes, actually. I think that most people who slack off do not want a life
sentence to mediocrity. They take a couple years out of their careers,
underestimating how difficult it will be to get back in the game.

There are a lot of people in Williamsburg (and, presumably, every other
hipster enclave) who fit that bill. They're "trust fund kids", but most TF
kids are only moderately wealthy ($1-3m) and will need to step it up in middle
age if they want to keep up their lifestyles. They have no idea how hard it
will be after 5-8 years of drug use, partying, and generally wasting whatever
intellectual sharpness they had in college. They also have no concept of what
it means (and how bad a position it is) to be competing with fresh 22-year-
olds for entry level jobs after wasting nearly a decade.

------
parktheredcar
Sort of annoying when sites throw up a big overlay on content I can see
rendered just fine because javascript is turned off.

~~~
Wilya
The real question is: Why does it tell me "JavaScript for Mobile Safari is
currently turned off." when I'm on Firefox on Windows.

~~~
mgkimsal
Because they've been spying on my iPhone! I turned it off about 2 hours ago,
and now they're broadcasting that fact to you? WTF?

------
m104
From the article:

"Why is hiring so tough? Because talented people don’t need you anymore. They
don’t need the benefits because they know if worse comes to worse, they will
find a comfy job. The options are there for them, therefore the risk of
starting their own company isn’t an all or nothing deal."

While this has been true for years, I think, more than ever, talented and
driven people are realizing that a comfy career isn't an aspiration but a
fallback.

------
dsandrowitz
Decent points, but too simplistic an approach. The forces at play in the
IT/tech job market are quite different than the rest of the labor market. And,
while it might seem like the answer is to tell the rest of the country to act
like techies (which has a million connotations), that is not a legit solution.
We can't have a nation of coders all building their own stuff or working in
companies to build stuff. Most people are not cut out to work in the industry
and the methods, approaches, and mindsets that work in tech are not likely to
translated successfully to other markets.

As a society, we need to have a serious conversation about what to do with the
millions of undereducated and low/moderately skilled workers who are simply
losing jobs to technology, business process improvement, and productivity
gains. Becoming techies isn't the answer, but focusing on moving more workers
towards a "creation" based style of employment might be a reasonable start. A
move toward local agriculture, a rise in trades and craftsmanship instead of
overseas production, a re-examination of the wages and requirements for
critical service industries like primary education and healthcare...that is
where I'd focus energy instead. No, we don't need 190 million coders, but we
could use more teachers, more nurses, more good plumbers, more people making
high quality goods domestically, and a lot more people growing food that isn't
shipped halfway across the planet or covered in a bioengineered chemical soup.

------
systematical
The article sums it up. To keep certain people you have to make a compelling
reason for them to stay, else they will chase the dream of being their own
boss. This is an evolution of Gen-X, to Gen-Whatever, coinciding with the ease
of starting up a tech company (low cost barrier). It's only going to increase,
look at kickstarter.

I need a share in a company, more than just benefits, and I need to believe in
what they are doing...not just creating more and more re-skinned sites and
crud like that. I also need more freedom. Do I sound demanding? Maybe, but the
fact is I can demand this expectation right now. Because I could easily go
start my own freelance dev shop if I wanted too...

------
kzahel
"Now, it’s less of what company had the best package, but more of who’s dream
do the talented people believe in the most."

It always bugs we when people don't know that "who's" is grammatically
equivalent to "whose"

------
p_sherman
Yay for generalizations and buzzwords!

------
ChristianMarks
As glib as the article is, if you work for someone else you will never reach
your full potential.

------
kfcm
What employers and (especially) employees need to understand is "employees"
are nothing more than long-term contractors, under a contract which provides
certain "benefits" in lieu of cash money.

------
luminaobscura
hmm, is it only me that see the obvious solution:

those who want to quit -> quits -> happy!

those who want a job -> takes the emptied position -> happy!

