The Nahployment 'Crisis'

In My Humble Opinion
1364

That is a fairly broad brush. There are nearly 32 million businesses in the US. Some treat their employees like disposable commodities, some treat them with loyalty. It’s not that they are trying to have it both ways, it’s that you are grouping together a multitude of actors who have different motivations and ethics, and calling it hypocrisy when one does something different from another.

Unfortunately, your view is a rather widespread one, infecting many an employee, who, no matter what the company does for them, treats their employer as a disposable commodity. “Why should I have any loyalty to them, when a completely unrelated company didn’t have loyalty to me?” This pretty much only punishes the companies that do want to be loyal to their employees, as the ones that treat them as disposable don’t have to change anything, and the ones that want to be loyal to them can’t continue to do so with no reciprocity. They will either go bankrupt or have to emulate those who treat their employees as disposable.

But I get it, it’s human nature. If someone is cheated on in a relationship, they will often cheat on their next partner. That they are punishing someone who had nothing to do with their hurt doesn’t matter, they need to hurt someone to try to make themselves feel better.

A growing trend these days is employees taking a job, getting the signing bonus, making $20 an hour to get trained for a couple weeks, getting their paycheck, and then ghosting the employer. They made enough to get by for the next couple months, and they figure there will be another sucker who will hire them when they want to repeat the cycle.

Not that people didn’t always do that, but now just about everyone is doing it. Among my acquaintances that own or run businesses, they are running massive turnover due to this. Very few have picked up any sort of long term employee over the last several months, all have quit pretty much as soon as they get their paycheck. Higher pay doesn’t get them to stay, in fact, it usually means they make enough to quit even sooner.

It’s a bad cycle, and I have no idea how to fix it. All I know is that being a better employer, paying more, giving more benefits and PTO, or any other incentives is not going to influence the loyalty of employees, and as more and more employers realize this, they will all start treating the employees as fungibly as the employees treat their employers.

As long as this “Fuck anyone who signs a paycheck” trend continues, we will continue a downward spiral in employer/employee relations, more goods and services will become scarce, and we all will be poorer for it.

1365

I would say it’s not so much “hypocrisy” as it is various competing objectives and interests, even within a single company, ultimately create the same outcome. Companies might want to be loyal to their employees, but economic reality may prevent them from doing so. But I also don’t really get a sense that companies really care for their employees beyond what economic value they can obtain from them. And maybe they shouldn’t. To me it seems disingenuous to treat employees as if they are there for any reason but to perform a job.

I’ve never heard of that happening with significant frequency. What sort of jobs are these in what industry? How does that work more than once or twice? Why are these companies paying signing bonuses that aren’t contingent on some degree of longevity? Where do these people live that they can maintain any sort of lifestyle on what must amount to a few thousand dollars over months?

1366

The idea that somebody can work for $20 an hour for 3 weeks, then quit because they’ve made enough money for ‘months’, is pure ‘the poors need to be made poor in order to work’ right-wing misery.

1367

Well I had a “pre-screen” with a recruiter from a billion dollar company. About 30 minutes later he sent me a couple of meeting invites to meet with the hiring manager. A few minutes after that I get a text from a coworker. The hiring manager had reached out to her on LinkedIn asking her about me. Hiring manager and coworker had worked together on a woman’s advocacy group some years ago. They are not friends. Fortunately I trust my coworker.

I called the recruiter and told him I was no longer interested. I did not elaborate. Maybe I should have. But I’m afraid of inviting retaliation. She might then reach out to my current boss!

1368

The economic reality is that they get nothing out of it, and therefore are at a competitive disadvantage to companies that aren’t.

Well, of course someone isn’t going to be hired if it’s not thought that that person will create more value than they are compensated for, but that doesn’t mean that a company has to wring every last drop of productivity, nor compensate the barest minimum. There is a spectrum, and as long as the company is able to stay in the black many companies want to do right by their employees.

So, of course an employee isn’t there for any reason but to do a job, the problem is, it’s not the company that’s creating the expectation that is contrary to that, it’s the employees who complain that they seem to only be hired to do a job, and want something more from the employer.

It used to happen from time to time, mostly in lower wage jobs. When I was a fast food manager, probably 1 out of 5 new hires did this.

Now, it’s pretty much everyone. I’ve hired 4 people since the turn of the year, and each one quit as soon as the paycheck hit their account. No complaints about working conditions or pay or anything, just Tuesday comes along, and they ghost out. And these are reasonably high paying jobs. I’m starting at $18 an hour right now, and with tips, it’s closer to $22.

I have friends in food service mostly, but I also have some in manufacturing and warehousing, and they are all seeing pretty much the exact same thing.

What do you mean? They aren’t coming back to the same employer and doing it again, they are going to another employer who is hiring. Even if they bother to put down that they worked for someone else for two weeks, it’s pretty rare that references are actually checked. And it’s even rarer for them to put down a past employer they’ve ghosted, why would they?

