More than half of U.S. employers surveyed by staffing firm Manpower "can't find qualified workers"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

More than half of U.S. employers surveyed by the staffing firm Manpower Group last year said they were having trouble filling job openings because they couldn't find qualified workers. That’s a huge 38 percentage point jump from 2010, when only 14 percent said they were having trouble filling positions.

***

“Employers have been spoiled by the recession,” said Melanie Holmes, a vice president with Manpower Group.

Holmes explained that the nation’s high unemployment rate left many recruiters feeling they didn’t have to look very hard to find a great candidate, and they could skimp on money or benefits.

Employers also may not be willing to spend the time or money training someone for a highly specialized job, or one that requires unique skills.

http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/13/10142795-role-reversal-employers-say-they-cant-find-workers

[OhioChick]

1. They can't find workers to work for slave wages n/t

[Bozita]

3. Bingo!

[Charlemagne]

22. +1

[Loki]

2. One word....

bullshit.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. Two words ....

H1B Visa

Ok, one of those isn't a word. But it's the answer corporate finance folks (and Indian officials) are looking for.

[The Straight Story]

4. Well, when they ask for a BA, 5 years experience in 4 programming fields (some only 2 yrs old)

They are going to have problems...

[Aerows]

8. And want to pay $30K a year

That's the real problem. They always expect to find some young IT guru with tons of experience that they can pay peanuts and then wonder why people in the field don't even bother to respond.

[The Straight Story]

9. Indeed. I have over 15 years' experience, worked for chase, enron, verizon, bank one, mcgraw-hill

And several smaller companies doing programming, data bases, management, and I find I am either over qualified or under qualified for just about everything.

[Aerows]

12. I don't mind being "over-qualified"

Since eventually, you can take on much more interesting tasks if you prove yourself capable. What I won't put up with is being underpaid. That's they problem most of them are having - they don't want to pay anything.

[JDPriestly]

39. "over-qualified" That's their favorite.

It isn't that they can't find qualified employees, it's that they don't want to hire older employees or pay decent wages.

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. I saw a job recently

that *required* SEVEN years experience in "Social media marketing."

I mean, I guess one could go back to USENET if one really needed to, but come on, now. Who thought of themselves as doing "social media marketing" before even two or three years ago?

Luckily, this is not my field, but I did find it amusing.

[Charlemagne]

23. Who the hell

has 7 years experience at that?????

7 years ago was 2004/early 5. At that time people still had those "sign for XXX house of AOL" CDs floating around.

Yeah USENET, Geocities, and myspace is pretty much it

[alcibiades_mystery]

24. Who is writing these job ads

is my question.

[Sirveri]

37. Myspace launched in 2003. So it's possible.

The AOL plague was more of a 1990's thing, same with usenet, geocities stuck around a bit longer than that.

Now I'm starting to feel old.

[cojoel]

34. depends on how you count

If you work has hard as they want you to, you will have that experience in 3 1/2 years.

[TheMastersNemesis]

5. Employment Market Broken

Dixiechick is correct about slave wages.

For some reason the public is reluctant to blame greedy employers and American business for the completely broken employment market. When I was at DOL, which I spent 24 years at, I could see the labor market being trashed continuously since 1980. American business simply does not want American workers and is viciously against any kind of social or economic contract. What they really want is a temporary ready made employee that they refuse to invest in.

The future of this and the next generation has been eliminated unless you will work for $8 to $10 an hour with few or no benefits. There is absolutely no interest in providing long term employment. In the end every worker will be just an independent contract worker. That is the reality of the "ownership" society that the GOP and big business promote. It is also the "new capitalism" that the 2012 election will be all about. This country will cease to be any kind of fair democracy with the GOP in power. Too many seniors are so racist that they will give up their Social Security and Medicare just to get rid of Obama.

So if you want to work for nothing and have jobs with no future, just vote for a Republican for office. That includes "vulture capitalist" Willard Romney. Voting Democratic is no guarantee, but they can be pushed to the left over time.

The American business community, the GOP, and the RW are unpatriotic and unAmerican. If you hate the US vote GOP.

The only solution in the end is to demand a Second Economic Bill of Right as put forward by Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 and FDR in 1944.

[Bozita]

7. Excellent post! ... Thank you.

[DotGone]

11. The ones around here are looking for entry level accountants with 5 years experience, CPA license

The ones around here are looking for entry level accountants with 5 years experience, CPA license, know 7 different tax prep and accounting software packages, and can program and implement SAP and Oracle systems. Yeah I wonder why the fuck they can't find "qualified" people.

[rfranklin]

15. The only thing "entry" about those jobs is the salary and benefits...

Even then I suspect they are receiving resumes from qualified people who would take the job out of desperation. Half the time the jobs listed are not really being offered.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

19. That "not really being offered" thing goes back to pre-"Dot Com" good times, though.

They used to have a major job fair at the Santa Clara Convention Center, back when Big Dog was President.

There were companies that attended that didn't have job openings (or at best had very few).

WHY would they pay for a booth at a job fair?

To be seen, to promote themselves as "an employer" (only companies who are doing well hire new employees)...in short, a "dog & pony" show.

They DID collect resumes, though. And having worked in H.R., I can tell you exactly what happens to resumes collected at job fairs. They sit on someone's desk, and MAYBE get divided up among hiring managers' desks, and then they sit THERE, and the hiring managers yell at H.R. "WHY HAVEN'T YOU FOUND ME ANY CANDIDATES?"

When I got hired at Cisco Systems, my hiring manager CIRCUMVENTED H.R., went to the Website for the Job Fair I mentioned above, saw my resume, CALLED me, and said "Are you still looking for work?"

