What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Hiring Trends 2025 (1 Viewer)

The key words here are "our salaries are all (emphasis mine) public record."

How many times can IK say he works for the government without you guys figuring it out? Maybe we should play a game or something.

I can set a watch to how obdurate you have to be not to have gotten this. Solid as a brick. I mean, if you're reading IK or the OP and subsequent comments at all, that they're both in government (in some form or fashion) should jump off of the page. Or is that in our rush to political judgment we've neglected to care about facts or circumstances that might not comport with our current anger?

I am not sure why your post goes into a tangent about Ivan, my post about not paying enough was in reference to OP.

If you can't pay as much for new hires as others in your industry and you can't pay enough to keep your current employees, then there is a management problem and costs need cut elsewhere.

This can happen for a few reasons, maybe a company used too many resources to expand into a failed product line, etc. But it comes down to mismanagement from someone in the company. I am not sure how you read anything political in my couple 1-liners in this thread.
 
The key words here are "our salaries are all (emphasis mine) public record."

How many times can IK say he works for the government without you guys figuring it out? Maybe we should play a game or something.

I can set a watch to how obdurate you have to be not to have gotten this. Solid as a brick. I mean, if you're reading IK or the OP and subsequent comments at all, that they're both in government (in some form or fashion) should jump off of the page. Or is that in our rush to political judgment we've neglected to care about facts or circumstances that might not comport with our current anger?

I am not sure why your post goes into a tangent about Ivan, my post about not paying enough was in reference to OP.

If you can't pay as much for new hires as others in your industry and you can't pay enough to keep your current employees, then there is a management problem and costs need cut elsewhere.

This can happen for a few reasons, maybe a company used too many resources to expand into a failed product line, etc. But it comes down to mismanagement from someone in the company. I am not sure how you read anything political in my couple 1-liners in this thread.

Right. OP is military or military contract. GOVERNMENT is the main takeaway here. GOVERNMENT pay scale as determined by taxpayers. There is no “company” unless it’s the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B.

I think the problem might not be political in yours or jobber’s case, but simply that you didn’t read. (Or that I read too much into the OP.) In the case of you not reading, well . . . I’m certainly neither going to judge you nor apologize for you all missing that. If I have this wrong (unlikely), then mea culpa.

I can assure you Conway was being political with his grousing and snark.
 
Last edited:
I’ll start with get off my lawn.

Today’s youth wants/almost expects to get rich without doing much work. Regardless of job. Finding someone that is attentive, eager and works hard is a unicorn these days. Getting a 50-60% effort with a mediocre attitude seems the norm now.
 
Whatever your field and whatever you do, starting using AI as your work assistant and copilot. Even just to proof read, create tasks, or produce initial frameworks of content. These are the people that will be getting jobs in the future.

BIGTIME this.

I'm positioning myself as the AI SME on our team and placing a large focus on AI training and certificate courses from universities like MIT and Vanderbilt. There are a good range of courses that are somewhat to fully self-paced, start simple, and are more "strategic applications" and "prompt engineering" vs "learn to code (which is a declining field)".

AI is moving too fast for these courses to fully keep up, but learning to interface with them, and how to apply them strategically is an area that will be in very high demand over the next 5 to 10 years, IMO.
 
Add me in the camp of not seeing the cost/benefit of moving up to Sr Management. My role is right in my wheelhouse with VERY little stress aside from a big deadline here and there. Have prety much unlimited flexibilty to work from wherever, etc.

Every annual review my lead asks about ambitions and what's the next step. I talk around it but the next step is maybe 20% increase in pay and a 100% increase in stress, workload... AND a big decrease in flexibility.

Covid changed everything for me and based on reading this I'm not alone. Makes me feel a bit less "lazy" for not running headlong into the meat grinder.
 
Last edited:
By the way, this promote-until-you-get-canned thing seems like a really odd and self-destructive tactic for companies to take. Oh, here’s our best? Meet the grinder.

Is this Gen X’s test for whether or not they’ve truly grown up? Whether they’ll accept this or not? I think I can give you the answer to that without the benefit of hard work, much experience, and/or study.

Uh, no, Beavis. They won’t. Uh heh heh heh uh heh heh heh
 
Maybe I'm missing the point and they're far enough apart to not be connected, but if we've now determined these are government jobs isn't this partially by design?

