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What's behind a company's decision to hire a new employee? The simple answer may be: when you have enough money and you think you can afford it. But what makes you think that? What actually makes a company, in this economy, hire someone? Do they run numbers or just go on gut? Is it part of a five-year plan they refuse to veer away from? Or is it the last minute decision that they won't be able to operate tomorrow if they don't have someone new today? How do these decisions differ for big companies and for start-ups?
Then, once the company has made the initial decison, how do they decide whether it should be a long term employee with full benefits or a contract employee they won't really need to commit to?
And what about from the employee's perspective? Recruiter Nancy King said this to me today:
I don't know if anyone can say there is a sustainable job. Sustainable careers is where it is at — how you as an individual focus on your career. You can't count on one company. You constantly have to be learning new things. That is more important than counting on any one company or any one job.
From your experience what makes a job — or a career — sustainable?
Tagged as: business · employment · small business · unemployment
Photo credit: Yodel Anectodal / Creative Commons
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I think you need to think in terms of an overall sustainable lifestyle. Save a bunch so that if anything happens you can last through the hard times.
There's an old carpenter saying, something like "go ahead and fire me, I was looking for a job when I found this one!" Keep yourself ready and thinking about what you might want to do next, if you get laid off or just want a change.
I remember back after the US went to the moon and then the Government essentially shut down the space program and NASA and industry laid off hundreds of thousands of engineers and scientists. And students in the engineering and science pipeline lost their futures too. So education was no guarantee for those guys and gals.
I remember after the Cold War, defense spending was cut a bunch and many of those aircraft engineers, especially on carbon fiber materials and construction, went into the bicycle industry. That bike industry really benefited but many well educated people got burned out about how they were treated by the aircraft industries.
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Increasingly there is no such thing as a permanent job. We'd best get the idea that we might have a job for several years with one employer out of our heads. That's not the way the world works anymore. Just as the idea that a company would take care of its employees for life died in our parent's generation, not the idea that you get a series of "permanent" jobs is dying. We're turning into a nation of contractors.
As such, it is important (as Tom D Ford says above) to have enough savings to ride out those times when you don't have a paying job. Those are the times when you'll need to retool your skills to prepare for your next paying job.
Yes, a lot about this new normal absoulutely sucks - especially the instability. But there are benefits as well if you're able to plan and save when times are good - the main benefit being a greater level of control over your own career. Used to be we were admonished to save for retirement but now we need to save for those "in-between" times.
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That is to say: "Just as the idea that a company would take care of its employees for life died in our parent's generation, now the idea that you get a series of "permanent" jobs is dying."
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PERMANENT WORK GUARANTEED FOR LIFE is also known as SLAVE LABOR or at best INDENTURED SERVITUDE. Careful of what you wish for.
Dying at a work desk is not ideal. We need to redress the worker-business relationship.
And it has to work out in the best interests of BOTH workers and business. It is a two way street with give and take.
Workers too demanding of their work conditions, benefits, and contingencies have employers too reluctant and too scared to hire.
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government employees have job security >. it takes a total revolution to get rid of the vested union supported "public servants"
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I manager a 50+ employee company in the Salem area that has added employees over the last 3 years. Here are the factors that have led to this increase:
- Domestic demand for services provided
- Export demand for products created
- Quality of service and products
- Financial stability of customer base
These are very simple, yet indispensible factors for a sustainable company!
That said, there is one factor that make me leery about adding more employees - Expanding government regulations, particularly in the HR arena:
- I support family leave in concept, but the application is becoming increasingly burdensome. I have had employees basically stop coming to work and claim Family Leave. It is extremly difficult to challenge such claims.
- Ease of receiving Unemployment - I have had employees work for a short period of time, then quit and file for unemployment. I have lost every single appeal of benefits.
Unfortunately, the long list of proposed bills coming out of the current Oregon Legislature contains expansion of these very types of regulations!
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Sorry, but a person cannot quit a job and then recieve unemployment - they will get denied.
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Unemployment benefits are generally denied to anyone who quits their employment, unless the claimant can make an incredibly good case why they should be granted benefits. (Hostile workplace may qualify.)