[kiva]

13. The bolded is also a key to the problem.

"Employers also may not be willing to spend the time or money training someone for a highly specialized job, or one that requires unique skills." Translation, they want employees who are up to their armpits in student loans from paying for their own training.

[uponit7771]

14. This is ManPowers excuse to increase work visas IMHO

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Two of the oldest tricks in the book:

1. Advertise a position with qualifications that exactly fit an internal candidate and almost no one else. The internal candidate is the only one to apply and automatically gets the job.

2. Advertise a position with qualifications that no one in this country has but exactly fit someone who is waiting for a work visa.

[Art_from_Ark]

35. Yup

Businesses have all sorts of sneaky ways of rejecting applicants.

I was once rejected for a job because I didn't have that state's driver's license. After I got the license, I was told that I "hadn't had it long enough"

[HughBeaumont]

17. More like they want the sky for Home Depot entry level wages.

There's this thing called "The Cost of Living" and even at it's rock bottom minimum, it has a price and it's never going down.

Hey, that's the economic system YOU foisted on us, corporations. How'd ya think freezing real dollar wages, defunding social programs, defunding benefits and serial firing was going to turn out? Or did you all just not care?

[gulliver]

18. We need to be much more pro-business in this country.

If our American businesses need more qualified people, we can't fail them. We need to double our government investment in education, skills training, apprenticeships, etc. We could start by eliminating all government funding of "for profit" colleges and send that money to institutions that are "for education." Then raise teacher pay, hire more teachers and professors, build more schools, equip them...

It's hard to imagine anything that would be more business friendly.

[Zalatix]

25. No, the problem is that businesses are looking for top quality people for almost no pay.

We have a GLUT of overqualified workers competing for peanut-level wages.

[gulliver]

28. It's a liberal answer to "There aren't enough qualified workers"

"There aren't enough qualified workers" is used as an excuse for outsourcing. When it is used, we should come back and ask our Republican friends why they don't support education investment. Don't they want to be pro-business?

[NNN0LHI]

20. This shop cold called my retired brother trying to hire him last week. $28 dollars an hour to start

http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.aspx?ipath=EXIND&siteid=cbindeed&Job_DID=JHQ7QT6TT9Z1JCKMLMW

Tool and Die Maker

Job Description

Crown Services Staffing is currently recruiting for 5 Tool and Die maker in the Carol Stream, IL Area

Troubleshooting and repairing tools.

Responsible for tools and fittings being sent from Japan for the local machines.

Must have experience measuring and working with parts with low tolerance measurements.

Need to have experience with welding and grinding of tools parts for repair.

Must have industrial machine experience and knowledge as these parts.

Please apply in Person:
Crown Services
637 W North Ave
Villa Park, IL 60181
Mon-Friday 7:30am-4pm.

Job Requirements

Must pass a background check and a drug test

Able to work weekends and the overtime is mandatory

2nd shift 5.00pm-1.30am+OT

---------------------------------------------

He never put an application in either. He got called out of the blue. The company must have somehow got a list of retired Tool and Die Makers from where we both retired from and started cold calling guys. $28 an hour and the regular shift is 5 days, ten hours a day with time and a half overtime pay for anything over 40 hours and double time for Sundays and Holidays. My brother told them no thanks he wasn't interested.

They asked him if he might know someone looking but my brother didn't know anyone interested.

This place is definitely hurting for qualified people in the Skilled Trades

Don

[Mopar151]

31. Being in a related field, I can sympathize.

It's not just short money (white collar jobs with similar skill/knowledge levels are $60 -$100 K/yr), or what 6o hours+ a week will do to your legs, standing on concrete - It's having to fix shit you'd have been fired for producing 10 years ago!

[NNN0LHI]

32. I agree that $28 dollars an hour isn't that great for doing this kind of work

Comes out to not even $60 grand a year. Not enough as far as I am concerned. I would do it for $110 grand a year for a straight 40 hours a week. That would be fair with the cost of living today. But no less than that. And if they wanted to start mandatory me working overtime every week I would do it if the wages for doing that began approaching $150 grand a year. That is the only way.

But I think they have convinced a lot of people they are lucky with that part time minimum wage BS.

Unbelievable, isn't it?

Don

[Prophet 451]

21. Define "qualified"

I've noticed a nasty habit of workers over the last decade: They want Albert Einstein but they're only willing to pay Nobby Nobbs wages.

[NNN0LHI]

26. For the job opening I described above your post a person would need one of two things

Either a Journeyman card similar to the one below for that trade or 8 years of verifiable experience working in that trade.

Don

[Zalatix]

27. You forgot number three

The willingness to work for minimum or barely above minimum wages, and no benefits.

Oh and that job? It won't last but a year or so. Say hello to Just In Time employment.

[octothorpe]

29. I've noticed in my field(IT) most low paying jobs are usually close to double minimum wage, buuuuut

they lack any stability or benefits. Sure, maybe they'll pay $12 - $20/hr (which for some of the jobs I've seen, is pretty low for what they want), but it's usually a contract position with no benefits and that is set to end six or twelve months down the road.

[hfojvt]

30. the described job paid $28 an hour

However, if they are that desperate, maybe they could consider hiring somebody for four hour shifts, three days a week. It might be better than having nobody. How otherwise would they expect people to come out of retirement for ten hour days and mandatory overtime?

[Initech]

33. Not true. No one wants to work long hours for shit wages.

[BiggJawn]

36. They want somebody with the brain of Tesla

Who'll work for the pay of Burger King.

They don't fool me.

[Rex]

38. Riiiigggght.

Sure.