We've all seen the signs and memes. We've heard the cranky scorn from talking heads, business owners, politicians and old men yelling at clouds. No one (except them) wants to work anymore! Everyone (except them) is lazy! In this episode, we challenge the ironically lazy thinking behind these claims and ask those who feel this way to consider an alternative explanation: maybe people just don't want to work for you?
Mentioned in this Episode:
16:21 - A Brief History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
21:18 - Why so few teenagers have jobs anymore
24:40 - Exclusive: Hyundai subsidiary has used child labor at Alabama factory
Visit us at busynessparadox.com for the transcript to this episode. Check out some of our blog posts and other content while you’re there!
Come visit us at busynessparadox.com to see episode transcripts, blog posts and other content while you’re there!
We've all seen the signs and memes. We've heard the cranky scorn from talking heads, business owners, politicians and old men yelling at clouds. No one (except them) wants to work anymore! Everyone (except them) is lazy! In this episode, we challenge the ironically lazy thinking behind these claims and ask those who feel this way to consider an alternative explanation: maybe people just don't want to work for you?
Mentioned in this Episode:
16:21 - A Brief History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
21:18 - Why so few teenagers have jobs anymore
24:40 - Exclusive: Hyundai subsidiary has used child labor at Alabama factory
Visit us at busynessparadox.com for the transcript to this episode. Check out some of our blog posts and other content while you’re there!
Come visit us at busynessparadox.com to see episode transcripts, blog posts and other content while you’re there!
Frank Butler 0:19
Hello Busybodies, welcome to another episode of the Busyness Paradox. I'm Frank Butler here with Paul Harvey.
Paul Harvey 0:26
Good day, Frank.
Frank Butler 0:27
What's up? My man?
Paul Harvey 0:28
Not much Friday afternoon. Don't feel like working.
Frank Butler 0:31
What is it about people just not wanting to work today? Or just generally like nobody wants to work anymore.
Paul Harvey 0:38
I'm all in man. I'm joining joining the crowd. I want to do nothing. People just don't want to work anymore do that. They don't want to work anymore. That's what we keep hearing, isn't it?
Frank Butler 0:46
It is what we keep hearing. And you know, what? Isn’t it just frustrating to hear?
Paul Harvey 0:50
It's frustrating to hear, because it's, it's a bunch of BS.
Frank Butler 0:54
it is a bunch of BS. And if you're an avid listener of the show, you will know that we sort of have addressed this. Semi frequently, we always say, if you're complaining about people not wanting to work, it's just that they don't want to work for you. And there's myriad reasons for it. I think, you know, one is obviously a pay Issue, considering inflation and all those other factors and some of its just office culture. And there's more remote opportunities work from home opportunities. Now, again, that's for the sort of more as we would say, like white collar jobs or office type jobs.
Paul Harvey 1:27
A lot of this banter has been more about the, you know, the entry level jobs, the fast food.
Frank Butler 1:33
the grunt type jobs, right, the
Paul Harvey 1:34
The grunt work, yeah.
Frank Butler 1:35
not just grunt right. It's also the what are the what did we call them during the pandemic essential workers
Paul Harvey 1:40
Essential workers. Yes, we all those of us who were not essential workers, all sat at our houses safe and sound complaining about how people didn't want to work. It was a very productive era.
Frank Butler 1:40
Before we get too far into the specifics, though, the reason why this is starting to become more aggravating to me is that I'm hearing a lot of small to medium sized business owners and leaders making this exact complaint. And it actually was triggered from a message I got from, I'll just say that this person has identified a niche in a set of different markets based on his core business. And he's found some add on businesses. One of them being a porta-potty type business.
very much fall into the category of dirty work, literally, yes.
dirty work, and then another as a hotdog stand. And I appreciate this investment into this because it makes a lot of sense. I think he's being very savvy on that end
Paul Harvey 2:32
worth pointing out that he has reason to think what he thinks
Frank Butler 2:36
Yes.
