Atleast there wasn't a "get off my lawn" in the headline.

Ha. In your face, mom!

That's "Lack of skilled workers", not "Lack of skilled slackers".

Still plenty of illegal Mexicans to do the jobs that retired workers won't do.

It's the lack of inflows into social security, medicare, and 401ks that's going to be the killer. We're already a debtor nation, imagine when all the checks our government has written to the boomers start to be cashed. Things are going to get UGLY by 2020.

Bah. Skilled workers. I laugh. The age 50+ people at my job are the ones so resistant to change and improvement, and so difficult to deal with. We'd get 10 times as much done without them.

Of course, I work in technology, so it may be different in, say, agriculture or customer service. But probably not.

The upside -- worker shortages will cause market rates for labor to rise for the rest of us who aren't quite retiring yet... assuming you don't work for someone who apparently doesn't believe in paying market rates for labor.

/I never pass up a chance to whine about my pay, or my wife)

The lack of skilled workers will start increasing as soon as helicopter parents run out of gas (a phenomena no one has seen yet).

Yeah, the old machinists are retiring, and I can't get anyone in to do the basic support work. The kids I've seen lately all want to to start at mid journeymans wages without knowing anything or giving enough of a damn about the job to show up every day. We've had guys in their thirties who spent their entire twenties partying their asses off who are just now entering the workforce, no skills, no stamina, and no education or brains whatsoever. No desire to learn.

Machining is NOT low-skill, even with the CNC. Just because you can do a brake job on your 67 pickup does NOT mean I'm going to pay you $30 an hour to push buttons and deburr parts. Its part of the learning process. Fact is, that wage doesn't really exist in a small shop. You want that wage, you gotta earn it and show a desire to learn new things, a desire to be creative, and a desire to bust some ass. Machining is hard work, and worth it. But it takes a certain minimum level of education, and I haven't seen that in the guys we've had come through the place over the last few years. Every shop owner I've talked to in the last few years has had the same complaints.


/I dont make that much and I've got 22 years in it.

Intransigent stupidity knows no age. At work, some young people think when they graduated that was the end of their learning experience.

This whole 'threat' that workers will retire and leave skills gaps is bogus, taxes are so high and medical care so high, people will have to work longer to pay for critical things like all-day kindergarten, new NFL stadiums, and further decades of military expansion in SW Asia.

My mom retired from a management position in banking aged 72. She was supposed to retire at 65, but the bank were unable to hire someone with her skill set and prospective in-house staff found her position 'too demanding' or didn't have the reqisite legal training. I'm not sure exactly what she did - she was involved with corporate loans, guarantees 'n stuff - but I do know she was the only person in the banking group who could do the job.

If you have a lack of workers, or a lack of quality workers, there's only one reason: you're not offering enough money. It's a supply vs. demand world, peeps.

I don't think it's gonna be a problem.

The mandatory "age 65" retirement is disappearing
Most people have insufficient retirement
Social Security plans will need the $$

The problem would be with all these tradition-bound stubborn old coots running the show.

/Now git off ma lawn.

I'm not even heading for retirement yet. But it is true the older you get the more smarts you have. I'm contacting in an office just now where apart from me and the boss the staff are all under 30, They've got degrees coming out of their a$$es, they're arrogant and have faces like pizzas and they really don't know squat.
Computer grads who can't configure a linux server or even write clean php scripts.Even have problems with MS Exchange. Communication grads who can't spell or even string a paragraph together. Psychology grads who work in sales but can't close the sale. Business grads who can't see trends without investing heaps on software that will do their job for them. The world really is becoming a dumber place you only have to look at the people we vote into office to prove that. There's nothing like experience.

Oh no, we will not have a big enough work force. We better do something like give amnesty to all the illegal aliens in our country and make them citizens so we can make up for the workers we lost.

//Fox news tell me what to think

If you have a lack of workers, or a lack of quality workers, there's only one reason: you're not offering enough money. It's a supply vs. demand world, peeps.

So, I'm supposed to hire some kid at $20 an hour to sweep floors and deburr parts and scrap expensive material due to lack of experience? The shop rate hardly covers wages when you factor in all the scrapped material, worn inserts, crushed toolholders, benefits, machine repairs/maintenance and general slowness that comes with lack of experience in doing the job. I cant afford to buy a fresh $300 piece of material every time an FNG scraps a part, and thats not much material when it comes to aluminium or bronze or stainless alloys. The margin is just too damn small as it is, and nonexistant in prototyping and engineering.

Its bad enough that most of the customers I deal with think that machining is something akin to instant photo services, it takes time to set things up, it takes time to cut the material, and it takes time to discuss what the customer actually wants. I'm 2 hours into a part before I even start cutting because the customers all think its unnessesary to give us a decent print or any lead time and want to have me do the engineering for free. Thats nearly every one I deal with.

There are no young people interested in learning the processes, they all want it all right now. I had one kid who only begrudgingly took a job at my shop because he'd knocked up his girlfreind and his dad kicked him in the ass to support his girlfreind and the baby. He lasted a month, he would not listen, he couldnt count, He wouldn't stay with the tasks without having to constantly be reminded to, and he sure as hell didn't think that showing up for work every day was particularly important. He lasted a whole month because his daddy was a freind of the owner. I wanted to can him the first week, he was a grabass joker who figured that being a family freind exempted him from actually having to perform acts of physical labor in return for his pay. He had the attention span of a schizophrenic gnat, and holding his hand for every little thing we told him to do got old real quick.

Degree learning is little better. I'm in my third year of a physics degree and have never (yet) operated an electron microscope, high vacuum system, decent laser, decent telescope, or anything else that actually allows me to do anything. Most of my friends are graduatin this year and will never have done these things.

Just as well really, because I'm terrible at it.

I'm not worried. Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

How the hell is "ipod" a verb? It's an mp3 player. There are many like it and many better. Stop being corporate whores people.

The 20 somthings we interview where I work seem to all want to be hired at middle management, work 6 hour days with internet for Farking, and never being on call. I'm in IT, going on 20 years.

We just hired a couple people and in the first 3 weeks, they have both already missed 2 days. YOu know how hard those 5 day weeks can be!

I know one thing that is becoming a true benifit for me. The more lazy, entitled and un-driven these college folks are, the more money the company throws at me to keep me around. Someone has to do the work.

Here's some advice youngins', from a 50 year old who has walked the walk. There is NO free ride and no one owes you shiat. I ain't your momma nor your poppa. If you want it, show up, shut up and learn.

/good luck with that

I know a lot of shops paying apprentices $25 an hour just so they will have a workforce in 5-10 years. These companies are building a higher attrition into their quotes for that reason and they take it in the pants a bit now and then. The difference is the shop down the street that doesn't do that won't have employees at all in a few years and they'll pick up their slack and reap the rewards then.

I work for a machine tool distributor and this is what I'm hearing. We're also doing a booming business right now, since our dollar is on par basically (Canadian) with the US greenback. Shops here are modernizing with ultra-highspeed lathes, mills, laser cutters and wire machines. They're buying in-line CMM systems that make tooling offsets automatically in the machining centres and robotics to load it all. These companies see that they will need to make parts with less staff in a few years and are preparing now.

They're also aggressively seeking cnc machinists, engineers and QA people who are in their late 20's and early 30's who they can train to take over all the automated systems.

It's the new reality as the baby boomers retire, you either automate, pay great and prosper or you stagnate and die.

It's the new reality as the baby boomers retire, you either automate, pay great and prosper or you stagnate and die.

Thats nice n all for the big corporations, but the small prototype/short run/one off shops cant afford to dump $10 million into all those fancy modern systems. And there will always be a need for manual machinists. I have yet to see a single shop that pays more than $25 an hour even for skilled machinists. Maybe Boeing, but they also have a bad reputation for the boom/bust cycle that big market-specific manufacturers all go through periodically. One decent multi-axis lathe easily runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and when you are doing maybe 5 thou a week gross it isnt easy to buy one and tool it up.

Deathfrogg
So, I'm supposed to hire some kid at $20 an hour to sweep floors and deburr parts and scrap expensive material due to lack of experience?

If that's the going rate for a kid with no experience, yes. It looks like you're having problems finding people, so my first guess would be you're not offering enough money.

I don't know anything about your industry, but there are tons of moderately skilled, and "low skilled but willing to learn" people out there looking for work. You just have to find them, offer them more pay than alternatives are offering, and be willing to get them up to speed.

Too many job descriptions come in one of two flavors:

1. Hiring! Entry level monkey needed to do everything. 2-4 years experience required (despite being entry level position). Pays enough to live in a cardboard box and eat ramen.

2. Hiring! Expert required for mission critical vital important project. 7-10 years MANAGEMENT experience required. Masters degree a plus. Pays slightly below average, but it's a great company!

Noticably missing are:

3. Hiring! Entry level apprentice position. No experience required--we will train you (at our expense). Reasonable wage, with bonus and advancement for high quality work.

4. Hiring! Mid-level position with good pay and a path to management. Don't need an expert, just someone with talent and good work ethic. Bonus and advancement for high quality work, and multiple career tracks.

To all of the "Kids these days" posters, just remember: the same things were said about you when you were that age.

It's the same cycle over and over again. When you're young, older people "just don't get it". When you grow older, those punk kids under 30 "are lazy, good-for-nothing know-it-alls"

Older fogies have knowledge, young punks will learn. Quit acting like this hasn't been happening for all of history.

"That Og, he just doesn't want to learn how to hunt a mastadon."

Nightboat, your shop sounds exactly what I described to Deathfrogg as the healthy way to do business in the last one of these threads.

I know, young employees all seem like they're punks. But punks are probably the only one's you're going to get through your door if the wage is crummy or the benefits suck. Realistically, a loss must nearly always be taken on new employees. They don't have the skills yet, but some have the ability to learn and the drive to do so. Those ones who can learn are the same ones who will find the jobs that will pay them well to learn, and quickly exit a job that doesn't.

And if your margins are too tight, you've got to realize that shop isn't going to stay open for a long time. You might want to start looking for a new place to work yourself. Either that or the owner's to cheap, in which case the same advice applies.

Man, you know it's a bad morning when you can't even spell mastodon correctly.

Ok, lets see, shop rate $75 an hour. I bid the job at 4 hours plus material, that means I can do it in three, but thats none of your buisiness if you accept the bid. Rent on the building; $7600/month, electricity; 2 grand a month. Insurance (for the company) $600/month. health insurance benefits for the employees; shop pays half, and thats $200/month per worker shop cost. Taxes;$8500/quarter.

Add in extra material costs for scrapped material, Inserts at $150 a box or more, drill bits at $40 a pack, lubricants, solvents, shop rags, safety equipment such as earplugs and goggles, taking time to actually clean the shop when the chips pile too high, gotta pay the man to sweep and mop, and he's not generating revenue while he does that, thats an easy 6 hours a week right there.

that $75/hour shop rate is very competitive, and it barely breaks even. Some kid fresh out of high school or machinist training isn't worth even $15 an hour if he cant justify his wages. Raise the shop rate you say? Ok, then we start losing bids because the customers wont pay that much for the work.

The small shops cant compete with the giant corporations, and the corprations won't do single parts or small runs without charging an arm and a leg if at all.

The 20 somthings we interview where I work seem to all want to be hired at middle management, work 6 hour days with internet for Farking, and never being on call. I'm in IT, going on 20 years.

We just hired a couple people and in the first 3 weeks, they have both already missed 2 days. YOu know how hard those 5 day weeks can be!

I know one thing that is becoming a true benifit for me. The more lazy, entitled and un-driven these college folks are, the more money the company throws at me to keep me around. Someone has to do the work.

Here's some advice youngins', from a 50 year old who has walked the walk. There is NO free ride and no one owes you shiat. I ain't your momma nor your poppa. If you want it, show up, shut up and learn.

/good luck with that

24, went from associate programmer to database administrator in 2 years. College educated, multiple certifications, 12 hour days, and a whole lot of dealing with old people who have this mentality about the young. Look out pops, I am gunning fo yo job!

Stopping helplessly in your tracks because the money has stopped flowing is like a carpenter stopping in mid house construction because he's run out of inches.

Madness.

