Loss of talent

catwelder · Jan 3, 2018

i dont think its anyone faults for any generation being any way because every generation has had its interesting times now its a technology another generation it was getting high then there was moonshine every generation has a problem. I don't see much of a worker shortage around my area do wish the construction companies around me was hiring more but other then that a lot of place are full minus the common fast food and grocery stores and some auto dealerships

Steve Frazier · Jan 3, 2018

I'm going to toss this out there to chew on.....

Where I live nearly all of the construction/excavating companies grew from former farms. The fields became too valuable to continue farming and have turned into housing developments. Many of the farms also sat on huge veins of bank run gravel. So the farmers began digging and trucking. Nearly all of the employees were former farm boys used to hard work and running machinery. Anyone 20 years younger than me more than likely does not have that experience as nearly all the farms were gone by that time and these companies now draw from the general public without any of the work ethic or machine experience.

repowerguy · Jan 4, 2018

I can only speak to where I live(s. Ohio n. Kentucky w. Wva area) so here we go.
There has been no reason for young people to enter the trades because of few openings and low pay rates. The companies that survived the last 10 years of recession were by nature bearish and frugal. They had a adequate pool to choose from, because of company closures, and all was well.
This is not a sustainable situation however, as new blood must be introduced to fill in for retirement and death. I hear from business owners a lot who say they cannot get good help anymore, well when the pay meets the job expectations you will have people to choose from.
Many young folks went to college to ride the storm out, not knowing that the downturn would last this long, and graduated with a degree they can’t use.
The free market will correct itself eventually, the pay will slowly creep up so businesses will be competitive with each other, and then young folks will take the work seriously. This however may take a little time as many companies are accustomed to the ways of the last 10 years and will only grudgingly go along.
I believe it will get better, just be patient.

Junkyard · Jan 4, 2018

I agree it'll get better over time, how long is anybody's guess. Might be just right for my oldest boy to start working. Hard to say. It's a good lesson for us all if we can remember it should it occur again.....

Hallback · Jan 4, 2018

Oh, it will occur again & my guess is somewhere between 34-48 months from now.

Hallback · Jan 4, 2018

Hopefully not sooner.

Crummy · Jan 4, 2018

It's not all of them I found. I did some fill-in-when-someone-is-off work last summer for a friend that has trouble finding good employees (bottom of the barrel if I'm your go-to guy), but the young operators/laborers/drivers on the job (not all his) were pretty impressive. Skilled, took pride, hard working, thermoses (what?), the main course for dinner had parents, and looked forward to the end of the day to head to the local watering hole to chase loose women. They were a riot to listen to on the CB. There was a neck beard slacker flagger on that job and they were relentless heckling the guy.

catwelder · Jan 4, 2018

pay for laborers here is 10 dollars an hour for the bigger companies but the small companies seem to like to pay 8 an hour Walmart pays 9 so if that tells anyone anything

AzIron · Jan 6, 2018

millennials dont work like previous generations because they have not had to and no one taught them how to.

Hallback · Jan 6, 2018

Birken Vogt · Jan 6, 2018

Now that I am on my own I try to schedule work so it is not in bad conditions. But I spent a lot of years in the fire service in all kinds of conditions. So if I have to work in the middle of the night or in the rain or heat or miss a meal or work while sickk I can draw on my past experience and it doesn't seem so bad. Especially when it only happens once in a while. Nothing I do now stinks as bad as lugging that large chain saw all over the woods on a goat trail. Or being woken up at 3am to drag somebody up a bank from a smashed car.

It is all a matter of perspective so having a rough job early in your career can help you appreciate when you have it better later in life. Of course the toughest old guys like my grandpa who walked from Normandy to Berlin and could sleep while marching. And lived through the depression before that. Any day they woke up alive in their own bed was better than waking up in the mud in France or Germany. Fortunately or unfortunately we can't provide that experience for the new generation. But encouraging them to get a real tough job for a while can be helpful. Also the OT in those kinds of jobs can help them build a nest egg, I was always working and never had time to spend any money so I was able to save a lot.

And I did not learn to work hard because I was so great myself, I was in the company of a bunch of other gung ho kids and we had gung ho leaders pushing us on and that can make one work harder than you ever thought possible.

Buickspec6231 · Jan 6, 2018

Birken Vogt said:
So if I have to work in the middle of the night or in the rain or heat or miss a meal or work while sickk I can draw on my past experience and it doesn't seem so bad. Especially when it only happens once in a while. Nothing I do now stinks as bad as lugging that large chain saw all over the woods on a goat trail. Or being woken up at 3am to drag somebody up a bank from a smashed car.