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Without going into case details, the bar is MUCH lower than you might expect. We had one employee destroy company property and threaten a supervisor - the administrative law judge stated the employee was under non-work related stress and unable to work. He received unemployment. Another employee missed 2 straight weeks due to her "inability to find child care". Again, the adminstrative law judge granted full unemployment, stating that it was not "her fault". (I thought there were many families able to find child care, and still show up at work!)
It's to the point that we question the cost and efffort to even appeal these cases!
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Example of an unsustainable job - refining/selling oil
Example of a sustainable job - selling energy
Litmus test for a sustainable job >> Is the job producing something that people will always need/want and must it be produced through a cooperative effort, i.e. is it financially and/or technically prohibitive to produce it by an individual for one's own consumption?
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Betting Systems Reviews - In every economic climate, there are winners and losers in the job market. For instance, rightly or wrongly, a lot of people turn to betting and other 'sideline' or 'second' income ventures to keep afloat.
Unfortunately for them, too many others will happily turn newbies over. The sadness is that, those people who stumble ignorantly into betting, forex, or whatever, are the very people who need protecting. The FTC are doing what they can, but they're not specific enough and consequently cause problems to those who are trying to build a sustainable business (and thereby provide sustainable jobs and employment).
Without sounding like a saint - which I'm very far from - we do look after people and try to educate them in sustainable betting at OBE.
Sustainable is tantamount to versatile, agile and evolutionary. If you struggle with change, you will be forced out in the new market economies, I fear.
Hackneyed
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This may not be the proper forum for what I have to say but I hope you will allow me to make this comment: If businesses have money to invest and are not ready to employ more workers have they considered investing in workforce development training through our community colleges?
Community colleges have four missions: preparing transfer students for university, general education, community life long learning and workforce development. For too long there has been no money invested in the technologies and equipment needed to train workers for middle class wage earning jobs. Why not now?
How better to lift the unskilled or obsolete skilled working class into the workplace of the 21st century than by having the business community drive the training of the workforce from which they draw employees? Continuous partnerships between community colleges and the business owners would better ensure the workforce skills are kept current.
I rmember when I return to college int he early 80--the olden days---that Apple had given our little rural community college Apple 2E computers and every student had to take programming (Basic and Fortran) as a required course. Look where that has taken us.
I encourage the business community to invest in educating and training their workforce now while they have the money to invest.
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Back when there was an unwritten social contract between company and employee - back before about the early 80s - companies would invest in growing their employee's skillset. They would often determine that they needed some set of skills for a new project and then grow some of their internal employees into that project. Now companies don't want to spend the time or money - they'll layoff employees that don't have the skills they need anymore and hire new employees who posess these desired skills fully formed.
It's nice to hope that the business community would want to invest in educating their local talent pool again - but given the short sighted corporate vision these days, I'm not going to hold my breath. Yes, there are some enlightened companies out there who will contribute to these sorts of efforts, but even then there's not enough of a commitment to really make a huge difference.
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I don't think many companies would find this a profitable way to invest. The probability of a return on what sounds like a sizable amount of cash is far too low to risk that much money. In the current economic crisis and with so many educated people out of work already, training up another batch doesn't make sense in an employer's labor market where there are several hundred applicants for every decent job. Many coming from out of state.
These message boards are full of posts from well trained people who have gone back to college to gain new and supposedly relevant new skills and are still unable to find jobs. Only now they are saddled with additional debts. With an economy in a death spiral there are no simple solutions to a phenomena that affects every single aspect of work, culture and class values.
This is in reality a new country we all now inhabit.
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this past year a colleague and i quit our paying jobs at an aerospace company to start a new commercial compost company, dirt hugger. quitting during a global recession was a tough decision, but we felt that industry niches can still flourish despite larger trends. we haven't created a new job as yet, but as a two person company we agonize over how best to hire our first employee. it appears with the economy there are abundant opportunities to hire recent college grads looking for experience as interns.
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A little off subject.How did the double decker bus/business skirt the American with Disabilities Act? Does running a power cord from an electric meter to a business for power meet Portland electric code? Are these methods to achieve sustainability?