There is a nationwide desire and movement to specifically reduce the both the number of government jobs and the spending on government jobs right now, so why would it be surprising that there is a stall in hiring in government jobs and an inability to provide the salary that the free market demands?
 
Last edited:
Maybe I'm missing the point and they're far enough apart to not be connected, but if we've now determined these are government jobs isn't this partially by design?

There is a nationwide desire and movement to specifically reduce the both the number of government jobs and the spending on government jobs right now, so why would it be surprising that there is a stall in hiring in government jobs and an inability to provide the market salary demands?
Yeah, but this is the thread where people employed by the govt want to in a roundabout way express their frustration with what you’ve observed is the goal.
 
I can assure you Conway was being political with his grousing and snark.
Not political at all. If an organization isn't attracting the talent it wants, it's because... one way or another, it's offer isn't competitive enough. That's usually because of salary, although other factors play a role as well. It really is as simple as that, but you got really bent out of shape about it.
 
Maybe I'm missing the point and they're far enough apart to not be connected, but if we've now determined these are government jobs isn't this partially by design?

There is a nationwide desire and movement to specifically reduce the both the number of government jobs and the spending on government jobs right now, so why would it be surprising that there is a stall in hiring in government jobs and an inability to provide the market salary demands?
I've been following along with the thread today, but have been car shopping, so I've been distracted.

There is the government job side that I'm on and deal with the crazy bureaucracy that is the federal workforce. Totally understand the not wanting to climb the ladder at some points. The next level up for me comes with having to be on call 24-7. 10%+ pay bump, but I think I'll lose peace at home.

Some of the confusion that I didn't spell out well is that my organization is a military DOD and we hire manpower (contractors) through defense contracting companies manpower divisions. Our organization's workforce is roughly 40% military, 20% federal civilians and 40% contractors. I'm a federal civilian in charge of hiring and training.

The way contact manpower works, we write a position description request that outlines the job skills required and number of positions that need to be filled. All the defense contractors review the request and submit their proposals for what they will take the job for. The government likes selecting the lowest bidder on these manpower style contracts. Ultimately that is what got us to where we are today. We're halfway through a contact that is below market rates)

The contractors that work for us come into our spaces every day, but are employees of their company (an example would be L3). Their companies negotiate rates and benefits with the employees. The government has no say in these communications.

Retaining people gets hard because these contractors have 2 bosses at time. Government supervision and contact leadership/HR. Employees can be unhappy with one or the other or even both.

All that said, the contract is under staffed and only looks to be getting worse. My organization still has a requirement to the DoD and the American people. I'm becoming the person who has to figure out how to mend this manpower issue. We say it's a "no-fail" mission, but can only replace the contract after it fails. Hence the situation and trying to get creative to solve it.

Eta: sloppy posting from a moving vehicle.
 
Last edited:
Maybe I'm missing the point and they're far enough apart to not be connected, but if we've now determined these are government jobs isn't this partially by design?

There is a nationwide desire and movement to specifically reduce the both the number of government jobs and the spending on government jobs right now, so why would it be surprising that there is a stall in hiring in government jobs and an inability to provide the market salary demands?
I've been following along with the thread today, but have been car shopping, so I've been distracted.

There is the government job side that I'm on and deal with the crazy bureaucracy that is the federal workforce. Totally understand the not wanting to climb the ladder at some points. The next level up for me comes with having to be on call 24-7. 10%+ pay bump, but I think I'll lose peace at home.

Some of the confusion that I didn't spell out well is that my organization is a military DOD and we hire manpower (contractors) through defense contracting companies manpower divisions. Our organization's workforce is roughly 40% military, 20% federal civilians and 40% contractors. I'm a federal civilian in charge of hiring and training.

The way contact manpower works, we write a position description request that outlines the manpower required and number of positions that need to be filled. All the defense contractors review the request and submit their proposals for what they will take through job for. The government likes selecting the lowest bidder on these manpower style contracts. Ultimately that is what got us to where we are today. We're halfway through a contact that is below market rates)

The contractors that work for us come into our spaces every day, but are employees of their company (an example would be L3). Their companies negotiate rates and benefits with the employees. The government has no say in these communications.

Retaining people gets hard because these contractors have 2 bosses at time. Government supervision and contact leadership/HR. Employees can be unhappy with one or the other or even both.

All that said, the contract is under staffed and only looks to be getting worse. My organization still has a requirement to the DoD and the American people. I'm becoming the person who has to figure out how to mend this manpower issue. We say it's a "no-fail" mission, but can only replace the contract after it fails. Hence the situation and trying to get creative to solve it.
Thanks for expanding on your situation. It’s a very complex setup and sound beyond tricky. While big businesses are often bureaucratic in a way that is self-destructive or seemingly impossible to navigate successfully, I truly cannot begin to imagine how I would approach your situation.
 
Add me in the camp of not seeing the cost/benefit of moving up to Sr Management. My role is right in my wheelhouse with VERY little stress aside from a big deadline here and there. Have prety much unlimited flexibilty to work from wherever, etc.

Every annual review my lead asks about ambitions and what's the next step. I talk around it but the next step is maybe 20% increase in pay and a 100% increase in stress, workload... AND a big decrease in flexibility.

Covid changed everything for me and based on reading this I'm not alone. Makes me less "lazy" for not running headlong into the meat grinder.
Same. I've passed on internal promotions twice because I've seen what those positions do to people. I got lucky a while back (going on ten years now) and got to fill in on an interim basis when the person above me left for another institution. That interim position ended up lasting a year and a half, so I got a good taste of what it was like. On the one hand, it was good because I was able to prove to my own satisfaction that I could succeed in that role. On the other hand, the novelty had mostly worn off after a year or so and I could tell that this was the kind of position that would lead to serious work-life problems. It was absolutely not worth the extra money. At all. Passing on the permanent gig was one of the best career decisions I ever made, paradoxically.
 
I’ll start with get off my lawn.

Today’s youth wants/almost expects to get rich without doing much work. Regardless of job. Finding someone that is attentive, eager and works hard is a unicorn these days. Getting a 50-60% effort with a mediocre attitude seems the norm now.

As someone that teaches youth this isn't true at all and the goal posts have been moved.

50ish years ago you could have a high school diploma and start your own version of the American dream on one income (house, family, saving for retirement,vacations, saving for your kids college) Now you have to go into massive college debt, take a wage that has less buying power, hope your partner has a decent salary, then you can think about picking a part of the American dream you want like children, then in about another decade you can think about a home and in another decade you can start thinking about saving for retirement after you paid off your college debt and have saved enough for your own kids college and maybe went on a family vacation or two in the last decade.

You are comparing apples and oranges.
 
After job looking for six weeks my findings are the opposite. The headhunters are full of crap for the most part. Please don’t insult me by sending a stock letter three weeks after replying to a posted job with references from your company that I am underqualified -I have 30 years experience. Just say you want someone who will work for nothing.
 
I’ll start with get off my lawn.

Today’s youth wants/almost expects to get rich without doing much work. Regardless of job. Finding someone that is attentive, eager and works hard is a unicorn these days. Getting a 50-60% effort with a mediocre attitude seems the norm now.

As someone that teaches youth this isn't true at all and the goal posts have been moved.

50ish years ago you could have a high school diploma and start your own version of the American dream on one income (house, family, saving for retirement,vacations, saving for your kids college) Now you have to go into massive college debt, take a wage that has less buying power, hope your partner has a decent salary, then you can think about picking a part of the American dream you want like children, then in about another decade you can think about a home and in another decade you can start thinking about saving for retirement after you paid off your college debt and have saved enough for your own kids college and maybe went on a family vacation or two in the last decade.

You are comparing apples and oranges.
As I said, get off my lawn….

And I disagree. I work in high end restaurants. I get to deal with all of the youth that didn’t go to college, and worse, those that went to college and amassed that debt you speak of…only to find they can’t make any money with their degree. Usually the ones that didn’t go to college are hungrier and work harder. And to your point are ahead of their debt ridden counterparts. Ahead in the fact that they’ve been working for 4-8 years while the English major has been amassing debt and writing their thesis. All the while developing an attitude that hard work is beneath them.

Putting aside the American dream part of your post, I stand by my claim that finding a diligent, hard working, eager employee, that actually gives a ****, is a unicorn.
 
