Are companies *really* hiring?

[Revoltingest]

If they are really open. If you aren't going to hire anyway, it costs almost nothing.
@Debater Slayer listed the benefits. Appearance to be expanding, up&coming to impress (potential) stockholders and customers, building databases for future use, etc.

Those are very unconvincing reasons to pretend
to be hiring. Costs nothing, eh? Pbbbbttttttttt!
(There...try to argue with that!)

Also, business people always have to complain and complaining about employees or the lack thereof is as old as business.

Everyone compains.
It's our national sport.
And employees are the gold medal winners.

You don't need a conspiracy theory. Just an understanding of business sense.

I've run businesses.
Still do.
I've only tried to hire people when I actually intended
to hire someone. Same goes for everyone I've ever
known in business.

I suppose you guys could also claim George Soros
is behind it all...sort of a left wingish John Galt.

 

[Jainarayan]

It's not a conspiracy if companies down-size their workforce....

How could this be some orchestrated conspiracy?

Companies talk to each other. Monkey see monkey do. They share ideas, word gets around years ago I belonged to several professional groups that shared ideas on how to manage our staffs, workloads, etc. That's what I mean by conspiracy. They share the ideas that they can get the work done with reduced work forces. Save the money. When they do hire, hire two part timers and not offer benefits, which of course costs the company money too. Yet it looks good to the customer base to say We're Hiring! Customers are getting used to it. We'd apologize for long lines or for a customer not being able to get help on the floor. Except for the occasional Mrs. Crankypants, most people were accepting of the situation. They're getting used to it. No doubt there are people who don't want to work, who found other means of income or support.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

I haven't seen it be brought up here but there are government incentives to be hiring in the form of kickbacks, but there are a lot of businesses that really do need more people, but don't hire because they prefer overtaxing their existing labor to cut costs. Especially retail where they view workers, even competent, experienced ones, as expendable and easily replaced.

It's why Amazon has such a high turnover rate. Why hire for a balanced work load when you can convince people to just not have good work balance and boundaries?

 

[Revoltingest]

Companies talk to each other. Monkey see monkey do. They share ideas, word gets around years ago I belonged to several professional groups that shared ideas on how to manage our staffs, workloads, etc. That's what I mean by conspiracy. They share the ideas that they can get the work done with reduced work forces. Save the money. When they do hire, hire two part timers and not offer benefits, which of course costs the company money too. Yet it looks good to the customer base to say We're Hiring! Customers are getting used to it. We'd apologize for long lines or for a customer not being able to get help on the floor. Except for the occasional Mrs. Crankypants, most people were accepting of the situation. They're getting used to it. No doubt there are people who don't want to work, who found other means of income or support.

Your conspiracy theory is quite the invention.
No motive. No evidence. No way, Jose.

 

[SkepticThinker]

We all see signs all over from businesses saying they're hiring. But I wonder if they really are and it's not just a crock of ****. Hear me out.

At the beginning of the pandemic so many jobs were eliminated, so many companies closed and laid off people, so many companies never called people back. Yet after a while every storefront, window, courtesy desk, had signs We're Hiring! Yet virtually any store or business you go into is shorthanded. You hear "people don't want to work". So what are they living on? Unemployment benefits and the federal supplements ended almost a year and a half ago.

Call me a conspiracy theorist but I think companies realized they could still do business with a reduced work force. This happened over 30 years ago in the corporate world. Jobs were eliminated, the remaining employees were now expected to forgo their comp time (usually the new policy was "we don't have comp time"), we were expected to put in no less than 45-50 hours/week. My own former company, for example, eliminated my job but not the work. What I did was parceled out to at least several other people, with their workloads increasing. The company saved my salary, which was at the top of the scale after 23 years, saved my insurance premiums which were going up because of my age. They saved my four weeks vacation time ... almost $8,000 a year for no work in that time.

