Sunday, February 11, 2018

STEM skills with low wages

Is it a skills gap or is it the children wages? Well this is harsh but you can
not pretend it's not the issue. You get what you pay for!
There is a reason it's said "Pay peanuts get monkeys!"
You get what you pay for noted by the point that there is a reason
people work low paid jobs. Something is in their background,
mental disorders or bad drug related issues, a bad self view of their 
world around them. Something somewhere is holding them back,
willing or not it's there! It is or it isn't in the high up workforce you are there
or you are not there!

"Many people with far more ability than you have are living out of a shopping cart."
"You can find them playing chess in a park in NYC. Some of those dudes could be
world champion chess players but they have other problems that prevents them."
https://www.indeed.com/forum/gen/Career-Advice/Take-job-signifigantly-less-pay-out-desperation/t473635

Mostly it's the pay! If the people you are looking to hire have a low foundation 
how are they to function without issues when they have a load on them they are
living on a foundation of glass. And so the point of offering low pay to a job
needing higher wages. A employee in your workplace is like a plant as it grows
along with productively it needs more water, water being money!

What does the employer have to look forward to getting what they pay for?
And more to the fact all it does is hurt all around them! As in the point of people
thinking that low pay hurts the poor. Well not really in that the poor will just
let it go buy cheaper things, do more redneck engineering.
And all of that makes no one money so no growth. Low pay is less sales!
So if the pay for the job is too low it dictates what you have to look forward to.
Small towns are small for a reason. Kept down by it's low pay.
And so that would be the future of your business!

A better running technology / businesses should put more back into the
country bringing us all up. Why be held back of low wages.
Holding back your businesses is holding back the country!
Small countries are easily controlled so low pay is a way to take over
the country? Seems stupid but why have the pay low unless it's a way
to stop growth making all weak?!

~~~~~Low wages not education to blame for skills gap
Low wages rather than inadequate training are to blame for the STEM skills gap, according to research from the University of Warwick.

A new briefing paper suggests that the lack of workers with skills in science, maths, engineering and technology (STEM) and 'soft' communications skills is not due to problems with the education system, but to employers being unwilling to offer higher wages to suitably skilled workers.

The research was conducted by Dr Thijs van Rens associate professor in the Department of Economics.

He said: "It is often taken for granted that the skills gap and skills mismatch is a supply problem and appropriate training is not available to workers. However US data shows that market wages do not reflect the relative demand for different types of skills.

"Businesses complain about the lack of workers with STEM skills but are unwilling to raise wages for these workers - or reduce wages for workers with skills that are less in demand."

A discussion of Dr van Rens' policy briefing paper titled The Skills Gap: Is It a Myth? will be hosted by the think-tank the Social Market Foundation held in association with the University of Warwick's Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) on Thursday 10 December. The roundtable event, will examine how employers, policy makers and educators can help to reduce this skills gap in light of the new evidence.

Concern is growing in advanced economies, and in particular in the UK, about the skills gap: the growing gulf between the skills workers possess today and the skills businesses say they need. The concerns are often focused on shortages of workers with skills in STEM subjects but increasingly also on 'soft skills' like problem solving, team working and communication.

Dr Thijs van Rens will set out his analysis, based on US data, which shows that the source of labour market mismatch is that market wages do not reflect the relative demand for different types of skills. He will argue that the position often taken for granted in the public debate - that the skills gap is a supply problem - is incorrect.

In his research Dr van Rens used data on job finding rates, earnings and profits across states, industries and occupations to measure the extent of skills mismatch or gap on the US labour market, and the underlying frictions that gave rise to it.

Dr van Rens suggests that the labour market can adjust to a skills mismatch in two ways. The workforce may adapt to the demand for skills, for instance by acquiring training or changing occupation, or firms may adapt to the supply of skills.

However for one or both of these to happen, wages must reflect the relative supply and demand for various skills.

He sets out three reasons why skills mismatch exists: workers don't adjust to changes in skills demand; firms don't adjust to changes in skill supply, or wages do not reflect skills shortages.

Dr van Rens also argues that reform of the education system is not an answer to the perceived lack of appropriately skilled workers. As long as wages do not reward certain skills workers will be less likely to acquire them, and even if they do, will find employment in higher-paid occupations that do not utilize these skills.

He added: "While firms complain about a shortage of qualified physicists and engineers on the labour market, a very large number of graduates in these fields work in the financial sector, where they only use their STEM skills to a very limited degree.

"Encouraging universities to educate more physicists and engineers will not make any difference if these additional STEM graduates look for jobs in investment banks."
https://phys.org/news/2015-12-wages-blame-skills-gap.html