It really is as simple as that, but you got really bent out of shape about it.

No, your point, was "pay more if you're going to be involved in a capitalist society" when it's clearly different for government agencies and sectors of the economy that the two guys you were talking to are a part of. They're not operating with the same labor market, etc. It was a dumb comment made in frustration by you at a system you don't like. It was obvious you had nothing to add but "pay more," which is the whole problem in the first case. They can't. You weren't giving a solution or diagnosis—you'd already missed the point wildly and just wanted to be . . . something, which apparently people like around here.

I don't. I thought it was a stupid, lazy, typical point made by a person whose first resort to the issue at hand was to be obtuse about it.
 
Last edited:
What you essentially did was respond to a guy who started a thread with "I have budget A" by saying,

"Y NOT BUDGET B?!"

Because he doesn't have it. Next question.

That should have ended when I told you that. But you're still going about why that answer is both correct and sufficient.

I won't say anything directly, but you obviously know how I feel about both your reading comp and solution-solving ability.

Good day. It's conference championships soon.
 
Last edited:
It really is as simple as that, but you got really bent out of shape about it.

No, your point, was "pay more if you're going to be involved in a capitalist society" when it's clearly different for government agencies and sectors of the economy that the two guys you were talking to are a part of. They're not operating with the same labor market, etc. It was a dumb comment made in frustration by you at a system you don't like. It was obvious you had nothing to add but "pay more," which is the whole problem in the first case. They can't. You weren't giving a solution or diagnosis—you'd already missed the point wildly and just wanted to be . . . something, which apparently people like around here.

I don't. I thought it was a stupid, lazy, typical point made by a person whose first resort to the issue at hand was to be obtuse about it.
Weird. You accuse me of responding to "two people in government", yet when I responded, one of them hadn't even posted in the thread at all. Government or not, and that was not point of the thread at the time I entered, to attract talent, an organization needs to offer something attractive. If that's not salary then it better be something else. The OP agreed. Again, not political until you decided it was for some reason. You were the one that turned this into "all of this only applies to public hires". No one else. And again, in a capitalist society, government needs to compete with private. Unless, of course, you're the one arguing for something other than capitalism.
 
You were the one that turned this into "all of this only applies to public hires".

No, it was the job descriptions you were responding to with snarky little comments. You didn't bother to read or know the people you were snarking at.

This is done. You want to comment, go ahead. I think a lot of things that will remain unsaid. I remember you from way, way back, dude. That's all I'll say. Have a good season!
 
I work for a big engineering consulting firm and am struggling to find even a decent pool of applicants for a lower level Senior (tech) position. I either get kids straight out of school who want everything despite a total lack of experience OR those in other fields that think they can somehow just “figure it out”. It’s really frustrating. The worst part for me is just sifting through the resumes that aren’t even close. I guess folks are using the “whatever sticks” method these days?
 
Add me in the camp of not seeing the cost/benefit of moving up to Sr Management. My role is right in my wheelhouse with VERY little stress aside from a big deadline here and there. Have prety much unlimited flexibilty to work from wherever, etc.

Every annual review my lead asks about ambitions and what's the next step. I talk around it but the next step is maybe 20% increase in pay and a 100% increase in stress, workload... AND a big decrease in flexibility.

Covid changed everything for me and based on reading this I'm not alone. Makes me less "lazy" for not running headlong into the meat grinder.
Same. I've passed on internal promotions twice because I've seen what those positions do to people. I got lucky a while back (going on ten years now) and got to fill in on an interim basis when the person above me left for another institution. That interim position ended up lasting a year and a half, so I got a good taste of what it was like. On the one hand, it was good because I was able to prove to my own satisfaction that I could succeed in that role. On the other hand, the novelty had mostly worn off after a year or so and I could tell that this was the kind of position that would lead to serious work-life problems. It was absolutely not worth the extra money. At all. Passing on the permanent gig was one of the best career decisions I ever made, paradoxically.
I relate very strongly with this. I took an interim promotion, but unlike you accepted the permanent position. I did this knowing it would create short-term stress / work-life balance problems. The key was to ensure it was short-term. It was a gamble, a calculated risk, and thankfully it paid off.

