WORKERS HARD TO FIND

#LaborShortage #workers #employers #GreatResignation #BetterJobs #entrepreneurs
Evidence suggests that jobs are easy to find, and workers are hard to find.
So writes Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist and economist in a column also published April 10, 2022 in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Krugman points out that experts, including himself, have been telling the “Great Resignation” tale, saying the pandemic has forced lots of Americans to rethink work, their jobs, child care, going back to unpleasant environments etc.
But he now points out that he has changed his mind, as new data evolve.
He says Americans are switching jobs, but going to better ones. They are not leaving the labor force in large numbers (and collecting government checks to stay home). Instead, they are going to different work.
One reason Krugman cites, attributing to economist Dean Baker, is many workers are becoming self-employed. They are gig workers, to use current parlance.
Employment figures, naturally, do not include the self-employed. “Reshuffling has involved Americans concluding that they could improve their lives by starting their own businesses,” Krugman writes.
The second reason is immigration, or lack thereof, according to Krugman. An immigration crackdown over the last several years, enhanced by the pandemic, resulted in fewer available workers. To boost the economy, Krugman says, “we should really try to reestablish our nation’s historic role as a destination for ambitious immigrants,” he writes.
In decades past, it has been argued that too much immigration takes jobs from Americans and lowers wages for U.S. workers. Today’s immigration argument, though often not voiced aloud, is that it’s less about jobs and wages and more about demographics and potential new voting patterns.
Because the employment numbers are so hidden, they blur the status of the economy. If employers can’t find workers, or have lost the ones they had prior to the pandemic, those employers should spend more time evaluating how to better attract or retain workers, rather than complain about labor shortages allegedly caused by current government policy.
Workers are out there, albeit fewer than there were prior to the pandemic. There are not a lot of eligible workers sitting home collecting checks. They are working on THEIR terms, performing services that they know how to do, for those willing to pay for them.
If employers believe that different government policy can force workers back to old ways, they will be very disappointed when it doesn’t happen.
If you (desperate employer) know someone who used to work for you, but is now in his or her own business, ask that person why he or she made such a move.
Very likely, they will tell you chapter and verse why. You may not like the answer. But, if you are wise, you will learn something from it.
Starting a business when you’ve always been an employee is a big step. Not everyone who does so will succeed. But, even if they don’t, they may never return to what they used to do, or where they used to do it.
Remember, too, that workers have more choices than they’ve had in years. Most will take advantage of better opportunities that are presented to them. Some will succeed as their own bosses. Wishing it were different, if you are an employer, will not make it so.
Peter

GOALS, DEADLINES AND LIFE

#goals #deadlines #life #SteadyWork #entrepreneurs
We are all encouraged to set goals.
Placing a deadline on those goals can be tricky.
Yes, deadlines encourage urgency, and urgency will help you reach goals more quickly.
Timeline might be a better word than deadline.
Timeline sounds less urgent. But timeline implies flexibility. Deadlines are more firm.
This discussion is designed to allow people to go for whatever goal(s) they seek, without beating oneself up.
After all, reaching the goal, in most cases, is the most important thing. When it happens, in most cases, is less important. Ask yourself this: if I get to Level X, which I am shooting for, in five years instead of two, am I going to be upset that it took so long, or thrilled that I actually got there?
Indeed, most rewards know no deadline. But, no matter how badly you may want your rewards, deadlines may not necessarily produce them, even with your maximum effort.
Some deadlines are part of your goal. For example, if your goal is to beat your best time ever in a road race, that makes deadlines automatic, since you are shooting for a race time. What becomes less significant is in which race you beat your best time. Perhaps it won’t happen in THIS race, but that should not stop you from going for it in your NEXT race.
Parents, teachers or others may have taught or coached you to aim for “realistic” goals. Usually, they defined “realistic” in terms of, say, getting married, having a family, having “steady” work etc. As an adult, those things certainly can be part of your goals, but they aren’t for everyone.
In fact, real success is rarely spawned from “steady.” Real success is often created by thinking less about traditional life and more about the life ahead.
Also, “steady” not only may not exist everywhere, it may exist nowhere, in real terms.
If “steady” is what you seek, you may not be considering all horizons open to you.
For example, one can have a relatively steady job, while pursuing more entrepreneurial goals part time in his or her off-work hours.
Setting goals, working toward them and ultimately achieving them is a relatively simple process. It’s not necessarily an easy process, but the process itself may be simple. The “not easy” part may come with the person’s attitude and ambition toward getting it.
For others, knowing what one wants does not come easily. It requires thought. It requires cultivating an open mind. It requires creating a different attitude toward life, from the one that may have been ingrained in you as a child.
In short, knowing what you want may require effort in itself. But once you find out what that is, you have to compound that effort toward achieving it.
Creating goals, achieving them, then creating more goals is a lifelong process. In traditional “steady” work, that process usually stopped at retirement. When seeking things that are less steady, but potentially more lucrative, one never stops going for it (them).
Peter

