A common refrain around here.

[snousle]

Jobs going begging in Willits and Ukiah Valley

(Excerpt from Ukiah Daily Journal)

With unemployment still over 9 percent in Mendocino County, some employers are saying they are still having trouble filling the jobs they have available.

"What's coming into the work force is (an attitude that) we should feel privileged that they show up," said General Manager Kristine McKee of Microphor, a manufacturer in Willits that offers a variety of jobs, from assembly line work to welding to engineering and customer service, among others.

"We can't hire fast enough," she said.

She currently has six jobs she's trying to fill in assembly, customer service and welding, according to McKee. The company does most of its hiring through a Santa Rosa temporary agency, mostly because Mendocino County, she said, "is not an employer-friendly location."

McKee is not alone among local employers who think that is mostly because of the lack of willingness among the available work force to show up and commit.

"We have a work force that doesn't want to work Monday through Friday," McKee said.

Comments

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

IMHO employers who complain about not being able to find workers in the best employer market in decades are facing the downward spiral. I think my experience working in a dysfunctional wood flooring factory for the past two years allows me to read between the lines a bit. They can't hire assembly workers, customer service and welding people because those descriptions are not accurate, the hours are 50-60 a week and the pay is less that what neighboring businesses pay for customer service people and welders. The production managers have been alienated from the actual production work for so long they cannot effectively train new hires at competitive rates.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I can totally believe that. Bad management is incredibly expensive and makes workers less valuable. I can well imagine a businessperson floating a non-viable company, calculating what they "can pay" the workers, then complaining that they "can't hire workers" because their lack of managerial skill in conjunction with their balance sheet makes offering an attractive package impossible.

Still, as I mention below, I think this is but one of many factors at work.

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

I bet they expect employees to arrive ready-trained and perfect to their needs too.

Thing is, like h0gwash says above, they use this argument about 'omg we have jobs' but as a freelancer myself I know they'd expect people to have buckets of experience and expect low pay or short term contracts...if they trained people that turned up at the door with no experience who were eager and really needed a job, great. But I doubt they'd do that. Employers never want to train, and always moan that higher education doesn't provide worker bees they want....which is not what it's for, in the main unless it's vocational qualification. It's there to provide transferable skills and make people think and question - one reason the current UK government is trying to kill it. Keep em dumb.

Also strange what message the employers are sending out. It's not 'an employer friendly location' so they use agencies. Which means short term. Which means as I've found employers are quite happy to fuck you over re: working hours and drop you if something happens you have no control over...or the other one, expect you to come in early or weekends. Or try not to pay you, or wriggle out of any contract.

This breaks the social contract between worker and employer....if they act by treating workers as an expendable resource, ie. employ them for one day when it was supposed to be a week, drop them leaving them out of pocket, when work is scarce and not building up trust, what do they expect? I have freelanced for 8 years until fairly recently, I had NO respect for the agencies and not very much for the end-clients in the end other than a vague feeling of wanting to be professional - but they kept shooting me and themselves in the foot by messing me around and making it impossible.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

It is more than unrealistic employer expectations in this area. That may be a factor, but not the whole story. We ourselves have been offering $20/hr, cash, no strings attached work to interested people and having them repeatedly not show up. I realize that this is not a career path, but it's not particularly skilled work, and it's a no brainer for anyone who is unemployed and doesn't have anything better to do. Ergo, they either have something better to do, or they do not have brains.

Both factors are at work. Underground work in particular absorbs a lot of "unemployed" people that remain unemployed on paper. And there are a lot of people who just don't have two neurons to rub together, who would have a meltdown if faced with problems on the level of assembling Ikea furniture.

I suppose if you believe the efficient market hypothesis, there is no such thing as a "labor shortage", only "non-competitive wages". But there is nevertheless some weirdness in the local labor market such that getting competent people seems a lot harder than it should be. Does that make me a capitalist oppressor?

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

I think there are big differences between corporations hiring and private citizens hiring for day jobs. If I saw your ad on Craigslist (not THAT ad!!) I would assume it to be a fraud, not unlike many other Craigslist fraud ads.

Could social factors be at work? Might they be afraid of the gossip? Have you picked up day laborers hanging around outside the parking lot at Home Depot quien hablan ingles?

[snousle.livejournal.com]

No, the people we hire are by reference. I dont do craigslist or parking lot day labor. I dont sense that anything is wrong, just a general lack of interest. I suppose teh ghey could be a problem but often they come once or twice before wandering off.

(NO THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEAN!!! LOL)

[growler-south.livejournal.com]

I needed that disclaimer. Snigger.

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

Rat hired a dude off the street to do gardening. As I recall, it ended up in a extension cord catastrophe, where I had to patch up a partially severed cord.

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

As I recall I hired him off the job wanted list at the local JC.
The other one I hired from them didn't show the second day ...

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

I know someone who works at OCLI, or whatever it's called now, in Santa Rosa. For the last ten years she has repeatedly stated how hard it is to get people who want to work. My own experience in hiring construction guys, is that many want the money, but don't want to work. As others have stated there are many factors at play here, from dysfunctional employers to dysfunctional job seekers. I wonder how living in a cannabis growing area effects this. Pot makes many people ... inactive.