It led to a better position elsewhere that has led to a much better work-life balance / stress situation. I am still in the process of getting myself healthy again (physically and mentally) after that meat grinder, but now I have a vision of what the future looks like, instead of just surviving the day.

The only step up from here is CFO, something I will not think about until the final stanza of my work career, assuming I stay here. Our pension is a calculation based on years of service and your 5 highest earning years. I have no interest in dealing with CFO stress any time soon, if I think about it, it will be when I approach my final 5 years. Looking ahead, it's comforting that I should be positioned to make that decision based on want, and not need.
 
I’ll start with get off my lawn.

Today’s youth wants/almost expects to get rich without doing much work. Regardless of job. Finding someone that is attentive, eager and works hard is a unicorn these days. Getting a 50-60% effort with a mediocre attitude seems the norm now.

As someone that teaches youth this isn't true at all and the goal posts have been moved.

50ish years ago you could have a high school diploma and start your own version of the American dream on one income (house, family, saving for retirement,vacations, saving for your kids college) Now you have to go into massive college debt, take a wage that has less buying power, hope your partner has a decent salary, then you can think about picking a part of the American dream you want like children, then in about another decade you can think about a home and in another decade you can start thinking about saving for retirement after you paid off your college debt and have saved enough for your own kids college and maybe went on a family vacation or two in the last decade.

You are comparing apples and oranges.
As I said, get off my lawn….

And I disagree. I work in high end restaurants. I get to deal with all of the youth that didn’t go to college, and worse, those that went to college and amassed that debt you speak of…only to find they can’t make any money with their degree. Usually the ones that didn’t go to college are hungrier and work harder. And to your point are ahead of their debt ridden counterparts. Ahead in the fact that they’ve been working for 4-8 years while the English major has been amassing debt and writing their thesis. All the while developing an attitude that hard work is beneath them.

Putting aside the American dream part of your post, I stand by my claim that finding a diligent, hard working, eager employee, that actually gives a ****, is a unicorn.
To your point, get off my lawn, it doesn't appear you're interested in 'the why.' Those that do, I think what you're describing is because today's younger generation don't feel valued when doing things like providing service to rich people. Doing something of value, purpose-driven, is very important to gen z. I can see that being a misfit in high society so cal, especially if your workforce is part college grads that didn't go to school for something like this.

Generally speaking, Daisy hit the nail on the head.
 
There is a nationwide desire and movement to specifically reduce the both the number of government jobs and the spending on government jobs right now
I'm not so sure this is true when you really talk to the people. There are certainly some very loud and very important people that are espousing this viewpoint, but when it is your wife, or cousin, or neighbor who works in government and their job is in jeopardy, people don't quite feel as strongly as we are led to believe
 
I’ll start with get off my lawn.

Today’s youth wants/almost expects to get rich without doing much work. Regardless of job. Finding someone that is attentive, eager and works hard is a unicorn these days. Getting a 50-60% effort with a mediocre attitude seems the norm now.

As someone that teaches youth this isn't true at all and the goal posts have been moved.

50ish years ago you could have a high school diploma and start your own version of the American dream on one income (house, family, saving for retirement,vacations, saving for your kids college) Now you have to go into massive college debt, take a wage that has less buying power, hope your partner has a decent salary, then you can think about picking a part of the American dream you want like children, then in about another decade you can think about a home and in another decade you can start thinking about saving for retirement after you paid off your college debt and have saved enough for your own kids college and maybe went on a family vacation or two in the last decade.

You are comparing apples and oranges.
As I said, get off my lawn….

And I disagree. I work in high end restaurants. I get to deal with all of the youth that didn’t go to college, and worse, those that went to college and amassed that debt you speak of…only to find they can’t make any money with their degree. Usually the ones that didn’t go to college are hungrier and work harder. And to your point are ahead of their debt ridden counterparts. Ahead in the fact that they’ve been working for 4-8 years while the English major has been amassing debt and writing their thesis. All the while developing an attitude that hard work is beneath them.

Putting aside the American dream part of your post, I stand by my claim that finding a diligent, hard working, eager employee, that actually gives a ****, is a unicorn.
To your point, get off my lawn, it doesn't appear you're interested in 'the why.' Those that do, I think what you're describing is because today's younger generation don't feel valued when doing things like providing service to rich people. Doing something of value, purpose-driven, is very important to gen z. I can see that being a misfit in high society so cal, especially if your workforce is part college grads that didn't go to school for something like this.