Paul Harvey 2:37
what you're about to say, it's not we're not saying this guy is stupid. That's what frustrates us. Yes. There's so much of this narrative out there.
Frank Butler 2:44
Yeah. And I understand where he's coming from, you know, part of it is he saying people don't want to work anymore. But you got to look at the nature of what's going on. From a macro perspective, the unemployment rate, currently, is sitting at what 3.6%. And in Tennessee for examples, 3.3%.
Paul Harvey 3:02
Now the labor participation rate is, you know, higher than usual. But that's part of the issue.
Frank Butler 3:09
Yes.
Paul Harvey 3:09
not that people don't want to work. They don't, aren't willing to work under the more miserable conditions that we've always been able to count on some portion of society being willing to do.
Frank Butler 3:19
that, I think is exactly the key, you got to look at the type of job kind of going back to why this is starting to frustrate me. I'm hearing a lot of small to medium sized business owners and managers making this exact complaint. And the challenge I have with that is that is shading, or clouding their judgment when it comes to personnel decisions, and how they're treating their approach to hiring and paying employees. You know, thinking about the hot dog business, or the porta-potty business, right, we talked about the dirty jobs side of it, but then the hotdog business is not necessarily an ongoing business, it's more event based. And you know, there's a lot of costs with going in that because if you're having to go to event location, event location, that means you're putting a lot more miles on your car versus going to a fixed place. And it's inconsistent work. At the end of the day, people want consistent work, and they're able to get it right now. So let's back up and look at this from a big picture. If you are complaining about people not wanting to work, or you can't get quality people, you need to really look hard at your culture, and that your hiring practices and what are you doing? What are you offering? Is it competitive? And are you being really clear about what you need? And are you willing to pay for it at this point?
Paul Harvey 4:33
And that's the thing. That's what's so frustrating. I hear too, like you said often from smaller businesses, that guy just, I can't fill whatever this job is, you know, low skill, low paid job. I used to always hire college kids in the summer or whatever. I can't find anyone no one wants to work anymore. They have this ready made excuse being fed to them by whoever, whoever politicians, media personalities and such. And it's such a convenient way Out of like, oh, that's why because no one else wants to work anymore. Everyone knows that you hear it all the time. And it's not true.
Frank Butler 5:05
It is not true.
Paul Harvey 5:07
you could argue a large amount of people are more motivated than ever, to work to earn money to do all sorts of things. It's just harder to find someone who's so hard up and has so few options that they'll take something close to minimum wage, for very unpleasant work at inconsistent hours, at inconvenient times. All those things can't be treated, the fulfilment of those types of jobs as a given for so long, that when suddenly it becomes difficult, we assume that the world is going haywire. And the world has gone haywire in a lot of ways, but that's not one of them. That's not one of them. This is a sign of things actually going right. People are able to say at least right now, and during the last few last year or so that you know, I want to work craft jobs for correct wages, gonna hold out for something else.
Frank Butler 5:52
Yeah, and that's the other thing, too, is that people are able to switch jobs, because again, look at the unemployment rate, and kind of coming back to that, there's 11 point 3 million open jobs, and 5.9 million people under unemployed. Wow. So it's almost two to one ratio, almost to one. That alone indicates that people have the ability to be mobile, they have the ability to be flexible, and they're not going to just work the crap jobs if they don't absolutely have to know here's, you know, you mentioned something, I just want to kind of latch on to that for a second. People can't just not work. I don't know where people think that happens. If you get fired from a job, you might get unemployment, but you only get under unemployment. If you've been working at that place for a certain amount of time, all the benefits from the pandemic are gone. There are no longer these unemployment benefits that are there anymore. There's not I mean, trust me when I say there wasn't enough out there that's got people where they can just sit around and not work at this point. Living off those residuals, it's just not going to happen.
