I'd caveat it to "Nordic countries are hostile to corporations" not just asshole ones.
I think the Swedish way to do things like this would be to renegotiate the employment contract (probably collectively if there's a union involved), and then see how many people want to stay with the reduced paychecks and then hire new people as necessary. Is that hostile?
Again, this isn't necessarily an outright bad thing, because it does protect workers, but it is a pretty virulently anti-entrepreneurship system.
Something else to consider. Circuit City's slogan has been, for years, "Where service is state of the art." Service has been the focal point of their company. By firing the experienced workers, they're abandoning that idea. So what reason is there left to shop at Circuity City? Certainly not their prices - you can get better deals online. Certainly not their selection - again, there's better online. Service is the only thing that sets B&M apart from most online retailers. Without it, they're not going to last.
I don't know about CC, but whenever I go to BestBuy, the employees who treat me the nicest are the obviously new ones. The ones that have been there for a long time generally don't give a damn about the customer because they have the illusion of job security, and all their ambition has been lost in disillusionment.
Amazingly I'm actually kind of in agreement about the concept here - people who feel they have job security are in no way necessarily better workers - the argument really swings both ways.
There's a difference between someone who's nice to you and someone who knows what they're doing. Most of my co-workers who are new (I work in a somewhat smaller computer store with about 5 people in sales on any given day) usually spend far too long talking to customers who are buying inexpensive items, they have a bad tendency of not knowing which products are compatible with what, and while they put lots of effort into what they're doing, they're not all that efficient at it. So from a company standpoint they're really not all that great as replacements.
Generally that'll last for about a month or two, and then they'll learn a bit more about how to sell and stop being quite as polite - a combination of knowing that they could have served four or five customers instead of chatting with just one, and that despite you being as nice as possible your customers have no such obligation - and it takes just a few pricks to realize that being a cheery friendly employee isn't always worth the $10/hr.
Amazingly, this post perfectly summarizes what is wrong with the retail culture in the USA.
The thing that is generally ignored by the logic in the above post -- logic that is unfortunately far too prevalent -- is that customers, when they go to a store to buy something, aren't only looking for answers to their questions. They are also looking for a kind of treatment that gives them the impression that the store values and respects them as customers. If I go to BestBuy with a particular question in mind, and mr-experienced-retailperson there answers it but in general fails to give me that impression by trying to dismiss me as quickly as possible so they can attend other customers, I am not going to be impressed.
Furthermore, I've never agreed with the whole "don't spend too much time on the customer if they are buying inexpensive products" logic because it is focused on short-term and short-term only. It ignores the fact that customers who are treated irregardless of the value of their purchase are retained for future purchases. If I go to BestBuy to buy batteries and I get full attention from the staff -- maybe say, the retail guy takes the time to explain to me the differences between different kinds of batteries I'm looking at, even though batteries cost only a few bucks -- I'm far more likely to go back there to buy my plasma TV in the future.
Interestingly enough I think what I explained above is somehow connected to the larger problem of retail personnel being the first group to be laid off in times of financial trouble. What they do is too much focused on trying to sell stuff in the present and not focused enough on trying to gain and keep long-term customers.
I'd caveat it to "Nordic countries are hostile to corporations" not just asshole ones.
I think the Swedish way to do things like this would be to renegotiate the employment contract (probably collectively if there's a union involved), and then see how many people want to stay with the reduced paychecks and then hire new people as necessary. Is that hostile?
That as an option, not specifically. Having that be my ONLY option, and further not being allowed to make ANY changes to my employment contracts without jumping to a number of hoops, up to and possibly including government involvement, is pretty hostile.
And I don't mean hostile in the "fuck you" sense, more in a relative sense. Businesses are much more tightly reined there, and I am NOT saying this is universally bad but it is something to consider.
Again, this isn't necessarily an outright bad thing, because it does protect workers, but it is a pretty virulently anti-entrepreneurship system.
Again, not saying that this environment kills entrepreneurship and business. I'm just saying it's a negative effect there. I don't have the numbers to cite, but I basically guarantee that if you look at business creation per capita, adjusted for education levels, the US is more productive on that front than the Nordic countries.
You'll never completely stop innovation, but you can slow it down significantly, and I think that an effect of this system. Again, I'm not at all saying this outweighs the benefits, but it is a counterpoint to be considered.
Personally, I'd think there has to be a middle ground. More protection for workers is certainly needed in the US, but completely tipping the scales in the opposite direction isn't the answer either.
And it apparently doesn't include the 2% who are actively enrolled in unemployment programs, but I don't know the situation nearly well enough.
I've been subjected to that crap. If you've been unemployed for 90 days you get called to one of these programs. Don't show up and your unemployment benefits get cut. Participate in some token full-time program and you're still expected to apply to jobs on your own time (which would be after office hours due to the program, so mail it is.)
Those 2% may not be included, but they're still unemployed.
The salient point as far as this discussion is concerned is that it is significantly higher than US unemployment. Even the absolute bottom of 7.4% is a full 3% higher, and it's likely at least double the US rate.