THE DREAM OF BEING YOUR OWN BOSS

#BeingYourOwnBoss #entrepreneurs #BusinessOwners #freelancers
The trend is growing.
Americans say they intend to become their own boss, with all the flexibility that may entail.
According to MetLife study on employee benefits trends, 57 percent of workers say they are interested in becoming a freelancer, according to an article by Charisse Jones for USA Today. It was also published April 22, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The 57 percent, the article says, is up from 51 percent just last year.
Millennials were the most interested in such work, with 74 percent of those in that age group saying they were curious about becoming a freelancer. That compares to 57 percent of those in Generation X and 43 percent of Baby Boomers, the article quotes the study.
Certainly, the lack of job security working for someone else has contributed to this feeling. Younger folks can look forward to a work life of not knowing whether they will still have a job when the walk into work on a given day.
Younger folks, it seems, want more out of life than just working, working, working. But they may not realize that becoming a freelancer has many pitfalls.
First, until the U.S. can figure out how to make health insurance affordable, buying such insurance on the individual market is incredibly expensive.
Second, it’s been said that one doesn’t own a business. A business owns him or her. If you want to be successful as an entrepreneur, you can’t really tell yourself that you are only going to work X number of hours, with certain days off etc. You have to work when work finds you, and, you have to keep hustling to make sure you have enough work to make a living.
Third, there are duties that you have to do – or pay someone else to do – to keep your enterprise afloat. There is bookkeeping, keeping records for taxes etc. – the kind of work you may not like to do, or find boring.
In short, the flexibility you sought by not working for someone else may not be there for you.
Certainly, there are advantages.
There is something to be said for starting a business from the ground up, and making it successful.
Perhaps, eventually, it can be successful enough that you can pay others to do much of the work, so you can be more flexible.
Usually, though, that takes many years to achieve, and many, many hours of being chief cook and bottle washer.
Perhaps there is a happy medium – having a regular W-2 job that pays the bills, while using some of your own time – say, a few hours a week — building a business for yourself – one that potentially could allow you to eventually ditch the W-2 job and be on your own.
There are many vehicles out there that would allow you to do that. To check out one of the best, message me.
No matter how you decide to earn a living, there is good and bad about each. Independence is a lofty goal, but it’s not for everyone, or every situation.
Here’s a rule of thumb, as you contemplate how you construct your life: if it is to be, it’s up to me. Working for someone else has some benefits, but those benefits can be taken away at any time. Working for yourself has many benefits, but you have to know whether your skill has a market and, if you believe it does, be willing to go out to find it.
Write out your dreams for your life, then put together a game plan that will get you to those dreams.
Peter