Paul Harvey 6:48
Even the extent that might have been ever a little tiny bit true. It was a long time ago tend to move on
Frank Butler 6:53
11 point 3 million jobs are open 5.9 people are unemployed. Now there are 6.6 million people who are considered to be unemployed, underemployed, rather, those are the ones who are working those hourly jobs who want to work more hours or a more skilled job, more skilled job might still be hourly, but a more straight up, right. And if you look, I mean, just look at your local Walmart and how many people are working in that local Walmart picking groceries and shopping items for people now doing the curbside delivery, and they're getting paid at least $15 an hour. And they don't have to deal with customers directly. They're pickings. They get their earphones in, they go and they buy groceries for people. How much better is that than going and working at a restaurant when you're going to deal with some crappy customers right now? Or working a porta potty business where you're literally working with poop? Or how about serving hot dogs, which is a lot like being in the restaurant business where you have to deal with oftentimes crappy customers. So you think about these types of businesses. And there's better opportunities out there simply by looking at the number of unemployed or the open jobs, but just how easy people are able to move from one job to another. I mean, it just it's out there. It's available.
Paul Harvey 8:00
And that's why you're seeing things that unthinkable couple of years ago, like Union drive successful ones happening at Amazon Starbucks. Unthinkable until very recently. Yeah, that's a sign of people who who have options.
Frank Butler 8:12
Exactly. That's, that's so valid to right now people have options. And the thing is, is that they can press for better conditions. You know, you think about these baristas mean, I remember that folks who still work at Starbucks for years, because it was a it was a pretty good job, right. And I think they continue to take back and take away and take away some of the things that made Starbucks a great place to work for, especially if you weren't like highly educated necessarily, or you were maybe educated but in a field that wasn't hiring.
Paul Harvey 8:42
Ask us a lot of people were highly educated just Yeah.
Frank Butler 8:46
yeah. But, you know, it just it blows my mind. And so here again, if you are a business manager, or owner, and this is your stance, you really need to take a read just the hard hard look at yourself and your business and what is it that you're doing? Are you offering a crappy job, for example, and I'll use another example I have a have a company come out the prior owners of this house installed a very awesome water filtration system and our our drinking water is it's like, amazing, I It's hard to drink water anywhere else. It's so good coming out of our FOSS. I mean, I kid you not, it's amazing. But I do have them come out once a year just to kind of make sure all the cartridges are changed, you know, the filters are changed, they clean the system real nice. I mean, they make sure that the salts working properly to soften the water, all that, you know, whatever that chemistry that goes on with that. And the guy who came out and did the work this time because we just can't nobody wants to work. We just can't get anybody and I was like, Ah, here we go again, right? I'm like thinking about the job you're in, you're in a customer focused job. You're going into you know people's crawl spaces or into parts of the house where the water is coming in out where the water filtration systems going to be at. That's not necessarily always the most pleasant All right. And then you have to be nice to people who might not be so nice to you because they spent a bunch of money for this water filtration system
Paul Harvey 10:06
and never changed the filter for like three years now they think it's your fault is not working.
Frank Butler 10:10
Yes, exactly. And you have to be on the road a lot. But why would you want to do that for that pay? Is that worth it versus going and working for Amazon where you're going to get guaranteed? You know, maybe it's six hours, but you're guaranteed $15 an hour.
Paul Harvey 10:22
the irony, a job where you're going into someone's house and improving their drinking water? And that's a meaningful job, right? Yep. And yet, we've had this assumption that, you know, someone will do the grunt work for real cheap. Yeah, it's, it's really, it's, it's a feature, not a bug, improved economy, and like this income inequality that everyone always says they want. This is some of the adjustment you have to make, when you start to achieve that kind of thing. Yeah, the grunt work that people used to do for cheap, they don't want to do for cheap, they didn't want to do it for cheap before. But now they don't have to. So when you say no one's no one wants to work, you're just leading yourself down the wrong path. Or you're, you're complaining about a problem that doesn't exist, and simultaneously not solving the one that does exist?
Frank Butler 11:02
So well put, that's perfect. God, isn't that the truth, though?
