← Back to context

Comment by gopher_space

3 days ago

> Developing education and training pipelines is wasting money if the skills you need are constantly changing! There is plenty of "slack" in the workforce so this works just fine in most cases - somebody will learn what they need to get paid. There are very few fields where qualified worker shortages are a real problem.

Here's the problem with your reasoning. This paragraph is simply wrong, with each sentence being untrue. Education and training are never wasted money, the skills aren't changing that quickly, there isn't any slack in the workforce, and qualified worker shortages are being reported in every trade across the board. Someone needs to solve the problems you hand-wave away.

> this works just fine in most cases - somebody will learn what they need to get paid.

That's me. I specialize in learning new domains. I cost like 8x more than the random junior you'd be able to hire with a functional onboarding program.

> there isn't any slack in the workforce, and qualified worker shortages are being reported in every trade across the board

Labor force participation is ~62%, far lower than historical peaks. I don't buy it.

  • Every employer had the same "let's hire seniors someone else trained" idea at the same time. This isn't just a tech phenomenon, the "qualified worker" pipeline was turned off and then ripped out of every industry.