Lost middle class jobs being replaced with "burger flipping and retail jobs"....gasp

[1prophet]

Speaking of shipping costs, I wonder how long it will be before NAFTA is changed to allow Mexican trucks to not only deliver Mexican made items into the US but to allow Chinese (and others) to port in Mexico (killing US ports), unload onto Mexican trucks and then ship to various destinations in the US using the cheap, Mexican trucking labor.

I'm sure there are people who have thought about and have tried to push this.....just a matter of time.

I'm sure they are thinking about it, and will use events such as these to justify it:whiste:
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/09...-strike-could-impact-holiday-shopping-season/

 

[Triumph]

Actually they often inadvertently do ship their own jobs overseas. Consider:
1. Gawdawfultek Company manufactures innovative video cards and motherboards. Gawdawfultek is located in the Silicon Valley, a very high cost area of a high cost state, so it pays quite a lot in wages.

*****snip******

8. Smelltek honchos hire executive assistants with breasts larger than their heads and begin to calculate the profit from moving production to China.

This is something I've been saying for a while. All of these offshoring companies have literally created their own competition, by flat out giving away all of their trade secrets in search of short term profits. Extremely short sighted, and I'd almost dare to say that these companies get what they deserve. GM is now planning to design and build a hybrid electric vehicle in China. They defend it by saying that it won't hurt US jobs because they're designing a vehicle for the Chinese market. Yeah, and you think those Chinese engineers and factory workers are idiots, that they aren't capable of learning something from you about how to make a leading edge hybrid electric vehicle? You're shooting yourselves in the foot.

It used to be that a company prided itself on what it was capable of. It saw its own strength reflected in the trade secrets it held, the manufacturing muscle it could flex, the sheer pride in simply saying, "We do this." One of the largest corporations of the US industrial revolution, the Pennsylvania Railroad, did everything themselves. They designed and built all of their trains in house, with their employees. They ran huge testing facilities in order to find the most efficient light bulbs for their passenger cars, or refrigeration units for the produce cars, or a more advanced braking system, etc. Companies like that measured their growth through increased capabilities, not just increased profits. Corporate officers today only care about the bottom line, they aren't interested in what the actual company itself does.

 

[Arglebargle]

Speaking of shipping costs, I wonder how long it will be before NAFTA is changed to allow Mexican trucks to not only deliver Mexican made items into the US but to allow Chinese (and others) to port in Mexico (killing US ports), unload onto Mexican trucks and then ship to various destinations in the US using the cheap, Mexican trucking labor.

I'm sure there are people who have thought about and have tried to push this.....just a matter of time.

Are you sure they aren't already doing that? I was under the impression that Mexican ports were already siphoning off business from Los Angeles. Of course, the Mexicans have been losing jobs to China, etc, as the businesses decide that $2.00 an hour jobs in Mexico are too expensive, so I guess they have to make it up some way.

Driving the central highway in Mexico, there are a ton of semis heading north.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

If it keeps jobs in the USA, who gives a fuck. Products are crazy cheap now. I'd rather the USA support itself than China if it means product pricing is a bit higher.

lol, if things were made in the us they wouldnt be a "bit higher", more like 5-10x as expensive. americans arent going to sew shirts for $30 a month like kids in saipan are.

having said that, america has allowed itself to be destroyed. we have an selfish economy that allows a few people at the top (many of whom sit behind computers not producing anything but financial transaction) to become super rich while the majority barely survive. thats great--for a while--if youre one of the super rich, until you wake up one day and realize the country youre living in has been irreversibly phuckt.

 

[Joepublic2]

lol, if things were made in the us they wouldnt be a "bit higher", more like 5-10x as expensive. americans arent going to sew shirts for $30 a month like kids in saipan are.

This assumes that manufactures aren't just pocketing most of the difference in labor costs between US and foreign manufacturing.

