More companies dropping college degree requirement for new hires
FOX BUSINESS – September 10, 2018: The article highlights that more and more companies are scrapping college degree requirements for jobs in favor of candidates with experience in non-traditional education.
No diploma? No problem for job seekers.
That more and more companies are scrapping college degree requirements for jobs. They’re not saying you shouldn’t seek higher education, but not having a degree won’t be a barrier for you to work in certain jobs at their companies.
Some of the 15 big companies saying “no bachelor’s degree is fine” include Google, Nordstrom, Bank of America, Ernst & Young, IBM and Apple.
The changes are coming as job seekers, as well as high school graduates, consider whether college is worth the skyrocketing cost. (BattleForWorld: And the job market is so competitive, with jobs going overseas and workers being hired on H-1B work visas from other countries to work in the United States.)
There are worker shortages in industries all across the economy and companies are saying, well you know, maybe we don’t need college graduates for this job or that job,” Wall Street Journal Global Economics Editor Jon Hilsenrath said on FOX Business’ “Mornings with Maria.”
And IBM says it’s now looking at candidates with experience in non-traditional education, such as coding boot camps or industry-related vocational classes.
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The coming ‘labor shortage’ in America is great news for workers
BUSINESS INSIDER | By Josh Barro | July 10, 2018: The article highlights that for now, the coming “labor shortage” is good news for workers in the United States. And that Americans should root for it to continue. It’s undoubtedly a headache for some owners and managers, said the article, but it’s one they should, hopefully, be made to live with for a few years.
“America’s labor shortage is approaching epidemic proportions, and it could be employers who end up paying,” CNBC reported this week. That was before yet another monthly jobs report showing solid growth in jobs and wages.
I always find this framing to be backward. A “labor shortage” is good news: It means it’s easier for unemployed people to find jobs, more appealing for people who quit the workforce out of frustration to get back in, and likelier that companies will decide they must pay higher wages to attract talent.
In theory, we could reach a point where upward wage pressure led to an inflationary spiral, with companies raising prices so they can afford to pay higher wages, and those higher prices eating up much of the wage increases. But we’re far from that point, with corporate profits still high as a share of the economy.
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Labor Shortage BIG Problem for US Small Businesses
CNSNEWS – August 5, 2018: The article highlights that a record percentage of small firms have unfilled jobs, the July jobs report released Thursday by the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) shows.
“The July jobs report shows the magnitude of small businesses that are growing and hiring at record levels, creating new jobs and opportunities for the workforce, and offering employees higher compensation,” NFIB President and CEO Juanita D. Duggan said, announcing the results.
Business owners consider the current labor shortage their greatest problem, the report says:
“Twenty-three percent of owners cited the difficulty of finding qualified workers as their Single Most Important Business Problem (up 2 points), 1 point below the record high set in May 2000.”
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911 Emergency: Call Centers Can’t Find Workers
WSJ – August 5, 2018: The article highlights that cities across the U.S. are struggling to find 911 dispatchers as a historically tight labor market makes it harder to fill a job that was already a tough sell.
Dispatchers are a linchpin of the nation’s emergency-response infrastructure. Their responses to 911 calls directly impact how quickly police, firefighters and other first responders are sent to help and whether they go to the right place.
They are also hard to hire, since the job can require workers to make snap judgments on life-or-death situations, often based on incomplete information, for about what they could make working as a manager at a retail store.
The article emphasize that: “For a lot of them [the call centers], the requirement is, ‘We need a warm body’,” said Christy Williams, director of 911 for the North Central Texas Council of Governments. The problem is exacerbated because many 911 centers are small and lack the resources to pay up for workers or training.
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New Policy for Employers Eager to Hire: ‘No Experience Necessary’
WSJ – July 29, 2018: The article highlights that inexperienced job applicants face better odds in the labor market as more companies drop work-history and degree requirements.
Americans looking to land a first job or break into a dream career face their best odds of success in years as employers say they are abandoning preferences for college degrees and specific skill sets to speed up hiring and broaden the pool of job candidates. Many companies added requirements to job postings after the recession, when millions were out of work and human-resources departments were stacked with résumés.
And the day has finally arrived, across incomes and industries, the lower bar to getting hired is helping self-taught programmers attain software engineering roles at Intel Corp. INTC -8.59% and GitHub Inc., the coding platform, and improving the odds for high-school graduates who aspire to be branch managers at Bank of America Corp. BAC 0.39% and Terminix pest control.
“Candidates have so many options today,” said Amy Glaser, senior vice president of Adecco Group, a staffing agency with about 10,000 company clients in search of employees. “If a company requires a degree, two rounds of interviews and a test for hard skills, candidates can go down the street to another employer who will make them an offer that day.”
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Older immigrants ‘crowding out’ U.S. teens for summer jobs
WASHINGTON EXAMINER | By Paul Bedard | July 10, 2018: The article highlights that both legal and illegal immigrants are “crowding out” American teens looking for summer jobs, and the impact of higher teen unemployment could be a drag on them for years, according to a new analysis of the seasonal workforce.
The article cited that the Center for Immigration Studies found that as the number of U.S. teens with summer jobs has dropped significantly, employment of immigrants has doubled.
“Immigrants — legal and illegal — are crowding out U.S.-born teenagers in the labor market,” according to the report from Steven A. Camarota, director of research at CIS, and demographer Karen Zeigler.
In his analysis, Camarota found that employers are seizing on older immigrants, often over 20 and with some working experience, instead of U.S. teens to fill summer jobs. And another driving factor, he said, may be that immigrants are willing to work for a lower wage.
While this trend is good for immigrants, he cited research that it can be devastating for U.S. teens. Shut out of a summer job, they often have difficulty in the workforce for years.
“Teens employed in high school earn more than teens who did not work in the first year after graduation, with wage differences tending to increase over time. Also, teens who were employed in high school are more likely to be employed and work more hours during the year, with a significant relationship between hours worked in high school and subsequent hours worked and wages earned,” said the report.
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Workers’ Rights & Richard Wolff
RT AMERICA – July 10, 2018: Jesse Ventura and Brigida Santos discuss the erosion of workers’ rights in America and how our debt-based economy leads to greater inequality. Professor Richard Wolff talks about his book, “Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism,” and how employment cooperatives may improve the economy.
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Chicago Could Soon Test Universal Basic Income Program In America
THE INTERCEPT – July 17, 2018: Chicago’s Alderman, Ameya Pawar is worried about the future. Pointing to investments in autonomous vehicles by companies like Tesla, Amazon, and Uber, Pawar observed that long-haul trucking jobs, historically a source of middle-class employment, may become obsolete. More people out of work means more political polarization, says Pawar.”We have to start talking about race and class and geography, but also start talking about the future of work as it relates to automation. All of this stuff is intertwined.”
Pawar thinks that one way to battle racial resentment is to address the economic precarity that politicians have used to stoke it. He has decided to endorse the universal basic income — an idea that has been picking up steam across the world.
“Nearly 70 percent of Americans don’t have $1,000 in the bank for an emergency,” Pawar told The Intercept. “UBI could be an incredible benefit for people who are working and are having a tough time making ends meet or putting food on the table at the end of the month. … It’s time to start thinking about direct cash transfers to people so that they can start making plans about how they’re going to get by.”
“This looks like a UBI pilot program, which is a good idea, just to study its effects and produce data that can help guide other UBI efforts,” he told The Intercept.
“Our hope, that I know will be born out in this pilot, is that it will show that when we smooth out the EITC, and we provide a monthly basic income to 1,000 families, that they will be able to plan for expenses, they can make decisions about savings, they can make decisions about investing, they could make decisions about how they could deal with a financial emergency, just like all families do,” Pawar told us. “And once implemented, we’ll be able to hopefully scale it.”
My legislation calling for the creation of a Chicago #UniversalBasicIncome pilot has 36 co-sponsors! On to the Commitee on Workforce Development and Audit. Committee chair @40thWard is also a sponsor. More soon! #UBI pic.twitter.com/W7D5Hbx31E
— Ameya Pawar (@Ameya_Pawar_IL) June 27, 2018
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