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A "sustainable job" depends on a stable local economy, a reliably relevant market niche, good management, and loyal and diligent employees who buy into the company's goals.
None of these things apply to most small companies. Right now a Sustainable job would be very rare. Folks are scrambling. Part-time rent-me employee arrangements are the new "normal", as is a steadily shrinking selection of benefits that an employee can expect.
I think that a sustainable employee right now is the equivalent of a partner who is willing to accept the risk and obligations of a company in exchange for long-term awards.
The BEST "sustainable job" is the one you create for yourself, either beginning a company or developing skills that are valuable to a wide range of companies.
Great topic
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A 50,000 square foot pizza shop? With 200 employees?
That's downright scary. Sounds very California.
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And a potential employee can expect to make a whopping $8,772 a year before taxes. (Figures I used: $8.50/hour, 20 hours/week, 4.3 weeks/month, 12 months/year)
Take out FICA taxes, and we're down to $8276.39 before ANY Federal or State income taxes are withheld. ($8772-368.42-127.19, assuming OASDI of 4.2% and Medicare of 1.45%)
And an employee is supposed to be able to make the rent, utilities, and renter's insurance on that ?!?!? (Sounds more like a recipe for making sure someone goes on Food Stamps and Housing assistance.)
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Penny, you are right. I work a part time minimum wage job and I had to go on food assistance. I make enough for rent and a couple of small bills, if it wasn't for assistance I wouldn't eat.
Companies either want interns, highschoolers or they poach workers from other companies, leaving the rest of us yearing for a chance at a real pay check.
I never call in sick, have a deep skill set and will do the work for 2 employees but all companies care about is resume key words. Last year I sent out over 200 resumes and heard back from 2 companies.
But, I digress. Minimum wage blows. If I made more I would put more back into this economy instead of being a drain on it.
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Sustainability is, in part, related to economic security. So we can't just create jobs, we also need to think about building the things that help people stay attached to jobs when they have them.
Parents and other family caretakers need things like equitably-paid part-time work, flexibility, affordable child care, health care and paid time off so they can stay in a job when they're also working to take care of a family.
Andrea Paluso, Family Forward Oregon
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the guest's term "very good living supplemental wage" is a bit of very harsh double-speak. If you cannot pay an employee enough to allow them to live a reasonable lifestyle, you are not paying a living wage. period.
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The economy, my son's medical issues, and our shared love for dogs were all part of the motivation for our own business, Leo & Company. We now spend our days baking diabolically delicious, all organic dog biscuits that are as good for the planet as they are for your dog
When we launched, it felt as though there was no real alternative: my son, Leo, had been born with a liver condition, and went into the hospital to await a liver transplant shortly before the economy collapsed. By the time he was well enough to not need my full time care it seemed there were no jobs to be had; yet, as a single mom, staying home wasn’t an option either.
It was Leo, now 15, who had the notion that we could start selling the dog biscuits we have always baked for our dogs. I questioned whether gourmet organic dog biscuits would sell in a down economy, but, lacking any other options, we gave it a go.
Turns out Portlanders value their pups, and appreciate that we offer biscuits baked form all local, organic ingredients, using recipes informed by may background as a veterinary technician.
We are deeply committed to operating in as sustainable a fashion as possible, and bring that value to every choice we make: from our compostable sample bags to the choice to buy ingredients directly from local family farmers who bring the same commitment to stewardship of the land that we bring to baking.
Sometimes desperation is the mother of inspiration; and although we still have moments of panic, it is the best job I have ever had, and plan to keep it for the rest of my life.
Kyrstin Westwind
Leo & Company Diabolically Delectable Dog Biscuits -
Kyrstin - a website would greatly assist your business, even a simple one with a "where to buy" section and contact information. If you do have a website, it needs to show up on popular search engines. Just having a Facebook account for your fledgling enterprise simply won't reach the large pool of possible buyers who don't care to do the "YouTwitFace" combo or any part thereof. Clearly your market research has revealed the astonishing vibrancy and growth of "the dog market" and with Portland being one of the leading US cities in "dog friendliness" you should do well. But many of us do not social network precisely because we do NOT want to be "judged" by others with an agenda dissimilar to our own - especially when possibly becoming "friended" by someone whose agenda is diametrically opposed to our own. And don't forget there are three or four local-to-the-northwest dog publications with extremely affordable advertising rates that could assist with increasing your sales (no, I am not a salesperson for those publications, just a reader). Dogs need to know where to tell their pet parents to shop!!! You want sustainable? You need a website (and I'm not a website designer, either, just suggesting it).
