We have 3 employment problems in the U.S.

[SoutherDem]

1. Unemployment. No explanation needed.

2. Under employment. Many jobs are hiring people 30 hours or less so that they get no benefits at all. No insurance, no sick pay and no vacations.

3. Over employment. Some jobs are working people 60 hours a week to keep from hiring new employees. This has always been normal for some seasonal jobs because they have a feast or famine. But, now it is becoming the norm to keep from hiring more employees.

How to fix this? Change the labor laws. Place upper and lower limits on the hours employees can work except for certain circumstances.

[LiberalEsto]

1. First we have to change Congress

then we can demand change in labor laws.

[KG]

2. the overarching problem is a sea change in the nature of work.

nobody seems to want to account for that...

[CK_John]

3. I disagree, we have a people problem, too many for the jobs. Functions that took 10,000 people

can now be done with a 100 or so.

We need to go to early retirement, social security at 50 to replace unemployment insurance. This will give people a safety net while they develop new skills or turn hobbies into extra income.

[csziggy]

10. I disagree - I see many places where work is NOT getting done

Because of too few employees. Mostly in government - infrastructure maintenance and rebuilding is the first category that comes to mind but there are plenty of other areas where too many people have been cut and the work is just not being done. Of course, the public services being cut are the ones that mostly help the average citizen.

Where my husband works, for a major shipping and printing company, customer service is being cut back because the company does not want to maintain a larger work force. Customers are complaining because they are used to a higher level of service, but the complaints of the customers and of the remaining employees are being ignored by the upper echelons. All they care about is the bottom line - and they are disregarding the fact that they are losing customers by cutting back on service. They just see that fewer employees means fewer expenses and a bigger margin of profit - even thought the profit margin is getting narrower because of lost customers!

I don't disagree that allowing earlier retirement and medicare coverage would help in the short run, but I don't believe there are actually too many people for the jobs that could and should be done.

[NNN0LHI]

4. The only way to fix this is to switch to a 32 hour, 8 hours per day, 4 day workweek

That means for a company to keep up with current production output they would need to hire 20% more workers.

If we had that right now instead of having 8% unemployment we would be experiencing a labor shortage.

Don

[dkf]

5. Maybe if health care wasn't so damned expensive people could retire.

Personally I think health care is a decent part of the employment problem. First of all it keeps people in the workforce who may be able to retire otherwise. Secondly it keeps people from exploring self employment. Third, it makes it expensive to hire that extra worker. Fourth it brings down pay if employers are footing much of the bill.

It really frustrates me that our supposedly big political Health care victory did nothing to solve these problems.

[NNN0LHI]

7. Rising health care costs didn't prevent me from retiring at 48

But that is what having a strong union does for someone.

Want your pay and benefits patterned after union workers pay and benefits? Then buy union.

Want your pay and benefits patterned after scab wages and benefits? Then don't buy union.

Simple as that.

Don

[dkf]

12. What unions are there if you have a college degree?

The only ones I can think of are government jobs.

[NNN0LHI]

13. Here is how it works

Here is a couple of examples of how unions set the pattern for wages and benefits of even non-union workers with a college degree.

One of the bank managers with a degree was at the closing of my home in 1989. I think about all she did was supervise closings at that bank back then. And as a vice president she was making top money for doing it. That was when we had a lot of good union jobs in this area and because of that many people were buying homes.

Couple of years ago I ran into her at H&R Block doing tax returns for a living now. I doubt she is making the kind of salary she was getting as VP of that bank.

Another one is my cousin. He is an oral surgeon. When he first started out we had lots of good paying union jobs around here and most came with dental insurance so he was rolling in the money. Had three fully staffed offices. A vacation home in Florida. Has a wife retired from her job as a dental hygienist to concentrate on playing golf.

Now with many of those higher paying union jobs with good benefits gone his life has changed too. He had to sell the vacation home in Florida at a loss to get out from under it. He now has only one fully staffed office instead of three. And his wife came out of retirement to clean teeth again.

Don

[elehhhhna]

6. single payer would help ALL these problems and more including

much age and sex discrimination

[mzteris]

8. How would you determine

those "certain circumstances" for those who ONLY want - or can do - part-time work?

[SoutherDem]

11. Yes, I was thinking

of teens in high school, college students basically those who only want/can work 20-30 hours per week. In other words don't force someone to work 40 or none. I did leave out a living wage, the reason some work more than 40 is it takes that to make ends meet. I guess I am suggesting a well regulated form of capitalism.

[mzteris]

14. there are others,

older people phasing out of the workforce, moms who can only work while the kids are in school, the differently-abled, etc. There could be myriad reasons why a person wants to work part-time. I guess I'm not sure how we'd regulate that part.

Living wages. Spread the wealth around.

[SoutherDem]

15. Yes, I agree I wasn't trying to give a complete list,

How to regulate, well we could say to not be employed full time you have to sign an agreement saying you don't want to be and have a reporting system if an employer told you it was the only way you can have the job.

[treestar]

9. I had suggested that if people are working 16 hours days

Employer could hire a second person. There's a whole bother job there.

The excuse was that it costs more to hire another person due to the record keeping requirements, FICA and health insurance - the overhead for hiring someone.

The ACA could help with this by separating health insurance from employment.