Here.
Synopsis: markets work. When you hear employers especially complaining about skills shortages, it means they want policies to get the same workforce for less money. I'm very glad to see someone like Krugman not get caught up in this shortages nonsense.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
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It sort of depends upon what your goal is. My assumption (which could be wrong) is that the employers are offering wages which allow them to stay competitive with Chinese manufacturers. So, there is no skills shortage assuming you're comfortable with much production being shifted to China or India or wherever. I'm comfortable with that and I think you are too. But if you are not comfortable with that, there is a skills shortage.
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DeleteWhen you hear employers especially complaining about skills shortages, it means they want policies to get the same workforce for less money.
ReplyDeleteAnd why should we be inclined to give it to them? I don't follow the argument.
Hm... Both Daniel and Paul Krugman seem pretty hostile to giving the employers what they want here.
DeleteWhere is the "proof" that when employers complain about skill shortages that it's "code" for ANYTHING else other than there is actual skills shortages?
ReplyDeleteExample: According to a Machinist "professor" at the local junior college and backed up by my two uncles (both high skilled machinists) there used to be a lot of Tool and Die and CNC Machinists in California -- according to them most of this type of work was shipped over seas leaving most of the available machinists in the US now living on the East Coast. There is demand for machinists but there are few with these skills in California.
The latter is an just one example where Boom-Bust Economics (Keynesian / Monopoly Banking) and the setting of Price Ceilings/Floors (effects of corporatism: colluding industry leaders and labor unions).
Markets that operate in a near free-market fashion do not have these issues -- the bigger and older the industries the worse the shortages in high skill labor.