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I think part of "sustainable jobs" means people who love what they do. Genuine enthusiasm is contagious to employees and customers; people work harder and better when they are passionate about what they do. I would like to see efforts to help students at the high school level find what they love to do instead of promoting collage as the only next step to be successful. If we educate to win the future while ignore the actual people in the equation we may create a passionless workforce who just tries to get through the day. Let's allow for innovation and entrepreneurialism by balanced and human focused education.
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I agree ~a job cant be truely sustainible if you cant stand going to it, or wish you were elswhere. My son attends Mt. Scott, where they recently got a grant to hire someone to help the kids focus on this very issue of figuring out what you want to do, and then mapping a course to get there. Brillient!
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I wish the word ‘sustainable’ was not part of this discussion, because clearly the word, in this climate, can only be thought of in reference to environmental concerns. Environmental concerns have nothing to do with sustainable jobs. Theoretically if every job was in a sustainable industry and everything was so well ‘sustained,’ then jobs would go by the wayside because the efficiency would be so overwhelming that the economy would come to a standstill. Which is the irony of the whole thing. If everyone truly live sustainably, how could there be room for economic growth? Sustainable jobs in sustainable green industries, are only currently sustainable, because so many other industries are involved in the unsustainable. I think economic growth in a fully sustainable world could never occur. Is this a bad thing?
Are there are other ways to live that don't require economic growth? Does the world need economic growth? It seems as though the world economies require that someone, or something, suffers in order for someone to grow---is it possible for everyone to grow? Is economic growth inherently sustainable? How much can the world grow? How rich can we all get? And off of what?
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scottmil
Those are great and key questions.
I think it was Edward Abbey who said that "constant growth is the philosophy of cancer."
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Scott, I think SUSTAINABLE is the key word for that has been neglected in America. It can apply to enviorment, energy, foreign policy, finances, jobs, and education.
A sustainable energy generation source must be enviormentally friendly, low carbon or no carbon producing, non-intrusive into a people's lives, better than its predecessors, and ULTIMATELY financially sustainable.
Solar energy has all the feel good properties, but it is exceedingly expensive. It requires Federal and state rebates, tax credits, producer credits, producer incentives. For a standard home, a solar unit will cost $35,000-75,000 dollars and will be lucky to meet 50% of peak load. Without all the incentives and tax breaks, it would not be financially sustainable.
....And that is the ultimate question in a world of diminished resources.
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Jacob
You are correct about Solar PV but Solar thermal is very sustainable and cost effective. I think most people miss that distinction when they consider Solar.
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jacob,
I understood what the word 'sustainable' meant before reading your comment. It has a wide use and can apply to many things---for example, 'frequent consumption of beans is a prerequisite for sustainable flatulence.' This mention of flatulence actually leads to a point, sustainability in many areas is not necessarily a good thing. For instance, many jobs that may be sustainable, may not be good jobs. Wal-mart may be a sustainable company in an economic sense, but that doesn’t mean it is a good company in other senses. Strippers and hookers may be in sustainable lines of work, but it doesn’t mean it is for everyone. Generally with environmental concerns sustainability is a good thing, because it is in-line with, and really part of, the goal or philosophy of environmentalism. But, sustainability with jobs is neither here nor there. It is good for the person who wants the same job ad infinitum, but if this job keeps sweatshops in business, the sustainability of the job seems irrelevant. This has all been irrelevant really, my point was, sustainability is (currently) a loaded buzzword and applying it to jobs might be confusing for some people, because they might confuse or blur the meaning with the popular ‘green’ use.
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Specialization kicked into high gear as tribal units ran out of room to expand and faced the necessity of becoming bigger and more competitive than the competition. Alienation is such a ubiquitous part of modern specialized existence that we hardly notice the things in society that have evolved to keep the masses working and paying taxes. Entertainment, and consumer goods are the most tangible of the enticements for workers to carry on. But behind this there is also a lot of cheer leading around growth, getting ahead, the American dream, investing in the stock market, making a killing etc.. Growth may not be inevitable or sustainable. But if workers don't have the prospect of improving their lot, might they just not show up for work? Or more likely reduce their productivity to the point that the whole economy succumbs to a downward spiral?
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Damned if we do -- damned if we don't?
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There are so many companies that would benefit from allowing employees an affordable onsite daycare, or bringing their children in to work.
Obviously, not in certain environments, but there are many businesses that would have lower turnover rates, fewer "sick" days, and we could improve our overall health both as a community and economy.
It's a way to augment existing business to return to profitability, create jobs that are sustainable (there will always be children), and provide a more enticing work opportunity for many.
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I agree.
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Under the Soviet factory system, most plants and other work places maintained nurseries and kindergarten schools on site for working moms. We condemned such practices, back then, as having a dehumanizing effect on kiddies and disturbing the mother/infant bond.
Now we appear to have had our sheeps' minds changed by our policy makers. With the USSR crushed, and our own economy in a shambles, such services by any employer would be indeed welcomed and cheered by most workers.
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The American Dream has moved to places like China and India.
Of course, as we Americans learned, the American Dream isn't sustainable on many levels so in some sense it's probably good that the dream has died here. Maybe a more sustainable dream will take its place.
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I thnk we are learning that the "American Dream" that is continuously "sold" to the public as part of our national mythology is just smoke and mirrors. The true "American Dream" is a lot more Ayne Rand-y. Indivudual opportunity in exchange for individual responsibility and the willingness to work your ass off and accept risk.
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Wasn’t Ayn Rand an atheist with a Jewish history/background? And also pro-choice? Maybe if the ‘American Dream’ is more akin to Ayn Rand's dream of 'reason', that is not such a bad thing. But, unfortunately, I don't think people are much interested in the 'reason' part of Ayn Rand they just graduate to some of her conclusions.
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Ayn Rand was a big fan of Fascism.
As Benito Mussolini defined it "The Corporate State".
Which we fought WW2 to stop and defeat.
And how much power do the Corporations currently have in and over our government?
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Corporate America has finally defeated the labor movement of the 20s and 30s. New Dealers, Fair Dealers of the FDR/HST era are all dead and buried along with the idea that the fruits of capital, tech and labor should be fairly distributed.
Back when I was child the names of men such as John L. Lewis and the Reuther brothers and the powerful unions they led were names and intellects to be reckoned with. Little known fact: the Reuther brothers both visited the USSR in the days before WWII and learned first hand about the formation of unions and how to stand up to the capitalist system and win concessions.
Today there are no leaders anywhere but the corrupt politicians in Govt. The union movement has been defeated. There are no other centers of power from which to confront the great corporations that hold our Govt captive. Our deindustrialization occurred only because there were no powerful dissenting voices. There are still none.
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As a professor at PCC I teach my students about sustainable skills - ones that companies are craving - good communication skills, interpersonal skills, skills in dealing with ambiguity - these soft skills are transferible from job to job and will help keep a career on track.
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Companies do not want these skills. If they did I would have a decent job right now. Companies want hard skills. Please stop telling your students these skills are valuable. My professors told me this when I was in school and I feel like I was lied to. These skills are worth the paper the degree is printed on - about 10 cents a copy.
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"Companies do not want these skills."
Only partially correct... you're right that if you don't have the basic skills for the job, good comm's, interpersonal and ambiguity skills won't get you the position. However, given two applicants with similar skills, I'll hire the person with better comm's interpersonal and ambiguity skills.
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In my family those skills you mentioned as appropriate for college course work were taught at home. Everyone spoke the English of educated gentle folk; the children learned good manners and courtesy, and respect for others.
Of course, mom and dad bore no tattoos, and no piercings, were not addicted to mood altering drugs, did not use bad language and maintained an orderly civilized household. With the way adults dress, speak and act today, too many chidren have no role models at home. Sadly your suggestion for teaching young adults what they ought to have learned at home as children, makes sense. But adds to the cost of education.
