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In today’s edition:
- Chart of The Week: Employment Statistics by Race
- Podcast: Overemployment: The Pros, Cons, Ethics, Legality, and Trends in Taking on Multiple Jobs
- Free Training: Recruiting Secrets: Unleashing the Potential of News Sourcing for Passive Candidates
- Article: Fake Work Can Cause Real Problems
- This week’s comic: Money for Nothing
- Thank you Sponsors
Employment Statistics By Race
There is a lot of discussion about diversity and equity and leveling out the laying field for underserved groups. Yet, several minority groups are outpacing whites in being employed. I was thinking about that when I noticed the latest stats on employment, segmented by race. Curious to hear what you think.
- The average employment rate in the US is 58.4%.
- The following ethnicities are employed at a higher-than-average rate: Mexican Americans (61.2%), Hispanics/Latinos (61.1%), Asians (60.6%), and White/Caucasians (58.6%).
- These ethnicities had worse-than-average employment: Cuban (57.6%), Black/African-American (55.7%), and Puerto Rican (55%).
Overemployment: The Pros, Cons, Ethics, Legality, and Trends in Taking on Multiple Jobs
Are you listening to The Jim Stroud Podcast? If not, this is what you missed last week.
Did you know that some people are using chatbots like ChatGPT to take on multiple jobs and work excessively long hours? They do this by using the chatbots to respond to messages and emails for them, essentially automating their work. This practice is known as “overemployment” or “hustling,” and it raises ethical concerns about the exploitation of technology and the impact on workers’ mental and physical health. In this episode of The Jim Stroud Podcast, Jim Stroud discusses Overemployment: The Pros, Cons, Ethics, Legality, and Trends in Taking on Multiple Jobs.
Listen to The Jim Stroud Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Pandora and your favorite podcast platform.
Recruiting Secrets: Unleashing the Potential of News Sourcing for Passive Candidates
In this training guide, Jim Stroud reveals the untapped potential of news sources to uncover your next star hire. With countless news stories reporting on corporate changes, promotions, and more, Jim demonstrates how to find and source passive candidates with efficiency.
This training document provides actionable strategies and resources that are both free and readily available. Whether you’re a recruiter or hiring manager, this guide will show you where to look and how to look for the news that can lead to your next great hire.
In this training guide you will find:
- Google Hacks for finding passive candidates in news articles
- Search once, source forever: How to automate your research for free
- How to find talent in video news reports
- How to find talent in podcast news reports
- One VERY easy way to find up and coming talent in the news
- How to target reporters for candidate referrals
- How to find news periodicals for research
- Big list of news tools you might be unaware of
- And one old school research technique that still works today
- And more…
Don’t wait – review this information today and start making placements tomorrow!
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Fake Work Can Cause Real Problems
The other day my Twitter feed was blowing up over a discussion between Elon Musk and Fox News Host Tucker Carlson. Although they discussed the potential threat of artificial intelligence to all of us, Musk’s takeover of Twitter was a topic as well. During that portion of the conversation, it was highlighted that upon arrival Musk let go about 80% of the staff at Twitter. (Although, some of that was voluntarily.) Here’s a direct quote from that interview, courtesy of Radar.
According to Carlson, Musk’s decision to fire roughly 5,500 employees over a period of six months is “one of the great business stories of the year.”
“What percentage of your staff did you fire at Twitter?” Carlson asked during the interview on Monday night. “One of the great business stories of the year?”
“I think we’re about 20% of the original size,” Musk responded.
“So 80% left?” Carlson asked further. “80%. That’s a lot.” “Yes, I mean, if you’re not trying to run some sort of glorified activist organization with – and you don’t care that much about censorship, then you can really let go of a lot of people, it turns out,” Musk said after admitting that “a lot of people” left the company “voluntarily.”
I remember when this initially happened and the buzz it created last year. Tucker Carlson did a report about it. Check the tweet below.
Leaving the politics aside, cutting so many people at once was a daring move. Did it work? Time will tell in the long-run, for now, Elon says that Twitter is breaking even. Here is a quote from Investing.com.
Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday the social media company is “roughly breaking even,” as most of its advertisers have returned and its aggressive cost-cutting efforts have started bearing fruit after massive layoffs.
Musk, in an interview with BBC broadcast live on Twitter Spaces, said Twitter has about 1,500 employees now, a sharp decline from “just under 8,000 staff members” it had before he took it over in October.
Price’s law is a concept in statistics and probability theory that states that a small percentage of individuals within a population are responsible for a large percentage of the output or success in that population. Specifically, Price’s law states that roughly 50% of the output or success in a population is generated by the square root of the total number of individuals in that population.
For example, if there are 100 individuals in a population, then roughly 10 of those individuals will be responsible for 50% of the output or success in that population. Similarly, if there are 10,000 individuals in a population, then roughly 100 of those individuals will be responsible for 50% of the output or success in that population.
Think of it this way, competence grows linearly while incompetence grows exponentially. If Twitter continues to trend towards the positive, then Musk fired the right people and shamed his detractors. Time will tell. But all that is just an intro to something that’s been on my mind a lot lately – fake work.
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN
In the world of technology, the concept of “fake work” has become a topic of debate among Silicon Valley employees. Fake work refers to employees who are being paid to do a job, but their work is essentially meaningless and adds no value to the company. This topic has gained attention due to the rise of remote work and the difficulty of tracking productivity.
This is not a new phenomenon. As I see it, it’s a pretty open secret that companies in Silicon Valley hire tech workers just so their competitors do not. Weird, I know, but like I said, its an open secret. Check out this recent quote on Reddit.
I was in a networking event recently with some Silicon Valley developers. They said something that may explain this. They said for a while many software companies, especially the big ones, were hiring people with the skills just to grab on to the talent. In part to prevent them from going to the competition and in part to have them in reserve so scaling up could happen quickly, even though they didn’t have a direct need.
I had never heard of this before but wish I had gotten off my ass sooner and upped my skills to get in on that. That of course is not the current practice given that they are doing big layoffs. I wish I could find a job where someone paid me big money to do very little.
That being said, it seems that this trend of fake work extends beyond software developers. According to a Business Insider report, some Silicon Valley workers are questioning whether they are doing fake work, leading to concerns about layoffs and job security. Some employees are even turning to social media platforms like TikTok to share their experiences and opinions.
@clearlythere #stitch with @roilysm #meta #metalayoffs #tech #techtok #techlayoffs #businessinsider #news #google #work #career #metaseverance #fyp #business ♬ original sound – Brit
How do you spot fake work? IDK
One of the issues with fake work is that it can be difficult to identify. It may involve employees spending time on tasks that are not relevant to their job or spending too much time on administrative tasks. As a result, companies may be wasting resources on unnecessary work and employees may feel unfulfilled in their roles.
In some cases, employees are being paid to do nothing at all. NewsNation reported on a situation where tech workers were being paid to sit at home due to the pandemic, even though they had no work to do. While this may seem like a dream scenario, it can lead to feelings of guilt and anxiety, as well as concerns about job security.
Former Meta employee, Sophia D’Antoine, recently spoke out about her experience being paid $190,000 to do nothing for two years. According to Fox News, D’Antoine was hired to work on a project that was eventually cancelled, but she continued to receive her full salary despite having no work to do. D’Antoine stated that she felt like a “fake employee” and eventually left the company due to the lack of meaningful work.
While some employees are frustrated with the concept of fake work, others argue that it can be a necessary part of the job. Business Insider reported on a debate among tech employees about whether fake work is a valid way to fill downtime. Some argue that it allows employees to decompress and recharge, while others argue that it is a waste of resources and can lead to burnout.
CEOs in the tech industry have also spoken out about the issue of fake work. According to AOL, some CEOs believe that employees who engage in fake work are not committed to the company and may be harming the company’s overall productivity. They argue that employees should be using their downtime to develop new skills or contribute in other meaningful ways. (Whereas others see it as a form of warfare.)
Money for Nothing
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Until next time, see you in the funny papers.
Jim Stroud
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