Paul Harvey 11:10
Just become aware of that, you know, the environment has changed. And it's a good change. You know, frankly, it might not stay this way, you know, our elected leaders in the Fed are doing all they can to squash the the income gains that were made by these workers during the pandemic, but at least for the time being, you know, they have it better than they did before. And that means, and I understand that it changes the economics of something. If I pay the water filter, change your person, $15 an hour, then I have to charge customers more, and then I lose business. And then, you know, there may be some truth to that, like, ultimately, it comes to those of us who are paying the people who pay the people, we may have to pay more for something, we already do have to pay more for some services, inflation and whatnot. Yep. But so it's not just on that, you know, it's, they need to be able to turn around and go to their customers and say, Look, I pay my employees 30% More than I used to, that means my service costs more than it used to.
Frank Butler 12:03
There was a study done in Australia, just recently that looked at what's having the most impact on inflation. And they found that the number one impact on inflation was corporate corporations driving profits, not wage increases, and so on. So I'll have to go back and find that study. But I thought it was very interesting that their findings
Paul Harvey 12:21
I’m a little bit pessimistic about the methodology there, but it doesn't really matter. I mean, CEOs companies have come out and said, Yeah, we raised our prices, because we could I don't mean it. What I wonder is like, yeah, I don't think it's really possible to know exactly what the extent to which that's driving things, but it is driving things driving. Right, exactly. It's one of the things that's driving inflation.
Frank Butler 12:42
Exactly. Well, anyway, neither here nor there. I mean, there is inflation, you have to keep up with wages, people have opportunities to go get more pay. I think I just saw something from the Bureau of Labor Statistics come out that said something that payrolls are up 5.7% Already this year. Wow. Up to this point, which
Paul Harvey 12:57
actually, we did an episode late 2021, where we talked about study that was predicting exactly that, like a 5.5%. wage increase in 2022.
Frank Butler 13:07
Yep, here it is. compensation costs up 1.3%, march 2022, to June 2022. And up 5.1%, over the year ending June 2022. That's just fresh off the press. You go from this morning, actually, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Paul Harvey 13:20
9%, inflation took it all away, and then some, yeah, yeah. But I mean, that's an important point, too, that wages go up across the board, especially at the lower levels, that is going to drive a price increase, which will show up as inflation. It's there are costs to a rising tide, you know.
Frank Butler 13:37
I this is going to be a completely random to the side. But I really do think part of it, too, is that we're feeling the ramifications from going to lean in our manufacturing and organizational processes, right? Oh, we consolidate all our manufacturing down to a single point, you know, where we have a single distribution network analysis, and what's one of those kinks happen? ditches a ripple effect across the whole thing. And now, you know, you're compounding supply chain shortages, because now we have a pandemic that got people sick, and they couldn't work and, you know.
Paul Harvey 14:05
consolidation of everything and manufacturing in China. Yep. And then they do a zero COVID shutdown for three weeks. And yeah, it's just there's literally no stuff in the supply chain. Right.
Frank Butler 14:14
And so I think that doesn't help with the inflation, right? Because people want this stuff or need this stuff still. And so they're bidding it up. And you know, it's that scarcity idea. And that's where price elasticity is kick in, hey, if we have not enough, we can raise prices higher to drive down to the point where it meets the demand that we can provide the supply for basic economic principles. So
Paul Harvey 14:33
does that make sense? You almost have to Yep. Yeah. Yep.
Frank Butler 14:36
It's not much more to it than that. And if you guys want more information on that discussion on the macroeconomic principles of it, and what have you, we'd be happy to talk more about it but if we
Paul Harvey 14:47
did an episode a few months ago on inflation Yeah, we did. I don't remember off top my head what the episode number was, but we'll put it in the show notes.
Frank Butler 14:54
It's it's an it's a good one too. I mean, it's really on point.
Paul Harvey 14:58
One of our more popular episodes as I recall.
