The elephant in the room: how do we employ the idiots?

Sleepy

A provocative subject line, I'll agree but it seems to be something we're ignoring in this country.

We can't hope to compete with the far east or even Central / Eastern Europe for low or semi-skilled manufacturing, modern farming techniques have dramatically lowered the manpower required to work a farm, retail is becoming less labour intensive (self-service tills, lower service levels to provide lower prices etc.) and our recent past has dramatically shown us that the construction and personal services sectors can only sustain employment for relatively small numbers.

Not everyone has the intelligence to work in IT, Finance, Legal Services etc. and a much larger percentage of our society are raised to view education or intellectualism with disdain (I'll wager there'll be a post calling me elitest or a nazi of some kind within the first 5 replies).

With our western living standards (which ensure a relatively high cost of living) the only jobs we can compete for in a global economy are the high-skilled ones.

Are we to accept that those capable of finding work in these areas will make up the vast majority of the workforce and that those who can't find work providing them with goods/services will simply be supported by their intellectual superiors (or those who have inherited wealth) via a wealth re-distributing taxation system? Is it realistic to see such a system working long-term as emigration offers the potential for the educated "elite" to enjoy more of the fruits of their labours in less socially conscious countries? Or to expect this class not to eventually vote for further and further economically right-wing parties as the unemployables vote for further and further trotskyist morons?

In order to avoid further destruction of our country, we need to find some form of labour intensive employment and whilst I can't think of anything myself, it worries me that we don't even seem to be discussing this at a national level.

RichardAnd

If you have a job OP, I'd say "we" will be fine ...

Manach

Increase the numbers of TDs and elect them to serve with those other idiots.

gaius c

Sad this before (albeit more diplomatically).
There will be no recovery in this country until we figure out a way to employ all the people not working for Google & Facebook. We're at FDI saturation level and the currently unemployed don't have the skillset for the jobs anyway.

Sleepy

RichardAnd wrote: »

If you have a job OP, I'd say "we" will be fine ...

You can hurl an insult. Well done. Thanks for a great contribution to the discussion.

gaius c wrote: »

Sad this before (albeit more diplomatically).
There will be no recovery in this country until we figure out a way to employ all the people not working for Google & Facebook. We're at FDI saturation level and the currently unemployed don't have the skillset for the jobs anyway.

I deliberately dropped the diplomacy because I wanted a reaction. We really don't seem to be facing up to this at all.

RichardAnd

Sleepy wrote: »

You can hurl an insult. Well done. Thanks for a great contribution to the discussion.

I hurled a insult at a single individual.
You, on the other hand, choose to insult thousands of people by claiming that they are "idiots." Forgive my bluntness but that kind of coloured the tone of my response.

The irony of your post is that one of the most idiotic fallacies an individual can allow themselves to believe is the Victorian ideal that poor people, the unemployed in this case, are stupid or otherwise inferior.

Is there a point to be had by suggesting that there is a skills shortage in Ireland? Absolutely but that's not what you're doing. What you've attempted to do is hold yourself above others and cast yourself as some manner of intellectual. You could find yourself unemployed and out of luck tomorrow. I wonder then if you'll share your musings with the others in the welfare queues.

mariaalice

I am curious what country in the world is less socially conscious that us, while simultaneously being safe, a democracy, not corrupt, a pleasant place to live in, has well embed social institutions etc.

Before you say the USA contrary to popular belief you do have to pay tax and they do have a lot of social supports such as subsidised school meal for the poor ( something we don't have here ) South Africa do you want to live in a gated community, south America Large parts are unsafe after dark even in very wealthy parts.

Sleepy

I've found myself unemployed before and, while it wasn't nice, it was never going to be permanent because I've invested in my education and have skills in areas that are valued highly enough for me to be able to earn a livable salary in this country.

I used the word idiot to describe two kinds of people: those whom are intellectually incapable of upskilling to the necessary level to work in high-level services and those who hold educations in such disdain that whether they're intellectually capable of it or not, won't pursue it. The first group, I'd agree that the word "idiot" is not a nice description for them, it is however, accurate despite it's vulgarity. The second, I'd make no apologies for branding idiots as I can think of nothing so foolish as a disdain for education.