BEST TIME TO START A BUSINESS

Decades ago, starting a business was hard.
You needed money – either your own, or investors’.
You needed sophisticated and expensive marketing – a big cost.
All of the above was hard to come by. If you failed, chances are you were devastated. If you failed, you probably would have decided to take your skills and ideas to an employer and help make HIM rich.
Today, as Darren Hardy, publisher of Success magazine puts it, starting a business has never been easier.
In a 2013 audio from his series, Hardy points out that the Internet and social media and the related technology makes starting a business easy. It’s relatively cheap, because you don’t need a lot of that sophisticated and expensive marketing. If you have a good idea, and a computer, you can tell the world about your idea relatively easily.
Because starting a business is relatively easy, and relatively inexpensive, failure is not as costly. If one idea fails, try another one. Chances are, you won’t be financially devastated by your first failure.
If you are entrepreneurial, you can keep trying things until one works. Entrepreneurs know that eventually, if they keep trying, they will succeed.
Couple the ease of starting a business today, with the difficulties in the workplace. Job security is almost impossible to find. Companies are looking for, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has put it, “cheap genius.” If they don’t find it nearby, they’ll find it somewhere in the world.
Your good ideas, taken to an employer, may be able to be replicated, even improved upon, by someone who will work for less money than you make.
If you are young and starting your career path, take a look at what you are good at, what you are passionate about, and think about how you could parlay that into your own business. There’s nothing wrong with working for someone else for a time, even a long time, especially if that person is helping you succeed. But chances are, if you are good at something, and are passionate about it, you’ll have the drive to strike out on your own if you choose.
Sometimes, it’s a matter of taking your passion and figuring out how you can use it to help others. Then, figure out how much others will pay you for helping them. If you are passionate about art, and have a talent for it, you don’t necessarily have to sell your drawings or paintings. But you might sell yourself as someone who could help, say, architects, stagers etc. Ideas, plus passion, plus drive might be a good formula for success in whatever endeavor you choose.
What if you have drive, but no ideas and no passion yet. Where do you go to find the idea and passion to which you could apply your great drive? There are many good business ideas already out there waiting for the people with drive to pursue them. To check out one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. All you need to be successful is the sense to see how good an idea it is, and the drive to share it.
Even though Hardy says it’s relatively easy to start a business today, whatever you pursue will require hard work. But if you are passionate, the work won’t seem so hard. As the saying goes, if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.
In these conditions, passion, plus idea, plus drive is the perfect formula. The passions and ideas can be found elsewhere. The drive has to be within you.
Peter

CLIFFHANGER, BUT ALL SHOW

It was a real cliffhanger.
But the politicians recently avoided a fiscal cliff that they had created. Yep, they even set up another one to come in a few weeks.
Besides disgust at those who supposedly serve us, there are other ways to feel about all this.
Getting down to brass tacks, or, should we say, brass tax, generally taxes only trend up no matter who we are, and how much we earn.
That said, we should not let taxes alone decide how we conduct our economic life.
We heard stories on talk radio and other places during the election campaign about people who were willing to expand their businesses, or open new franchises, but declined out of fear and uncertainty over the tax and regulatory atmosphere.
To those who will pass up expansion opportunities for these reasons, remember one thing: if the expansion opportunity is economically viable – in other words, if you would increase sales by expanding – if you don’t do it, someone else will.
Sure, you have to be conscious of costs. If the opportunities are marginal, or very high risk, caution is warranted. But if the need is there, and the market is there for what you do, you can figure out how to expand and still turn a good profit despite the tax and regulatory milieu. Or, someone else will.
IT’S WHO YOU ARE, NOT THE GOVERNMENT MILIEU
Such decisions have more to do with the type of person you are, than the so-called government interference. If you are the type who start businesses and employ people and try to get as much out of them for as little as you can get away with paying them, then it would make sense that you would be cautious about expanding. After all, you don’t want to be FORCED to take care of your people.
But if you are the type of person who succeeds by helping others succeed, and who realizes that your success is dependent on others, you would be less concerned with the tax and regulatory milieu and more concerned with whether your business will do better by expanding.
If you are not a business owner, but an employee of one, think about how you are treated at work. Does your boss help YOU succeed? Does he realize that YOU are helping make him rich, and reward you accordingly? Sure, every business is different, and rewards can come in various forms. No one will ever get rich by flipping burgers or making pizzas.
But if you are in those kinds of jobs, does your boss do the little things that help make your time there a little bit better? Does he realize that you are working hard, and do not plan to do this the rest of your life? Would he be proud the day you moved on to better things?
Or, is your boss the type to work you to death, and believe that he’s given you a job and you should be grateful? He knows you won’t do this the rest of your life, but, the day you leave, he curses you out for leaving him short of help.
The lesson here is that business people and entrepreneurs get more from their staffs by recognizing that they can’t do it alone. They appreciate everything their employees do for them. They treat them like family. Most of all, they work to make THEM successful, either in the line of work in which they are employed, or other, more advanced lines of work. They heed the words of the late Zig Ziglar, who said that if you help others get what they want, you’ll get what you want.
If you are an entrepreneur looking for a good business opportunity, or an employee looking to break away from what you are doing, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You may care about what goes on in Washington, D.C., because you want to be a good citizen. But you won’t worry about the tax or regulatory situation because it won’t matter to you. Imagine having a goal to have a six-figure TAX BILL! And, you’ll succeed only by helping others succeed with you.
You may watch manufactured cliffhangers on TV, but you will always be on solid, even wealthy, ground with all the friends you helped.
Peter