Frank Butler 15:00
yeah, I think you're right. At the end of the day, we've got all these factors and influences going on, that are having an impact on your ability to attract talent, attract workers. And again, part of it's gonna be your pay that you're offering. Part of it's gonna be the consistency of work that you can offer, I would think that's gonna be a big part for especially hourly workers. And then, of course, looking at the nature of the job, if you're going to have a job where somebody's actually literally moving poop around, you probably need to pay him poop money, like real money to take care of poop, because I don't know about you guys. But if I'm going to be working with poop, you got to be paying me like it. Especially if I have other options out there.
Paul Harvey 15:34
I'm not sure that there's enough money to pay me actually.
Frank Butler 15:38
But I'm not Mike Rowe doing dirty jobs here. So that's, you know, I don't get paid that kind of money.
Paul Harvey 15:42
I've done my share of Dirty Jobs never quite that dirty. But
Frank Butler 15:44
it's pretty. It's pretty dirty one.
Paul Harvey 15:47
But to your point, there's so many factors going into this equation. The only thing I could really definitively say is not a factor is people not wanting to work. There's like 100, different things you need to understand. Not one of those things is the thing that a lot people are focusing on. And I can't remember the name of the podcast, or someone had really put this very well, when he said, talking about the same thing. This like false idea that people don't want to work, because they're too lazy. He says the irony is that that is a very lazy way of thinking, like the laziest explanation is that people are too lazy to work. Well, that's what it is.
Frank Butler 16:21
I don't think people step back and really look at the big picture anymore. Right? And I think that's the big trouble the big problem that we're seeing, or if they do they don't connect the dots, they're not connecting the dots, right? It's not Yeah, funnily enough, there was a Twitter feed not long ago that talked about how people don't want to work. And he went through history of people not wanting to work. And it's like, every 10 years, we have the same people don't want to work in his like newspaper clippings. And it's hilarious. And if I can find it, we'll make sure to drop it in the show notes.
Paul Harvey 16:45
You’ve got to find that.
Frank Butler 16:46
But it's literally like I have five people send it to me, they're like, check this out. It was like literally every 10 years, it's people don't want to work. People don't want to work. And it always happens, I think coincide when we have low unemployment. It's miraculous how that interest, right?
Paul Harvey 16:59
Yeah, we got to put that up on the website. But we got to run with that.
Frank Butler 17:02
Yeah, it's somewhere I know, he's got it somewhere in my notes somewhere. So again, if your mindset is that people don't want to work, lose that mindset, think about now the other message I had received about people not wanting to work, but is also the quality of worker, well guess what if you're gonna have to go to the lowest common denominator, because you're unwilling to pay more. So you're gonna have to deal with, you know, maybe less than perfect type, or ideal type of workers that you were expecting.
Paul Harvey 17:25
is just saying, I'm going to coin right now, for the first time in human history. No one's ever thought this before you get what you pay for
Frank Butler 17:31
valid. Now, I was gonna go a slightly different way. But I do agree do get what you pay for. But if you're not going to pay, well, then you better be willing to spend a lot more time training people in the way you want them and expect them to be at work. It might be difficult with some people, especially if you're, if you're at that point where you're not paying well, and you've got a poop job. And that person's you know, not what you were expecting, it might cost you more just to train that person to hit the point of what you need for a quality worker. And guess what happens when you get to that point, they find another job in another job, because now you've trained them well enough, and you're unwilling to continue to care for them in an appropriate way. So if you are a small business owner, medium sized business owner, manager doesn't matter, or a large one or large one even Yes, some large ones suffer from the same insanity. Huh?
Paul Harvey 18:24
yeah, it's actually kind of that'd be interesting to get feedback. I get the sense that within larger companies for come up with whatever reasoning you want to, there just seems to be less of this assumption. I never hear someone say, Oh, I can't hire any interns because they don't want to work. You know, I don't know if they've got enough economist on staff. I don't know what the explanation is. But yeah, it's the it's the smaller Mom and Pop type business owner, that's, they're aware of what's going on in the world and inflation and unemployment, whatever. But they're here now is I used to be able to hire people at this reopener this job and now again, and a good explanation that I keep hearing is people don't want to work.