Corrupted_Monk: Here's some advice youngins', from a 50 year old who has walked the walk. There is NO free ride and no one owes you shiat. I ain't your momma nor your poppa. If you want it, show up, shut up and learn.

On the flip side, I'm at one of the largest companies in the US, I pull in 50+ hours a week regularly, outpace senior staff in my job with ease and my four complaints are:

1) Give me more work, because I get this stuff done faster, and better (according to employee appraisals and PRS reports), and get bored when I've got nothing to do

2) Let me train so that I can better help the company to succeed (and it's admitted that the skills we need aren't possessed by anyone else, so I can't learn from them directly).

3) If I'm outpacing my seniors (who make double or more), and we've already admitted it, bringing in new business (this year is slow... only a few hundred million), saving the company money (a few million in process changes, another few million due to smart security practices and reducing risk), what's it take to get a job that pays above 65K?

4) If I'm constantly being told that I'm too advanced for the job I'm doing, why do the same people then tell me that I can't apply for a job which I'm better qualified for, not because I'm not qualified, or don't have previous experience, but because I don't meet the requsite # of years with the company (despite the fact that I'm already doing the job for which I'd like to apply to be selected for)?

/two sides to the coin
//reward those who do good work and exceed expectations or STFU about a lack of competent work when we leave

Unrelated to the issue...

A few weeks ago there was a story on the news about how some company went to a retirement home and gave a bunch of septegenarians ipods. I couldn't help but feel sorry for their grandchildren who would inevitably end up being their "tech support."

/ The clock on my ipod is blinking. How do you make it stop?
// revengefor placing them in a retirement home I suppose.

Another problem you are going to have is low to mid level managers who are now in charge, got there through attrition and are now in over their heads. In May I took a position with a company as a mid-level IT manager, significant pay, great perks, and my manager was clueless. I scared him so badly that he fired me after three days and all I wanted to do was talking about was putting into place a simple disaster recovery program. You know get the back ups to a secure off site location, implement source code controls, create a plan to rebuild the servers, workstations, and phone system in the event of physical localized disaster.

Guy was in over his head, scared, and incompetent. I had not told him yet that his entire operation was amatureish at best and with a little reorginization, a couple of deceant coders and a good network admin we could let half the staff go and do more with less.

Sorry old farts, you can only go back so many times to your "Uphill, in snow, both ways" sort of crap before you'll have to open your wallet. And the "OH NOES, tEh WARLD IS GUNNA END!1ONEshiatCOCK!" takes on what's going to happen when you leave are hilarious. It smacks of the kind of egocentric bullshiat we're all so used to just rolling our eyes at while you remind us yet again of how replaceable we all are behind that cute smirk.

Nobody gives a damn anymore about your wisdom and family atmosphere. We're there for a paycheck. Perhaps if you had opened your wallet sooner, rather than never, the younger folks in the workforce of today wouldn't be so bitter.

Payback's a biatch.

Who is John Galt?

\obscure?

Deathfrogg: Yeah, the old machinists are retiring, and I can't get anyone in to do the basic support work. The kids I've seen lately all want to to start at mid journeymans wages without knowing anything or giving enough of a damn about the job to show up every day. We've had guys in their thirties who spent their entire twenties partying their asses off who are just now entering the workforce, no skills, no stamina, and no education or brains whatsoever. No desire to learn.

Machining is NOT low-skill, even with the CNC. Just because you can do a brake job on your 67 pickup does NOT mean I'm going to pay you $30 an hour to push buttons and deburr parts. Its part of the learning process. Fact is, that wage doesn't really exist in a small shop. You want that wage, you gotta earn it and show a desire to learn new things, a desire to be creative, and a desire to bust some ass. Machining is hard work, and worth it. But it takes a certain minimum level of education, and I haven't seen that in the guys we've had come through the place over the last few years. Every shop owner I've talked to in the last few years has had the same complaints.

You know what?

Once the older machinists do start to retire in numbers, you're going to have to pay those younger guys the $30/hour they want.

If you're having problem bringing in workers, it's because you're not paying enough for the work.

meathome
4) If I'm constantly being told that I'm too advanced for the job I'm doing, why do the same people then tell me that I can't apply for a job which I'm better qualified for, not because I'm not qualified, or don't have previous experience, but because I don't meet the requsite # of years with the company (despite the fact that I'm already doing the job for which I'd like to apply to be selected for)?