Oh sure, there is a new employee here and there. It looks good. When I went back to Macy*s before Christmas, I was about the only person hired all through the Christmas rush. And there were a lot of customers. But I have to wonder why businesses are so shorthanded, yet they say they're hiring. Not to mention that they send you to online application sites that go around in circles. They ask what year you graduated high school. That's illegal because they're actually asking for your age. If you try to skip that field you cannot proceed. I've submitted my resumè to Indeed, ZipRecruiter, LinedIn, and others. I do the online applications. I get "offers" that have absolutely nothing to do with my background.

So what is going on?

Many companies in my town have been trying to do business with a reduced work force for a while now, and it's not working out so well. Many are closed at random times throughout the day, even many that have "24 Hours" signs out front. I can't say for sure, but this problem seems to have something to do with not having enough workers on site. When they are open, there are only like one or two, at most, workers on the job.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

If you don't mind my asking, what field was that? Reading such things worries me a bit, but maybe it's a field totally unrelated to mine (software).

I have some buddies in software here. The major problem with the field is the abundance of risky startups. Angel investors give tons of start up seed money to non-expert owners who start these pop up companies.

Developers and sales teams work *really hard* to make the scaffolding for the project and get paid medium well (better than retail but worse than their labor).

Sometimes it works and the company gets the traction it needs to get in the black. But more often than not it stays in the red due to unforseen market or tech complications, it goes down and all the risk and loss gets put on the employees while the owners absorb none of the loss but pay themselves the rest of the seed money.

Rinse and repeat.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Those are very unconvincing reasons to pretend
to be hiring. Costs nothing, eh? Pbbbbttttttttt!
(There...try to argue with that!)

The guy who told me and my friend about that was a chief engineer responsible for hiring and sometimes mentoring newer employees. Would he have lied about his own company? I suppose there was a slim chance, but I have no idea why he would have.

The other person I mentioned (who works in IT) is involved in hiring in his company as well, but not as extensively as the chief engineer.

I've run businesses.
Still do.
I've only tried to hire people when I actually intended
to hire someone. Same goes for everyone I've ever
known in business.

Consider that your own experience is as anecdotal as others', mine and my friend's included. Also, some things differ significantly from country to country. In some places, a subset of companies use the "buddy system" as the primary hiring criterion for many positions. This is especially true in third-world countries with a lot of corruption; networking becomes an even more important skill.

By the way, I'm not complaining. As soon as those two guys told me about their companies' fake vacancies, I simply applied elsewhere. I expect some rejections every time I apply. With proper preparation and adjustment, I'm sure some companies will accept me just as some will reject me. That's life.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Yet virtually any store or business you go into is shorthanded. You hear "people don't want to work". So what are they living on? Unemployment benefits and the federal supplements ended almost a year and a half ago.

They're Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, GrubHub, Instacart, etc. drivers. People would rather make their own hours and be their own boss. No, they're not on benefits or sitting around. They're working, but not traditional jobs. I'd do it, too, if I had a car. They can make over a $100 a day, easily.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Factory jobs truly hire and truly need people. And they're relatively easy to get into (at least in my experience, but then again I live in a very low populated area). I have been hired at three different ones so far and I don't even have a GED. My brother was hired at a couple and he has a felony on his record. - They actually hire based on experience and work ethic, because that's the type of people they need to operate. And factory jobs probably are the best paying jobs out there below salary jobs.

 

[Revoltingest]

The guy who told me and my friend about that was a chief engineer responsible for hiring and sometimes mentoring newer employees. Would he have lied about his own company? I suppose there was a slim chance, but I have no idea why he would have.

The other person I mentioned (who works in IT) is involved in hiring in his company as well, but not as extensively as the chief engineer.



Consider that your own experience is as anecdotal as others', mine and my friend's included. Also, some things differ significantly from country to country. In some places, a subset of companies use the "buddy system" as the primary hiring criterion for many positions. This is especially true in third-world countries with a lot of corruption; networking becomes an even more important skill.

