Viewing McJobs From the Flip Side

[cpzilliacus]

NewGeography.com: Viewing McJobs From the Flip Side

The headline read, "We Have Become a Nation of Hamburger Flippers: Dan Alpert Breaks Down the Jobs Report."  Seems that Alpert, the managing partner of New York investment bank Westwood Capital, LLC, was unhappy that most of the jobs created in July were for low-wage workers.

Albert wasn't alone. Plenty of people have been complaining that most of the recently-created jobs have been for low-wage workers. These people have apparently forgotten who it was that lost jobs in the Great Recession: It was low-wage workers. College educated people were hardly impacted at all, especially those that headed households and had several years of work experience.

The recession hit less educated, and therefore low-wage, workers far more than it hit high-human-capital workers, and the discrepancy persists, even as analysts complain about hamburger-flipping jobs.

[wxfree]

That's an interesting point, but I noticed a strange trend before the recession started.  I can't say it was a large trend, but I know several people, and heard of others, who had decent paying jobs and got fired for no reason other than being "too experienced" and being replaced with new, lower-paid workers.  Those I know didn't lose their jobs during the recession.  They held on to their new low-paying jobs, and one's been stuck in two or three simultaneous part time jobs through the years.

The people I know who were fired all have a history of being good workers impressing their bosses.  They'd had their jobs for years and always did them well.  I don't know what to think of them being fired; maybe they really were paid too much, or maybe their employers undervalued good employees who don't need training or supervision and just get the job done.

This is strictly anecdotal.  I have no idea how widespread this was, but it seemed to be happening all around me at the time.  It's possible that some of the burger flippers who got fired during the recession actually had good paying jobs 10 years ago, and a new burger flipping job is still a step down.

[english si]

Its certainly my experience that low-end jobs don't particularly want over-qualified workers (I can their point - move on when something better happens, be bored on the job, view the job with contempt that it is beneath them) - given the choice between a 40 year-old with a degree and 20 years of work behind him and an 18 year old with few qualifications and nearly no work experience, they almost always go with the latter.

In other words, if you were a college-educated household head with several years of work experience behind you and were hit by the Recession (perhaps downsized and sort of replaced by a less experienced, cheaper, employee just before*): tough titties!

*this is a fairly common thing to do in downsizing - take out the layer of employees who've worked there for a long time and developed higher levels of pay than someone starting at an equivalent level would get. It costs more in payout, but in the long run it is cheaper.

[wxfree]

Its certainly my experience that low-end jobs don't particularly want over-qualified workers (I can their point - move on when something better happens, be bored on the job, view the job with contempt that it is beneath them) - given the choice between a 40 year-old with a degree and 20 years of work behind him and an 18 year old with few qualifications and nearly no work experience, they almost always go with the latter.

In other words, if you were a college-educated household head with several years of work experience behind you and were hit by the Recession (perhaps downsized and sort of replaced by a less experienced, cheaper, employee just before*): tough titties!

*this is a fairly common thing to do in downsizing - take out the layer of employees who've worked there for a long time and developed higher levels of pay than someone starting at an equivalent level would get. It costs more in payout, but in the long run it is cheaper.

I'm not talking about high-paid professionals.  What I saw was decently paid low-level employees getting fired for earning around 30 grand.  Around here that was fairly comfortable 10 years ago.  One was a 27-year old factory line supervisor, hardly a professional.  This wasn't downsizing; it was before the recession, during housing boom.  In the case of the factory, they were even hiring at the time.  It wasn't high-level people.  They were firing comfortably paid low-level people and replacing them with near-poverty workers.

I'm not trying to pass judgement on what happened.  My point is that it made me thing something was wrong.  Maybe they were paid more than they were worth.  That possibility still indicates poor management.

This may simply have been a regional oddity, but I wonder how many of the low paid workers at the beginning of the recession had lost better jobs a few years before, making it look like getting another low paying job restores them, when it really doesn't.

[Alps]

Dan Alpert

Albert wasn't alone.

#1 pet peeve of mine. My father gave up and now leaves his name as Albert at restaurants. I refuse to.

[english si]

I'm not talking about high-paid professionals.

and this is relevant for my post how exactly?

[wxfree]

I'm not talking about high-paid professionals.

and this is relevant for my post how exactly?

I was clarifying my earlier post.  You mentioned college educated 40 year olds, and I was clarifying that I was referring to low-skilled jobs not requiring a college degree that pay well above poverty, but not high pay.

I've never run a business, but it struck me as odd that they'd replace some of their best employees with cheaper less-proven people at a time when the business was growing.  I'm not trying to argue, just bringing up a possible counter-point to the article.

[cpzilliacus]

Dan Alpert

Albert wasn't alone.

#1 pet peeve of mine. My father gave up and now leaves his name as Albert at restaurants. I refuse to.

Good for you!

My longtime primary care physician (he recently hung up his white jacket for the last time) shares your surname, and he also kept with the "p."

I joked with him that the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission named a park road in his honor (I am fairly certain that the road predates his presence in  Maryland).