Frank Butler 19:01
You got to you got to keep up with the times. You got to let in Listen, don't I think one of the things that frustrates me the most is when people go to one new source or maybe a couple of news sources, but they're very much not work, business focused type news sources, right? Like Wall Street Journal tends to provide pretty reasonable coverage of things.
Paul Harvey 19:25
About the closest I… of the mainstream press, that's the closest I've found on these types of topics to
Frank Butler 19:32
being kind of.
Paul Harvey 19:32
you know, reasonably objective.
Frank Butler 19:34
Bloomberg is not bad. Most of the time. There's some things that they've been sort of fishy on but for the most part.
Paul Harvey 19:40
like, how’s that China investigation coming
Frank Butler 19:44
and they just need to give it up and apologize for that one and recount that story that really needs to be recanted
Paul Harvey 19:50
for anybody, just quickly, that was the one where they claimed that they had been finding or somebody's been finding chip, computer chips implanted in devices me Made in China to like spy on people at a very brash claim and really haven't have yet years years out now, I've never provided an iota of evidence.
Frank Butler 20:09
Nope, it was a cover story and everything too. And it's just like you guys are me talk about trying to damage your reputation. And you don't believe people believe that stuff too, because they never see that wasn't recanted, or, you know, whatever. But neither here nor there, it's frustrating. Now, here's, here's one that actually was a new angle that I hadn't really considered, until I had a conversation with my mom the other day, and I was telling her that we were about to record this episode on people not wanting to work. And she's like, Well, I was at the dealership, getting the oil change in the car, and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, there was this lady there. And she's down from Chicago. They just moved here and data, you know, and of course, you know, I'm not going to waste everybody's time on that. But the lady had commented that she's like, the kids don't want to work. There's no teenagers working. And so that led to the question of, well, people don't want to work. What about the teens? Where are they, you know, that hotdog stand? What about the teenagers for the hotdog stand? Well.
Paul Harvey 21:08
to your Twitter feed story, every 10 years is comes up. It always, it's always the youth, or suddenly, it's the young people who suddenly have decided every 10 years that they
Frank Butler 21:18
are lazy. Yeah, sorry. No, you're fine. It's, it's good that you interjected that because that is a very important thing. But one of the things that was said here is that there's a lot more demand on the time of a teenager these days, working harder in school and less free time as a whole. This person Lauren Bauer said that high school has become more intense. Now, this is out of a CNBC article from 2019. But this hasn't changed. And one of the things that they put in here is that you're seeing more teenagers enrolled in school and more schools are in session year round. And, you know, that's taking away time from working. But on the flip side, it does say that graduation rates are up right now we're dealing with also a smaller graduating group anyway, because we're dealing with smaller numbers as we're going along. So we got to talk about lots of other macro things, right, baby boomer generation retiring or exiting the workforce, we have a smaller incoming group into the workforce
Paul Harvey 22:21
Keep in mind too, this incoming group has been largely told since birth that like this grunt work, quote, unquote, is bad. You want to focus all your time on getting into a good college and college, blah, blah, which is part of the reason we're in such a mess now, because no one knows how to swing a hammer. So yeah, yet another factor that has nothing to do with laziness. Yeah, coming into play.
Frank Butler 22:44
And here's here's another tidbit of in its it's like, in addition to time constraints on kids. Now, I'm quoting this directly, in addition to that time constraints on kids a reduced demand for low wage work, and an increased competition from older workers, among other factors have also contributed to the sharp drop in labor force participation. And this was done by the Brookings Institute a study now by the younger, the by the younger people. Yes, yeah. So this is why you're seeing less tz. So if you keep that in mind, right? The notion is that broadly, there's just not as much time for them work as there used to be, there's so many more things that they're involved in from academic aspects, even extra curricular, which make it hard for them to necessarily work. And think about it, too. What people probably don't realize is how much of this was driven from the switch from a single working parent. You know, in the two parent household with one parent going to work, and having somebody to take care of the kids to now two parents working, the kids need more extracurricular activity, so the parents can work their full time jobs to make the ends meet in today's environment. We talked about this a little bit in the past, with the with the ones which one was it was the manufacturing working shorter hours manufacturing was a paper that covered just exactly that. That was like, as we switch to two worker households. A lot of things changed with that, right, needing more after aftercare programs. We're seeing more year round educational programs, those kinds of things. And those are those things that we've we've contributed to that. So we've kind of inadvertently taken our own kids.