But our unemployed still get benefits, such as up to 80% of the paycheck of your last employment, up to 680 SEK per day (~103 USD). I'd say that's still above minimum wage in the US. (that's the basic unemployment package; different lines of work often have different packages via union organisations.)
I think minimum wage in the US is considered below starvation limit in Swedish norms.
Not claiming one system beats another, just explaining how it works here.
The first bit I knew, though I supposed I didn't say it especially well, but the second I didn't. That's a damn generous social safety net. While it's good that there's such a strong system in place to ensure no one really suffers, I think we still have to count having at a bare minimum 7.4% of your population being huge resource drains on the rest of the population as a strong negative.
It's certainly good that no one is outright screwed (as in starving), but when it comes at the cost of everyone being at least a bit screwed (as in giving up larger amounts of resources to support others) it isn't ideal. Both on a social and personal level I think it'd be better to have that 7.4+% being doing something productive.
It's certainly good that no one is outright screwed (as in starving), but when it comes at the cost of everyone being at least a bit screwed (as in giving up larger amounts of resources to support others) it isn't ideal. Both on a social and personal level I think it'd be better to have that 7.4+% being doing something productive.
So I actually started looking at those numbers (curse you for making me more informed, D&D!) and found this chart on "open unemployment". Sweden (the red graph) had 5.5% in 2006 (not including the 2% that got shoved under the carpet by calling them "employment programs"), the US had 4.6%. Pretty interesting stats - in 1988 the numbers were 1.8% for Sweden and 5.5% for the US. And in 2004 they were equal, after a period of the US having higher unemployment.
Something else to consider. Circuit City's slogan has been, for years, "Where service is state of the art." Service has been the focal point of their company. By firing the experienced workers, they're abandoning that idea. So what reason is there left to shop at Circuity City? Certainly not their prices - you can get better deals online. Certainly not their selection - again, there's better online. Service is the only thing that sets B&M apart from most online retailers. Without it, they're not going to last.
I don't know about CC, but whenever I go to BestBuy, the employees who treat me the nicest are the obviously new ones. The ones that have been there for a long time generally don't give a damn about the customer because they have the illusion of job security, and all their ambition has been lost in disillusionment.
Amazingly I'm actually kind of in agreement about the concept here - people who feel they have job security are in no way necessarily better workers - the argument really swings both ways.
There's a difference between someone who's nice to you and someone who knows what they're doing. Most of my co-workers who are new (I work in a somewhat smaller computer store with about 5 people in sales on any given day) usually spend far too long talking to customers who are buying inexpensive items, they have a bad tendency of not knowing which products are compatible with what, and while they put lots of effort into what they're doing, they're not all that efficient at it. So from a company standpoint they're really not all that great as replacements.
Generally that'll last for about a month or two, and then they'll learn a bit more about how to sell and stop being quite as polite - a combination of knowing that they could have served four or five customers instead of chatting with just one, and that despite you being as nice as possible your customers have no such obligation - and it takes just a few pricks to realize that being a cheery friendly employee isn't always worth the $10/hr.
Amazingly, this post perfectly summarizes what is wrong with the retail culture in the USA.
The thing that is generally ignored by the logic in the above post -- logic that is unfortunately far too prevalent -- is that customers, when they go to a store to buy something, aren't only looking for answers to their questions. They are also looking for a kind of treatment that gives them the impression that the store values and respects them as customers. If I go to BestBuy with a particular question in mind, and mr-experienced-retailperson there answers it but in general fails to give me that impression by trying to dismiss me as quickly as possible so they can attend other customers, I am not going to be impressed.
Furthermore, I've never agreed with the whole "don't spend too much time on the customer if they are buying inexpensive products" logic because it is focused on short-term and short-term only. It ignores the fact that customers who are treated irregardless of the value of their purchase are retained for future purchases. If I go to BestBuy to buy batteries and I get full attention from the staff -- maybe say, the retail guy takes the time to explain to me the differences between different kinds of batteries I'm looking at, even though batteries cost only a few bucks -- I'm far more likely to go back there to buy my plasma TV in the future.
Interestingly enough I think what I explained above is somehow connected to the larger problem of retail personnel being the first group to be laid off in times of financial trouble. What they do is too much focused on trying to sell stuff in the present and not focused enough on trying to gain and keep long-term customers.
Well I don't know what it's like now, but several years ago this is exactly the approach that I was trained in when I worked at Radioshack. For instance, I once spent at least an hour on the phone with a very tech un-savy person to teach them how to record from their cable etc. I think it even says in the training manuals (that you HAVE to complete for raises, retention, etc) that service is why people come to Radioshack, so you better deliver.
Now, I don't know about Circuit City personally. But I did work at Radioshack for several years on and off while working through school. I can easily say that the best service came from the most experienced people, and that this jaded culture you're talking about I personally haven't seen. I would venture that people who are happy chatting to other people and making sales have the same attitude the first day to months and years later, barring getting screwed by the company in some way and wanting out. And, with the experience, they are certainly better at it.
