10% unemployment is here to stay

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ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
and go where? What jobs do you think is coming back?

People who just graduated from school need to go where the work is and work for anyone who will take them. People who already have certifications and already have experience in specialized fields can go anywhere they want. If you're some kind of process control automation engineering guy with 10 years of experience, there are lots of places that want to hire you.

What I've seen and heard several times is where the experienced guys have inexperienced helpers. Like you'll have a 20-year senior engineer, but he has a fresh grad helping him with things like changing drawings, contacting people, looking for defined terms in legal documents, etc. The company decides it needs to get rid of people, so it fires the experienced guy doing all this bitch work. Suddenly the senior guy is overloaded because now he's doing his regular engineering stuff as well as bitch work and word searches and fucking with the copier. The senior guy doesn't need this crap, so he goes to a different company.
 

Hacp

Lifer
Jun 8, 2005
13,923
2
81
Well that sucks. China should be nuked just so I'm not forced to learn mandarin.

Nuke them all. Then exploit their resources. How did the USA rise to power? Only after Europe was devastated by a war.
 

ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
Nuke them all. Then exploit their resources. How did the USA rise to power? Only after Europe was devastated by a war.
Yeah but it was only made possible when America bought a bunch of European debt which allowed Europe to buy things from America.

Maybe that's China's sneaky plan. Buy US debt so Americans buy from China then China become worrd greatest supprier of happy product :ninja:
 

Phokus

Lifer
Nov 20, 1999
22,994
779
126
Nuke them all. Then exploit their resources. How did the USA rise to power? Only after Europe was devastated by a war.

Literally GOP.txt

Also, i'm beginning to wonder if you murdered your roommate after you stole his shit just so you could take his other stuff, based on your post.
 

ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
Literally GOP.txt

Also, i'm beginning to wonder if you murdered your roommate after you stole his shit just so you could take his other stuff, based on your post.

I don't understand your use of the word literally. Did you actually create a file called GOP.txt and write a bunch of hacp stuff in it? :D
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,165
1,637
126

Engineer

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
39,230
701
126
Bullshit

They just made all the overtime exempt people work more hours ... cut workforce by 20%, but don't cut down the workload, and people will wind up putting in extra hours....

Raises hands and agrees to a certain extent.....employers now expect you to work unlimited hours with little or no extra compensation (i.e. comp. time, etc). I've seen it at my last two jobs and it's starting to show in my current one as well.
 

chucky2

Lifer
Dec 9, 1999
10,016
36
86
Raises hands and agrees to a certain extent.....employers now expect you to work unlimited hours with little or no extra compensation (i.e. comp. time, etc). I've seen it at my last two jobs and it's starting to show in my current one as well.

Same where I work. It's just taken for granted...working nights and/or weekends, with basically no compensation (if any), is the de facto solver of any issue that hits Leadership's Inbox.

The mentality is such that any mention of not doing or, and/or of compensation for doing so, is just met with a crazy chuckle as if it'd been suggested that water is not wet.

Anyone who thinks they should be compensated for incursions into their personal time, usually unscheduled, is just dismissed.

CEO's and Board of Director's laughing all the way to the bank......

Chuck
 

ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
Same where I work. It's just taken for granted...working nights and/or weekends, with basically no compensation (if any), is the de facto solver of any issue that hits Leadership's Inbox.
I'm amazed they can legally do that. Most first world countries have specific laws that prevent that kind of thing.
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,165
1,637
126
I'm amazed they can legally do that. Most first world countries have specific laws that prevent that kind of thing.

We do too, except for people who are "exempt" from overtime... which is most white collar type jobs...
 

First

Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
10,518
271
136
I'm amazed they can legally do that. Most first world countries have specific laws that prevent that kind of thing.

It is illegal, and nowhere near a common practice despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
 

ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
We do too, except for people who are "exempt" from overtime... which is most white collar type jobs...

Yikes. Thank god I don't have one of those. Engineers here get overtime or extra time off. The extra time off is kinda bullshit though because overtime pay is 1.5x regular, but extra time off is only 1x. Shouldn't it be 1.5x?
 

First

Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
10,518
271
136
OT is 1.5X minimum, yes. Double time depends, but I've seen most places count double time after the first consecutive 4 hours of time-and-a-half.
 

RockinZ28

Platinum Member
Mar 5, 2008
2,171
49
101
It is illegal, and nowhere near a common practice despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary.

Well I'm union and apparently union contracts supersede state law. So in order for me to get 1.5x pay, I must have physically worked 40 hours in a week, no matter if I work an 8 hour shift or 24 hour shift, if my hours only total 40 in a week, it's all straight time. So any week with a holiday, you can kiss most of your would be OT hours goodbye.

Also double time doesn't exist, save for working on a holiday. In reality you are getting screwed because you're only getting paid your regular rate, which gets raped hardcore by taxes, on top of your already guaranteed holiday pay though.