 

[mshan]

Fox Business News says 600,000 skilled worker / skilled engineers job openings right now: http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1834541087001/engineering-facing-skills-shortage-in-hiring

Can't find other video clip, but around 4:45 PM on Fox Cavuto, he had clip where there is shortage of welders in South Dakota (Bakken Shale communities probably need any type of worker, if you know friends who are mobile and need work).

New home builders also can't find enough skilled workers in some markets: http://www.cnbc.com/id/48926517

 

[Engineer]

Fox Business News says 600,000 skilled worker / skilled engineers job openings right now: http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1834541087001/engineering-facing-skills-shortage-in-hiring

Can't find other video clip, but around 4:45 PM on Fox Cavuto, he had clip where there is shortage of welders in South Dakota (Bakken Shale communities probably need any type of worker, if you know friends who are mobile and need work).

New home builders also can't find enough skilled workers in some markets: http://www.cnbc.com/id/48926517

I've seen this and have talked to recruiters about it. They have told me that most factories are not willing to take on anyone who doesn't have multiple years experience. At the same time, the factories are not willing to pay enough to steal workers from other factories. On top of that, many people who left that environment, whether by choice or forced out, have no desire to come back to it, especially given the continual downturn over the last decade plus.

Add the fact that we are encouraging our children to go to college instead of technical / trade schools, and you get a skills gap quickly. But of course, those that cheerlead the service jobs industry as being a better replacement than the manufacturing industry, this is confusing. How can factories need "skilled" jobs when they are commodity positions that can be sent to China.

Finally, some of the companies involved are absolutely not willing to look at skilled trades people unless they have a degree, regardless of experience. I've seen this first hand with excellent "near" engineers who had all of the skills and then some (not to mention 3 years of college) but didn't have the piece of paper showing completion of college. Pretty sad.

 

[mshan]

Good additional info, Engineer! (I am going to copy and past your comments into posting I just put in networking sticky).

I saw on some other thread that some HR Departments had strict GPA minimums and were turning away what others thought were highly qualified applicants otherwise.

If economy continues to pick up steam slowly, hopefully, they won't have that option (i. e. as Manpower CEO said on CNBC, employers are going to need to relax their criteria going forward http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000114255&play=1.

Lots of people are unfortunately also "stuck" so to speak because of underwater mortgage on home they can't sell.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/dail...being-replaced-burger-flipping-164535060.html

Who would have thought? That damn ole Ross Perot....if only we could turn back time. Just remember boys and girls, service jobs are our way to the future and will be great..........riiiiiiigggggghhhhhttttt!



and then there's this....



Good jobs going overseas hurt the middle class? Wow.....and on top of that, cuts actually mean people losing jobs? Again, gasp.

A real race to the bottom because without a solid foundation, the whole darn building is going to collapse.

What do they consider high, mid and low paying wages?

 

[CountZero]

Another thought: gotta love it that the jobs at the top are staying there (or even expanding) while the middle class gets eviscerated. Ship jobs overseas --> executive salary bonus --> profit!

To be fair if this was split in thirds that would encompass a lot of people on this forum and probably posters in this thread. I can't find top third but to be in the top 25% you need 67k salary. Not at all a stretch for an engineer or tech worker let alone the myriad of business related job functions.

It isn't the 1% protecting themselves it is that well educated white collar jobs are doing ok.

The jobs we are losing are the ones that hard working high school graduates could work up towards, things that could become careers. Now there are just jobs with zero or very little chance at advancement, and they are just jobs. I think we are also losing some of those white collar type of jobs that were typically the domain of less career focused degrees (ie liberal arts).

The problem is even if you are in that group that is doing ok employment wise now we will hit a sustainability issue eventually. Being in the tech sector when people can't afford as many tech toys will narrow the number of highly paid tech workers needed to meet demand, for example.

 

[werepossum]

I've seen this and have talked to recruiters about it. They have told me that most factories are not willing to take on anyone who doesn't have multiple years experience. At the same time, the factories are not willing to pay enough to steal workers from other factories. On top of that, many people who left that environment, whether by choice or forced out, have no desire to come back to it, especially given the continual downturn over the last decade plus.