Nowhere in my post did I reference those currently on our unemployment lines btw. I'm simply looking at our society as a realist: the only areas we can compete in internationally are those that require a certain level of intelligence and education. Yet we are always going to have a proportion of our society that can't or won't meet those standards. Since it's preferable for all concerned that those who can't/won't meet that standard can still find gainful employment instead of either wasting their lives on welfare or building roads to nowhere on some government employment scheme, I think we need to address that fact that we need to find a source of labour intensive employment or we're going to end up in serious trouble: either with a minority workforce being fleeced to support an ever growing number of pensioners, the unemployed, our public sector and those unable to work through youth or disability or with a heavily divided society where those that generate the wealth decide they no longer want to share it and vote in a far-right party or (and this being Ireland, the far more likely possibility imo) simply engage in massive scale tax avoidance / evasion.

Sleepy

mariaalice wrote: »

I am curious what country in the world is less socially conscious that us, while simultaneously being safe, a democracy, not corrupt, a pleasant place to live in, has well embed social institutions etc.

Before you say the USA contrary to popular belief you do have to pay tax and they do have a lot of social supports such as subsidised school meal for the poor ( something we don't have here ) South Africa do you want to live in a gated community, south America Large parts are unsafe after dark even in very wealthy parts.

The US would be a prime example tbh: yes, you still pay taxes but you'll take home far more of a high salary there than you would here. You don't want to fall sick there though: as flawed as it is, I'd take the HSE over subsidised school meals.

South Africa I'd have no interest in for the same reasons you mentioned.

halkar

Give a man a fish it will feed him for the day. teach him how to fish it will feed him for life. What we seem to be doing is that keep giving the fish. We are not teaching how to fish.

Honey-ec

RichardAnd wrote: »

The irony of your post is that one of the most idiotic fallacies an individual can allow themselves to believe is the Victorian ideal that poor people, the unemployed in this case, are stupid or otherwise inferior.

I have to say, nowhere in his post did I get the impression that he was saying that all poor or unemployed people are stupid.

What he was saying, as I read it, is that we need to accept that not everyone is going to be able to compete in the jobs market of the future, either because they're not at the races intellectually, or because they just haven't bothered educating themselves.

What the answer to this is, I genuinely have no idea.

alastair

Honey-ec wrote: »

I have to say, nowhere in his post did I get the impression that he was saying that all poor or unemployed people are stupid.

What he was saying, as I read it, is that we need to accept that not everyone is going to be able to compete in the jobs market of the future, either because they're not at the races intellectually, or because they just haven't bothered educating themselves.

What the answer to this is, I genuinely have no idea.

The answer should be clear enough from the employment scenario here when we did have money sloshing about - we had pretty much full employment, even those supposed 'idiots' :rolleyes: were, in the main gainfully employed. Now - employment in the construction industry might well have been bloated by the property bubble, but most people worked outside it - so the lesson is that any decent economic recovery will result in decent employment recovery (unless there's been a radical shift in retail and farming technologies in the last 6 years?).

Honey-ec

alastair wrote: »

The answer should be clear enough from the employment scenario here when we did have money sloshing about - we had pretty much full employment, even those supposed 'idiots' :rolleyes: were, in the main gainfully employed.

But it's unlikely that we'll ever get back to anywhere near full employment is, I think, the point he's making.

mariaalice

Sleepy wrote: »

The US would be a prime example tbh: yes, you still pay taxes but you'll take home far more of a high salary there than you would here. You don't want to fall sick there though: as flawed as it is, I'd take the HSE over subsidised school meals.

South Africa I'd have no interest in for the same reasons you mentioned.

You have to pay hugely for health care in the US and any where half decent to live in has huge local property tax's. Do you want Ireland to have the same society as the US?.

alastair

Honey-ec wrote: »

But it's unlikely that we'll ever get back to anywhere near full employment is, I think, the point he's making.

Why not? I'm not expecting a boom any time soon - but the fact is that we've just had a scenario of near-full employment - and the key to that near full-employment was nothing more clever than more money in the economy. Unless you think we're doomed to perpetual recession, the economy, and consequently employment are likely to improve - since none of the other variables have changed since 2007.

bbam

alastair wrote: »

Why not? I'm not expecting a boom any time soon - but the fact is that we've just had a scenario of near-full employment - and the key to that near full-employment was nothing more clever than more money in the economy. Unless you think we're doomed to perpetual recession, the economy, and consequently employment are likely to improve - since none of the other variables have changed since 2007.

I suppose they thought the same in Japan a few decades ago. Didn't their recession last 20 years.

It's just not going to go away on its own, it's not a shower of rain that we wait for it to pass. If there is no strategic planning regarding how were going to get people employed, get the GNP figures going again, its going to linger.
I see nothing being done to make any changes to the status quo. My fear is that this recession is hear to stay.

OMD

Sleepy wrote: »

A provocative subject line, I'll agree but it seems to be something we're ignoring in this country.