Desperation for employees mostly. And some do have a degree of longevity required, which, if the bonus is paid out then, the employee works to the day, then leaves. The problem is that people want this bonus upfront, and if that is given, then even if they were supposed to work for a specified amount of time or have to pay it back, they don’t work those 90 days or whatever, and it’s not like a small business is really in a position to take them to court over it.

And even 90 days isn’t really all that great for turnover, and I’ve never seen a bonus that required more time than that.

With their parents, with their friends, some have taken to van life, and live wherever they want.

Personally, I’ve survived on a whole lot less.

1369

The irony, it burns.

1370

I’m not sure I understand your meaning here. Are you saying that the people who work for a few weeks and quit are a pure right wing misery?

I mean, that’s $2400, and that’ll last me just fine for at least 3 months. Longer if I get a few roommates.

No one has said that the poors need to be made poor, what is being said is that small businesses are struggling and going bankrupt because employees are punishing them for what other employers are doing. The bigger businesses, the ones who have no reason to give their employees a cent more than necessary, the ones who actually do treat their employees as disposable assets, can afford to weather this much better, and those will be the ones that are left at the end of the day.

Most of the people that I know say that if this keeps up, they will be closing up when their leases are up, if not sooner. I’ve got a bit less than two years left on my lease, and if I still can’t find employees who are willing to actually contribute value to my business, I’ll be closing up shop, too. Then there will be 12 fewer good paying jobs in the area(and I’d be happy to employ as many as 25 at that rate), and instead of making over 70k a year working for me, they will be making less than half that at PetSmart or somesuch. Well, and one less, as I’ll need to go out and get a job, as right now, I could make more working for someone else than I am making while wasting my money on employees who aren’t going to stay long enough to produce any value, much less make up for what I spent in training them.

Point is, there really is no reason to treat employees as anything more than fungible cogs other than just wanting to, and the fact that I want to treat them better than fungible cogs is what is going to end up driving me out of business.

1371

I am relaying an observation. Any irony you find is based entirely upon your motivated interpretation of same.

1372

Then large gaps would show up on their job records. And if this is really a problem, a call to former employers might be worth it. When I was hiring (for higher level jobs than what you hire for) I got resumes where people switched jobs every year, and that was a red flag. Once or twice okay, repeatedly - no way.
If whatever interview process you use can’t screen out the deadbeats, perhaps you should think about improving it? Or do you have to hire anyone who walks in the door? Shouldn’t be the case since you pay decently.
I’m not buying that this is a problem everyone has. I’d like evidence. The truck driver example show that high turnover doesn’t mean that employees are bums, but that working conditions may not be so great.

1373

When I had a foster child that was trying to find steady work, the dynamic was that the company paid minimum wage for the first month or so, calling it training pay.
They would work the trainees for long hours every day. Then, as soon as they weren’t trainees anymore, the pay rate would go up but they’d cut the hours way back, to the point where the job wasn’t worth it.

1374

maybe you should hire people who are functional adults.
Dont just look at their employment history…Ask for personal references and make the job interview about their personality. They list an address on the
application-chat with them about it, ask if the rent there is still as cheap as it was when "a friend "of yours lived there . If they get a glazed look in their eyes like “what’s rent?”,then don’t hire them.

1375

How come nobody wants to work anymore?

1376

“When others talk about companies wanting undying loyalty from their employees while simultaneously treating them like replaceable cogs they’re painting with a ‘rather’ broad brush. When I talk about ‘everybody’ ghosting their new employer immediately after their training period I’m using pin-point accuracy that would make Seurat jealous.”

Got it.

1377

If you can’t keep employees for more than a few weeks, I’m not sure you know how to treat employees at all.

I’m trying to wrap my head around what sort of business you are in that you can pay people up $40k to $70k or more, and yet only seem to be attracting bums looking for a quick payout before bailing?

Even under the best of circumstances, looking for a new job is a pain in the ass. Usually when I see people leave a job in less than 90 days, it’s usually because one of their better options from their previous job search came through or the job ended up being far worse than they imagined.

At the very least, you need to do a better job with interviewing and screening applicants.

1378

So you can manage just fine, in 2022 USA, on 10K a year, even without roommates?

And, in addition to that, you think most other people can?

The Federal poverty level in the USA is currently $18,075 for a single person. No dependents. I doubt they’re even allowing for a cat; at least, not if you take it to the vet.

1379

Once you realize that “employee” means upitty whiner in the original Latin, everything falls into place.

1380

I find that difficult to believe. Do they all find “another sucker” who is too big a sucker to do even the most cursory checks on their past employment history?

1381

Since it says “starting range for new drivers” I’m guessing your friend is SOL.

~Max

1382

Didn’t you write this just last year?

$693.20 + $650.00 + $150.00 = $1,493.20 / mo, which you acknowledged was barely liveable if even that. You laughed at me then. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: How can you now claim to be able to live on $2,400 - less than twice that amount - for three months?

~Max

1383

While I generally agree that something is probably going wrong somewhere for a company that is getting many people who work for 1 or 2 paychecks and then NCNS, I believe that labor laws in the US make it illegal to ask about housing status, transportation etc. and I don’t think trying to be coy about it is the answer.