There's a bit of a rub in the argument that I'll grant though. When people came into Radioshack they generally had a bit of a project in mind. Sure they wanted a nice t.v., maybe even that t.v., but they also wanted surround sound, wanted to set up everything at once with a tuner, etc, and they were more than happy to get advice and the equipment they would need to set it all up. If you just sell them a t.v. without talking to them, well I think both parties lose in that case.
I'm not sure what the consumer attitude is in circuit city (I never shop there), so it may well be that they try to avoid the personnel at all costs. One wonders, however, if this isn't the DISTINCT fault of Circuit City for fostering this kind of consumer culture by not retaining their good employees.
It's certainly good that no one is outright screwed (as in starving), but when it comes at the cost of everyone being at least a bit screwed (as in giving up larger amounts of resources to support others) it isn't ideal. Both on a social and personal level I think it'd be better to have that 7.4+% being doing something productive.
So I actually started looking at those numbers (curse you for making me more informed, D&D!) and found this chart on "open unemployment". Sweden (the red graph) had 5.5% in 2006 (not including the 2% that got shoved under the carpet by calling them "employment programs"), the US had 4.6%. Pretty interesting stats - in 1988 the numbers were 1.8% for Sweden and 5.5% for the US. And in 2004 they were equal, after a period of the US having higher unemployment.
Hmmmm.
The late 1980s/early 1990s was when Sweden suffered a pretty rough recession, which explains the initial rise, though I think it's a definite black mark that unemployment has stagnated at a significantly high level.
werehippy on
0
Options
BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
Something else to consider. Circuit City's slogan has been, for years, "Where service is state of the art." Service has been the focal point of their company. By firing the experienced workers, they're abandoning that idea. So what reason is there left to shop at Circuity City? Certainly not their prices - you can get better deals online. Certainly not their selection - again, there's better online. Service is the only thing that sets B&M apart from most online retailers. Without it, they're not going to last.
I don't know about CC, but whenever I go to BestBuy, the employees who treat me the nicest are the obviously new ones. The ones that have been there for a long time generally don't give a damn about the customer because they have the illusion of job security, and all their ambition has been lost in disillusionment.
Amazingly I'm actually kind of in agreement about the concept here - people who feel they have job security are in no way necessarily better workers - the argument really swings both ways.
There's a difference between someone who's nice to you and someone who knows what they're doing. Most of my co-workers who are new (I work in a somewhat smaller computer store with about 5 people in sales on any given day) usually spend far too long talking to customers who are buying inexpensive items, they have a bad tendency of not knowing which products are compatible with what, and while they put lots of effort into what they're doing, they're not all that efficient at it. So from a company standpoint they're really not all that great as replacements.
Generally that'll last for about a month or two, and then they'll learn a bit more about how to sell and stop being quite as polite - a combination of knowing that they could have served four or five customers instead of chatting with just one, and that despite you being as nice as possible your customers have no such obligation - and it takes just a few pricks to realize that being a cheery friendly employee isn't always worth the $10/hr.
Amazingly, this post perfectly summarizes what is wrong with the retail culture in the USA.
The thing that is generally ignored by the logic in the above post -- logic that is unfortunately far too prevalent -- is that customers, when they go to a store to buy something, aren't only looking for answers to their questions. They are also looking for a kind of treatment that gives them the impression that the store values and respects them as customers. If I go to BestBuy with a particular question in mind, and mr-experienced-retailperson there answers it but in general fails to give me that impression by trying to dismiss me as quickly as possible so they can attend other customers, I am not going to be impressed.
Furthermore, I've never agreed with the whole "don't spend too much time on the customer if they are buying inexpensive products" logic because it is focused on short-term and short-term only. It ignores the fact that customers who are treated irregardless of the value of their purchase are retained for future purchases. If I go to BestBuy to buy batteries and I get full attention from the staff -- maybe say, the retail guy takes the time to explain to me the differences between different kinds of batteries I'm looking at, even though batteries cost only a few bucks -- I'm far more likely to go back there to buy my plasma TV in the future.
Interestingly enough I think what I explained above is somehow connected to the larger problem of retail personnel being the first group to be laid off in times of financial trouble. What they do is too much focused on trying to sell stuff in the present and not focused enough on trying to gain and keep long-term customers.
Yet this is exactly what managment pushes us to do, and the only way we ever make money doing our jobs. In fact, they do some pretty extensive research to determine that this approach is pretty much the most effective way for them to make a profit, which from a retail standpoint is all they care about. Best Buy in particular (whom I've worked with in the past) has a field manual that my workplace has more or less copied, and it gives the optimal amount of time that's supposed to be spent on each customer in order to maximize the returns you get, depending on how busy the store is at the moment. The general rule of thumb is that you don't spend more than five minutes on someone who is buying an item for less than $100 if there are other customers standing around not being served. The system itself has like 12 different 'time levels' depending on the ratios of customers to employees. Come the holiday season I'm apparently not supposed to spend more than about three minutes on someone building a $1500 computer.