We can't hope to compete with the far east or even Central / Eastern Europe for low or semi-skilled manufacturing, modern farming techniques have dramatically lowered the manpower required to work a farm, retail is becoming less labour intensive (self-service tills, lower service levels to provide lower prices etc.) and our recent past has dramatically shown us that the construction and personal services sectors can only sustain employment for relatively small numbers.

Not everyone has the intelligence to work in IT, Finance, Legal Services etc. and a much larger percentage of our society are raised to view education or intellectualism with disdain (I'll wager there'll be a post calling me elitest or a nazi of some kind within the first 5 replies).

With our western living standards (which ensure a relatively high cost of living) the only jobs we can compete for in a global economy are the high-skilled ones.

Are we to accept that those capable of finding work in these areas will make up the vast majority of the workforce and that those who can't find work providing them with goods/services will simply be supported by their intellectual superiors (or those who have inherited wealth) via a wealth re-distributing taxation system? Is it realistic to see such a system working long-term as emigration offers the potential for the educated "elite" to enjoy more of the fruits of their labours in less socially conscious countries? Or to expect this class not to eventually vote for further and further economically right-wing parties as the unemployables vote for further and further trotskyist morons?

In order to avoid further destruction of our country, we need to find some form of labour intensive employment and whilst I can't think of anything myself, it worries me that we don't even seem to be discussing this at a national level.

Well many people are employed in manufacturing in Ireland despite our costs. There is still agriculture and tourism.

By the way speaking from personal experience I have always felt the idiots seem to get employed in IT and I suppose recent experience has shown us that plenty of idiots were employed in Finance

Sleepy

The near full employment came about through an economic bubble creating lots of jobs in labour intensive sectors such as construction, retail, hospitality, beauty salons etc. Much of it was also based at the 'luxury' end of the market and it was all being paid for with cheap credit the likes of which we're unlikely to see again within our lifetimes. A huge amount of these jobs were never sustainable and even a resounding recovery in the areas we can currently compete in (which seem to be far less labour intensive) would only see a minority of them come back. Particularly when one factors in the increased savings levels we're likely to see over the next couple of decades.

From purely an anecdotal perspective, I'm noticing that many of those I know of that are emigrating seem to be doing so not because they can't find work at home but because the opportunities to enjoy the fruits of their labours are better abroad. We're not just exporting our welfare lines, we're driving out quite a number of our best and brightest too. We saw a similar brain drain in the 80's and it was, in part, their return in the early 90's that fueled the tiger years pre-2004.

L1011

OMD wrote: »

By the way speaking from personal experience I have always felt the idiots seem to get employed in IT

IT is suffering from an absolute lack of skilled people and a need to fill positions. Hence there are an awful lot of extremely poorly skilled people working in frontline roles, and situations such as Facebook where they've had to send some development work to the UK - as those are roles you just can't fill with fodder.

Its higher-end but lower skilled manufacturing we need to be targeting, but our lack of cheap energy due to no nuclear seriously limits us here.

alastair

bbam wrote: »

My fear is that this recession is hear to stay.

I give it no more than two more years. And that allows for the usual lack of strategic planning. We're not Japan.

El_Dangeroso

Sleepy wrote: »

I've found myself unemployed before and, while it wasn't nice, it was never going to be permanent because I've invested in my education and have skills in areas that are valued highly enough for me to be able to earn a livable salary in this country.

I used the word idiot to describe two kinds of people: those whom are intellectually incapable of upskilling to the necessary level to work in high-level services and those who hold educations in such disdain that whether they're intellectually capable of it or not, won't pursue it. The first group, I'd agree that the word "idiot" is not a nice description for them, it is however, accurate despite it's vulgarity. The second, I'd make no apologies for branding idiots as I can think of nothing so foolish as a disdain for education.

Nowhere in my post did I reference those currently on our unemployment lines btw. I'm simply looking at our society as a realist: the only areas we can compete in internationally are those that require a certain level of intelligence and education. Yet we are always going to have a proportion of our society that can't or won't meet those standards. Since it's preferable for all concerned that those who can't/won't meet that standard can still find gainful employment instead of either wasting their lives on welfare or building roads to nowhere on some government employment scheme, I think we need to address that fact that we need to find a source of labour intensive employment or we're going to end up in serious trouble: either with a minority workforce being fleeced to support an ever growing number of pensioners, the unemployed, our public sector and those unable to work through youth or disability or with a heavily divided society where those that generate the wealth decide they no longer want to share it and vote in a far-right party or (and this being Ireland, the far more likely possibility imo) simply engage in massive scale tax avoidance / evasion.