Generally speaking, Daisy hit the nail on the head.
I’m interested in the why. I have an 18 year old. And who said anything about misfits? I have graduates from northwestern, brown, asu, usc, ucla and of course the school of hard knocks. Many of these kids come to work from mom and/or dad’s $10m+ McMansion. The trappings of wealth aren’t foreign to them.

I’m not talking about altruism. I’m talking about work ethic.

And I didn’t disagree with daisy’s point of the goalposts having moved and the difficulty getting the American dream. :shrug:
 
There is a nationwide desire and movement to specifically reduce the both the number of government jobs and the spending on government jobs right now
I'm not so sure this is true when you really talk to the people. There are certainly some very loud and very important people that are espousing this viewpoint, but when it is your wife, or cousin, or neighbor who works in government and their job is in jeopardy, people don't quite feel as strongly as we are led to believe
Most of their jobs are likely not in jeopardy. The objective is to make working conditions undesirable, resulting in more people quitting, then not filling future open positions.
 
I’m interested in the why. I have an 18 year old. And who said anything about misfits? I have graduates from northwestern, brown, asu, usc, ucla and of course the school of hard knocks. Many of these kids come to work from mom and/or dad’s $10m+ McMansion. The trappings of wealth aren’t foreign to them.

I’m not talking about altruism. I’m talking about work ethic.
This response does not address anything purpose-driven.
 
Add me in the camp of not seeing the cost/benefit of moving up to Sr Management. My role is right in my wheelhouse with VERY little stress aside from a big deadline here and there. Have prety much unlimited flexibilty to work from wherever, etc.

Every annual review my lead asks about ambitions and what's the next step. I talk around it but the next step is maybe 20% increase in pay and a 100% increase in stress, workload... AND a big decrease in flexibility.

Covid changed everything for me and based on reading this I'm not alone. Makes me feel a bit less "lazy" for not running headlong into the meat grinder.
Sames. I told my boss's boss that I had no ambition to have her job some day.
 
Add me in the camp of not seeing the cost/benefit of moving up to Sr Management. My role is right in my wheelhouse with VERY little stress aside from a big deadline here and there. Have prety much unlimited flexibilty to work from wherever, etc.

Every annual review my lead asks about ambitions and what's the next step. I talk around it but the next step is maybe 20% increase in pay and a 100% increase in stress, workload... AND a big decrease in flexibility.

Covid changed everything for me and based on reading this I'm not alone. Makes me feel a bit less "lazy" for not running headlong into the meat grinder.
I’ve been in this bucket for a while. I worked directly with the GE CIO (the top execs) on a project when I was in my 20s. He had the same birthday as me and one of the girls (we were both young) on our team got us both a cake as we had a late night review with him. He mentioned how he barely ever celebrated his birthday and how many events for his kids that he always missed. He was happy to share a cake but that always stuck with me. I worked hard but once my wife started working again after all 3 boys were school age, I downshifted because she landed a great job with way better stock than I did and it made no sense for me to bust my *** working in an office where she couldn’t work from home. Money wise and stress wise, it worked out great.

I’ll retire before her (not that far away). I took a new role with less pay but far less stress as my old one. It’s actually a job I could see doing longer as the lower stress, more collaborative team and less time is nice. I was so burnt out that I was about to quit and I feel like I’m in a better group, that I’d say is less likely to be AI’d out like my old job.
 
It really is as simple as that, but you got really bent out of shape about it.

No, your point, was "pay more if you're going to be involved in a capitalist society" when it's clearly different for government agencies and sectors of the economy that the two guys you were talking to are a part of. They're not operating with the same labor market, etc. It was a dumb comment made in frustration by you at a system you don't like. It was obvious you had nothing to add but "pay more," which is the whole problem in the first case. They can't. You weren't giving a solution or diagnosis—you'd already missed the point wildly and just wanted to be . . . something, which apparently people like around here.

I don't. I thought it was a stupid, lazy, typical point made by a person whose first resort to the issue at hand was to be obtuse about it.
Can you expand on this separate labor market? I don't see it. I think many employees look at both opportunities in the public and private sector, just as many PhD students look at jobs in academia and the private sector.
 