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I think we also need to attend to the politics that have brought us our current conditions. Over the last thirty some years, tax and regulatory policies have been changed, resulting in our current policies. We really ought to go back over those changes and rethink whether they are what we want to continue.
From repeal of the "Truth in advertising law", repeal of the anti-usury laws, establishment of the law against any regulation and oversight of derivative financial schemes, on and on.
Looked at one way, the amazing concentration of wealth into fewer hands is starting to look like a descent back into Feudalism. Even owners of giant farms are looking like tenant farmers under Corporations like Monsanto, the beef, hog and chicken processing Corporations, etc.
One way to create sustainable jobs is to reverse many of those changes in laws and de-regulations. They have turned out to be detrimental to people so why not reverse them?
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To reverse these political decisions, we must have power centers from which these corrupt practices may be attacked. Where are these? The unions are dead. The mega churches have proven to be close followers of govt trends. The Fifth Estate, the media, are owned by the same giant corporations holding the politicians in thrall. Academia is hooked to Govt and the corporations by grants and donated sports complexes. So educator keep their traps firmly shut. Good grief! We can't even compel politicians to control our borders! They love all that low cost labor pouring across.
The wars are similarly cheered on by some of the nation's largest corporations. So who speaks for the laboring man?? Answer! No one. We are well and truly diddled.
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gereng
Ayup.
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This was a good discussion for businesses but I would like to hear a discussion from the employee's point-of-view. My experience is there isn't a sustainable job for the employee anymore. Between greed, employment taxes and rising health care it's impossibe for semi-perminate employment or enough pay for an employee to save enough for thier emmimant layoff.
I've been underemployeed for two years now and I am burnt out on always hearing about the poor, poor businesses when I cannot even go to the doctor or travel home to see my family because there's no room in the budget.
What about the people? What are the sustainable jobs for the people?
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A note regarding the guests response to my previous comment:
It is likely more beneficial to employees and employers in the long-term if things like child care and health care are not attached to employment. Instead, the state needs to intervene to make both higher quality, more accessible and more affordable. Then employers can benefit from state investment in things that help their workers remain healthy and productive.
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I've worked for the Forest Service for 13 years, and am still considered "temporary" -- which means few benefits. Only "permanent" federal employees get health, retirement, etc. Not even a government job is sustainable. But I am also stuck in this job because my husband has a good job and our house is underwater, so moving for my career would be near impossible. If anything ever happened to my husband I couldn't rely on my employer to help me survive.
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Sustainable jobs will require a massive local movement to feed ourselves on local food first! Example is in Russia, 90% of all potatoes consumed are grown in small local gardens and mini farms; 77% of berries and fruit come from these same sources; 73% of vegetables too. 51% of total agriculture is from these gardens and farms. We don't need more stuff made in China, we know it isn't sustainable and wastes vast natural resources.
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:-) I asked my wife (from Russia) about this... she explained that they all grow their own stuff because they can't afford to buy them in stores... as soon as they can, they do.
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What I am worried about is american companies giving away our competitive avantages in technology and manufacturing. I'm thinking that sending manufacturing overseas is giving other countries not only the manufacturing capacity this gives away our twechnology also. I also feel that other places in the world are not requiring our enviromental standards which is a big reason why things can be manufactured so much cheaper. Our technology has enabled us to build products in a much cleaner and sustainable way and we have learned how to do this yet do not require it of other countries. Maybe those other countries are developing, does that mean they can go back to arcanine and envirionmentaly unsound ways of manufacturing or should the lessons that have been learned be also passed on and required in the manufacture of pproducts and not just start the polution cycle all over again. Are we not as humans supposed to learn from our past mistakes and not keep making them over and over again.
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A few years ago I heard a story about the Aborigines somewhere in NW Australia. They have to work for about two hours a day to get everything they need to live and then the rest of the time they do whatever they want, hanging out with family and friends. Now, I don't know if I would like living and eating the way they do but I like their idea of how much and how hard to work to support themselves.
Why do we americans have to work 40 or more hours per week to live? Do we get more out of life than those Aborigines or do we just pretend we do?