Really, I'd love to just take on one customer at a time and slowly talk them through building a computer, the same way I'd build a computer for myself - the cheapest parts that give the best performance, and tell them the whys and the hows behind it. But in the end if I do that I'm not considered an asset to the company, and the guys who sell sell sell make the managers and head office more money, even if the people they're selling to aren't quite as happy.
You think getting paid enough money to eat is getting overpaid. Should I believe you even give two shits about minimum wage?
Are you daft, or do you simply not understand economics?
Getting paid more than the value they are adding to the company is getting overpaid. This is the definition of being overpaid.
If you do a job that is worth 4 bucks, and I pay you 8 bucks, you are being overpaid, regardless of whether or not that 8 bucks is enough for you to maintain a decent living. Really, the latter is a completely irrelevant concept as far as determining whether someone is overpaid and underpaid; the only two variables in the equation are wage and the marginal value of the labor being performed.
Which brings us back to what exactly to do with the increased unemployed once companies have gotten rid of people they no longer need.
You think getting paid enough money to eat is getting overpaid. Should I believe you even give two shits about minimum wage?
Are you daft, or do you simply not understand economics?
Getting paid more than the value they are adding to the company is getting overpaid. This is the definition of being overpaid.
If you do a job that is worth 4 bucks, and I pay you 8 bucks, you are being overpaid, regardless of whether or not that 8 bucks is enough for you to maintain a decent living. Really, the latter is a completely irrelevant concept as far as determining whether someone is overpaid and underpaid; the only two variables in the equation are wage and the marginal value of the labor being performed.
Which brings us back to what exactly to do with the increased unemployed once companies have gotten rid of people they no longer need.
You don't do anything with them. They eventually find other jobs.
Really, this is the nature of the job market in the US: high turn-over, high number of lay-offs, and high rate of employment. I don't think this is bad in any way.
You don't do anything with them. They eventually find other jobs.
Really, this is the nature of the job market in the US: high turn-over, high number of lay-offs, and high rate of employment. I don't think this is bad in any way.
There's a problem when every one of my replies to you has to start with: Man, what?
Waving your hands and saying they'll figure shit out on their own is not an actual strategy.
And you say the last bit as if it's a truism. The high rate of turn over is new, and probably isn't bad, though it does have it's downsides (more emphasis on personal effort to plan for retirement, less beenfits for low end workers, etc.).
The other two, no. High numbers of layoffs aren't either a long standing feature of the american economy OR a good thing. If a company has to have massive layoffs, while it may be the right choice at the moment, it pretty definitely means the company fucked up somewhere along the line. Either in not properly anticipating needs, or by letting a situation spiral out of control before dealing with it.
High employment is by no means a guarantee, and isn't even necessarily the norm. Hell, you don't even have to go back much more than a decade to find the last period of relatively high unemployment. AND thats ignoring the fact that the rate of technological innovation pretty much certainly guarantees there are going to be orders of magnitude more unskilled workers than unskilled jobs in our lifetime. The next couple decades are going to be rough as hell in terms of employment.
And, unfortunately, it's getting harder for people to figure out the right kind of education to get to allow for perpetual, low-competition employment, because we keep finding new ways to remove jobs. Mills->Robots->India.
And, unfortunately, it's getting harder for people to figure out the right kind of education to get to allow for perpetual, low-competition employment, because we keep finding new ways to remove jobs. Mills->Robots->India.
Though the one bright spot I've seen is the continued high demand for trade workers (skilled construction especially). There's a really demand for it, and I think we're finally seeing some movement towards people looking at that as a stable long term career. Of course, I doubt the pool there is large enough to absorb ALL the unskilled labor pool, but it's something.
The trade workers thing is pretty volatile, unfortunately.
1) Trade jobs are actually, often, pretty high paying, and unionized. This gets seriously disrupted by excess labor.
2) Trade jobs are, in my experience, very conservative in atmosphere, which can make them pretty hostile.
3) Imported laborers.
4) At least with construction, you have to deal with some serious cycles. Construction goes in roughly five year cycles. This has coincided with a very nasty housing thing. It is not well.
5) Trade jobs are very heavily affected by regulatory agencies, and regulatory agencies are absolutely NUTS right now.
Incenjucar on
0
Options
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
edited December 2007
I almost forgot how shitty retail was, thanks for the reminder.
I mean, maybe in some remote sense, you can argue that unskilled workers need to be overpaid in order to not live in poverty, which would mean in some weird ironic sense that not being in poverty is costing them their jobs, sure I could agree with that.
They are not being overpaid if it's to keep them out of poverty.
They are being overpaid if they are being paid more than what the job they are doing is worth.
And I imagine you let the company decide that.
Who else would decide it?
Well fuck, what the Hell do we even have minimum wage for? Screw it, let's just leave it up entirely to the companies!
Nice strawman.
