Hacker News Reader

Comment by MattGaiser | Hacker News Reader

> There are more than enough unemployed people to fill any gaps created.

Except that isn't what actually happens. Even without basic income and in the depths of the recession, certain categories of jobs (especially in agriculture) could not be filled.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/West_Pa...

View on HN

Because they don’t pay well enough, or has other disadvantages, like far away seasonal jobs so you have to sleep in barracks with other seasonal workers.

It is actually a good thing that even the poor and unemployed put a value on their time higher than zero.

Then there are 2 options: automate agricultural jobs (in progress) or make the work more desirable (raise the wages and/or make it less straining)

John Deere alone has 100 million acres under automated tillage, worldwide.

Then those jobs won't be filled whether there is UBI or not anyway.

I.E. Millions of people won't have to do backbreaking labor for pennies, that sounds good to me. Maybe the jobs shouldn't exist.

Then maybe these jobs should pay better.

Isn’t that how capitalism works?

Conversely, if the salaries aren’t going up then there probably isn’t actually a real labour shortage.

“My startup went out of business because i couldn’t find devs to work for 20K” is a statement that would rightfully get laughed at in here.

When a farmer says the same thing people should equally call bullshit.

Maybe, maybe not. If your production price gets higher thsn the price for importing the same good you are getting out of business (or production is leavinf the country). Not sure if this is the case for agriculture.

>> My startup went out of business because i couldn’t find devs to work for 20k

Double your prices, or hire devs in Elbonia.

Maybe not. Its about the market. My son is a line engineer in a film-coating plant. They need operators chronically. The average operator lasts 2 weeks.

Its hot/cold (depending on the season), humid, very noisy, vibration. Almost every American would rather work anywhere else.

If it's that important for them to have less turnover, then they would pay for it with higher salary or other perks. But apparently it's not that important to them, due to the fact that they're still in business despite the terrible turnover situation.

> “My startup went out of business because i couldn’t find devs to work for 20K” is a statement that would rightfully get laughed at in here.

Company: We are absolute desperate to hire workers but we just can't find any, anywhere! What can we possibly do?

Job seeker: Have you considered raising wages to attract more applicants?

Company: Haha, you're joking right?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com