I work in IT (supposedly desired skill-set) and I wouldn't feel as complacent about my job prospects long term as you seem to do about yours, what is so special about your job that some smart guy in India can't take it in a few years.

Heck, IT is getting so modular at this point that we are writing code now that will put developers out of a job in the future.

I think a more reasonable question (and frankly one that doesn't reek so much of snobbery) would be how are we going to change our economy so we can stop being a multinational outsourcing stepping stone from the US to Asia?

The idea that clever staff prevent multinationals from moving out of this country is so naive to make the irony of calling people who may have more of a penchant for working in the service industry over writing C# idiots all the more hilarious.

Make no mistake, the googles and facebooks are here for one thing only.

L1011

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

I work in IT (supposedly desired skill-set) and I wouldn't feel as complacent about my job prospects long term as you seem to do about yours, what is so special about your job that some smart guy in India can't take it in a few years.

My experience with Indian IT is that they have no smart guys, just cost to compete on. Everyone decent has escaped to get proper money elsewhere including from their universities.

The FDI IT industry we have was based on manufacturing at the start, not outsourced support and backfill which is what India has. Look at where the manufacturing has gone for where will be a risk.

El_Dangeroso

MYOB wrote: »

My experience with Indian IT is that they have no smart guys, just cost to compete on. Everyone decent has escaped to get proper money elsewhere including from their universities.

The FDI IT industry we have was based on manufacturing at the start, not outsourced support and backfill which is what India has. Look at where the manufacturing has gone for where will be a risk.

Not right now they don't, but maybe in a decade or two things will be different. India is changing rapidly. 20 years ago we had less 'smart guys' too.

L1011

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Not right now they don't, but maybe in a decade or two things will be different. India is changing rapidly. 20 years ago we had less 'smart guys' too.

20 years ago we weren't going around undercutting the world in providing shonky unreadable code and customer disservice. India was ten years ago, though.

They're not the risk to be watching out for.

El_Dangeroso

MYOB wrote: »

20 years ago we weren't going around undercutting the world in providing shonky unreadable code and customer disservice. India was ten years ago, though.

They're not the risk to be watching out for.

So, you're missing my main point on purpose, or are you just being pedantic?

L1011

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

So, you're missing my main point on purpose, or are you just being pedantic?

Your point was that you thought there was a serious risk of jobs going to India when I believe there is absolutely no risk whatsoever of jobs going to India, particularly as virtually every company that has experimented with it has hauled them back home already.

Did you have another point that you didn't make?

April O Neill

Sleepy wrote: »

Not everyone has the intelligence to work in IT, Finance, Legal Services etc.

I know people working in each of these areas who make me question how intelligent one needs to be to work in them, TBH. Drive and determination seems as important as intellect sometimes.

ILikeFriday

I kind of disagree that the "idiots" really are. I think that most people could undertake some form of higher education or training and find a job in the modern economy if they wanted to. I think that our main problem is cultural. It's seen as really uncool in Ireland to be seen to try too hard. This starts in the primary school classroom and continues. It's a major culture shift that we need. I think that many of our under achievers were victims of this. They would have rather died than be seen to study when they were young, and it's an outlook that has followed them throughout their lives.

L1011

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Whoosh.

So there wasn't then. Good.

If you want to suggest other countries, go ahead. There's issues with most of them, generally political and serious to a level that means that business won't be going there.

andrew

There's an interesting thread to be had about what should be done when a significant number of people in the labour force don't have the kind of skills which the economy requires; when there's a skills mismatch. But you're not going to get that thread if you call everyone with a skills mismatch an 'idiot' and if you assume that everyone employed in a low skill job is an 'idiot.' Idiot is absolutely not a useful descriptor because it implies that people with 'low skill' jobs are incapable of different work, when the reality there are many reasons as to why a person might be engaged in low skilled work. One of those reasons is of course the fact that they're not capable of other work, but that's just one reason of many.

Anyway, I have no idea how the economy will cope with continuing productivity improvements which replace low skilled jobs. History would suggest that we'll just invent new things for low skilled people to do - the industrial revolution didn't kill off low skilled labour, it just moved them off farms and into factories. Who knows what the low skilled person will be doing in 20 years. There are plenty of jobs which exist today which didn't exist 50 or even 20 years ago, and it's possible this trend will continue.

carpejugulum

We don't as half the country happily lives on welfare provided by the other half and burden placed on future generations.
All parties except for FG are socialist so it's impossible to change it from within.