Umm
didn't you just prove that it wasn't a strawman when you said
Wages are a negotiation between a company and an employee. If you say "I want $9/hr," and they say "that's too much for us, sorry," it's the exact same thing as them saying "We will pay you $7/hr," and you saying "that's too little, sorry."
It's unfortunate that situations like this are the first introduction that a lot of people have to how a (mostly) free market and labor works. Interestingly, Circuit City is giving all of their executives bonuses of $1 million apiece, despite the stock not doing so great. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=CC&t=1y
If I had money in them and I discovered that they were making their sales staff less helpful and moving the money to the top, I'd be dumping stock as well.
You don't do anything with them. They eventually find other jobs.
Really, this is the nature of the job market in the US: high turn-over, high number of lay-offs, and high rate of employment. I don't think this is bad in any way.
You don't think it's bad not even making enough to save, having no benefits, and having no job security whatsoever? Do you not understand that these are people's lives we're talking about? And one company laying off thousands of people doesn't miraculously open up positions in other companies. Sometimes it's just that: Unemployed people. As more and more unskilled labor is able to be replaced by a machine what makes you think jobs are going to keep opening?
You don't think it's bad not even making enough to save, having no benefits, and having no job security whatsoever? Do you not understand that these are people's lives we're talking about? And one company laying off thousands of people doesn't miraculously open up positions in other companies. Sometimes it's just that: Unemployed people. As more and more unskilled labor is able to be replaced by a machine what makes you think jobs are going to keep opening?
I disagree that employers have an ethical duty to keep employees who are costing a lot, when they could be replaced to save the company money.
I mean, it makes me not want to shop there, but PR is a different issue.
Wages are a negotiation between a company and an employee. If you say "I want $9/hr," and they say "that's too much for us, sorry," it's the exact same thing as them saying "We will pay you $7/hr," and you saying "that's too little, sorry."
It's unfortunate that situations like this are the first introduction that a lot of people have to how a (mostly) free market and labor works. Interestingly, Circuit City is giving all of their executives bonuses of $1 million apiece, despite the stock not doing so great. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=CC&t=1y
If I had money in them and I discovered that they were making their sales staff less helpful and moving the money to the top, I'd be dumping stock as well.
Doc, how can you not appreciate the plight of the American Executive? how else are they going to afford that Winter Yacht, with it's five fridges stocked with naught but the finest champagne and wines?
You don't think it's bad not even making enough to save, having no benefits, and having no job security whatsoever? Do you not understand that these are people's lives we're talking about? And one company laying off thousands of people doesn't miraculously open up positions in other companies. Sometimes it's just that: Unemployed people. As more and more unskilled labor is able to be replaced by a machine what makes you think jobs are going to keep opening?
I disagree that employers have an ethical duty to keep employees who are costing a lot, when they could be replaced to save the company money.
I mean, it makes me not want to shop there, but PR is a different issue.
I think it depends. If it's actually hurting the company, then definitely. But if it's for the sake of increasing the pay of upper management/stockholders, I get annoyed. Yes, it's their company and they're free to do what they like but these decisions often have negative consequences for a lot of people for the sake of making rich people richer.
Wages are a negotiation between a company and an employee. If you say "I want $9/hr," and they say "that's too much for us, sorry," it's the exact same thing as them saying "We will pay you $7/hr," and you saying "that's too little, sorry."
It's unfortunate that situations like this are the first introduction that a lot of people have to how a (mostly) free market and labor works. Interestingly, Circuit City is giving all of their executives bonuses of $1 million apiece, despite the stock not doing so great. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=CC&t=1y
If I had money in them and I discovered that they were making their sales staff less helpful and moving the money to the top, I'd be dumping stock as well.
Doc, how can you not appreciate the plight of the American Executive? how else are they going to afford that Winter Yacht, with it's five fridges stocked with naught but the finest champagne and wines?
Reminds me of a bit from a comedy show local to the Seattle area (Almost Live!) where they were doing a gift drive for Mercer Island (a typically super-rich area near Seattle) residents.
"My Christmas bonus wasn't what I thought it would be this year. I really would like some lambskin seat covers for a 1993 Maserati. Calfskin would be okay, as well."
Don't forget how many companies have been bitching about employees feeling "entitled" to extra perks and good pay rather than just shutting up and being happy to have a job.
I always love that.
Just as much as I love watching my rich uncle give family members $10 Christmas presents.
You don't do anything with them. They eventually find other jobs.
Really, this is the nature of the job market in the US: high turn-over, high number of lay-offs, and high rate of employment. I don't think this is bad in any way.
You don't think it's bad not even making enough to save, having no benefits, and having no job security whatsoever? Do you not understand that these are people's lives we're talking about? And one company laying off thousands of people doesn't miraculously open up positions in other companies. Sometimes it's just that: Unemployed people. As more and more unskilled labor is able to be replaced by a machine what makes you think jobs are going to keep opening?
Jobs will always keep opening.