I can relate to this. When I was in college I used to install pumps and water treatment equipment. Some of the pumps I had to work on were septic/sewage pumps. Unfortunately, those pumps are usually in holes filled with grey water. On larger pits, sometimes grey water would come flowing in as I am trying to unhook the bad pump. Gross enough on its own. Certain evenings, work went late which left no time to shower before returning to night classes at college. Doesn't get much worse than changing into clean clothes, no time for a shower. knowing you probably have another person's waste on you, and having to sit in class for 3 hours. No matter how bad a day I have at work now.... Its never that bad. And I earn a significantly better salary now. I made $8.50/hr and a take home service truck back then, that was 12 years ago now. I made zero friends while attending Community College........

sKunk · Jan 9, 2018

Theres definitely two sides to this...Ive watched a lot of really good workers head down the road because of horrible bosses, and companies not wanting to pay decent.

DMiller · Jan 9, 2018

Definitely relate to that point. Bosses can be like bad underwear, creep up on then irritate the **** out of you!! I have had a few like that, left a few jobs due to that in my day to the point did NOT have another job aligned and left anyway. Was only off work the longest time for 22 days.

Twisted · Jan 9, 2018

This is an adult problem rather than a kid problem. They learn what we teach them.
It's a many faceted issue.
- "Kids are lazy"..... I don't believe human nature changed in one generation but I think ease of life has.
First, many youth never have a real job until they have a degree and are in their early to mid-20's. It would be like training a 7 year old dog. Work ethic is learned at an early age.
- Government assistance... I had a discussion the other day with a young chap who was convinced that government should provide healthcare, college education and at least minimum wage. His justification was that there are no opportunities out there. He never has worked and didn't want to start out flipping burgers or mowing lawns like he should have been doing in his teens.
I told him that the opportunity to succeed has never been so good. All you have to be is above average and you will be prosper. At the rate things are going, that average is dropping like a rock.
- Education... Our education system turns it's nose at manual labor. College prep classes have replaced shop class. Our youth don't even have the chance to learn a trade using their hands. They have convinced our youth that a 'grease monkey" is a disgraceful occupation so they need a degree even if it means unemployment.
I have hired a lot of people over the years. I always wanted experience or some sort of willingness to learn over a degree. A liberal arts or similar degree only meant that that person lived on the tit for at least four years while adding nothing productive to society.
My $0.02

funwithfuel · Jan 9, 2018

At some point, the country forgot that it needs us

check · Jan 9, 2018

sKunk said:
Theres definitely two sides to this...Ive watched a lot of really good workers head down the road because of horrible bosses, and companies not wanting to pay decent.

The larger the pool of potential supervisors to promote, the more likely you'll get a lemon.
Positions of authority are sought out by psychopaths, or those who have some of those tendencies. If you work for a small company, the likelihood of one of the top guys being a psychopath is less probable. If you work for a large company, the likelihood of a psychopath working his way into a supervisory position is more probable because the pool of applicants is larger.
Now apply the same principle to police departments and other governmental agencies and it will help you understand why we're so screwed.

catwelder · Jan 9, 2018

Twisted said:
This is an adult problem rather than a kid problem. They learn what we teach them.
It's a many faceted issue.
- "Kids are lazy"..... I don't believe human nature changed in one generation but I think ease of life has.
First, many youth never have a real job until they have a degree and are in their early to mid-20's. It would be like training a 7 year old dog. Work ethic is learned at an early age.
- Government assistance... I had a discussion the other day with a young chap who was convinced that government should provide healthcare, college education and at least minimum wage. His justification was that there are no opportunities out there. He never has worked and didn't want to start out flipping burgers or mowing lawns like he should have been doing in his teens.
I told him that the opportunity to succeed has never been so good. All you have to be is above average and you will be prosper. At the rate things are going, that average is dropping like a rock.
- Education... Our education system turns it's nose at manual labor. College prep classes have replaced shop class. Our youth don't even have the chance to learn a trade using their hands. They have convinced our youth that a 'grease monkey" is a disgraceful occupation so they need a degree even if it means unemployment.
I have hired a lot of people over the years. I always wanted experience or some sort of willingness to learn over a degree. A liberal arts or similar degree only meant that that person lived on the tit for at least four years while adding nothing productive to society.
My $0.02

if this tells you anything about colleges when I went and toured Nc state I think there was a girl they picked randomly to tell us what her degree was and she said it was in happiness that was her whole degree four years for a piece of paper with that at your degree

wosama931b · Jan 9, 2018

I know what you mean , hope you're kid will be more serious .
And not move to New York City . ....

old-iron-habit · Jan 9, 2018

When 99% of the teachers and professors have never held a job in the real world how can they teach? A bunch of folks in our community fought hard to keep our shop class in our new school. It is there but we carried enough referendum votes that they dared not eliminate it. It also got opened up for adult education in the evenings a couple nights a week. I expect we will fight this battle again in the future. I still visit with my shop, metal working, and electronic class teachers. All in their 80s now, they are really disappointed in the current teaching system. Programing kids instead of teaching them to think and figure things out.

Loss of talent

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