Current Events > How come employer/employee loyalty has disappeared?

(+) Yeah! (+)

You hear boomers talking about working overtime, working for free etc and they were rewarded by bosses with promotions and stuff, but that sounds like a fairy tale. Was that ever real and if so why has it gone now?
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Loyalty is overrated.

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Obama made it so companies can't afford to pay people overtime
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Because now businesses and corporations will just cut entire departments if it saves a few nickels. Loyalty is meaningless now, gotta look out for yourself. Your employer is not your friend and sees you only as a number.

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I mean, there are still plenty of careers where working harder is the fast-track to promotions, but in general you probably saw a lot of this stuff go away when pension started to get phased out. There's a direct correlation between the level of investment that companies seem to put into their workforce and the level of loyalty those individuals offer in return.

Plus I think with the advent of everybody going to college you started to see a shift towards individuals looking four new ways to stand out and I think that resulted in a shift towards career development as an investment in yourself and less as an investment in your job.

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There was an article a few years ago about how people use to spend 40 years at one company and now most people spend less than 10 before they move on. There's definitely been a culture shift.

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Because the goal of the game now is to have ever increasingly good looking quarterly earnings reports.

Oh you've been here for 20 years? but we can pay this new hire off the street 40% of what you're currently making AND have them do the work on top of other things so get fucked

capitalism, baby

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hmm lemme guess were all underpaid overworked and unappreciated

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Captain_Qwark posted...

The average working person used to be able to afford a house

The work force also used to be smaller, making each individual worker more valuable.

Employers and employees are still loyal

To the almighty dollar that is.

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wage is stagnating, cost of living is skyrocketing, people feel helpless and grinding away feels pointless

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The answer to your questions lies in the reaction to what Marx called the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Basically its an observed phenomenon where the ratio of profit to expense in capitalist enterprises tends to get smaller and smaller over time due to conditions like surplus supply being made, competition within marketplaces, and the value of labor increasing.

The only reliable way to counteract that tendency is to increase the labor productivity of the workforce and reduce the wages of your labor force, and then keep a surplus labor force of unemployed or underemployed workers (which helps to keep wages depressed, and the labor force from becoming too unproductive lest they be replaced).

This is simply capitalism working as intended. During our parents generation, the US and Soviets were the two main industrial powers left in the world because everyone else had been decimated by World War 2. Since developing countries now have the industrial power to compete with US markets, the rate of profit has begun to fall and the capital class must begin enacting those measures.

The result is what we see today - an about face of previously long-held company policies of loyalty to their employees, in an effort to keep their profit margins high enough to continue to attract investment capital (or in the place of privately held businesses, to keep the margins high enough to stay in business in a competitive market).

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It's mostly a Japanese thing. I've never heard of any Amercian, boomer or otherwise willingly working free overtime aside from busineses owners themselves. And employees are easily replaceable now so oftentimes it doeasnt matter if they stay or leave.

Also oftentimes it's easier and more beneficial for employees to just move to anothe company if they want higher pay instead of competing for a promotion for months that may never happen.

If people were more tied to a companys success via stocks for example this could change though. But most people.prefer the safety and consistancy of a normal salery instead.


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Prismsblade posted...

It's mostly a Japanese thing. I've never heard of any Amercian, boomer or otherwise willingly working free overtime aside from busineses owners themselves. And employees are easily replaceable now so oftentimes it doeasnt matter if they stay or leave.

Also oftentimes it's easier and more beneficial for employees to just move to anothe company if they want higher pay instead of competing for a promotion for months that may never happen.

If people were more tied to a companys success via stocks for example this could change though. But most people.prefer the safety and consistancy of a normal salery instead.

One year I would estimate I worked about 250 hours off the clock. It did get me a couple raises, at least.

For employees it's because staying in a company will mean less money than going to a competitor. For an employer it's because most skilled employees are a dime a dozen nowadays. What is it, 70% of people have college/university degrees now, compared to like 15% back in the day?

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Esrac posted...

The work force also used to be smaller, making each individual worker more valuable.

but we NEED open borders so people can come here to do the job Americans don't want to do.........

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there have been more people than jobs for quite a while now. cheaply replaceable beats expensive loyalty every time.