For the 10-year period between 1993 and 2002 the U.S. economy created 318 million new jobs and destroyed 300 million of them, for a net gain of 18 million jobs. (I was trying to find data telling how many of these new jobs were low-skilled jobs but couldn't)
Economic Inequality in the United States, by Janet Yellen, SF Fed President: ...It's important to note first that our economy is always subject to large amounts of job turnover. Indeed, this is one hallmark of a dynamic, flexible economy, and it is not necessarily a bad thing on net. Data on worker flows ... indicate that ...[o]ver half of this job churning is voluntary in nature, reflecting worker desires to find a job with higher wages, better working conditions, or a different location. ...
However, involuntary displacement from permanent jobs, due to layoffs or downsizing, is important and has been on the rise over the past two decades. In particular, rates of worker displacement are up relative to measures of overall labor market conditions, such as the unemployment rate. ...
In addition, the distribution of displacement has shifted towards the highly educated: workers holding a college degree saw nearly a 50 percent increase in their displacement rates between the early 1980s recession and the most recent one in 2001.... So, more educated workers are seeing erosion of their job security relative to their less-educated counterparts. Of course, job displacement still remains a ... significant issue for low-paid workers...
You don't do anything with them. They eventually find other jobs.
Really, this is the nature of the job market in the US: high turn-over, high number of lay-offs, and high rate of employment. I don't think this is bad in any way.
You don't think it's bad not even making enough to save, having no benefits, and having no job security whatsoever? Do you not understand that these are people's lives we're talking about? And one company laying off thousands of people doesn't miraculously open up positions in other companies. Sometimes it's just that: Unemployed people. As more and more unskilled labor is able to be replaced by a machine what makes you think jobs are going to keep opening?
Jobs will always keep opening.
For the 10-year period between 1993 and 2002 the U.S. economy created 318 million new jobs and destroyed 300 million of them, for a net gain of 18 million jobs. (I was trying to find data telling how many of these new jobs were low-skilled jobs but couldn't)
Meanwhile between 1990 and 2000 the population increased 30 million.
And from the article you linked:
Involuntary job loss frequently inflicts dire consequences, which have grown more severe over time. Involuntary job losers typically are unemployed for at least four months, about 70 percent longer than individuals who enter unemployment voluntarily. ... The picture looks even gloomier when you recognize that some job losers withdraw from the labor force... Put these factors together and it's clear that periods without earnings can be quite lengthy and costly for job losers. Moreover, when displaced workers do find new jobs, they're taking a pay cut of about 17 percent on average. The size of this wage loss in the early 2000s was the highest in at least 20 years.
Probably would be better to take a longer survey period as well. If I recall correctly the late 80s-early 90s were pretty shitty all over economically, so starting at 93 might be a little misleading in that the job growth could be coming off the back of a recession when unemployment was high.
Take a look at literature written in the 80s-early 90s, there is quite a lot of contempory fiction or the like that is rather depressing - talking about massive drug addiction, high unemployment, industrial collapse etc.
Probably would be better to take a longer survey period as well. If I recall correctly the late 80s-early 90s were pretty shitty all over economically, so starting at 93 might be a little misleading in that the job growth could be coming off the back of a recession when unemployment was high.
Take a look at literature written in the 80s-early 90s, there is quite a lot of contempory fiction or the like that is rather depressing - talking about massive drug addiction, high unemployment, industrial collapse etc.
Though that had more to do with the rampant crime wave that was ongoing, as opposed to the job market. One of the few times "good thing we legalized abortion or who knows how bad things would have gotten" is a viable sentence.
edit: Though I'm sure the job market didn't help, it wasn't a catastrophically bad recession.
I'm not sure i get what you mean - are you saying things I outlined (massive drug addiction, high unemployment, industrial collapse ) were a result of rampart crime more than other things?
I was referring to the grim nature of literature of the time that looked to the future. People always extrapolate current trends too far out, and I was just tossing out that I'd credit the grim expectations for the future more to the trends in crime at the time more than those in economics.
ahh ok, fair point, reading anything by Heinlein/Dick in the 70s backs your point up as well. I reread a lot of their stuff a couple of months back while staying with my sister (her bf was a scifi nut) and sweet jesus they had some pretty grim visions of social/economic collapse coming off the back of Vietnam/counter culture and the oil shocks no doubt.
Retail hasn't always been a young person's game, although it seems to becoming that. I remember when i started working electronics retail in 02 our store was staffed 50/50 young/student vs older mature types. The last time I went into that store no one was above 25 so far as I could tell and it wouldn't surprise me if I still knew more about the product lines than they did, despite being out of it since 05
Kalkino on
Freedom for the Northern Isles!
0
Options
TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
edited December 2007
I was considering buying this camera. Should I not do so out of moral outrage?
More importantly, is there a better deal elsewhere for $99?
Posts
I think the Swedish way to do things like this would be to renegotiate the employment contract (probably collectively if there's a union involved), and then see how many people want to stay with the reduced paychecks and then hire new people as necessary. Is that hostile?
Ingvar Kamprad would beg to differ.
Amazingly, this post perfectly summarizes what is wrong with the retail culture in the USA.