Can you expand on this separate labor market? I don't see it. I think many employees look at both opportunities in the public and private sector, just as many PhD students look at jobs in academia and the private sector.

The private and public-sector labor markets are generally considered two different things. See, e.g., the Legislative Analyst's Office of California's article "California Private-Sector Labor Market Showing Broad Weakness"


Or see . . .

Chapter 22 PUBLIC-SECTOR LABOR MARKETS -- RONALD G. EHRENBERG and JOSHUA L. SCHWARZ * Cornell University

1. Introduction

Why does the study of public-sector labor markets in the United States warrant a separate chapter in this Handbook of Labor Economics? One reason is that federal, state, and local governments are differentiated from most (but not all) private-sector employers in that profit maximization is unlikely to be an objective of governmental units. As such, labor-market models based upon the assumption of profit-maximization are clearly inappropriate for the government sector; alternative models must be developed.

A second is that employment expanded more rapidly between 1950 and 1975 in the state and local government (SLG) sector than in any other sector of the economy, increasing from 9.1 percent to 15.5 percent of total nonagricultural payroll employment. Indeed, the absolute number of SLG employees almost tripled during this period, rising to nearly 12 million. Although the share of SLG employment has declined slightly since 1975, the absolute number of SLG employees has continued to rise. The growing importance of the sector suggests that attention should be directed to analyses of it.

A third is that the pattern of unionization and the laws governing collective bargaining, dispute resolution, and wage determination (emphasis rockaction's) differ between the publicand private sectors. In contrast to the declining fraction of private-sector workers who are union members, union membership is growing rapidly in the public-sector in both absolute and percentage terms.
 
This is a placeholder for trying to say that I don't really have the economics background (other than a gentleman's "C" degree in it) to really parse this out as well as others can, but I'm pretty sure there's a difference in the labor markets between public and private.
 
Last edited:
Can you expand on this separate labor market? I don't see it. I think many employees look at both opportunities in the public and private sector, just as many PhD students look at jobs in academia and the private sector.

The private and public-sector labor markets are generally considered two different things. See, e.g., the Legislative Analyst's Office of California's article "California Private-Sector Labor Market Showing Broad Weakness"


Or see . . .

Chapter 22 PUBLIC-SECTOR LABOR MARKETS -- RONALD G. EHRENBERG and JOSHUA L. SCHWARZ * Cornell University

1. Introduction

Why does the study of public-sector labor markets in the United States warrant a separate chapter in this Handbook of Labor Economics? One reason is that federal, state, and local governments are differentiated from most (but not all) private-sector employers in that profit maximization is unlikely to be an objective of governmental units. As such, labor-market models based upon the assumption of profit-maximization are clearly inappropriate for the government sector; alternative models must be developed.

A second is that employment expanded more rapidly between 1950 and 1975 in the state and local government (SLG) sector than in any other sector of the economy, increasing from 9.1 percent to 15.5 percent of total nonagricultural payroll employment. Indeed, the absolute number of SLG employees almost tripled during this period, rising to nearly 12 million. Although the share of SLG employment has declined slightly since 1975, the absolute number of SLG employees has continued to rise. The growing importance of the sector suggests that attention should be directed to analyses of it.

A third is that the pattern of unionization and the laws governing collective bargaining, dispute resolution, and wage determination (emphasis rockaction's) differ between the publicand private sectors. In contrast to the declining fraction of private-sector workers who are union members, union membership is growing rapidly in the public-sector in both absolute and percentage terms.
Thanks - I didn't think of a labor market as the amount of employees in State/Local/Federal gov't vs private enterprise. I thought of it as the total amount of employees looking for work or currently employed. So as the gov't lays off people, there is a shift in the labor markets from public to private.
 
Thanks - I didn't think of a labor market as the amount of employees in State/Local/Federal gov't vs private enterprise. I thought of it as the total amount of employees looking for work or currently employed. So as the gov't lays off people, there is a shift in the labor markets from public to private.

No problem. I see what you're saying, too, but I think economists look at those markets and distinguish them because they're different in goal, implementation, and the rules that govern them. They're so radically different. A public university's mission is nowhere near what the mission of a producer of widgets is. They have a totally different raison d'être and totally different modes of operating.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top