Does ageing explain America’s disappointing wage growth?

From the Economist (Aug. 2017): Does ageing explain America’s disappointing wage growth?
- excerpt:

Whether we humans are being replaced by advanced robotic machines depends upon the nature of our work. As I never cease to underline, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that total manufacturing employment at "Goods-producing, excluding agriculture" remains at only 12% of the total. (See here.)

So the phenomenon is restricted to only that sector of employment. Elsewhere, however, we should be looking at what the Internet is doing to on-the-floor employment in commerce. Shopping malls are reported to be giving way to Internet-commerce.

But does that mean that jobs are being lost if they are recuperated at Internet-commerce companies? Methinks not. The Employment-to-population Ratio is increasing though it has a way to go to get back to pre-2008 levels (see here) ...

 

Its the skills gap I mentioned in your other thread. Hundreds of thousands of high paying blue collar jobs aren't being filled because there is no one in the market with the skills to fill them.

 

I think it depends on the industry, if age plays a role in wage growth.

For example, an older Chef, might actually get the Head position, & more/larger increases over a younger, more "modern" chef, because of the former's knowledge of the industry, & demands placed on staff & equipment.

 

That depends upon "where" in the economic classifications of work.

If in Manufacturing, then the problem exists in an industry that employs ONLY 12% of the workforce, and which is becoming heavily robotized. It will not disappear, but the call for talent will no longer be rudimentary but higher-skilled. (Like knowing how to look after a production line of mechanized robotic assembler machines. Car manufacturing is way, way beyond the automated painting machines introduced in the 1980s.)

Most jobs in America are now found in the Commercial Services industries. And these jobs - as I never fear of repeating on this forum - require also advanced skills across their length and breadth. Notably, how to interact with the Internet to do one's job - and that job is probably far more sophisticated than it was in the past. It thus requires a Tertiary Level education with specializations in any number of domains.

Which the US has refused to make free, gratis and for nothing - as recently as last year when it voted Donald Dork into the presidency. Hillary had borrowed an idea from Bernie (who had obtained it here in Europe), which was that all Tertiary Education should free, gratis and for nothing for families earning less than $100K yearly. Which is similar to Europe's manner of totally subsidized post-secondary education - but without the income-level requirement.

The need for Post-secondary Education is so starkly evident not only for jobs but for overall more intelligent people to be governed more intelligently. And no country more personifies that need nowadays than the USofA ...

 

A lot of skilled labor jobs cannot ever be done by robots. They are either on individual job sights or in manufacturing that doesn't allow for full automation.


The rest of your post is just more garbage about giving away free college. You made all of those points in your last 30 threads and offer nothing new.

 

Thanks for our daily dish of myopic opinion.

The reason why Manufacturing's share of total employment is so low nowadays is because manufacturing has fled abroad. Not totally, and there I agree with you. The higher-tech manufacturing is still in place and is doing well.

But the manufacturing industries need trained talent for their jobs. The low-talent jobs have fled the US for good. See here:


And, despite the fact you are showing Total Ignorance regarding post-secondary education, those Services-industry jobs require a higher-level of study. If one wants to be on that red-line in the graphic above, they'd better have a tertiary-level diploma. Which is why Bernie's original idea to have the government subsidize such studies WAS SUCH A DAMN GOOD IDEA!

Evidently, you never undertook such studies ...

 

I work in manufacturing. I build airplanes. We don't need college educated people, they are a dime a dozen around here. We need people with OJT and common sense that can drill holes and think themselves out of problems.

 

We are talking about the economy in this forum.

You are talking about yourself ...

 

of course thats 100% absurd and typical of liberalism. Companies are training people every day. If they really need someone with a particular skill they will teach him the skill rather than go bankrupt. Now do you understand?

 

Thats because USA is least socialist country on earth and most successful country in history by far. Nothing is free when it is stolen at gun point by liberal govt. This is the great liberal soviet myth!

 

They aren't training them though. In some cases they are sub contracting the work. In others, they are just bypassing that particular skill set in favor of other methods.

We need to end this ridiculous obsession with college and go back to the days of internships and apprenticeships in most jobs. The older people on this forum will remember the days of shop floor workers being promoted through the ranks with some eventually winding up becoming white collar workers. This just doesn't happen like it used to. It's almost a caste system. You start blue collar, even white collar in many places, it is almost impossible to move up within your company. Most end up having to change companies to get promotions.

 

Or the chart in the OP reflects that there is an entitled generation living in mom's basement well past the age they should be out working.

 

Well, yeah, there's that too!

 

I am not being cheeky here for the record. I don't know if it was because they were the first video game generation or the first fill your kids with prescription drugs generation or what, but I am absolutely shocked by the number of men I see in that 35-55 age bracket who not only don't work, but have never had any significant work history of note. They sponge off others, ride the disability bus, or whatever, but my city is full of them. They just bide time until moms keels over and they get her house and crap. It is really quite alarming to me. As much as old folks talk about younger kids, these are grown-ass men who have and will never amount to anything and they are perfectly content with it.

 

47yo here, & you're not wrong.

I blame the generation before me....

And so on.

And so on.

And so on...

 

ok then so they really don't need the skills!! Obviously if stupid liberal govt will pay for the training or the workers will pay they love it but in the end they get the skills they need even if they have to pay and train themselves or they go bankrupt. Now do you understand?

 

Its downright godless and liberal. With no God and everything about America evil what incentive is there to lead a meaningful life in liberal America?

 

more free libsoviet stuff to buy votes is a damn good idea? Lets be honest, free education is just one of 10001 things the libsoviets want to be free!! Its exactly how they slowly starved 120 million human souls to death.

 

well the protestant work ethic is no longer allowed in godless anti-Christian America-right?.

 

I think Just_a-Citizen's generation ate too much microwave faux butter popcorn while watching episodes of Dynasty or something. As alluded to earlier, I really have no idea what it is, but they all seem to know everything except how to find and keep a job.

 

1) protestant work ethic is not allowed in much of liberal godless America today
2) collecting welfare is a badge of honor rather than an embarrassment in liberal America
3) working a capitalist job means the evil rich are ripping you off, polluting, etc so you might as well rip them off by taking their welfare
4) liberals attacked and destroyed the families and schools of America thus rendering many Americans unfit for work.
5) many kids raised as liberal snowflakes too special and unique to be treated differently by their bosses,
6) liberal parents communicate unconditional love thus even without ambition or jobs kids are still loved just as much.
7) liberal parents let kids know that they will inherit at least the house when Mom and Dad finally drop dead.

 

Okay but I live in the South. We haven't had a liberal in this city since the gay hair dresser died of butt cancer.

 

so??????????????

 

So I don't think the gay stylist was the father to the generation of deadbeats so your liberalism to blame thing just doesn't really ring true

 

is gay stylist our subject??????????