The thing that is generally ignored by the logic in the above post -- logic that is unfortunately far too prevalent -- is that customers, when they go to a store to buy something, aren't only looking for answers to their questions. They are also looking for a kind of treatment that gives them the impression that the store values and respects them as customers. If I go to BestBuy with a particular question in mind, and mr-experienced-retailperson there answers it but in general fails to give me that impression by trying to dismiss me as quickly as possible so they can attend other customers, I am not going to be impressed.
Furthermore, I've never agreed with the whole "don't spend too much time on the customer if they are buying inexpensive products" logic because it is focused on short-term and short-term only. It ignores the fact that customers who are treated irregardless of the value of their purchase are retained for future purchases. If I go to BestBuy to buy batteries and I get full attention from the staff -- maybe say, the retail guy takes the time to explain to me the differences between different kinds of batteries I'm looking at, even though batteries cost only a few bucks -- I'm far more likely to go back there to buy my plasma TV in the future.
Interestingly enough I think what I explained above is somehow connected to the larger problem of retail personnel being the first group to be laid off in times of financial trouble. What they do is too much focused on trying to sell stuff in the present and not focused enough on trying to gain and keep long-term customers.
That as an option, not specifically. Having that be my ONLY option, and further not being allowed to make ANY changes to my employment contracts without jumping to a number of hoops, up to and possibly including government involvement, is pretty hostile.
And I don't mean hostile in the "fuck you" sense, more in a relative sense. Businesses are much more tightly reined there, and I am NOT saying this is universally bad but it is something to consider.
Again, not saying that this environment kills entrepreneurship and business. I'm just saying it's a negative effect there. I don't have the numbers to cite, but I basically guarantee that if you look at business creation per capita, adjusted for education levels, the US is more productive on that front than the Nordic countries.
You'll never completely stop innovation, but you can slow it down significantly, and I think that an effect of this system. Again, I'm not at all saying this outweighs the benefits, but it is a counterpoint to be considered.
Personally, I'd think there has to be a middle ground. More protection for workers is certainly needed in the US, but completely tipping the scales in the opposite direction isn't the answer either.
The first bit I knew, though I supposed I didn't say it especially well, but the second I didn't. That's a damn generous social safety net. While it's good that there's such a strong system in place to ensure no one really suffers, I think we still have to count having at a bare minimum 7.4% of your population being huge resource drains on the rest of the population as a strong negative.
It's certainly good that no one is outright screwed (as in starving), but when it comes at the cost of everyone being at least a bit screwed (as in giving up larger amounts of resources to support others) it isn't ideal. Both on a social and personal level I think it'd be better to have that 7.4+% being doing something productive.
So I actually started looking at those numbers (curse you for making me more informed, D&D!) and found this chart on "open unemployment". Sweden (the red graph) had 5.5% in 2006 (not including the 2% that got shoved under the carpet by calling them "employment programs"), the US had 4.6%. Pretty interesting stats - in 1988 the numbers were 1.8% for Sweden and 5.5% for the US. And in 2004 they were equal, after a period of the US having higher unemployment.
Well I don't know what it's like now, but several years ago this is exactly the approach that I was trained in when I worked at Radioshack. For instance, I once spent at least an hour on the phone with a very tech un-savy person to teach them how to record from their cable etc. I think it even says in the training manuals (that you HAVE to complete for raises, retention, etc) that service is why people come to Radioshack, so you better deliver.
Now, I don't know about Circuit City personally. But I did work at Radioshack for several years on and off while working through school. I can easily say that the best service came from the most experienced people, and that this jaded culture you're talking about I personally haven't seen. I would venture that people who are happy chatting to other people and making sales have the same attitude the first day to months and years later, barring getting screwed by the company in some way and wanting out. And, with the experience, they are certainly better at it.
There's a bit of a rub in the argument that I'll grant though. When people came into Radioshack they generally had a bit of a project in mind. Sure they wanted a nice t.v., maybe even that t.v., but they also wanted surround sound, wanted to set up everything at once with a tuner, etc, and they were more than happy to get advice and the equipment they would need to set it all up. If you just sell them a t.v. without talking to them, well I think both parties lose in that case.
I'm not sure what the consumer attitude is in circuit city (I never shop there), so it may well be that they try to avoid the personnel at all costs. One wonders, however, if this isn't the DISTINCT fault of Circuit City for fostering this kind of consumer culture by not retaining their good employees.
Hmmmm.
The late 1980s/early 1990s was when Sweden suffered a pretty rough recession, which explains the initial rise, though I think it's a definite black mark that unemployment has stagnated at a significantly high level.
Yet this is exactly what managment pushes us to do, and the only way we ever make money doing our jobs. In fact, they do some pretty extensive research to determine that this approach is pretty much the most effective way for them to make a profit, which from a retail standpoint is all they care about. Best Buy in particular (whom I've worked with in the past) has a field manual that my workplace has more or less copied, and it gives the optimal amount of time that's supposed to be spent on each customer in order to maximize the returns you get, depending on how busy the store is at the moment. The general rule of thumb is that you don't spend more than five minutes on someone who is buying an item for less than $100 if there are other customers standing around not being served. The system itself has like 12 different 'time levels' depending on the ratios of customers to employees. Come the holiday season I'm apparently not supposed to spend more than about three minutes on someone building a $1500 computer.
