It's a good time to find a Detroit-area job, ask for a raise, survey shows

[Jimaz]

From today's Free Press: It's a good time to find a Detroit-area job, ask for a raise, survey shows

About 54% of the top area executives responding to a new Detroit Professional Employment Forecast From Robert Half said they're more willing to negotiate salary with new hires than they were 12 months ago. About 6% are less willing....

• About 25% of Detroit's chief financial officers surveyed indicated that they're planning to create new professional-level positions in the next six months. Those could be jobs in accounting, human resources, administrative, legal, marketing and information technology fields.
• Another 68% said they'd maintain staff levels and fill jobs that become vacant when existing employees move on or retire.
• About 92% of CFOs expressed that they were confident about their firm's business prospects for the next six months.

The local results are based on interviews with 100 CFOs from companies in the Detroit area with 20 or more employees....

Based on the survey, 6% of respondents will not be hiring, even to fill an open position, and 1% plan to reduce staff levels....

Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody's Analytics, said hiring and job postings are steadily increasing across most industries, occupations, and regions of the country.

“Wage growth has begun to edge higher, and if current trend lines remain intact, which they should, the wage gains will be strong and broad based by this time next year,” Zandi said.

Despite their help-wanted signs, customers are starting to walk out of a local Tim Horton's because they're so understaffed. That may be annoying but it's a sure sign that business needs more workers. Yea!

[brizee]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's horseshit.

Yeah it's anecdotal but...

1. Entry level engineers in this areas are being fed a line. I can speak from personal experience.

2. I once worked in the placement office for an educational institution. We placed manufacturing engineers, machinists and IT entry level. Even then we had managers doing tv interviews stating they had so many jobs they couldn't fill. The number of students/former students we had coming by begging to sniff a chance at a job...

Media outlets should be ashamed of running this stuff.

[Willi]

TOO many hiring idiots are stuck in Park over some """job title""
A person who finished high school, can add/subtract/mutiply and read, is LABOR ready.
The person who got an associates degree or a bachelors degree is ready for hire.
Who cares what the job is called, THINK if a warm body could fill that slot, and put people to work.

[313WX]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's horseshit.

Yeah it's anecdotal but...

1. Entry level engineers in this areas are being fed a line. I can speak from personal experience.

2. I once worked in the placement office for an educational institution. We placed manufacturing engineers, machinists and IT entry level. Even then we had managers doing tv interviews stating they had so many jobs they couldn't fill. The number of students/former students we had coming by begging to sniff a chance at a job...

Media outlets should be ashamed of running this stuff.

I tend to agree with you.

For example, try applying for a job at fast food restaurant and see if someone calls you back to hire you. It seems to be something unique to Michigan establishments to try and operate efficiently with skeletons crews, which is why the fast food restaurants around here aren't very fast...

And if you do land a job, prepare for the sticker shock when you see how ridiculously low your pay will be. I saw a posting yesterday where someone wanted to hire an experienced Personal Assistant for only $11/hr. I also saw another ad where someone wanted to hire an Attorney for only $55K...

[animatedmartian]

I tend to agree with you.

For example, try applying for a job at fast food restaurant and see if someone calls you back to hire you. It seems to be something unique to Michigan establishments to try and operate efficiently with skeletons crews, which is why the fast food restaurants around here aren't very fast...

And if you do land a job, prepare for the sticker shock when you see how ridiculously low your pay will be. I saw a posting yesterday where someone wanted to hire an experienced Personal Assistant for only $11/hr. I also saw another ad where someone wanted to hire an Attorney for only $55K...

I don't know. I went to a few fast food joints [[and other retail establishments) this summer that were full of new hires. None of the employees knew what they were doing especially when it came to customers who were regulars. Having more workers doesn't improve service if all of those workers are still in training. I actually had to wait longer with all the new hires they had than with the experienced skeleton crews they usually have.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Some of these jobs pay is ridiculously low. I saw on the news the other day where these FireFighters in California working to control those wildfires are working 18-20 hr shifts, are away from their families for days at a time, are consistently tired and dirty and only make $11.00 per hr.
Here they are putting their life on the line, they deserve to be paid more than that. Yet, you got some clown sitting behind his desk for a big corporation, making a six figures to a million dollars per yr. Inequality and greed has ruined this country and will continue to do so.

[Hypestyles]

Since finishing out a degree, I've been slavishly filling out job apps and regularly looking for new work [[Michigan and elsewhere) for the past 2 years with a bachelor's degree and vocational/tech diploma and I've had zero success so far. It sucks to try and segue to a new career, especially when you're trying to get out of paraprofessional work..