Could be worse though, California is the ONLY state in the country my union has overtime whatsoever in the contract. Other states they can put in 80 hour weeks, and it's all straight time.

Miss my previous union, anything after 8 was OT, anything after 12 was DT regardless of your weekly total. Holidays were 8hrs 2.5x, and after 8 it was triple time.
 

Engineer

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
39,230
701
126
It is illegal, and nowhere near a common practice despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary.

I don't know the stats but based on my last 3 positions (including current one), it's on the rise. Job before last used to pay 1.5X pay for anything over 45 (nothing extra between 40 and 45) but that was completely removed in 2008.

Last position removed it before I got there and used to pay 1.5X for anything over 40.

Current position used to pay 1.5X and was considered an hourly position for the most part but now, is hiring only salary positions. All I can say is that if I don't get some time off with pay soon and the hours don't drop significantly below what I'm being "TOLD" that I have to work, job #4 of the last 10 months might be coming up shortly.

I highly doubt that my last two employers and current employer are the only ones doing this, especially with workers saying "at least I have a job in this economy!".
 

chucky2

Lifer
Dec 9, 1999
10,016
36
86
I'm amazed they can legally do that. Most first world countries have specific laws that prevent that kind of thing.

We do too, except for people who are "exempt" from overtime... which is most white collar type jobs...


Yikes. Thank god I don't have one of those. Engineers here get overtime or extra time off. The extra time off is kinda bullshit though because overtime pay is 1.5x regular, but extra time off is only 1x. Shouldn't it be 1.5x?

Well, I work at Corp (as a "management" employee, not a contractor or hourly). The hourly folks strictly work their 40 and go home (or work more than that to look good ((don't knock them for it)) and don't code their time), or get paid for the OT they work.

How they work the white collar "management" position is they call it "management". In reality, you don't manage a thing, except getting your work done...which means you're just like every other hourly paid worker out there. This way, they can tell you do do whatever they want, for as long as they want, whenever they want, for free (well, free to them, at your personal time cost to you), and you either do it or walk.

Personally I think the one good thing the Fed could do is do away with the salaried type of payscale. Simply require that everyone be paid hourly or lump sum if job is bid on (and then it has to be bid on). Yes, it'd cause a lot of problems in the short term, however, long term, I think it'd cut way down on unemployment and BS processes/rules, force companies to become truly efficient instead of fake efficient. Plus people would get compensated for the time they put in.

It'll never happen though...every business in the US that had salaried workers would scream at the top of their lungs. All that free (to them) labor they get would be gone.....

Chuck
 

Jadow

Diamond Member
Feb 12, 2003
5,962
2
0
From first hand experience in my company this it totally true.

My company had a lot of "dead weight" on the payroll that is now gone.

I'm actually amazed that they were so good at identifying the dead weight.

IMO it increased the morale of the good employees, finally seeing the non-producers being held accountable.
 

Lanyap

Elite Member
Dec 23, 2000
8,184
2,224
136
Additional analysis on the unemployment numbers.

Very Disturbing Employment Trends

contributors@theatlantic.com (Daniel Indiviglio), On Monday January 10, 2011, 1:28 pm EST

On Friday, we learned that the U.S. unemployment rate had dropped to 9.4%. An initial reaction to the news might have been celebration: it is the lowest rate the U.S. has seen since May 2009. But if you dug into the numbers, you quickly saw that the big decline didn't occur because of hiring. Instead, more workers quit looking for jobs, taking them out of the workforce and no longer counting them as unemployed. This implies two things about the nature of the unemployment problem: many Americans are having trouble finding a job for an extended period, and they're temporarily giving up.

In fact, the data demonstrates these trends quite clearly. The following chart shows how unemployment duration has changed since 2004. It provides the percentages of unemployed Americans who have been out-of-work for 27 weeks or more and for 26 weeks or fewer:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Very-Disturbing-Employment-atlantic-1784864573.html
 

nonlnear

Platinum Member
Jan 31, 2008
2,497
0
76
Additional analysis on the unemployment numbers.
One of the many reasons I hate pretty much all news stories about unemployment numbers. Why can't they write a damn story about the employment rate for a change? It means so much more, and yet it gets so much less media attention.
 

IndyColtsFan

Lifer
Sep 22, 2007
33,655
687
126
I don't know the stats but based on my last 3 positions (including current one), it's on the rise. Job before last used to pay 1.5X pay for anything over 45 (nothing extra between 40 and 45) but that was completely removed in 2008.

At my last job, our department head told us that he expected us to consistently work a minimum of 50 hours per week in order to get the highest rating on our reviews. For many years I was at that company, I did work more than that, but not the last couple of years and I still got the best reviews, even when I pushed back on management.