------
kbronson
I was looking for a job, and then I found a job and heaven knows I'm miserable
now

~~~
bornhuetter
Nice try, Morrissey.

------
michaelochurch
Here's what seems to be happening.

First, hyperspecialization. Instead of a "programming" career we have back-
end, front-end, embedded, machine learning/data science, and many other silos
to the career, and people are expected to be "at level" (i.e. as good as a
typical person of their age and experience) in _the specific silo_ for which
they're applying. We have a zillion active languages and database technologies
and web frameworks. People who choose the right specialty are in high demand.
People who don't, or who fail to specialize, are more likely to lose out. When
you see a two-sided scarcity problem, that's usually what's happening: a
mismatch between sought skills and what is available on the market.

This is good and bad. Divergence is when exploration happens (people move away
from Java and C++ to Python, Ocaml, Scala, Ruby, Haskell... and find out what
works well and what doesn't) and convergence is when they move back, hopefully
to better mainstays (in PL, Scala and Clojure are the front-runners; it's
obvious that _dys_ functional programming in the style of Java-esque
AbstractVisitorHandlerFactoryFactory patterns is over) than those that were in
the mainstream before. People do eventually get sick of having to change tech
stacks every time they take a new job. Convergence sets in at some point, and
it will, soon. We're late in a divergent phase. Both divergent and convergent
phases are necessary and healthy. When we move into a convergent phase, it's
going to be easier for typical programmers to find matching jobs (a reduced
"curse of dimensionality" as there are fewer dimensions of variation) but some
specialties are going to dry up.

Second, short job tenures. Another factor for which both sides are to blame.
There are "job hoppers" out there who seek a new environment and a pay raise
every 9 months, and there are companies that fire rashly, or that do such a
bad job of mentoring their employees that anyone sane will leave in 6 months.
Job fluidity is good to a point, but it's passed the optimal point. Now it's
in a vicious cycle: an environment of short job tenures discourages companies
from investing in their people, which leads to high turnover. Some startups
welcome turnover with the self-satisfied and cultish belief that those who
leave "weren't good enough" but that just shows a lack of introspection to a
degree that's irresponsible. Extremely high turnover is just bad.

Third and most importantly, we need to handle the education problem. We will
see technological convergence and increasing job tenures for macroeconomic
reasons... to a point. However, technological change is going to remain rapid
and continuing education is going to stop being a luxury (for programmers and
in general) in no more than 10 years. People will need to access educational
resources continually in order to direct their career growth, and they'll need
some way to prove they've mastered skills necessary for the transitions they
need to make.

The best solution for this problem, for a forward-thinking company, is to drop
to 3-4 days of metered work (for most jobs) and require people to pursue some
kind of education in the other 1-2 days/week. That reduces unemployment of the
"not enough work to go around" sort, and it reduces the friction caused by
mismatches in experience. That said, I've seen "20% time" type programs, as
wonderful as they are in intention, fail more often than they succeed.
Google's 20%T is only used by about 10% of engineers because there's
absolutely no anti-retaliation insurance (i.e. managers can punish employees
in performance reviews for taking 20%T and employees have no recourse, which
means, in effect, that employees only really have it if the manager wants them
to have it). Building a robust 20%T program is really not easy.

Tuition reimbursement is a good policy, but people rarely use it because it
requires them to plan in ways that most professionals simply can't. How many
people can predict that they won't face a badly-timed drop-everything
production crisis or other hourage spike over a 15-week semester? Very few.
The solution is going to have to be more asynchronous than the typical
university schooling model, but also more open and self-directed than most in-
house corporate training.

~~~
fuzzythinker
Don't think requiring 1-2 days/week of education is going to work. People who
aren't interested in pursuing new technical education/re-education will not
only not going to benefit from it, but it will also be a waste of the
employer's money (2X actually, for the time lost and for the education). They
will just either sleep during class if physical presence is required or just
find ways to cheat if done online. On the other hand, those who do want to
further their skills will not stop even if they are already working overtime,
have a family with kids, or perhaps even personal side projects.

~~~
zevyoura
Why are you hiring people who aren't interested in pursuing further education?

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Because he needs to get work done right now.

~~~
zevyoura
In that case educational perks are probably not of serious concern.

------
chives
I would amend this statement (from the article):

"The simple answer is: Those who want a job, don’t have the tech skills that
companies want. It’s simple supply & demand. Their skills are generic business
& have no coding / technical background. "

to read:

"The simple answer is: Those who want a job, don’t have the tech degrees and
years of tech experience that companies want. It’s simple supply & demand."

Anyone can learn how to code. Anyone can learn how to code well. The problem
is learning technically skills would help you do a new job, but they wouldn't
help you get one. Minimum requirements include tech degrees and years of
technical experience in the field. Having project work helps, but if you can't
meet the minimum requirements on experience and degrees, then it doesn't
matter what your technical skills actually are. There are a small handful of
companies that make an exception to this tradition, but as it turns out I
would say they make up less than .01% of employers (of course this is a
ballpark estimate, based on my personal experience, but I would invite anyone
to pick out major employer that fits this category and is actively hiring).

I also agree with michaelochurch regarding technical silos and just bad
employer expectations in general.

------
sparknlaunch
It's a tough one. The 80/20 rule can be applied to must things, and this is
another.

20% of the labour force hold 80% of the skills and the perfect jobs. The
remaining 80% battle it out or give up.

Now the numbers aren't exact and there are exceptions, but with challenges
like this you need to adapt. This may mean entrepreneurship or taking a job
you don't like or job benefits.

It's not ideal but balancing reality against the dream is hard work.

------
yashchandra
I fall in the category of "I have a job. want to quit".

------
fleitz
I think it's just the natural way of things for those that are entrepreneurial
and/or party a lot, I've noticed that most of the bootstrapped entrepreneurs I
know were heavy into the rave scene either spinning, promoting, or partying.
Either that or surfer/snowboarders.

What really struck a chord with me is the graphic that said Entrepreneurs want
blood. There's something primal about closing a deal, it feels like hunting.

There's no hunt on the cube farm, just plowing the fields and planting crops.
Grain doesn't taste like meat, and farmed meat doesn't taste like game.