Those Aborigines look sustainable to me, they only take from the earth what they need and apparently no more.
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As it is for me, I'd have to work five hours... three hours a day to fulfill my obligations to the tribal government and then I can work my two hours to meet my basic needs. :-)
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rethomas
Henh.
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The days of wine and roses are gone. Few companies today are investing in their employee's skill set. Many companies already allow employees an affordable on-site daycare facility (US Land Management, SW 1st & Oak. Big American companies have been giving away high end technology in manufacturing and quality stuff in big stuff boxes for decades.
Management will often hire recent college graduates as interns to fill various positions. This is good for all concerned where the positions require individuals who can follow direction, learn, and work towards an intended end goal, which may or/not have been disclosed at the onset of the position being filled. Such individuals normally possess the academic achievements to meet the minimum requirements of a position, and they are paid appropriate lower wages /or salaries due to their lack experience within the respective field for which they have been slotted. They may even work in an area that is far removed from their academic achievements. Position of this type were originally designed to educated the individual within the employee's specific discipline, which may also be in a cooperative agreement with the employee's educational institution. This dates back to followers of the great thinkers.
Most of the employees in these positions learn, gain more experience, and may become educated as to the policies, procedures, and ways of the organization. As they become more productive, company management may bring the intern on as a full employee and into a more responsible position to reap an income level more in line with their newly acquired abilities. This methodology is also utilized when evaluating contract employees for selection as candidates for direct positions.
Great value in real world experience is lost due to in appropriately delivered pink slips under the pretense of cost savings. It is far too often however, that management demonstrates that it is the best interest of the organization to terminate experienced employees from existing positions and fill those vacancies with recent college graduates in order to cut costs. As an incentive, some companies will offer bonuses to management for such cost saving measures without sufficiently evaluating of those decisions.
These decisions and such bonus rewards are short sighted either by design or incompetence, for the most part, as they allow only for short run cut cost savings, while generating greater costs for the company in the long run. Those bonuses are rarely recovered, if ever, to the joy of the recipients. Great motivation, eah?
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There seems to be a lot of concern here about the long term out look for jobs, and what those jobs might look like.
On a personal level, one constant is that however you try to make a living, it is going to be competitive. The other countervailing constant is that people are not equally competitive, (or well positioned). This, in turn, leads to situations that grate with our human sense of fairness. We create safety nets for those that lose out in the competition, or fall through the cracks. [That, in turn, can be abused and cause a backlash.]
On a National level there is a competition as well -- it is global. People may care about the quality of the work available to themselves and the people they know. But, the only thing that people within a nation dependably share, is a concern for the survival of the nation state and its' economy. Quality of work, when it comes to people you don't know, is not, collectively, a concern -- unless it effects survivability of the larger survival unit. Individuals throughout the nation may share ideals and values about quality employment, but collective survival trumps them. Thus, manufacturing jobs -- from a global competition perspective -- don't make competitive sense when developing countries with lower wages can do the work for less, and we can put more effort into doing something the developing countries can not yet do. Manufacturing workers here get "thrown under the bus".... Nothing personal.... It is just what is good for the primary survival units' survivability.
So we have those two competitive realities that aren't going away anytime soon. One personal, the other national.
For low skilled work, it is a buyers market. If you would compete with specialized skills, you still need to be well positioned to take advantage of the top priorities of the survival unit at any given time.Life is hard, and it is probably going to keep getting harder as the competition heats up. Nothing personal.... It's just the only way the world can evolve given all the variables and constants.
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I think because OPB prides itself on being the best news source available that they should be accurate in the terminology that they use. First of all, AMR, Inc. of Connecticut is a private company. Thus, there is no 1st Amendment issue implicated here, but rather the NLRB alleged a violation of a section of the National Labor Relations Act. Second, that would be aspects of Labor Law NOT employment law. The "speech" issue here has to do with a union member's ability to organize and criticize the employer via Facebook, but it is not necessarily clear that it applies to those employers who are not subject to the NLRA. Further, only government action is subject to 1st Amendment scrutiny and not private employers. Again, here, there was no 1st Amendment violation.
