[driverdan]

If you can't get employees you're not paying enough. What you think you should pay employees is irrelevant, the market defines what "good pay" is. If potential employees have better opportunities you won't be able to hire them unless you make your jobs more appealing than others.

[thaack]

You would think it would be that black and white, and under normal circumstances I would tend to agree, however pay is well above average for the location and skill especially when you factor in the benefit package.

I really think it comes down to the fact that people have no interest in working in low skill manufacturing. The business loses people to Walmart etc. where they get lower pay and no benefits all the time. There is more variety of work and potential for advancement at a company like Walmart. Even at a larger scale low skill manufacturing plant advancement is sparse.

[genocidicbunny]

The pay may be above average for that location, but it might still be too low. Back when I had just finished college, my cohort was also judging locations where they would apply to work based on things like the social scene or the climate, in addition to the usual considerations of the kind of work and pay they would be doing. There were plenty that turned down well-paying jobs that were in undesirable locations because they were also seeking to not only establish a career, but a life too.

One of the guys I worked with at my first job was a few years older than me, and he had given up a much better paying job in one of the flyover states for a lower paying one in a higher COL area; His reasoning was that no amount of money could buy him the things he wanted out there, but he did admit that had the pay been significantly higher, he probably would have stuck it out for longer than he did, though again only to save up a bigger nest egg before he moved away from the area.

[EasyMark]

I dodged a job like this as well. Pay was great, benefits good, however I would have been maintaining legacy perl code and excel sheets (that were functionally databases), doing the same coding day in and out. I did it for a while, while looking for another position to get out of there as quickly as possible.

[ponector]

No, by paying high salary you are not going to retain smart people on dumb physically challenging job.

And they say they can get employees, as pay is decent for low skilled job.

[etskinner]

Did you miss where they said "it's downright impossible to find and retain reliable employees"?

[HDThoreaun]

So you see the problem. Americans wont work these types of jobs at wages that allow businesses to compete with China. Businesses are in a competition. When they raise wages they need to raise prices and they cant do that when competition is knocking at the door.