Add the fact that we are encouraging our children to go to college instead of technical / trade schools, and you get a skills gap quickly. But of course, those that cheerlead the service jobs industry as being a better replacement than the manufacturing industry, this is confusing. How can factories need "skilled" jobs when they are commodity positions that can be sent to China.

Finally, some of the companies involved are absolutely not willing to look at skilled trades people unless they have a degree, regardless of experience. I've seen this first hand with excellent "near" engineers who had all of the skills and then some (not to mention 3 years of college) but didn't have the piece of paper showing completion of college. Pretty sad.

At a chair factory in my home county, many production line workers were making over $20/hour in the mid-seventies. They worked their asses off and were paid by production, and the quality was great because if a piece was rejected, you got squat for it. A decade or so ago the owner began firing those workers (for various trumped up reasons) as they neared retirement (thirty years) and hiring illegals for flat wages, typically $10 - $12 per hour with few or no benefits. Production fell like a rock, quality descended even more rapidly, but the owner made more profit. Same thing happened in Dalton, Georgia in the carpet industry.

Sometimes you don't actually have to move the factory to outsource.

 

[werepossum]

This is something I've been saying for a while. All of these offshoring companies have literally created their own competition, by flat out giving away all of their trade secrets in search of short term profits. Extremely short sighted, and I'd almost dare to say that these companies get what they deserve. GM is now planning to design and build a hybrid electric vehicle in China. They defend it by saying that it won't hurt US jobs because they're designing a vehicle for the Chinese market. Yeah, and you think those Chinese engineers and factory workers are idiots, that they aren't capable of learning something from you about how to make a leading edge hybrid electric vehicle? You're shooting yourselves in the foot.

It used to be that a company prided itself on what it was capable of. It saw its own strength reflected in the trade secrets it held, the manufacturing muscle it could flex, the sheer pride in simply saying, "We do this." One of the largest corporations of the US industrial revolution, the Pennsylvania Railroad, did everything themselves. They designed and built all of their trains in house, with their employees. They ran huge testing facilities in order to find the most efficient light bulbs for their passenger cars, or refrigeration units for the produce cars, or a more advanced braking system, etc. Companies like that measured their growth through increased capabilities, not just increased profits. Corporate officers today only care about the bottom line, they aren't interested in what the actual company itself does.

Agreed. The best for which a company like GM can hope is that they'll make enough money short term to not miss the money they'll lose in the long term. Instead, they tend to be left with the old skills and technology nobody wants while their newly minted competition - educated on GM's dime - has the new skills and technology. Worse, the people who would have been supporting the engineering now go Tango Uniform and we lose our commons, lose the ability for other Americans to compete.

As a result of this new competition, CEOs now get contracts with stock options that mandate discounts on whatever the stock value is at the moment, so they can run the company into the toilet and still get a multi-million dollar bonus from stock options. PLUS they getto have this taxed as capital gains, even though they have no actual money put at risk, ever. They simply execute a document stating they are exercising their stock options and get a big bonus check. That's as close to legalized theft as anyone who isn't a government is likely to achieve.

 

[mshan]

Heads Up guys and gals!:



Amazon:
- http://redirect.anandtech.com/r?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fjobs%2Fref%3Dgw_m_b_careers&user=u00000687
- http://college.amazon-jobs.com/career-paths/#Internship

(all over country, though Bezos may not be the best boss to work for):
- http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2266826&highlight=bezos
- https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesvaVX
-http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor )




Apple :
- http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/index.html




Facebook :
- http://www.facebook.com/careers#locations



Google Jobs / Google Student Opportunities all across country, and around the world, too:
- http://www.google.com/about/jobs/locations/

Their Students subsection looks like it has internships and well as full time positions, and looking for some PhDs, too.




:thumbsup: