“Nobody wants to work anymore”

A common line from business people is that “nobody wants to work anymore”. This is particularly common with lower-end, so-called “unskilled” jobs. I don’t believe any job is unskilled, but honestly, I think the problem is more that businesses have a certain level of choosy beggar going on.

When I graduated college, I had an A+ certification, and a Bachelor’s degree. I started looking for a job in May. I made a resume, and started applying. Most of the places I applied never called me back, in some cases I didn’t even get a confirmation email.

It was very frustrating particularly that they’d ask for my resume, and I’d upload the file, and then they’re request my name, contact information, certifications, and work history…all of which were on my resume. Additionally, most of these employers required me to sign up with an account on their site, just to apply.

Now this was the mid new-tens, and I spent several hours a day at it. And my parents were complaining that “you only spend all day on the computer, you should be going out and meeting the managers, and getting to know them” and…yeah, when’s the last time you looked for a job? 1990? This is how it’s done now.

Over the next six months, I applied for hundreds of jobs, and had less than a 25% response rate. Even when I did an interview, I would often be ghosted afterwards, or if I followed up, I’d be strung along for weeks or months before being told some version of “No, stop calling us.”

In the few cases I *DID* get a meaningful decline, or I was able to get a read on the interviewer, a common theme in the declines was “You have no experience.” Which I mean, yeah, I had no experience in the field, nobody had hired me.

I did eventually land a job at a startup through some contacts, and worked there for about 18 months. Now, I was being paid too low, but at the end, the owner asked me to sign a noncompete agreement prohibiting me from working for 2 years within 50 miles of his business. I was not customer facing, was not being paid regularly, and did not have any specialized business knowledge, and declined.

A week later I was out the door.

The job search restarted, and then people would decline me because “We don’t count experience at start-ups”. Would’ve been nice to know ahead of time.

I did eventually break into full employment, but I’m still keeping an eye on opportunities, and a lot of businesses don’t want to attract employees, they want to lord over them. And if people won’t work for them because of shit conditions, well then they need kids to work for them. Or people should just take the wage they’re given.

They want absolute loyalty from employees, but rarely give any in return. No training, wanting experience. This became particularly pronounced during COVID as a lot of boomers finally got off the career ladder; they’d been blocking a lot of millenials from really ‘starting’ their careers because they couldn’t advance because the next rung was occupied.

And then as soon as the millenials move to non part-time jobs, the boomers all flip out that the fast food isn’t open 24 hours. And the business goes, “Nobody wants to work!” Nah, they just don’t want to work for what you offer. The problem isn’t unsolvable, you just don’t like the answer that you may have to give up some of your profits to get employees.

Frankly, even the job offers I get today are often laughable. They’re usually jobs that come with more responsibility, but are temporary contracts, with a W-2 hourly rate that is less than what I make at my full hire (before we even talk about the benefits!) and don’t offer relocation or anything else. I mean, yeah, I’m not going to take those jobs, why would I? Make me a better offer than I have in the hand.

And they know how to get these people when they need them. ICE is offering huge bonuses for sign ups (at the low, low cost of your soul) for overtime, signing bonuses, college debt relief, and benefits. The business owners who run our country know this is the thing that works.

But they don’t want to do it because they’ve convinced themselves that they are “self-made” and people should just be ready to work for them, they shouldn’t have to train them, or have to fight for employees…but also not pay taxes to help with the training either.

This isn’t sustainable.

-Arrow