How bad an idea was it to extend jobless benefits past 99 weeks?
In Bloomington, Ill., machine shop Mechanical Devices can’t find the workers it needs to handle a sharp jump in business. Job fairs run by airline Emirates attract fewer applicants in the U.S. than in other countries. Truck-stop operator Pilot Flying J says job postings don’t elicit many more applicants than they did when the unemployment rate was below 5%.
With a 9.5% jobless rate and some 15 million Americans looking for work, many employers are inundated with applicants. But a surprising number say they are getting an underwhelming response, and many are having trouble filling open positions.
“This is as bad now as at the height of business back in the 1990s,” says Dan Cunningham, chief executive of the Long-Stanton Manufacturing Co., a maker of stamped-metal parts in West Chester, Ohio, that has been struggling to hire a few toolmakers. “It’s bizarre. We are just not getting applicants.”
I’ll be the first to admit that over the nearly 11 years that I’ve been with my current employer, I’ve built up a reimbursement package that prices me out of my job field. If something drastic I were to happen, I would make more sitting at home on unemployment then I would starting out near the bottom again.
However, not only would it drive The Wife crazy to have me at home again, but I’d probably drive myself crazy. Especially since I wouldn’t be able to afford practice ammo for the duration and would have to pull from the reserves.
But others, apparently, don’t mind the life of leisure and ramen.
If you read the linked article you’ll see these cheap bastards only want to pay $15 / hour for a machinist, operating computerized lathe equipment, in the middle of a top to bottom union controlled state.
They’re smoking something. Two years ago, starting pay for an 18 year old with a valid fork lift operators license was $14 / hour at Home friggin Depot!
This is the same sh!t high tech companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere try to pull when they whine and moan about the lack of kids taking engineering and science in U.S. universities. They want to pay engineering graduates $35K salaries?!!!! For no partying and working their asses off through at least four and more likely five years of ball busting hard science and math courses. Meanwhile Mr. fancy pants marketing major missed half his classes and partied through college, and lands a gig selling cars at a slimy dealership and brings home $50K.
The system is broke it’s time to re-read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and put much more of that style of resistance into practice. The system is corrupt and broken. It’s time to go Gault now and finish the job.
It doesn’t matter what the wage is. If you’re unemployed and the nanny state says you’ve run out of free money, you go get a job where there is a job.
Unless, of course, you like teat-suckling.