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I'm more sick of the younger generation just quitting their jobs with little notice. This hurts the department they worked in but they give no care.

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LightningAce11 posted...

How come employer/employee loyalty has disappeared?
You hear boomers talking about working overtime, working for free etc and they were rewarded by bosses with promotions and stuff, but that sounds like a fairy tale. Was that ever real and if so why has it gone now?

literally cos

boomers took over

Companies aren't loyal to you so it's laughable for them to expect loyalty from you.

3PiesAndAFork posted...

What is it, 70% of people have college/university degrees now, compared to like 15% back in the day?

The rate is more like 36% have a bachelor's in the US.

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It kind of sucks because I consider myself a hardworking, loyal employee but it only ever leads to me being taken advantage of and underappreciated. I can't physically let myself be lazy or a bad worker so I get screwed either way in the end.

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There was a cultural shift, and now words like "bitch" have a negative connotation.

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inloveanddeath0 posted...

I'm more sick of the younger generation just quitting their jobs with little notice. This hurts the department they worked in but they give no care.

Lmao! Why should they care about a company that treats them like just another number? So while I agree it should be common courtesy, they just do it out of spite for the shitty treatment. A few years ago half of the company I worked in jumped ship over to a new company that paid a bit more for the same positions and very few of us actually did the 2 week notice. A lot took pleasure in just quitting their very last day.

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JuanCarlos1 posted...

Lmao! Why should they care about a company that treats them like just another number? So while I agree it should be common courtesy, they just do it out of spite for the shitty treatment. A few years ago half of the company I worked in jumped ship over to a new company that paid a bit more for the same positions and very few of us actually did the 2 week notice. A lot took pleasure in just quitting their very last day.

He's talking about the co-workers that get fucked over by a sudden loss of an entire person, not the company.

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Back in the 70s and 80s you would get into a company or firm and you would stay with them for life.

you would work hard, but you knew that the firm will take care of you.

towards the end of the 80s or early 90s greed consumed the employers, and they realized they had too much power.

so these employees broke their side of the bargain, while still demanding a pound of your flesh anyway.

eventually employees caught up to the fact that this unspoken agreement and they began job-hopping and knew they couldnt rely on the firm , the firm only looks after itself

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TopKekBro posted...

Back in the 70s and 80s you would get into a company or firm and you would stay with them for life.

you would work hard, but you knew that the firm will take care of you.

towards the end of the 80s or early 90s greed consumed the employers, and they realized they had too much power.

so these employees broke their side of the bargain, while still demanding a pound of your flesh anyway.

eventually employees caught up to the fact that this unspoken agreement and they began job-hopping and knew they couldnt rely on the firm , the firm only looks after itself

Basically this. Like i said, boomers took over

inloveanddeath0 posted...

I'm more sick of the younger generation just quitting their jobs with little notice. This hurts the department they worked in but they give no care.

boo boo. As if their departments gave a fuck about them

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Loyalty is a two way stream. Why should I work for a place that turns people over every year and gives no shits about my satisfaction? Pensions are long dead.

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Verdekal posted...

Loyalty is a two way stream. Why should I work for a place that turns people over every year and gives no shits about my satisfaction? Pensions are long dead.

this too.

greedy boomers changed things. For example, some companies would rather kick themselves in the balls than give you a raise or promotion.

that is until you quit and go work for someone else, then then will be happy to re-hire you for a higher pay or role

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Esrac posted...

The work force also used to be smaller, making each individual worker more valuable.

Thats completely nonsensical. A larger workforce means a larger consumer base.

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If a company isn't going to bother taking care of me or investing in me why on Earth would I show them loyalty

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Godnorgosh posted...

I think what he means is that you once had a smaller reserve army of labor. Having larger reserves of unemployed people drives wages down and generally reduces job security for those still employed. This trend has sharpened considerably with globalization.

Ah, yeah. I guess what I should have said is immoral (on the employers part, as their profits have only increased).


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Godnorgosh posted...

