
One in five American men don't work: Where's the outrage? - elptacek
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/25/unemployment-job-skills-training/
======
daimyoyo
I have experienced this first hand. I have applied for a LOT of jobs in the
last 2 years and one of two things happens: They don't talk to me, or they do,
and I sail past the preliminary interviews only to get rejected after the
background check. I am not a felon, a terrorist, or a scourge of society. I
have bad credit.(Funny/sad aside, I once went to Best Buy to see if I could
get a card to finance something with the idea of improving my credit score. I
was rejected summarily. I was trying to buy a toaster. I literally can't
finance a toaster.) This scarlet letter had precluded me from any job paying a
living wage. And that's why I'm retraining myself. No one cares what the FICO
score of a talented software engineer is. At least, that's what I desperately
hope the case is. For recruiters out there: Do you care about the credit of a
potential coder?

~~~
potatolicious
I've always wondered why an _employer_ would demand good credit. Even if the
person is a spendthrift, what does it matter so long as they perform their
job?

My employee could be living in a shack having had every single item of worth
repossessed... but if they can do their job well, why wouldn't I hire them?

In any case, I know what you mean - I'm from Canada, and arrived in the US
after the financial meltdown and subsequent tightening of the credit belt. I
_still_ don't have a credit rating since I couldn't convince _any major bank_
in the USA to give me a credit card. Yes, this includes secured credit cards
(i.e., you leave a month's credit limit with the bank in cash, if you miss
your bill at all, they take the entire sum... aka _zero risk for the bank_ )
And yes, my credit in Canada is stellar - but that counts for absolutely _zip_
in this country.

It's not until _very_ recently that I was able to flash about an employer's
name and convince one of them to cut me some slack. It'll be months still
before my credit score populates - this has made renting apartments, and just
about _everything_ a nightmare.

The only way I've been able to skate by is by flashing an offer letter and pay
stubs showing I make >3x the US median income... imagine if my pay was dead
average... I'd be fucked.

~~~
reitzensteinm
At a guess, it probably indicates that the employee is a higher than an
average risk of engaging in fraud (to pay off debts), and it probably does,
again on average, speak to their discipline, maturity, life skills, etc.

The trouble with that thinking is of course the multitude of reasons that
someone can get into debt through no fault of their own - especially in the US
with health care - the fact that people often mature faster than their credit
score recovers, not to mention situations like your own where there's no
credit score to begin with.

I'm glad that in my native Australia, as another poster pointed out, it's
illegal to discriminate based on credit score for hiring purposes. It seems
that the small amount of good businesses may get from this discrimination is
way out balanced by the harm it causes society in general - though obviously
I'm preaching to the choir here :)

~~~
sixtofour
Agreed. Also the less you're paid, and the less responsibility you have, the
more you're scrutinized. Maybe because they can, maybe because at that level
there are things you can physically steal, or break. Also _maybe_ (please, I'm
speculating) at that level there are likely to be more irresponsible people,
and the time and expense of credit, drug and security checks becomes
worthwhile.

------
Hyena
I think the article does a pretty good job. I've figured several times that
there is no "talent shortage" but a "training shortage": companies want people
with skills they learn on the job but are unwilling to actually train anyone.

So you've got a bunch of companies sitting around waiting for a miracle to
happen. Maybe HR imagines that a Google product exec will fall from the sky
and accept $40k a year.

~~~
mlg
Even traditionally 'entry level' jobs that historically don't need a four-year
degree are like this these days - secretary/receptionist jobs are almost
always looking for people with two or three years of prior experience.

I wonder how much of this is due to the job market. Is it a supply and demand
issue, where there are simply so many applicants that HR can sit back and wait
for the perfect candidate? Or is the reluctance to hire less-experienced
workers a long-term behavior shift that will stick around even if the worker
supply dries up?

------
davidw
Uh, the outrage is over on reddit. Let's leave it to them, please. There are
plenty of things to be outraged about to the point we could innondate the site
with them.

Down the path of "outrage!" lies discussions about abortion, gay rights,
appropriate levels of taxation, health care systems and any number of other
topics that people feel VERY STRONGLY about.

