Cannot find skilled employees - ideas and anyone want to move to AZ?

How about hearing this. I was running the repair department for a computer manufacturer, when they fired my boss. I was called to a meeting with the company president, who told me that he thought I'd do a great job in the position, but the repair department was running so good they were leaving me there and hiring from outisde.

Less than a month later I left and took a job with a 16K bump in pay.

 

Mechanical

 

Yup. Same thing happened to a guy at our company. He was a field guy and our most experienced at splicing fiber optic cabling. He wanted to move into the same position I'm in so he didn't have to work outside, could make a little more money, and could have more time off with his family. He was told, flat out, "you're staying where you are because of your skill and that's where we need you." Zero attempt to incentivize him staying there with a raise, or a an upward path. Essentially, he was told he was to good at what he does to ever get promoted or transferred to something that paid better and increased quality of life. He left within a month.

 

What line of work are you and dad in?

 

I kind of figured, haha. I'm TE&Y.

 

I work in electronics manufacturing in SoCal, been trying to find basic assemblers for 2 years. Can't even find temps. Their offering less than 20 bucks an hour haha. I told the HR lady they need to up it to at least 25 for people to consider it over McDonald's, which you can get 18 bucks an hour if you try, plus free food and easy opportunities to move up to management.

 

I believe I did. There was quite a few letters written lately by both employees and employees families.
I was just out a tad over 4 months due to injury, and it's tough going back. My wife absolutely hates my job, and has from the moment I met her, and tells me to just quit just about everyday.

You are lucky you got out 4 years ago. With these new attendance policies, it's really messing everyone up. I tend to stay working RCO in the yard, so it's not as bad for me, but these poor extra board guys are a mess. Our yard extra board currently only has 8 on it. It's wiped out every day. Our road extra board has 39. It's usually about wiped out, too. And with this PSR, there isn't much freight moving. And the railroads are perfectly happy with that.
In 2019, the furloughs went deep. Guys with about 9 years seniority were cut. Of course the RR's all tried to blame the cuts to the STB on COVID. Except they forgot the cuts happened about 9 months before Covid became a thing. Luckily, the STB didn't believe a word of the RR's bullshit. I hope they start allowing customers to fine the RR's for poor service. It's possibly the only way they will get their act together.

 

I’m a welder among other things and my Pop’s drives fork truck and keeps a big plant going for the last 12 years or so, can’t remember when he started. I’ve been a lot of things though, from cook, to building houses as a teen to a teacher (state side and overseas), photographer, etc etc. I’ve moved a lot the last 15 years. Need one more year of welding work and I can get my CWI and start inspecting welds more than welding them. Plan was to build a house next summer. Plans have been changed quite a bit these days…

 

Nice. I’m quitting end of this month. Going back to the oil fields. I’m done with the grave yard and swing shift life. Also horrible days off 7 years in and Best days off I have are Monday and Tuesday. Even with the new contract proposal giving us a 23% raise it’s not enough. If they would of included some sick days in there might be ok. Union is horrible.

 

The company I was working for previously laid about 200 people nation wide off at the end of 2020, if I recall correctly. (Then they laid a bunch of HR folks off a few months later after those layoffs were all processed, too.) I was one of 5 people laid off from our site but, of course, management expected the work we'd been doing to continue.

A number of folks across the company who were less than 5 years from retirement asked if they could voluntarily retire to save someone else from being laid off and were told no and that the layoffs were chosen based on the skills that the company needed going forward.

 

And greed. That's what our problem is. We all want to make as much money as we possibly can. While many of us keep seeing big raises because of the job market, it's making the inflation issue worse. I really don't know what the solution is.

 

I don’t know what you make now vs. what you’ll make in the oil fields, but maybe your situation illustrates that money isn’t the only factour.

 

My friend/coworker has been applying for jobs for months. These are jobs he's very qualified for and they would be lucky to have him. I've reviewed his resume and thought it was fine. Most of the time, he never hears back from these companies. There is a disconnect somewhere. I wonder if all this technology is actually making it harder for both employees and the employer.

To give some context, he's got almost a decade of experience in our field(supply chain) with the same company and he's been promoted at least 3 times. So his resume shows loyalty, talent, and work ethic in my opinion.

 

Reminds me of a meme I saw recently that basically said the reward for being really good at your job is more work.

 

How is that, if we didn't get above 70% for the year we failed, no credit. Needed 20+ credits to graduate, max 6 possible a year. Other than summer school plenty of kids flunked out or repeated years. WHO is just getting past on? Most of the dopers and losers flunked out or quit.

 

Someone told me a long time ago, “Good work is rewarded with more work.”

Sounds like this is a standard in any industry. I thought it was just government work.