I think what he means is that you once had a smaller reserve army of labor. Having larger reserves of unemployed people drives wages down and generally reduces job security for those still employed. This trend has sharpened considerably with globalization.

yeah.

when women entered the labor force the pool of workers essentially doubled. Of course its a good thing that they did, dont take it the wrong way.

then automation began taking its first heads back in the early 80s, for example, Chrysler started using these machines that would paint their cars manually, auto unions were furious. The labor side lost even more bargaining power and the labor pool got bigger (unlike women entering the work force, rampant automation is bad)

then the technology and logistics advancements started allowing companies to produce stuff overseas (unlike women entering the workforce, which was good, moving production to third world countries is bad).

then technology advanced even more and now even services have been outsourced to third world countries where people with PhD degrees and 15 years of experience get paid five dollars, three tomatoes and a pack of cigarettes per month and they even say thank you. You can imagine this did to wages, bargaining power and employer loyalty.

now employees actively sabotage the labor market, they present there are STEM shortages and flood the domestic market with PhD holders from third world places and pseudo-bachelor STEM degrees from colleges most employees dont know or even know for sure if they exist, but hey, you cant beat $20 an hour!


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Godnorgosh posted...

Just to be clear, I'm not a protectionist, and while simply describing these developments I'm not saying any of them is good or bad.

But to be clear on where I fall prescriptively:

* Women being able to enter the workforce and achieve their career goals is obviously good. The expectation under capitalism that because women entered the workforce households should need two incomes to survive is bad, particularly for households with children where families would benefit from either partner being able to stay home and dedicate themselves to domestic labor.
* Technological advancement is good in a vacuum as technology can improve our lives and enable us to work less. It is bad that under capitalism we use technology to extract greater profit from a smaller number of workers, accelerate the accumulation of capital and create larger reserve armies of labor while insufficient social safety nets are in place.
* Improving the lives of people in poorer countries for its own sake is good, but under capitalism the addition of people from poverty-stricken countries to the labor force too often has both the purpose and end result of driving down everyone's wages. Not to mention that these workers are still ruthlessly exploited for their cheaper labor.

exactly ! 10/10


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Employers realized that high turnover doesn't matter because someone will always be willing to take a job for less.

Employees realized they could make more money using their current job to leverage for a better paying position elsewhere, versus sticking with a company indefinitely only to get a 50 cent raise every year.

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RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Employers realized that high turnover doesn't matter because someone will always be willing to take a job for less.

Employees realized they could make more money using their current job to leverage for a better paying position elsewhere, versus sticking with a company indefinitely only to get a 50 cent raise every year.

This sounds spot on.

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Fuck loyalty, look out for yourself

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RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Employers realized that high turnover doesn't matter because someone will always be willing to take a job for less.

Employees realized they could make more money using their current job to leverage for a better paying position elsewhere, versus sticking with a company indefinitely only to get a 50 cent raise every year.

that was not the original unspoken agreement.

you would stay at a job forever because they would look after you: this means having a pension (thats gone), you would get promoted according to seniority (thats gone) and they would do their best never to fire anyone unless the fired person really messed up something (that is no longer the case).

once the companies/firms began not holding to their end of the bargain thats when job hopping to get bigger raises started making sense


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It has to go both ways

If one is not loyal to the other then it all falls apart. And nowadays the employer has to take the first initiative tbh

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Damn_Underscore posted...

It has to go both ways

If one is not loyal to the other then it all falls apart. And nowadays the employer has to take the first initiative tbh

they never will, why would they?

if you hit 32 youre becoming expensive and your health care will become expensive too and they will find a reason to fire you so they can hire a 22 year old from a randon 3rd world, which they will demand you train so he can substitute you or else they will destroy your chances of finding another job because theyre like a mob

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inloveanddeath0 posted...

I'm more sick of the younger generation just quitting their jobs with little notice. This hurts the department they worked in but they give no care.

I've been laid off twice in 3 years of work and I've didn't get any notice for that

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In the 80's the workforce grew enough that employers no longer had to be loyal anymore, simple as that. Pension jobs then eroded away in the private sector and it turned into a dog eat dog world.
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voldothegr8 posted...

In the 80's the workforce grew enough that employers no longer had to be loyal anymore, simple as that. Pension jobs then eroded away in the private sector and it turned into a dog eat dog world.

the counter to that became then become your own man, work for yourself, open your own business.

then corporate America caught up and has been working to make it impossible for small and medium businesses to survive, sometimes with government help.

this is the opposite from true capitalism

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