------
pedalpete
I'm surprised the figure quoted in the opening paragraph would include
incarcerated men along with those on disability and unemployed.

According to wikipedia,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States)
2.3 million people were incarcerated in the US, and 93% are male, so that's
2.1 million men.

The article also says 4.3 Americans have been jobless for months if not years.
If this number includes those who are in prison, that means that nearly half
of what is counted as unemployment is actually within the prison system.

Part of me says there are way too many people in prison, but the other side
says, what if these people weren't in prison? Would the actual number of
people competing for jobs be higher?

~~~
glimcat
Simple arithmetic says yes, there would be more competition for jobs.

But you're talking about a dramatic change in US public policy. A first-order
approximation is not sufficient, and higher-order approximations depend
heavily on what guesses you want to make about the social outcomes.

~~~
ars
> Simple arithmetic says yes, there would be more competition for jobs.

But there would also be more demand since those same people would also be
buying things.

------
webwright
I'd wager close to another 1 in 5 works for the government directly or
indirectly. And I assume we're not including retirees in any of this.

The ratio of retirees to workers continues to get worse. In the 1940s, there
were 42 workers per retiree. Today there are 3.3 workers per retiree.

So you have a shrinking group of people who are actually producing (total
workforce minus unemployed, minus goverment workers, minus workers who exist
due to government purchasing) and a growing number of people who get a chunk
of that production.

This does not end well.

~~~
doctoboggan
I am curious as to why you state that government employees are not producing?

~~~
danenania
_Some_ of them produce useful goods and services, but at a drastically lower
efficiency than the private sector due to lack of competition and economic
incentives (spending other people´s money). Still it´s good that _someone_ is
planning out the roads and running fire departments, even if they´re bad at
it. On the other hand, the government also produces a lot of counterproductive
´services´ like war, financial meltdowns, and software patents. It´s in no way
obvious that government employees as a whole do less harm than good.

~~~
paulcedars
I think that your position is ideological and not correct. The government
provides institutions that lower risk to the rest of the economy and enable
more stability and growth.

Is regulatory capture a problem at some agencies? Sure. Are some departments
outdated or ineffective? Sure. But it is irresponsible to look at a few cases
and claim that the entire government is a problem.

You want to see less government? Visit Yemen or gangster Russia

~~~
danenania
"You want to see less government? Visit Yemen or gangster Russia"

Quite a strange statement given that the governments of both those countries
are central to their problems and deeply involved in crime and corruption
themselves. In Yemen the government employees shoot innocent people in broad
daylight with impunity. Real libertarian haven they've got there.

------
seanmcq
"or _getting by_ on the paychecks of wives"

This is pretty rampant sexism for 2011. Don't want it to go unnoticed.

~~~
sliverstorm
In what way? Not that I disagree, but please expand on your statement?

~~~
seanmcq
Sure.

It's been more than a generation since women started making more money than
men in some households due to increases in equality between the sexes. The
phrasing and positioning used implies that a stay-at-home dad is something
that we should be reacting to as an economic problem.

In other words, it required the assumption that men are the proper
breadwinners in heterosexual households.

~~~
sliverstorm
Perhaps the article writer was making the assumption you imply, but there's
potentially more to it than that.

Members of households all need to contribute, and while I am neither female
nor married, I have heard from many married females that unemployed men do not
generally tend to assume the duties of housekeeping. That is to say, the wife
winds up both breadwinning and housekeeping, and the man does not contribute.
This _is_ broken.

It's sexist of me to generalize (and certainly I hope if I wind up married and
unemployed, I won't let my partner take all the burden), and it may well not
be what the author was thinking of, but if we take feminine anecdotes at face
value there are more reasons to encourage men to be breadwinners than simply
because it's their role.

~~~
ericd
Hear hear. Also, besides that, there is still a fairly widespread (if minor)
stigma to making less than one's wife. It's not necessarily the writer making
that judgement.

~~~
billswift
The stigma isn't that minor, among other things it is a significant cause of
divorce.

------
ck2
So if a tool made in China cost $20 and the same kind made in USA cost $100,
which one do you think people are going to buy at the hardware store (even if
the one made in China lasts 1/4th as long).

What if there was a tax that made the one made in China cost $70 - you think
the one made in USA would have a fighting chance? I think so. It would create
a whole bunch of jobs because there would be less impulse to move jobs
overseas.

What if that $50 was used for single payer health care so that "job providers"
didn't have pay for health insurance or play that game and compete with the
international market.

~~~
webwright
You know what happens if we tax the hell out of cheap overseas goods?
Everything gets more expensive. Cost of living skyrockets and wages would have
to go up commensurately if people were going to survive/thrive. Businesses who
raised wages would have to curtail hiring because more of their revenues were
going to wages.

Any they'd keep shipping jobs overseas because of the healthy margins selling
in overseas markets. Start taxing that stuff too and see how many corporations
decide that being a US company isn't so awesome anymore...

~~~
achompas
Right, and you're not even discussing the subsequent tariff war. Other
countries would tax the hell out of American goods, global demand for our
goods will fall, we'd produce less, companies would make less money, and
people would lose their jobs.

~~~
ck2
We barely sell anything overseas as it is - what exactly are they going to
"tax the hell out of" ?

Have you seen the mountain of shipping containers in our ports from inbounds
with no outbounds? They are stacked a dozen high over HUNDREDS of acres of
land. No exaggeration.

We are the only potential consumers of our own products - because every other
job has been shipped overseas that can easily shipped. Most of what is left is
services and assembling components made elsewhere (auto industry).

~~~
achompas
I'm tired of hearing this from people. The US exported more than every country
except China and Germany last year.[0] We're the leading producer of airplane
components and engines, and we still produce a high volume of heavy equipment
that goes overseas.

[0] <http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_exp-economy-exports>

------
CrystalKoo
On top of that 20%, there are people that are working part time to make ends
meet. So in reality, the number of people that need full time jobs is much
higher.

------
fatalisk
What's really interesting here is that companies are reporting awesome
earnings[1], yet they're still resting on their laurels when it comes to
hiring.

And, I think everyone _is_ outraged when it comes to what's going on in
Washington right now.

[1] <http://www.cnbc.com/id/18038403/>

~~~
cageface
Or, to put it another way, companies just don't need as many unskilled workers
as they did a decade ago.

~~~
Hyena
All companies need unskilled people: you train them so your business can
expand. That's where global supply chain managers and database programmers
came from originally--and in many cases still do--they don't fall from the
clouds.

The issue is that a lot of these companies are only expanding overseas, so
they're not really ready to hire and train people. Much of their profits come
from cutting back on their junior staff, from laying off the next generation
of skilled workers.

~~~
ars
> you train them so your business can expand

That only worked when people stayed with a single employer for years. These
days they would take the training and get a better job somewhere else.

~~~
Hyena
Most businesses take about 6 months to train people, it seems, from informal
polling of acquaintances.

------
known
The Growing Divide Between Silicon Valley And Unemployed America
[http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/16/tale-of-two-countries-
silic...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/16/tale-of-two-countries-silicon-
valley-unemployed/)

------
glimcat
Okay, it sucks. What do you want me to do about it?

There are not many obvious sustainable solutions that don't involve the
government suddenly deciding to reallocate pork funding to major public works
or otherwise taking unlikely actions which would dramatically alter the
current climate.

Meanwhile, it's a good time to start a business. It probably won't create many
jobs and it might not take off, but at a minimum it will be good experience
and it will look better than a few blank years on the resume.

~~~
intended
Hmm, just had a thought - wouldnt it make sense, based on what you are saying,
for people to just lie and say that they started a business which failed
during the time they were unemployed?

~~~
glimcat
Most likely, that will just end up wasting everyone's time when it turns out
that you do not, in fact, have any experience whatsoever with business
development or product design.

------
martythemaniak
There's lots of outrage - it's called the Tea Party.

~~~
Helianthus
and it's summarily laughed at.

edit: not that it doesn't deserve to be.

~~~
pyre
From the little I know about the Tea Party it seems to be a dumping ground for
anyone who ever thought that the government didn't listen to them. From people
that think we should ban gay people from 'merica, to people that think that
socializing health care is an Obama 'Nazi policy.'