[Cincinnati_Kid]

^^ Just goes to show you college is no guarantee for the good life anymore. Most people that graduate now work in fields other than what they went to college for, because they're aren't any jobs available. Not to mention trying to pay back those student loans for those that borrowed. I don't believe those press clippings from media sources like the Freep, because it's all hyperbole, and if you are lucky enough to get one, the pay is peanuts. 40 years ago, you could quit a good paying job on Monday and have another one by Friday. Not the case anymore.

[That Great Guy]

On August 5, 2014 we voted YES to give SMART a raise. An organization which is too costly and puts safety in last place by supporting dangerous freeway expansions by allowing federal and state cuts to public bus service. It is not enough to vote NO, so I made a website to educate the public.

Contact me if interested in restoring federal and state mass transit funds and filling up buses by firing top SMART and DDOT officials if needed and capping their taxes including the NEW car registration fee tax in 2016.

Low wage workers have a right to existing affordable public mass transit under the Civil Rights Act of 1964

[Hermod]

It is very difficult to have "fast food" with half-fast employees.

[ddaydetroit]

I own a shop and pay good wages we have benefits and holiday pay and it takes me months to find skilled labor the good skilled workers with good work ethics are already working. I offered a welder 28 dollars an hour to start last month and he turned the job down.

I deal with many shop owners on a daily basis and its a common problem for all of us the hardest workers in my line of work is CNC operators who also program the machines and welders. Welders are a dime a dozen good welders but the higher skilled ones that I need I can not find

[ndavies]

I'm on the other end of the hiring equation. The small company I work for has 10 open engineering positions. We have both entry level and senior level positions available. We have been trying to fill these positions for at least 3 years. Unfortunately we are looking for people with a very specialized skill set in a region with a huge demand for that very specific skill set. We make a line of tools used in the engineering of new vehicles. We're competing against the Auto Manufacturers and all the other automotive suppliers for engineering talent.

We create embedded control devices. We have a huge need for C and C++ programmers. We have a huge need for Microsoft Windows programmers. We need a couple of electronic engineers with Analog and digital interface experience. We need electrical engineers who can program or programmers who can read an electronic schematics.

We offer highly competitive salaries, Great healthcare, excellent holiday and vacation benefits.

We can't find people with the skill set needed. There's a gap in what is being taught in school and the skills that are truly needed for the job.

I wish we could find people with the skills needed to fill the jobs. I don't understand how the skills I know were taught in the 80s and 90s aren't showing up in the applicants now. Are these skills no longer taught or are they not given any value by the applicants? No I'm not talking about soft people skills, I'm talking about hard science, math and engineering skills. I'm hoping the first robotics and Maker movement will instill more of these skills in our soon to be applicants.

[SyGolden48236]

I don't think it is so much that the skills that employers require are not being taught as it is that too many students are not electing to take those classes. Too many kids are graduating college these days with useless degrees in areas such as urban studies, social media, art history, film making, communications, and the list goes on. People rack up tens of thousands of dollars in student loans or get their parents to pay for them to get these nonsense degrees and wonder why the best job they can get pays only $30,000 per year.

Then, many of these recent graduates take to crying about how unfair it is that some "fatcat" sitting behind a desk at some evil corporation is earning a six figure income. Well, that fatcat likely didn't get where he is with a degree in communications or urban studies.

If someone wants a high paying career then they should adjust their studies accordingly. Universities still teach law, medical, accountancy, financial planning, etc. But, those paths of study require much harder work than an art history degree. Get a degree that will help you begin a good paying career, not a hipster's dream job.

Those $1,800 per month apartments in downtown Detroit, the $3,000 Shinola bicycles, and the $12 "artisan" cocktails won't get paid for on a $27,000 a year salary as a telemarketer at Quicken or working at some non-profit or retail job when you're 40.

Success in life takes hard work, determination, stellar work ethic and professionalism. More often than not, that is the key to success in life. Crying about what the "haves" have and how unfair it is will get you nowhere in life.

[wazootyman]

I'm on the other end of the hiring equation. The small company I work for has 10 open engineering positions. We have both entry level and senior level positions available. We have been trying to fill these positions for at least 3 years. Unfortunately we are looking for people with a very specialized skill set in a region with a huge demand for that very specific skill set.

I can sympathize with this. While I'm not directly responsible for hiring as a hardware engineer, I am very aware of the difficulty in finding qualified people. Figuratively speaking, we'd kill to find a pool of quality embedded software or hardware engineers. As a result, my company has upped the referral bonus to a very lucrative level. I wish I had some leads. We're not just looking for one or two engineers, we're looking for dozens [[or more).

