
The rise and fall of the skills gap - SQL2219
https://www.vox.com/2019/1/7/18166951/skills-gap-modestino-shoag-ballance
======
imh
Vox's headline is ridiculous, but the study in question is pretty neat.
[https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2019/preliminary/paper/yyS...](https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2019/preliminary/paper/yySyK7fd)
(pdf warning)

They show that even within a specific (job-title, company, state) tuple,
higher unemployment led to higher skills requirements, in a probably-causal
way.

That doesn't mean the skills gap is a lie, or any other nefarious bad behavior
on the company's part. The study doesn't go into that.

~~~
partiallypro
I knew as soon as I saw the source, this would be the case....Matt Yglesias
isn't exactly...honest. He has a history of false claims and or really bad
ideas. More of a commentator than a journalist, though somehow he is treated
as one by Vox.

~~~
KerrickStaley
Could you post examples of when Matt has made false or misleading statements?
The way you characterize his journalism doesn't seem accurate to me.

~~~
partiallypro
I think the fact that he deleted almost all of his past tweets because they
came under fire...including one that stated that the Nazis had some good
ideas, is a solid example. He often strips things from MMFA and Think Progress
(which he used to writer for!) without fact checking them at all. He helped
perpetuate the idea that cross hairs on a map caused violence. When Obama was
in office he falsely lowered the national debt by trillions of dollars to make
things not sound so bad. So, so many examples. Don't even get me started on
the "Voxsplainers."

On Twitter he is basically considered a joke on both sides of the aisle.

~~~
fishtank
Who is not considered a joke by many people on both sides of the aisle?

He seems to be considered highly reputable by many on both sides of the aisle
as well. Certainly more reputable than an hacker news commenter making
misleading insinuations as to why somebody might want to delete tweets, and
overconfident, baseless proclamations of who is and is not considered a joke
by the world at large.

~~~
partiallypro
If that's what you want to believe, but it's not true. He is not really
respected by anyone except the people that he brought over from Think
Progress. Not sure what's respectable about things he's said in the past or
continues to say. He deletes them...because he knows they were dumb. One of
his "expert" economic reports was that the US should simply print its way out
of debt, raise the minimum wage to $100 and let the Fed figure it out...all of
which are laughable to any actual economist, yes including left wing
economists, because it would actually impoverish the poor even more. His
platform is to rile people up, not actually convey real ideas or solutions.
That is why he's a running meme on both sides of the aisle and his flippant
regard for facts has more than carried over to Vox.

------
tabtab
Developers often joke about job ads that require "5 or more years of
experience" in about 10 different technologies. I once calculated the
probability of a real person matching such a description and came to something
like 1 out 500 trillion people. Unless the job ad is published to the entire
Virgo Galactic Supercluster, they won't likely get a match.

There are rumors such ads are written so companies can officially reject
citizens for H1B visa workers. However, Hanlon's Razor could be at play.

~~~
toast0
Immigration related jobs ads will have these qualities:

a) a very specific list of requirements, that just happens to match a specific
person. Definitely not any choices of language in the list, but possibly
degree or equivalent experience if necessary.

b) be posted in a newspaper and on their main jobs page, but not widely
elsewhere

c) ask for submissions by mail only, by a certain date

B and C are more telling than A though, because a weird list of requirements
could be just someone weird, but narrowly posting and requiring applications
by mail are part of exactly following the rules for demonstrating lack of
candidates.

~~~
Thriptic
This is what happens when you over regulate hiring practices in the name of
inclusion, fairness, and fighting bias. I've seen numerous issues with this in
academia as well where someone will be a proven candidate who you know will
excel at the job but you can't simply hire them because it's against the
rules. You have to spend ages interviewing all of these unproven alternative
candidates with focuses on minorities etc. If you reject all the alternative
candidates arbitrarily and go with who you wanted in the first place then you
risk getting slapped with a lawsuit. So instead we have to go through this
huge song and dance where we write these fake job descriptions which as you
say are obviously only written for one person, waste everyone's time, and
flood the market with fake hiring opportunities. I've been on both sides of
this process and it's very aggravating.

Even worse, sometimes orgs will set up basically fake interviews where they
bring people in with no intention of hiring them just to put on a show to
avoid a lawsuit.

~~~
tabtab
What's an example of where the interviews are audited or inspected for
"inclusion"? I've rarely heard about that. Usually if an org gets in trouble
for alleged "inclusion" problems, it's because of who they actually _do_ hire,
not interview. Interview process auditing may be a side-effect of such claims,
I suppose. And I would hope the inspectors study the actual job requirements
and compare them to the job ad. Thus, putting bogus job requirements in the ad
should be penalized. Job ads should match the actual job, not the person(s)
one is trying to favor.

~~~
Thriptic
I can't point to specific suits off the top of my head, but I've seen a few
from inside my former employer and heard my friends tell of instances where
someone wasn't granted a position and sued on the basis of descrimination.

The issue is generally not that an org is descriminating, it's actually
generally the exact opposite. The org is trying to institute policy which
protects them from these suits and "standardizes" the hiring process. It's
typically subunits or managers in the org who get fed up with the process
because they can't hire who they want to efficiently, and circumvent it by
writing these job descriptions. HR audits these employment calls and has no
clue what half the words in the description mean or what the position actually
entails, so it is not flagged.

------
knoxa2511
Factfullness, one of the best books on Bill Gates summer reading list covers
"the gap instinct"

Factfulness is . . . recognizing when a story talks about a gap, and
remembering that this paints a picture of two separate groups, with a gap in
between. The reality is often not polarized at all. Usually the majority is
right there in the middle, where the gap is supposed to be.

To control the gap instinct, look for the majority.

Beware comparisons of averages. If you could check the spreads you would
probably find they overlap. There is probably no gap at all.

Beware comparisons of extremes. In all groups, of countries or people, there
are some at the top and some at the bottom. The difference is sometimes
extremely unfair. But even then the majority is usually somewhere in between,
right where the gap is supposed to be.

The view from up here. Remember, looking down from above distorts the view.
Everything else looks equally short, but it’s not.

------
ralusek
This is probably the first article from Vox that I've read in years that isn't
biased to the point of being useless.

What is presented here, that employers have the luxury of choosiness when
unemployment is high, makes perfect sense.

------
autokad
the one thing that was befuddling to me, is that there wasn't a single smart
company during the mist of the great recession (as far as I could tell) .

What I mean by that is, when a company has massive layoffs, presumably they
keep their best employees. This gives other companies insight into what you
have left, and they can now poach your best. likewise if you don't lay off,
you dont convey that data to competitors.

If I were CEO during such a recession, I'd hire, not fire.

~~~
maxxxxx
"What I mean by that is, when a company has massive layoffs, presumably they
keep their best employees. "

That's typically not how it's done. Most layoffs are by department or division
and there is not much consideration for individual performance. Some people
with a good network may be able to jump to a safe position.

~~~
Finnucane
Yep. In 2009 I was temping at a large textbook publisher until they laid off
the entire copyediting department. curiosly, not so many cuts in upper
management.

~~~
wbl
They sacked the what again? That cannot have been good for quality of the
product.

------
sitkack
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap)

------
wink
What good is lower unemployment if no one can live from their job? I know it's
a problem in Germany, but from what I've heard it's a lot worse in the US,
with people working 2 or more jobs...