Paul Harvey 24:17
That’s exactly right. We've taken them out of the workforce, and then we complain that they don't want to work anymore. Figure, yeah.
Frank Butler 24:25
Oh, talk about what is the tail wagging the dog or whatever it is.
Paul Harvey 24:32
That's why my daughter works 20 hours a week at a clothing factory at the age of five and a half. I don't want this to happen to her.
Frank Butler 24:38
Right.
Paul Harvey 24:39
I've said too much.
Frank Butler 24:40
I think there's I think it was either the Hyundai dealership, the Hyundai manufacturing or key I can't remember which one in Alabama. They found 12 year olds are working. Really? Yeah, actually. I bet I can pull this up really fast because I know exactly where I sent it. Okay. He so this says exclusive Hyundai subsidiary has used child labor at Alabama factory. Now this was July 22nd So this is a week ago, but they were saying that this subsidiary, use child labor and a plant that supplies parts for the Korean automakers assembly line in nearby Montgomery, Alabama. underage workers, in some cases as young as 12 have recently worked at a metal stamping plant. I mean, f f s. And if you don't know what that means, Google
Paul Harvey 25:22
how, you know, just on the surface of this, I haven't heard this before just now. I have to hope that this is like some crazy media creation because how could you do that and not expect to get caught? Like no one's going to mention that there's 12 year olds working in a metal stamping plant. That's insane. Was it like some guy's nephew or something came in
Frank Butler 25:42
when it was like bring your kids to work day or something like that? Like I hope that's explanation talks about this guy. Pedra sees children tz eyes children, who are now enrolled for the upcoming school term, were among a large cohort of underage workers who found jobs at the Hyundai own supplier the past few years. Several of these minors they said have forgotten schooling in order to work long shifts at the plant. I mean, boy have oh, a sprawling facility with a documented history of health and safety violations, including amputation hazards good let's amputate our kids aren't limbs off when they're young.
Paul Harvey 26:16
You're gonna have, metal stamping plant, you're gonna have hair on your chest. That's right, fingers off your hand, hair on your chest.
Frank Butler 26:22
I don't even know what to say at this point. Just I'm, I'm out. I'm just blown away. This is the United States folks. This is the United States.
Paul Harvey 26:33
I'm kind of impressed by the audacity.
Frank Butler 26:36
FFS.
Paul Harvey 26:37
So next time someone tells you that kids these days, they don't want to work. Say “shut up!There's 12 year olds working at a metal stamping plant in Alabama, doing harder work than you've probably ever done.”
Frank Butler 26:49
You go I love it. That's the that's the retort right there. No, but truly, it's time to drop this rhetoric of people not wanting to work. That's not been an issue. It's you got to look carefully at the job. Yeah.
Paul Harvey 27:02
All it does is make people angry at each other for no good reason. As to like class divides, it’s a form of prejudice.
Frank Butler 27:07
information. It's like, you know, there's so much facts out and the facts are out there. If you have a almost a two to one ratio of open jobs to people who are unemployed, that literally means that people have a choice in where to work, they can move. So they're going to make choices about where they want to work, and about a job that might be a better fit for them, or at least be less frustrating, especially like I mean, come on, we've talked about poop, really, I can't even imagine working, being a waiter or waitress in a restaurant anymore, simply because people have gotten just unruly out there, and they don't tip for crap. So why would you put your money on 2.85 an hour. And you don't have to deal with these folks in an inconsistent, right, like lunch crowd and dinner crowd. If you can work those is great. But then you got this whole period where you get maybe a few bucks and tips between those two periods. Screw that you have 285 na.
