From what I can see, there's no one magic bullet. A few system-wide things that could probably help: 1) Create jobs that don't require a college degree and pay a living wage. They don't have to be a career, but something that would allow people to save up cash to pay for college and take some time to decide what they want to do would be good. This should include apprenticeship programs and trade schools. 2) Reduce university administrative jobs as much as possible. Put the power back into the hands of professors in the form of short-term appointments, instead of in the hands of a class of people that just move from administrative job to administrative job. If that sounds like it will require more time from professors, hire more faculty that care about doing good work, rather than administrators that care about ROI. (I have a lot more to say on the second point, but that will have to wait for a day when I'm willing to be angry about stuff.)
Your words "create jobs" triggered my anger response. Jobs do not get "created." Jobs are a symptom. The President does not wave his magic wand and "create" 70,000 engineering jobs. A CEO does not just put his signature on a piece of paper and create 1,000 new programming jobs. There are tens of thousands of jobs that pay an excellent wage, require no college degree, and go unfilled year after year after year. The problem is not that there are "no jobs", or that "immigrants took my job" or any other silly hand-waving media-sound-bite-friendly bullshit. Don't fall for that. For 10 years Mike Rowe demonstrated this to us, and for the last six years he has continued to champion this cause and message with Mike Rowe Works. These are real careers with union protections, pensions, good pay, good benefits, and - for a large part - the ability to set your own schedule and workload. The jobs are there. The entitled little shits just need to DO them. Plumber. Electrician. Steelworker. Linemen. Stagehand. Tailor. Etc, etc, etc. Two weeks ago my fire-performer friend just got hired as a union electrician. Almost two years ago a roller derby girl I know became a construction worker, and is happier than she's ever been in her life, pouring concrete on a high-rise building project. I just gave a plumber $18k to replumb my entire house. He never even finished high school. My friend gets $80k/yr guaranteed minimum to operate the crane on a construction site. A skill that you only learn on the job. Not from Yale. And on, and on, and on, and on. Psh. "Create jobs". Gimme a damn break. People just need to get to work.
It's not that simple. I have been job hunting for something better than where I am for about a year and a half now. I have applied to positions for everything from an arborist to HVAC apprentice to drywall to locksmith. My resume is awesome. My cover letters are great. My references are strong. When I do interview, I interview well. The jobs are out there, they are appealing as hell, and people obviously fill the positions cause very few of them get reposted to places like Craigslist and Monster. Getting those jobs are just as hard as getting jobs that require degrees. Employers are definitely looking for good candidates to fill those positions and not everyone is gonna fit the bill, including me. That is okay. I want these companies to be successful and I want them to hire people they think will best contribute to their success. But to scoff and talk like anyone can get a job like that as easily as they could get a job at a place like McDonald's or Best Buy is being disingenuous to the reality of the situation.
Most of the time with trade jobs you have to know somebody to get them because the people hiring already know somebody they would like to hire. Or you have to be on the small job hunting sites like kijiji at 10 pm because that's when the small companies have a chance to put their ad up. Location matters too, good luck getting apprenticeships in certain parts of the country. Most of the people I know are in work like this and it's really not the sunshine and rainbows people try to make it out as.
Well, that's kinda the point, though, isn't it? If you don't have a degree from Yale that vouches for your electronics expertise, well someone is going to need to vouch for you... and that someone will be somebody already in the union. That's pretty much why they work. People know each other. They work with each other. They tell you honestly whether dude is right for X, Y, or Z job. Or if he isn't. So the part about "knowing someone, so you can get in" is just how life was before colleges came around and began passing out "entry tickets" for $35k a piece. You had to know someone, and that someone had to vouch for you. "Take a chance on this kid. He's dumb now, but he learns fast, and works hard."
Really? I'm not sure I follow. To get a job you generally need someone to vouch for you. A friend introduces you to his Union boss, or a university gives you a piece of paper. Either way, that's your entry ticket to the job market. Unless you just go out totally on your own and build something new that every just must have. But those types of ideas and people are rare, indeed.
Yeah. When you get into the nitty gritty of it, it is more complex. The workforce used to be more mobile. How many times have we heard about "when granddad moved to Baltimore because he heard there was work there", etc. Plus, you would have been FINE at any one of those jobs you interviewed for. The hiring managers are also getting their perspective skewed by the language we casually throw around today, and the expectation of degrees for even the lowest barista job, etc. Perfectly good candidates like yourself are overlooked due to the "grass is always greener" conversation that is constantly presented by the media. Every exceptional case gets its own TV special nowadays, while the people making up the Capable Middle - call it 70% of the workforce - are completely ignored and unappreciated. Stick with it. I was in your shoes this time last year. Now I'm rich and famous. Or, um, I'm working 9-5 and paying my bills on time, at least...
ok, goob, I gotta ask you a question: ... If you knew that, why'd you say it so reductively in the first place? The job situation - not just in America, but also the world - is multifaceted and has a lot of intricacies. I'm a good example - I'm paying my bills off as much as I can. I work 4 days a week 6:30-2:30 at a restaurant baking and food prepping for more than minimum wage here, as well as one night a week teaching music lessons, and occasional paying music gigs as I work on building a sustainable music career here in my city. I live in my parent's basement, where I contribute to the family by helping with bills and cooking (i get home earlier, so I cook). I have a Master's degree, and lots of student loans to go with it -though I will admit I did very well with scholarships and bursaries. Nevertheless, If I were paying all of my debt down right now, I would be bankrupt. I would be unable to pay my debts even while working 38 hours a week for more than minimum wage (for my 6 teaching hours, significantly more than minimum wage - 27 dollars an hour) and the musicians' equivalent of odd jobs. I am lucky. Most of my debt is held by the Canadian government and is - through me filing out paperwork, etc - currently in a state of "hold", meaning I don't make any payments off of it. I am currently working to pay down my other debts, which makes my life more manageable. There are lots of people stateside who don't have the advantages I have. They're good people, and some of them even went to school for much more sensible degrees than I did. A lot of these people are working to pay off their debt - working more than 40 hours a week at it too - they just don't make enough money. Your minimum wage in the US is a fucking joke. I bet your roller derby friend, happy as she may be, probably doesn't make that much money either - even as a construction worker. Is that enough? Is all of life just paying off incurred debt then dying? It seems like that's what the "american dream" has become.Yeah. When you get into the nitty gritty of it, it is more complex.