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I understand that in Oregon "ANY quit equals automatic denial of unemployment benefits." [caps for emphasis mine]. While this mandate may be appealed (according to the Employment Division) the general time period required is 90-120 days. Most people could not survive that long without any income whatsoever.
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I have two words which to me mean "sustainable job." Those two words are part of the interaction between employer and employee. Those two words are MUTUAL RESPECT. I have been an office manager, a department supervisor with hiring/firing duties, run my own (equestrian) business, and also worked as a full-charge paralegal for longer than I care to admit - especially to hiring managers. Again those two words - mutual respect - with many hiring managers there is zip zero zilch respect accorded to the older employment prospect (and by older I mean even just past 40). When I was "the boss" I went out of my way to fairly evaluate applicants for what they could offer the business - not what they looked like or what they might rack up in excess health insurance coverage. Amazing how MUTUAL RESPECT affects customer service, employee loyalty, superior products and production, and overall business health. Unfortunately what I see increasingly is twofold: the employer wants to and often does treat the employee(s) as something that came up on their shoe in the parking lot; the employee gunnysacks the (even abusive) treatment by the employer until it reaches critical mass and then spills over in unwise e-mails or in social networking. Worse, among the under 25 set the concept of RESPECT toward others and especially toward themselves is a completely alien one, so that an employer who does make the effort to at least ACT respectful of the employees is basically smacked in the proverbial chops with a metaphorical defunct fish. Prospective employers often show their lack of respect toward applicants by treating the employment process as a game, a game of EXclusion rather than INclusion. They aren't looking for why they should hire someone but rather diligently searching for a way to NOT hire someone. That's not my analysis - someone far more qualified than I has written an entire book about just that. That author also wrote a very revealing book about corporate culture that supports my comment about lack of respect on the employer's part. I have worked in big organizations and a two-person professional office and over the course of my life (I'm almost to retirement age) have experienced everything in between. And yes, I have seen radical changes in the employment picture, good and bad. In my opinion it boils down to a very simple equation: too many people, not enough jobs. Think about it.
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My own belief about the way people treat one another in this country is that it is a learned behavior. Just watch the facial expressions, body language and speech used between supposed friends and colleagues on any telivision show and in most movies. The sneering disrespectful attitudes, the smart put downs, the total absence of anything like friendship and respect are behavioral norms today in the entertainment field.
One very obvious example are the torn dirty clothing and unkept appearence of the rock bands and vocalists the kids listen to (so do their oafish parents). Compare that look with the way bands and entertainer, actors looked and conducted themselve before the hippy movement.
The disrespect and bad manners and much else we older people see and compare to other better days are the fault of the popular media who have convinced kids and young adults that this sneering, ugly personae is cool and modern.
These acquired traits carry over from teen yrs into adulthood and show up in so many different forms today...from child/parent relationships to those in the workplace.
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Scotmil posted some good rants about varieties of and assumptions about what is "sustainable".
For instance we used to burn whales to light our homes, businesses, and performance halls. And thought at the time that was a sustainable practice.
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Have a group of people form a giant circle. Everyone turns the person to their right, and gives them a personal neck massage. Each person is now earning $60 dollars an hour giving massages. However they must also pay the person behind them $60 bucks an hour for receiving a custom neck message.
Yes, we just created a 100 new jobs making $60/ hour, but the value is in the ether. No wealth is created. No customer will pay real money for the service. These jobs are Not Sustainable.
A Sustainable job creates Value. Someone in a Market System values the job enough to pay Cash consistently. It has purpose. It improves society.
It Caters to the Market. And employers make a profit on workers enough to keep them employed and with health benefits etc.
We cannot feed our families on the hollow illusions of Pretend Work/ Make Work Projects. The only long term economic hope for this country is to become an Export Economy. Using our hands and elbow grease. Doing difficult and hard work that others avoid. Be essential.
The Biggest Market in the World is China and the developing world including India, Brazil, Russia and Indonesia.
Despite our domestic troubles, overall the world economy is currently BOOMING, but this is in economies linked or selling to the Chinese, including Australia, Canada, Chile and Germany. We have to sell products that the Chinese want to buy. We have to find our Niche in the Market and Exploit it.