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Post by blueneck on Feb 26, 2007 17:13:42 GMT -6
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Feb 28, 2007 3:50:33 GMT -6
Great article by Jubak.
He makes several points worth repeating, and even expanding on. He states that 2.5 million people lost jobs in January, while 2.6 million people found jobs. This implies a large amount of turnover. And such turnover drives wages down because entry level wages are always less than those of longer-term employees. Such turnover is a great way to keep wages down -- simply terminate higher wage employees and replace them with entry level employees. Whether this is deliberate or not is immaterial. The end result is that new employees make less than longer-employed workers, and wages are driven down as a result.
The high rate of employee turnover is relatively new. As Jubak points out, workers of an earlier generation experienced a much lower rate of job turnover, and a resultant lower degree of job insecurity and an increased sense of bargaining power.
Jubak also exposes the myth about how increased education ensures job security. According to the BLS, workers with a bachelor's degree held an average of 10.7 different jobs over a 22-year period. At the same time, workers with only a high school degree held an average of 10.6 different jobs over the same 22-year period. There was essentially no difference in job turnover between college graduates and those with only a high school diploma.
The increased rate of job turnover is rarely mentioned as wage-suppressing factor by the Corporate media. It's time this factor received a lot more attention. Adding this factor to the constant downward wage pressure from outsourcing, H1B visas, and illegal immigration, makes the situation of American workers even worse.
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Post by blueneck on Feb 28, 2007 5:38:36 GMT -6
Good catch UC, good observation on the turnover and the wage suppression effect. Also not taken into account that although wages go down with new employees, learning curve goes up and valuable experienece and "tribal" knowledge is lost dooming companies to repeat past mistakes and forget past successes.
Good point about college grads. Just further evidence that a college education is no longer the guarantee of a comfortable lifestyle it once was.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Feb 28, 2007 15:50:56 GMT -6
Also not taken into account that although wages go down with new employees, learning curve goes up and valuable experience and "tribal" knowledge is lost dooming companies to repeat past mistakes and forget past successes. That's another excellent point. The experience, skill, & "productivity" of newly hired workers is less than more experienced, longer-term employees. Any supervisor in any industry would say exactly the same thing. It's certainly true in Medicine. An M.D. would much rather have an experienced nurse that he's worked with for a long time than a newly hired nurse who he'll have to train from scratch. A new nurse (or medical assistant) can slow a doctor down to a dead stop in his practice. It's not only overall job skills that matter, it's the individual physician's own system that needs to be learned as well. An experienced nurse knows exactly what the physician wants and expects, a new hire has no idea whatsoever. I suspect it's like that in every industry. The training of new hires reduces productivity in the short-term. And if all employment becomes "short-term," productivity will be permanently reduced. Site specific job training & skills are lost every time a longer-term employee is replaced with a new hire, even if the new hire has the same amount of experience as the longer-term hire they replace. There no replacement for experience, nor is there any replacement for site-specific job experience. The increased employment turnover is a constant reducer of productivity throughout the economy.
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