If you have a Bachelor's in Electrical or Computer Engineering, you can make six figures in the Detroit area within ten years of graduating. YMMV, but I don't think I'm far off the mark. No, it's not easy. I put in extra hours and rarely go along with the status quo. I studied my butt off while my friends were at the bar on a Tuesday night during my college years. But, it was absolutely worth it.

[Shai_Hulud]

I don't think it is so much that the skills that employers require are not being taught as it is that too many students are not electing to take those classes. Too many kids are graduating college these days with useless degrees in areas such as urban studies, social media, art history, film making, communications, and the list goes on. People rack up tens of thousands of dollars in student loans or get their parents to pay for them to get these nonsense degrees and wonder why the best job they can get pays only $30,000 per year.

Then, many of these recent graduates take to crying about how unfair it is that some "fatcat" sitting behind a desk at some evil corporation is earning a six figure income. Well, that fatcat likely didn't get where he is with a degree in communications or urban studies.

If someone wants a high paying career then they should adjust their studies accordingly. Universities still teach law, medical, accountancy, financial planning, etc. But, those paths of study require much harder work than an art history degree. Get a degree that will help you begin a good paying career, not a hipster's dream job.

Those $1,800 per month apartments in downtown Detroit, the $3,000 Shinola bicycles, and the $12 "artisan" cocktails won't get paid for on a $27,000 a year salary as a telemarketer at Quicken or working at some non-profit or retail job when you're 40.

Who, other than hipster, is interested in an $1,800 a month apartment in Detroit or $3,000 Shinola bicycle? Of course they want a hipster job.

Anyway, I don't disagree, there are a handful of degrees with clear career paths and with anything else you're taking your chances. The children of professionals have been taught this.

However, now that everyone has to go to college, there are lots of first generation college students who grew up in working class homes who don't know that you need to pick a career first, and then build an education around that. Their parents do not know it to teach it to them and it certainly is not part of the high school curriculum.

That's one of many issues at play that I never see anyone address. The game is not nearly as transparent as it seems.

[Willi]

What happened to apprenticeships - for things other than vocational tasks --- ?
People can learn, IF given an opportunity.
University teaches people to learn, aquire knowledge, by doing the homework.
IF employers would tak people under their wing, train them, its a win-win.

[animatedmartian]

I don't think it is so much that the skills that employers require are not being taught as it is that too many students are not electing to take those classes. Too many kids are graduating college these days with useless degrees in areas such as urban studies, social media, art history, film making, communications, and the list goes on. People rack up tens of thousands of dollars in student loans or get their parents to pay for them to get these nonsense degrees and wonder why the best job they can get pays only $30,000 per year.

Then, many of these recent graduates take to crying about how unfair it is that some "fatcat" sitting behind a desk at some evil corporation is earning a six figure income. Well, that fatcat likely didn't get where he is with a degree in communications or urban studies.

If someone wants a high paying career then they should adjust their studies accordingly. Universities still teach law, medical, accountancy, financial planning, etc. But, those paths of study require much harder work than an art history degree. Get a degree that will help you begin a good paying career, not a hipster's dream job.

Those $1,800 per month apartments in downtown Detroit, the $3,000 Shinola bicycles, and the $12 "artisan" cocktails won't get paid for on a $27,000 a year salary as a telemarketer at Quicken or working at some non-profit or retail job when you're 40.

Success in life takes hard work, determination, stellar work ethic and professionalism. More often than not, that is the key to success in life. Crying about what the "haves" have and how unfair it is will get you nowhere in life.

See, when I was in high school [[not too long ago) they told us college was were we could get a degree in something that we would love doing. There wasn't a push for a high paying career. It was definitely more of a push towards of an enjoyable career, which turns out is not the same thing for most people.

Another thing I remember is that the Big 3 were kind of villianized to an extent. Especially during the mass layoffs in 2008-2010. When I was getting out of high school, most people didn't see a future in the automotive industry and went into college mostly with the expectation of leaving town either for college or leaving after graduating and expecting to find a job somewhere outside of Michigan. Those who stayed mostly were the artisian types who flocked downtown when everything was cheap or people who generally stayed close to their families and didn't spend much on college to begin with [[or had families who were pretty well off). Either way, no one at my school was interested in doing anything related to automotive work.

[Jimaz]

... Another thing I remember is that the Big 3 were kind of villainized to an extent. Especially during the mass layoffs in 2008-2010....

My memory of that period was that people were being discouraged from seeking employment at any large company. The theory was that large companies would be less stable than small companies in the next economy.

[maverick1]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's horseshit.

Yeah it's anecdotal but...

1. Entry level engineers in this areas are being fed a line. I can speak from personal experience.

2. I once worked in the placement office for an educational institution. We placed manufacturing engineers, machinists and IT entry level. Even then we had managers doing tv interviews stating they had so many jobs they couldn't fill. The number of students/former students we had coming by begging to sniff a chance at a job...