I'm working 9-5 and paying my bills on time, at least...
Because my post was about the cheap use of incorrect words to reinforce a belief system that is imposed upon us through the insidious use of deflective language... not about the intricacies of the modern day job search dance. True, but again, you are having a different discussion than I am. This began with the idea that someone can just magically "create jobs", which is completely backwards. A need occurs, and then you find people to fill that need. Not the other way around. You don't "create jobs" you "create need" and then the jobs come along to fill the need. Your personal story of working multiple jobs, and living with the parents to pay off debt, is a common one today. And the ultimate end result of our "caste system" of jobs. People don't go into the trades because it is seen as less of a job than a desk job, or software development, or whatever. But the reality is actually flipped. The tradespeople I know own their home, work reasonable hours, and have time and money for pursuits (like music) outside of their day jobs. Very few of the programmers I know have that kind of work/life balance. In short, it takes ALL kinds... not just degree-job kinds. $40k/year is about double a secretary's salary. Enough to live comfortably. She's got a big ole Harley, a house, a bulldog, a boyfriend, and is comfortable enough. For me? I do excellent work for the company, bring in good value, get a good salary and benefits in return, and don't take work home with me. I have no debt (well, I do have a car payment and a credit card that I keep just to maintain my credit rating), and I'm saving some money. All in all, it's a pretty good deal, as far as I'm concerned. And when I need "more" I pick up a new marketing client, or pick up one of my unfinished books or screenplays and do some creative work. ... If you knew that, why'd you say it so reductively in the first place?
A lot of these people are working to pay off their debt...
I bet your roller derby friend, happy as she may be, probably doesn't make that much money either - even as a construction worker.
Is that enough? Is all of life just paying off incurred debt then dying?
I think, like you, i was reacting to a small part of another person's post. namely, this part. the idea that people "just need to get to work" sort of rubs me the wrong way, is all, because as I said, I know lots of people who work hard and don't make much. If getting to work and working hard were all that were needed to be financially successful, migrant workers would be rich as fuck. There's more to it, it's complicated. Hence why i mentally wrapped it in with my previous comment. I... wasn't exactly clear.Psh. "Create jobs". Gimme a damn break. People just need to get to work.
It rubbed me the wrong way too, when I was unemployed for a long time. But only at the end of my Unemployment Checks did I walk into a catering company and put in a job application for a delivery driver, or apply to a trade school, or talk to a friend who owns a coffee shop about going to work for her. There were plenty of jobs I could have gotten and earned a living at. I was just too stuck-up and self-important to do them. This is not true of everyone, I know. Some people are just at the bottom of the skills barrel, or are simply having a rough time finding work. But this is not a "jobs availability" problem. There are more open jobs in the US today than there have been in the past. There are many reasons for this, of course, but saying that "job creation" is the problem to be solved is just flat out wrong from many vectors of perspective.
Thanks for the link. However, I didn't really infer that there were no jobs for these people - indeed, I inferred they were working, some of them multiple jobs. What I am inferring is that the jobs available are often not well-paying enough to make ends meet. Part of this will hopefully change because as you have shown, The market is currently in a place where employees have many options for employment and can argue for better wages. But part of it is that there are many, many part time / minimum wage jobs. Minimum wage can't really pay the bills in many states, so anyone working that job either needs to be supported in some other way (perhaps sharing an apartment, living with parents), or needs to work more than one job. So I dont think that people need to create jobs, I think that there need to be jobs that are capable of paying the bills on their own without other income.
Ahem. And of course we've had like three waves of economists saying it was good/bad/good and it's not a solution to the problems we have today, but jobs can be created. How old is your house? Because if it existed in 1938, city hall has a picture of it. Why? Because they needed to create some jobs, so they hired photographers to take pictures of every house in Seattle.This began with the idea that someone can just magically "create jobs", which is completely backwards. A need occurs, and then you find people to fill that need.
Right. And I think we are saying the same thing, although I am doing it less elegantly. The problem was people were not working. So they invented the New Deal, WPA, and photographing every house in Seattle. Those projects then needed to be executed on. So contractors were hired. Who then put out job postings. And filled jobs. The government created the need. Not the Jobs. Which brings me back to "jobs are a symptom that a need is going unfilled."
My bad, that was poor phrasing. I was thinking more along the lines that there are a decent number of jobs now that 'require' a college degree but probably shouldn't; for example, many software engineering positions. The tech/programming field is already moving in the direction of getting rid of degree requirements, which is a good thing. That whole issue is definitely a social one, not something that can be fixed by government or a single CEO.
And my response was not really to you, really, but more directed at the lazy wording that is so common today about "job creation." The words we use to refer to things are usually the words we hear most often. So the media and politicians who talk about "job creators" and "creating new jobs" are sweeping the real - and far more complex - issue under the carpet. Words. They have secret power we should all respect more. My bad, that was poor phrasing.