Really, I'd love to just take on one customer at a time and slowly talk them through building a computer, the same way I'd build a computer for myself - the cheapest parts that give the best performance, and tell them the whys and the hows behind it. But in the end if I do that I'm not considered an asset to the company, and the guys who sell sell sell make the managers and head office more money, even if the people they're selling to aren't quite as happy.
You don't do anything with them. They eventually find other jobs.
Really, this is the nature of the job market in the US: high turn-over, high number of lay-offs, and high rate of employment. I don't think this is bad in any way.
Benefits tend to only be available after longer periods of employment.
There's a problem when every one of my replies to you has to start with: Man, what?
Waving your hands and saying they'll figure shit out on their own is not an actual strategy.
And you say the last bit as if it's a truism. The high rate of turn over is new, and probably isn't bad, though it does have it's downsides (more emphasis on personal effort to plan for retirement, less beenfits for low end workers, etc.).
The other two, no. High numbers of layoffs aren't either a long standing feature of the american economy OR a good thing. If a company has to have massive layoffs, while it may be the right choice at the moment, it pretty definitely means the company fucked up somewhere along the line. Either in not properly anticipating needs, or by letting a situation spiral out of control before dealing with it.
High employment is by no means a guarantee, and isn't even necessarily the norm. Hell, you don't even have to go back much more than a decade to find the last period of relatively high unemployment. AND thats ignoring the fact that the rate of technological innovation pretty much certainly guarantees there are going to be orders of magnitude more unskilled workers than unskilled jobs in our lifetime. The next couple decades are going to be rough as hell in terms of employment.
And, unfortunately, it's getting harder for people to figure out the right kind of education to get to allow for perpetual, low-competition employment, because we keep finding new ways to remove jobs. Mills->Robots->India.
Though the one bright spot I've seen is the continued high demand for trade workers (skilled construction especially). There's a really demand for it, and I think we're finally seeing some movement towards people looking at that as a stable long term career. Of course, I doubt the pool there is large enough to absorb ALL the unskilled labor pool, but it's something.
1) Trade jobs are actually, often, pretty high paying, and unionized. This gets seriously disrupted by excess labor.
2) Trade jobs are, in my experience, very conservative in atmosphere, which can make them pretty hostile.
3) Imported laborers.
4) At least with construction, you have to deal with some serious cycles. Construction goes in roughly five year cycles. This has coincided with a very nasty housing thing. It is not well.
5) Trade jobs are very heavily affected by regulatory agencies, and regulatory agencies are absolutely NUTS right now.
I love my job.
Umm
didn't you just prove that it wasn't a strawman when you said
It's unfortunate that situations like this are the first introduction that a lot of people have to how a (mostly) free market and labor works. Interestingly, Circuit City is giving all of their executives bonuses of $1 million apiece, despite the stock not doing so great.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=CC&t=1y
If I had money in them and I discovered that they were making their sales staff less helpful and moving the money to the top, I'd be dumping stock as well.
I disagree that employers have an ethical duty to keep employees who are costing a lot, when they could be replaced to save the company money.
I mean, it makes me not want to shop there, but PR is a different issue.
Doc, how can you not appreciate the plight of the American Executive? how else are they going to afford that Winter Yacht, with it's five fridges stocked with naught but the finest champagne and wines?
Reminds me of a bit from a comedy show local to the Seattle area (Almost Live!) where they were doing a gift drive for Mercer Island (a typically super-rich area near Seattle) residents.
"My Christmas bonus wasn't what I thought it would be this year. I really would like some lambskin seat covers for a 1993 Maserati. Calfskin would be okay, as well."
"Anything from Nordstrom. But not The Rack."
I always love that.
Just as much as I love watching my rich uncle give family members $10 Christmas presents.
Jobs will always keep opening.
For the 10-year period between 1993 and 2002 the U.S. economy created 318 million new jobs and destroyed 300 million of them, for a net gain of 18 million jobs. (I was trying to find data telling how many of these new jobs were low-skilled jobs but couldn't)
Also, regarding job security and worker skill:
Read this.
An excerpt:
And from the article you linked:
Is that population increase, or labor pool increase?
Because if that is just population, it means ABSOLUTELY nothing.
Take a look at literature written in the 80s-early 90s, there is quite a lot of contempory fiction or the like that is rather depressing - talking about massive drug addiction, high unemployment, industrial collapse etc.
Though that had more to do with the rampant crime wave that was ongoing, as opposed to the job market. One of the few times "good thing we legalized abortion or who knows how bad things would have gotten" is a viable sentence.
edit: Though I'm sure the job market didn't help, it wasn't a catastrophically bad recession.
More importantly, is there a better deal elsewhere for $99?