We are definitely at a crossroads people just don’t want to pay for good work. Then there’s another group that just want to work for anything. Corporate greed and profits have ruined it for everyone. Someone mentioned here, it used to be if you worked hard you could afford a house, car, etc. those days are long gone.

We took a road trip through CO earlier this year and stopped by in the cool mining town of Silverton. Most of the places were closed. Some had this sign on the door:

 

Holy crap this state job I took is bananas, first thing I learned was these oldtimers know the state system so well they can log in some web site and see what everyone else makes. Was warmed first couple days might catch some grief because I made more than others. I started laughing my ass off and told them I took around 15-20% pay cut to take this easy state job, told them they could all quit and be making more tomorrow in the real world but would have to really work. I took the job cause I had some inside knowledge from working there as a contractor for years and knew I wanted to be the guy holding up my pockets and doing very little when he retired. I also could afford the cut in pay. BUT higher ups are finally getting green light to start process of replacing several spots of retired people in the past 3 years that was just put on hold instead of replacing ASAP. They will have to find old fat guys like me ready to come off the road because the salary is not going to bring anyone.

 

Same boat.
How have you acclimated?

 

It’s a different world these days. Probably can’t share the stuff I’ve read on it here. Google it “high school graduates can’t read”. Lots of results.

 

lol, quickly, now I get pissy if it's 1 min past quitting time.

 

Atta boy!!!!

 

I don't know how that's true. I mean, I'm one of those civil service employees (senior server admin on a military post) and, since I'm IT and a government worker, therefore "I don't have to work hard" I'm told.

Granted, my hours are pretty nice - rarely do I have to work more than an 8 hour day - but while I'm there, I'm busting my butt, and there's a ton of stuff I have to be on call for in case something *does* happen (chillers go offline which means servers will melt if they don't get shut off; safety-related stuff; etc.)

 

I think you are the exception. I think the adage that people talk about government workers not working hard apply to jobs like the people at the DMV, clerk type jobs or like application processor type jobs, and other types of jobs that might not require specialized skills. Not that I am knocking anyone that actually has a job these days, but just defining what I think most people think of in this situation.

My personal opinion of anyone in a decent paying, safe government job that gives great benefits, 401k, a pension and all that stuff is that they are pretty damn smart to find something like that, its the governments fault that they dont need to work hard to meet the minimum demands of the job. Not everyone is highly motivated or have high career aspirations.

 

I too work my butt off and am busy from start to finish every day and I am also "on call" 24/7. The good things about my local govt. position are that I usually only have an 8 hr day, I get all holidays paid, earn paid vacation and the benefits. My work ethic is part of what makes me hustle everyday and I need to feel like I have accomplished something. There is a lot of "soft quitting" out there were ppl are doing the bare minimum to get by ath their public and private jobs.

The other good thing about govt. jobs is that many of them are recession proof.

 

My dad worked in a government research lab for a while. That was when he learned to drink coffee because there wasn't enough work to do to fill the days.

 

this sentence knocked me off balance...

it's odd that I would lose my job, because of inflation, before a Gov employee.

 

The way I look at some jobs or careers is alot like my own as a quality engineer, I may not be contributing meaningfully at ever moment of the day to the operation, but the systems or processes I put in place do the work for me in a sense even when I am BSing on the Tundra forums during work hours lol.

Or a better example would be a police officer. I think some people look at cops and be like, "my taxes are paying your salary, why are you sitting there drinking coffee or bullshitting with another cop, or trying to ticket someone for going 1mph over the speed limit, go catch a shoplifter or something" in my mind, you arent paying cops 100k a year to drink coffee and talk to soccer moms at the mall or to do some mindless report of a car that got broken into, you are paying them 100k a year to be shot at twice a year or to have to wrestle some bum to the ground that is threatening people at a public park or something once a month.

 

It is odd and it shouldnt be that way but it does make sense if you think of how big the government is and how little profit or having money has to do with the governments thinking. They just assume money is meaningless or endless so you dont have money or profit as a driving factor for improvement like 99% of private enterprise does. When you think money just grows on trees there is no incentive to improve.

 

agreed.

Gov employees are not tasked with creating value in the free market place.

As we are.

We laid off many people during Covid....how many Gov employees lost their jobs? Some did nothing for 2 years...and GOT PAID the whole time.

so - that's why you don't see gov employees looking for jobs. they never get fired.

I look for employees that are profit and value oriented. it's easy to spot...just VERY rare. you have to go thru a lot of candidates.

 

Absolutely. Take my company. Pre Covid, we would have to go through like a dozen or more temps before we found a decent person to hire. Gov jobs just look for willing people available at that moment lol.