By the way, I'm not complaining. As soon as those two guys told me about their companies' fake vacancies, I simply applied elsewhere. I expect some rejections every time I apply. With proper preparation and adjustment, I'm sure some companies will accept me just as some will reject me. That's life.

Still, there's no real evidence of a conspiracy
to pretend a labor shortage. One dysincentive
would be to have employees believe they're
in a better bargaining position. Wages would
increase. That doesn't seem a result that
businesses would want.
So again....bogus conspiracy theory.

BTW my anecdotes are based on having worked
for dozens of companies in various capacities,
& knowing many other people who own & run
businesses. Get enuf anecdotes, & they begin
to become a real pattern.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Still, there's no real evidence of a conspiracy
to pretend a labor shortage. One dysincentive
would be to have employees believe they're
in a better bargaining position. Wages would
increase. That doesn't seem a result that
businesses would want.
So again....bogus conspiracy theory.

I don't know about a conspiracy; the redundant vacancies were something people in two companies told me about. I doubt most companies here would do the same as those two.

Also, the economic climate and job market where each of us lives is considerably different, so I suspect that might also be a factor.

BTW my anecdotes are based on having worked
for dozens of companies in various capacities,
& knowing many other people who own & run
businesses. Get enuf anecdotes, & they begin
to become a real pattern.

Anecdotes are still limited by definition. I don't doubt enough of them might point to specific trends, but where and to what extent is a fundamental question.

 

[Jainarayan]

Your conspiracy theory is quite the invention.
No motive. No evidence. No way, Jose.

Your opinion. Plenty of motive. Layoffs, jobs eliminated, then rehiring?

 

[Jainarayan]

They're Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, GrubHub, Instacart, etc. drivers. People would rather make their own hours and be their own boss. No, they're not on benefits or sitting around. They're working, but not traditional jobs. I'd do it, too, if I had a car. They can make over a $100 a day, easily.

That's a good point. I would do it too, and have thought about it if I had a passenger car. I have a pickup truck. He needs a lot of work, so I wouldn't trust him to carry strangers.

 

[Revoltingest]

Anecdotes are still limited by definition.

My anecdotes about hiring in USA vastly
out-number your anecdotes. Plus, it still
makes no sense to pretend to want workers,
& then turn away those who apply.
So that conspiracy theory blows goats.

 

[Debater Slayer]

My anecdotes about hiring in USA vastly
out-number your anecdotes.

In the US, yes. I'm talking about two companies in my own country.

Plus, it still
makes no sense to pretend to want workers,
& then turn away those who apply.
So that conspiracy theory blows goats.

It might make no sense in the US, but I don't know about here.

Why do you think those two companies did it? Or were the two seniors lying about their companies' fake vacancies after working there for years?

 

[Revoltingest]

Your opinion.

All any of us have are opinions.
But I'm not the one makin a claim of false
listings of job openings as a coordinated
effort of companies. That's unevidenced.

Plenty of motive. Layoffs, jobs eliminated, then rehiring?

Any evidence that companies are firing
workers for the purpose of claiming a
workforce shortage?

It could be that secretly a cabal of Jews,
George Soros, & Putin conspire to create
the false appearance of a labor shortage.
They coerce business leaders to cooperate
under threat of releasing compromising pix
of them performing in blackface.
It's possible.

 

[Revoltingest]

In the US, yes. I'm talking about my own country.

Oh.
Then nothing to discuss.
I've no specific knowledge of
how business works in Egypt.

 

[Heyo]

In the US, yes. I'm talking about two companies in my own country.



It might make no sense in the US, but I don't know about here.

Why do you think those two companies did it? Or were the two seniors lying about their companies' fake vacancies after working there for years?

My guess is that it isn't so much the geography but more the industry. I think some shortages are real and they are real everywhere, like nurses. The IT industry seems to be reporting fake openings not only in my country. And additionally to my previous arguments I think it is also a strategic move. IT specialists are still highly paid, proclaiming worker shortage lures people into studying CS so that supply and demand changes in favour of the companies. With more applicants they can lower the salaries.