Media outlets should be ashamed of running this stuff.

Did you work at the Machinist Training Institute?

[poobert]

The Free Press has absolutely no credibility.

The results aren't become compared on a national scale. So while whoever the fuck that lady is claims that this is a Detroit-Metro phenom, there is no reason to believe this isn't happening elsewhere on a greater scale.

They're also vague, leading questions.

It's funny because it runs rather contradictory to the Snyder-Schauer economics rundown they ran just a week ago. The fact of the matter is that job growth is sluggish, unemployment is among the highest in the nation, and wages are far below national averages. Sure, somebody might give you a raise, but you'll still likely be below or on par what they're paying elsewhere.

What I can't figure out anymore is the Free Press's motivation for such slanted articles. Are they trying to get people to stay in Metro Detroit for their own survival, or do they really believe this place is the greatest place since canned beer? Either way, it is a tremendous disservice to every weekend simply try to convince people that Metro Detroit is awesome rather than being a really "free press." It's especially galling when their own writers are essentially contradicting themselves.

Anyway it isn't that hard to find a job if you're articulate, have no criminal record, and have a college degree. Slam lib arts majors all you want and decry college, but I've done quite well for myself. Try not wearing a wifebeater to a job interview and staying out of trouble. It's amazing how far it goes.

[maverick1]

I'm on the other end of the hiring equation. The small company I work for has 10 open engineering positions. We have both entry level and senior level positions available. We have been trying to fill these positions for at least 3 years. Unfortunately we are looking for people with a very specialized skill set in a region with a huge demand for that very specific skill set. We make a line of tools used in the engineering of new vehicles. We're competing against the Auto Manufacturers and all the other automotive suppliers for engineering talent.

We create embedded control devices. We have a huge need for C and C++ programmers. We have a huge need for Microsoft Windows programmers. We need a couple of electronic engineers with Analog and digital interface experience. We need electrical engineers who can program or programmers who can read an electronic schematics.

We offer highly competitive salaries, Great healthcare, excellent holiday and vacation benefits.

We can't find people with the skill set needed. There's a gap in what is being taught in school and the skills that are truly needed for the job.

I wish we could find people with the skills needed to fill the jobs. I don't understand how the skills I know were taught in the 80s and 90s aren't showing up in the applicants now. Are these skills no longer taught or are they not given any value by the applicants? No I'm not talking about soft people skills, I'm talking about hard science, math and engineering skills. I'm hoping the first robotics and Maker movement will instill more of these skills in our soon to be applicants.

From my experience they don't teach it in school. I'm an engineer and from my experience most of the younger kids never touched anything. They've had projects in class but never got the opportunity to get in depth with touching equipment. This is why I'm a proponent of teaching trades. Programming, electrical troubleshooting, machining, etc. are the introduction to engineering. We have put the cart before the horse in how we educate.

[brizee]

Did you work at the Machinist Training Institute?

Yeah, that was one of my work rotations when I was with FH.

[ABetterDetroit]

It's seems obvious to me. In my profession there is twice the mobility in the last 18 months than there was in the previous 5 years. Candidates with skills that are ready to hit the ground are in demand and salary/wages are reflecting that. Unfortunately, my lifestyle means I eat out more often than I would like, including establishments that I can get something quickly and I have noticed that almost all those places have Help Wanted signs. When I see HW signs I always relax my expectations on service because I figure that anyone who answers that sign is either new to the job market altogether or is trying to make a new start. Sometimes I get the impression that the majority of peeps on this board would never give those folks a break and that is fucked up.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Since finishing out a degree, I've been slavishly filling out job apps and regularly looking for new work [[Michigan and elsewhere) for the past 2 years with a bachelor's degree and vocational/tech diploma and I've had zero success so far. It sucks to try and segue to a new career, especially when you're trying to get out of paraprofessional work..

Hope you find what you're looking for in your search. Some people think it's easy to get a job out here like post #13, by saying things we already know like, work hard, have determination, a steady work ethic, don't complain about your lot in life, etc... Sometimes it doesn't work that way. You're out here competing with others who have similar qualifications that are looking for jobs as well.

[SyGolden48236]

You're out here competing with others who have similar qualifications that are looking for jobs as well.

That is part of life. You're always competing against others with similar qualifications is almost every facet of life.

You need to ask yourself what you can do to set yourself apart from the rest. What can you do to give yourself even a slight edge over the others? It can be done.

This isn't your kiddie t-ball game where they don't keep score and everybody gets a trophy at the end of the season because they played in a game or two. Life is all about competition and that isn't going to change.

How will you make yourself stand out from the crowd to the job interviewer?