Because their is no one to replace you and they don't want to pick up the slack. Sad fact is if that is their attitude you are going to have to quit and go to another company to get where you want to be.

Editor's Note:

This also includes skilled journalists.

I can say for a certainty, that if you're not finding the right people, you're not offering enough money. I'm in construction, and the types of people you get offering $10/hr are miles apart from those you get offering $20/hr. And we have proven that one $20/hr guy can be worth 4-5 $10/hr guys. So how much are you really saving by being cheap with wages. The kinds of people you want, won't even come in the door if your wage offering is too low. Nothing says you have to keep the dead weight if the first $20/hr guy can't cut the mustard. Dump him and move on.

I know things like machine shops have it tough right now, because it's not a glamourous job. I think kids would rather work on a computer in an air conditioned office than in a sweaty machine shop. So the industry needs to take steps to promote that business as a great way to make a living. It's not something that can happen overnight.

If Fark is any indicator the job market better get ready for tons and tons of overeducated, underskilled workers with entitlement issues and a chip on their shoulder.

stiletto_the_wise

As someone recently seeking employment (print industry), I don't think you could have hit the nail on the head more. I fall into the "suck" demographic here of being a 22-yr old postgrad just fresh off the quad.

Thankfully, unlike the other people who graduated in my class, I want to learn and grow and be the very best at what I do, even if that means 15 hour days and working weekends.

/you really are wise

36 here. Wishing the Boomers would retire so I can advance through age attrition. :)

Also worried about those 10-15 years younger who stay in school after primary degree to get their MBA (despite a lack of any business experience whatsoever) and will likely leapfrog us 30-40 group. :(

MadAsshatter
If Fark is any indicator the job market better get ready for tons and tons of overeducated, underskilled workers with entitlement issues and a chip on their shoulder.

Just in time to replace the aging, stuffy, holier-than-thou seniors who over-value their "knowledge".

So it's a wash.

/just saying.
//If Fark is any indicator.

CC55: Just in time to replace the aging, stuffy, holier-than-thou seniors who over-value their "knowledge".

I think the "holier than thou" attitude stems from the fact that 20-30 years of experience is infinitely more valuable than 4 years of college. People seem to think that because they went to an Ivy League school they deserve to leapfrog people who've been there for 15 years.

Experience would be easier to acquire if we could spend more than two years at any one job.

\Wouldn't mind working at the same place for 40 years
\\Realizes that's impossible.

Corrupted_Monk: Here's some advice youngins', from a 50 year old who has walked the walk. There is NO free ride and no one owes you shiat. I ain't your momma nor your poppa. If you want it, show up, shut up and learn.

I'm a 20-something with two degrees coming to the end of my first year. I work 50-60 hours a week average and make less than $20 an hour. Am I to understand that I'm making less than and working more than most people my age/experience?

What a ripoff.

I'm pretty much a diehard liberal, I believe in paying good wages. But we tried the starting wage at $20 an hour and we got jack shiat. One guy comes in, happy to make the wage, after 3 months on the job he goes out and buys a new car. His payments and insurance were more than a weeks pay, thats his own fault but then he starts whining about how little he's making, so he quits. We had one guy try to bring in a little TV so he could watch while he worked, the boss told him to take it home so he quit. Another guy, comes in at $22 an hour as a programmer claiming 20 years experience, as soon as the benes started, he goes out and loads up on oxycontin and xanax and immiediatly starts to flake, also whining about his wages. Literally walking around the shop slackjawed and drooling. I have one kid now that busts his ass and learns, and he's making $15 an hour, he's not happy about it but he stays with his work, and when the boss gets back he'll probably get a raise.

I know machining isn't glamorous, but it is a critical industry in every modernized industrial society. You start losing the machinists and welders and such you lose your entire economic base. Thats a fact. Its about time people started realizing that. Not everyone deserves $40 thou a year out of the gate, but offering that doesn't always get the result you need. There are too many self-entitled, whiny 30 year old teenagers out there.