Paul Harvey 28:01
Yeah. Got to do your time in the off hour shifts. Finally get the money shifts. Yeah, yeah, I get it. So I think if you're hearing if you're aware of this problem, and you know, you've been led to believe that people are too lazy to work, like you were saying before, check where you're getting your information from no, sorry, no, MSNBC, no Fox News. If someone's talking about workforce shortages, and mentions or comes to that conclusion for you that you know, people don't want to work anymore, you're getting your news from the wrong place.
Frank Butler 28:31
You know what you need to be coming to the Busyness Paradox, and listens to us for the right source where we're not going to be acid at all, we're going to give it to you straight, because we want to make sure that we're making this a better place for our workers for us for everybody. And we're not going to be acid. Bottom line. We filter it all for you, folks. Sorry, I interrupted you. You were on your rolling, but man, I was like I had to get that in. Like we are the source of truth now.
Both 28:54
We are the truth!
Frank Butler 28:56
We couldn't have planned that any better. I'd be Wow. That was impeccable timing there. So with that, folks, you know, we'd love to hear your complaint about that. But I don't know. I'm all out of F's to give at this point for people saying that people don't want to work quite honestly, I It frustrates me and it just kind of I mean, he's got in my craw a little bit. This time. I was like we have to do this. And Paul's like, yes, we have to do this is so frustrating to see it come up time and time again because it's Oh, untrue.
Paul Harvey 29:29
It's not just that people are wrong and like if you get frustrated because people are wrong, it's because it has ramifications. Yes, it's harming our society and preventing us from getting back to, you know, some pre pandemic normal illness because we've got stupid division, nothing based on nothing.
Frank Butler 29:44
Anyway, so folks, hopefully we change the mindsets in the process with this one. And if you know somebody who has said something along the lines of people don't want to work, share this episode with them and hopefully it will change their mind because I will go back to what we've said in the past. If you're saying And it's you're the person who's hiring. It's not that people don't want to work, it's they don't want to work for you. Because whatever your job is, and whatever you're paying, does not equal working at someplace else that actually might provide either better benefits, better hours, whatever, it doesn't matter, you've got to start really rethinking your personnel situation. I don't want to see small businesses suffer and medium sized, but even large sized businesses suffer because they're making poor decisions about their people.
Paul Harvey 30:27
Maybe that means you have to charge your customers more, well tell your customers that you're charging more because you're paying your employees better to PR when anyone who drops you as a client sucks. And you didn't need that person business anyway, easy for me to say.
Frank Butler 30:41
Now think about it this way too. They're gonna go try to find a cheaper player. And that cheaper player is going to have the less qualified employees. And so the surface isn't going to be as good. So you know, it's a competitive advantage at the end of the day, too. So there you go, folks, free business consulting advice. I'll send you a bill down the road. If you send me your address.
Paul Harvey 30:59
We've started paying our our unpaid interns more, so it's gonna be kind of a big bill.
Frank Butler 31:04
A 100% raise from zero man, I'll tell you what
Paul Harvey 31:06
which is still zero because you know, 100% you know, math is.
Frank Butler 31:11
I love it. I love it zero times anything, except for zero. So, thanks, folks. appreciate you listening. I hope you all are getting your raises that you deserve. Not I think we had an episode about asking for a raise. So no, go listen to that. And hopefully that will help you approach your manager right now. And with that, good day.
Paul Harvey 31:30
Good day.
The Busyness Paradox is distributed by Paul Harvey and Frank Butler. Our theme music is adapted from "It's Business Time" by Jemaine Clements and Bret McKenzie. Our production manager is Justin Wuntaek. We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and we'd love to hear from you. Please send any questions, comments or ideas for future episode topics to input@busynessparadox.com, or find us on Twitter. Also, be sure to visit our website, busynessparadox.com, to read our blog posts and for links to the articles and other resources mentioned in today's show. Finally, please take a moment to rate and follow or subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Podcasts or...I don't know, wherever the heck you get your podcasts.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai