May 8, 2024 • 35 mins
Chuck Zodda and Marc Fandetti disucss why Gen X is going to get screwed the most by the current mess that is Social Security. The US 30-year rate mortgage dropped for the first time since March. Uber drops on the market despite rising revenue. Will the alliance between Uber and Instacart be able to challenge Doordash? Corey Adams, Regional Manager for Robert Half, joins the show to share some ideas about education vs skills based hiring.
Mark as Played
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five K Boston is presented by VeteransDevelopment Corporation FACE he's the Financial Exchange with
Chuck Zada and Mark Vandetti Chuck markinTucker with you in market's not really doing
much of anything today. It's youknow, you're kind of poking it with
a stick, saying, hey,do something. And the Dow is up
sixty two points, less than aquarter percent, the SMP is down less
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than one point, which is pointzero one percent, and the Nasdaq is
off tenth of a percent, aboutsixteen points. So just not much of
anything going on there. Tenure USTreasury is up two basis points to four
point four to eight percent. We'vegot oil up fifteen cents barrel to seventy
eight to fifty three on West TextIntermediate, and we've got gold up a
dollar and ounce to twenty three,twenty five and twenty cents. And quite
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honestly, this is because there's nomeaningful news happening today. So if you're
listening to us, quiet week,not just like this one of the quietest
when the biggest thing happening is Airbnbreporting earnings. Yeah, after the bell
today, am We got that afterthe bell today, and we got a
little bit of mortgage data. There'sthree FED speakers today because man, we
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just we really need to hear morefrom the FED. God forbid, those
guys don't just read a book,take take a it. I'm not suggesting
they're not literate. They are,no, but you're just saying, take
a break. Well, there's there'sa reason there's not the Chase Lounge.
Listen. My grandfather always said he'snot the only one who said this.
He said, there's a reason whyGod gave you two ears in one mouth.
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You know, it's because you shouldlisten twice as much as you talk.
And that's why I'm on this showtalking right now. It's because I
didn't listen. Let's talk. Let'stalk a little bit about social security.
When it comes to social security,the latest information is that the soci Security
Trust Fund is going to be depletedin twenty thirty three, and at which
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point you will see an immediate twentypercent plus reduction in social security benefits paid
out. Based on our anlogy,the system is set up. So congratulations,
Mark, good luck, You're welcome. Now, a couple things that
I have to say about this.The first, and I'm curious to get
to your thought because I haven't actuallytalked to you about this mark when the
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solution eventually comes, because we're notjust going to let a bunch of sixty
five plus zero old people see atwenty percent drop in their primary source of
income. Thank you, when theeventual solution comes. What do you think
the most likely path is to fixingit? Because I I'm not out here
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to say like, oh, thisis going to happen, because they're going
to fix it. The reason whythis is going to end up being fixed,
probably in twenty thirty two, isbecause the most heavily voting demographic is
sixty five plus and so politicians arenot going to screw them over just to
have themselves voted out of Rather,they're going to screw younger generations over.
It's just the question of how.And I'm curious what your thoughts are on
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how they end up fixing this.I have no idea. We know we
need more revenue to keep benefits constant. I assume that people in my generation
Gen X born between sixty five Ithink in nineteen eighty are going to have
to work a little bit longer,assuming they make those changes soon, because
it's very difficult to take benefits awayonce they've commenced exactly so they're going to
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have to start that today, andmy generation is going to have to step
up. As I said to MikeArmstrong yesterday, gen X needs to step
up and take one for the team. I've written baby boomers off. I
know a lot of you are inthat cohort, and I apologize, but
most of you don't care about SocialSecurity because yours is commenced, and you
very understandably don't want to see thatbenefit reduced. You paid in, you
waited, you planned. It wouldbe unfair to cut benefits for people who
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have planned. Since we're just talkingoff the cuff here, I have no
analytics to share, sure, butit's not unfair to cut benefits for those
who have not already begun benefits likemy generation that'll be eligible starting in geez
for the oldest part of gen Xin just a few years. For those
in the middle and about ten,and then those on the tail end a
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little later, we're going to haveto work longer and probably make do with
lower benefits. That's the only wayto avoid severe tax hikes on younger people.
I would be equally unfair. Iwould be surprised if gen X even
gets hit particularly hard on this.I think because we're so close, it's
so commencement that will become more vocal. But in terms of numbers, we
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don't have the voting. If thebaby boomers and the younger cohorts gang up
on Gen X, we're not gonnahave a choice. So by that I
mean both both both sort of vetothrough voting changes today or changes that might
affect younger cohords. Doesn't part ofthis also depend on really poorly said sorry?
Doesn't part of this also depend onwhat the composition of Congress is in
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twenty thirty two in terms of ohsure, generational la factors chruge, I've
I'm not even talking like partisan wise, I'm talking I know ideologically who's actually
in there? From an age perspective. I'll give you an example. This
is one that I actually just heardabout a couple of weeks ago. Did
you know that in New Hampshire youused to have to think, I don't
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know if it was when you wereover sixty five or over seventy, used
to have to take a driving testevery five years in order to renew your
driver's license. You did no.I did not know that now you did
no? Because I've never been aresident who cares. It was no offense
too. That was great Listeners repealeda number of years ago, largely because
of an older demographic in the NewHampshire State Senate that said, yes,
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we don't want to take our drivingtests every five like, we don't want
to do this. I bring thisup because it's relevant to social security in
terms of hey, what buttons andwhat levers do you pull and press?
Is going to be dependent on thedemographics when the fix actually happens. And
this is an area where the counterpointto what I said earlier about how gen
X might not be affected the millennialgeneration and typically gets screwed by baby boomers.
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It's just like it's what we've kindof come to expect. Gen X
kind of gets screwed by everyone becausethe classic gen X gripe is everyone forgets
you, like people just like noone talks about you. It's either the
boomers or the millennials who everyone talksabout. No one talks about gen X.
I was having a good day.So like the hypothetical, really funny
situation is, hey, we're gonnafix social security by taking away taking it
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away from gen X. Yeah,they won't complain. It's like, oh,
like like you'll just sark actually happen, But that's the gen X joke
is like, yeah, you'll justtake it away from us completely to object
with sarcasm, yes and muttering that'swhat we do. Where the sort of
snefeld, where's the monials? We'lljust whine, you know, like that's
what we do. Like, you'realso bigger. Your cohort is like eighty
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million people roughly the size. Iappreciate that we did a lot of work
to get there, you know,but you're like the side and baby boomers
are getting smaller. We're bigger nowthan the baby they're dying off, I'm
sorry to say, or be unnaturalfor them to live forever, So I
guess I'm not. So we're allheading to the same place, frightening prospect.
Right. So you guys are goingto determine the future of all of
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these entitlement programs. We know they'reon an unsustainable path. And I suspect
given our history as a country ofnot confronting a crisis until it's at our
doorstep, because it's hard as democraciesto do something that's far sighted that imposes
pain. Today like look at globalwarming. So what was in Churchill said
about us? You can always counton Americans to do what's right after exhausting
every other option first. Yeah,yeah, yeah, But that's the way
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democracies work, and arguably you arriveat better solutions than some idiot autocrat who
becomes more and more insane. Andevery day there's there's good, the the
the the give and take of ademocracy is not a bad thing. It
ensures that a stupid idea doesn't getvery far most of the time. So
if history has any indication, whetheryou look at the Civil War, World
War two, amusing military examples herethat you know better than I do.
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We don't do something until a crisisis at our doorstep. Generally, civil
war's a little unfair because we didtry to resolve slavery with a couple compromises,
few compromises that didn't end up workingout. So that's that's a little
unfair. But you know what Imean, We're not going to do anything
until benefits. This trust fund,I guess pays for the difference between what
comes in in taxes and what goesout in benefits. I was reminded of
that by the article that Mike Armstrongand I reviewed yesterday. So when the
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trust fund dries up, it's notlike there's no money to pay benefits.
You just have to raise taxes topay benefits or cut benefits. It becomes
simpler, calculation become simplicy. Here'swhat my solution is. And the tool
that I'm using to do this mathis not my own. It's from the
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.Yeah, they've got a too out there.
It's called the Reformer. Anyone ofyou can go and you know,
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pull it up online. But Iactually have managed to cover one hundred and
four percent of the shortfall. Andhere's what I would do. At this
point, anyone knew who is goingto be collecting Social Security, their full
retirement age is going to be agesixty seven. That's where it is based
on how things have moved up.So all I would do index age two
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longevity after it hits age sixty seven. So if life spans go up,
great, you're going to see thefull retirement age gradually go up. If
they don't, then it won't.That's going to cover nineteen percent of the
shortfall just by indexing full retirement ageto longevity, not even adjusting it right
now, just if it changes inthe future. Second part, and the
biggest thing, apply the Social Securitytax to all wages above four hundred thousand,
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so you're not impacting you know,anyone who's making less than four hundred
thousand in any way, shape orform. And that's going to cover sixty
six percent of the shortfall is justby covering those those higher wages a big
tax pike, yep, but noton ninety seven percent of Americans. That's
kind of how I look at it. And oh, look, if somebody's
got to bite the bullet on this. The third piece, the third piece,
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and this would probably be the leastpopular part for most Americans. I
would change the cost of living adjustmentto the chain CPI, so it's not
going to be as robust of acost of living adjustment going forward. And
that's eighteen percent of the gap.Those three changes cover one hundred and four
percent of it with out impacting ninetyseven percent of Americans from a tax perspective.
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And the only meaningful shift is,hey, if life spans get longer,
full retirement age goes up, andthe cost of living adjustment will not
be as high. It's self evidentthat it's not as easy as that calculator
suggests because nothing's been done. Idon't know. Sometimes Congress has trouble doing
really easy things. True, butseveral congresses more competent than the current one
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arguably have failed to act on thisa generation's worth. In fact, I
think it's just because no one wantsto no one wants to be blamed for
it. It's not hard to fixSocial Security Medicare. It's hard to fix.
Medicare is kind of scrupy. Similaractuarial issues their time value money issues.
So I guess, if you're listeningto this, what is the upshot
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of all this speculation? Save more? You can't? I know some planners
like to say, you save toomuch, you'll probably die with a lot
of money. You can always giveit away later. I'd rather have too
much of anything than not. Youknow, when you you overdo it so
you don't have, so you don'thave, you know, a board that's
too short. I think the samething probably applies to savings. That was
a terrible carpentry analogy, but youknow what I mean. No, it's
fun. You did great. Thefinancial exchange is now available on your Alexis
(12:13):
smart speaker has to play the FinancialExchange and catch up on anything you might
have missed. This is the FinancialExchange Radio Network. This is your home
for the most comprehensive coverage of theeconomy and the trends on Wall Street.
This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network. According to data from the Mortgage Bankers
Association, the contract rate on thirtyor fixed rate mortgages fell from seven point
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twenty nine percent to seven point oneeight percent last week. Is the first
decline in weekly mortgage rates since lateMarch. And when I look at the
state of US housing, I thinkone of the big themes in the next
decade, in my opinion, isgoing to be I really don't need to
(13:01):
say in my opinion. That's whyI giggled. Yeah, it's obviously my
opinion. In Mark's opinion, Ithink one of the key themes and this
is this is gonna be so differentfrom what we're used to that I think
it's gonna throw a lot of usfor a loop. Is the fact that
I think the economy is going tobe so rate sensitive when whenever interest rates
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move down in that when we lookat the amount of equity that's tied up
in housing right now. It's somuch higher both nominally and percentage wise compared
to what it's been over the lasttwenty years, in that households are way
less levered to home prices than they'vebeen in a generation. You just haven't
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seen this level of home equity intwenty five years on a percentage basis.
And what I think it means that'sreally interesting to me is that if you
ever start seeing meaningful moves to thedown side on mortgage rates, I think
there is just a tsunami of homeownerswho are sitting there ready to tap their
home equity and throw a ton ofeconomic activity into the economy on a very
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short term, rapid basis. Thatprovides a ton of support to the economy
and may prevent any kind of deep, earth shattering recession over that time.
I don't know of any historical precedentfor that. I see your point that
it could work that way, andthis is obvious, but it depends on
why rates are coming down. Ifthey're coming down because the economy is contracting,
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then they will not jeopardize their homeby tapping it in atm like.
I don't know about that, Sookay, The reason why I say I
don't know about that is because oftwo things. The first is, when
given access to debt, Americans justlove to take it like they It's It's
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one thing that we've proven time andtime again. We always talk about how,
you know, we want to befrugal in this and that, but
in the aggregate, we love borrowing, don't we. We do. Yeah,
we use it as a Yeah,we like spending, and that's the
obvious tool. Yeah, I knowwhat you're saying. So like I come
back to that first and foremost.The second piece is and this is kind
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of dangerous, I guess, butthere's this idea that's always out there of
you know, is there you know, pent up demand because of you know,
a lack of spending. And Ithink on you know, the home
equity side of things, it's absolutelytrue how many people you know are sitting
there saying, Gee, I'd loveto go and redo a bathroom, but
I'm not going to do it whenhome equity lines a creditor being quoted at
eight percent. Gee, I'd loveto do you know, I love to
(15:46):
put in a pool, but I'mnot going to do when when home equity
lines a creditor at eight percent,those come down to you know, six
and a half. Hey, youknow what, we can do this.
And keep in mind most people don'trealize that on most helocks the rate floats,
so it's gonna end up back eightpercent of rates go back up anyways,
but that quoted rate is what peoplepay attention to. There's a lot
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of this, in my opinion,that is lingering out there, and so
I think one of the underappreciated storiesfor the next decade could be that there's
a ton of equity in Americans homesand they're just getting ready to tap it
because they haven't for the last severalyears because of where rates have been.
Yeah, again it's obvious to pointthis out, but that equity could evaporate
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if rates come down because of economiccontraction. Because of it could potentially but
I think, yeah, all lseqwould be a good thing. I'm not
disputing the premise. Yeah. Takinga look at markets, as we had
towards the bottom of the hour,the Dow remains in positive territory, now
up ninety four points, about aquarter percent. S and P five hundred
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down two points. In NASDAK nowdown about a quarter percent. Off thirty
four points, so tech lagging alittle bit today and that dragging the Nasdaq
with it. Also, we've gotbonds, the ten year treasury at four
point four eight percent. I'm veryinterested to see where this moves over the
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next week. With we've got CPIand PPI both coming out next week.
They're the uh, they're always thesecond full week in the month. It
was a little bit confusing just becauseof when May started. I was kind
of expecting, oh, like,normally they're the week after the jobs report,
and this there's a one week gapbetween them, which is why this
week is just so boring. Butnext week, curious to see if we
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get any resolution on the next directionof rates. That's gonna be uh,
you know, interesting to see.So Tuesday we got PPI and Wednesday CPI,
the order reversed from how they normallyare. Also bringing the latest financial
news straight to your radio every day, it's the Financial Exchange, a Financial
(18:00):
Exchange radio network. Miss any ofthe show, catch up at your convenience
by visiting Financial Exchange show dot comand clicking the on demand icon, where
you'll find all of our interviews infull shows. This is your home for
the latest business and financial news inNew England and around the country. This
is the Financial Exchange radio network.UBER swings to loss despite rising revenue.
(18:25):
That's that's never good. You don'twant to have your revenue go up but
your profits go down. I betit happens a lot. But now they
did just say this was largely I'msure it does largely because of some legal
settlements and investments that they made oneoffs, one offs. So I'm not
excusing it away. I'm just makingexcuses like a CFO would, sorry,
go no, they are one offs. And I think what you can say
(18:47):
about Uber is when when you lookat them and try to make sense out
of hey, where do they gofrom here? The first thing that was
remarkable to me is this is acompany with a market cap of one hundred
and thirty three billion dollars. Ididn't realize the market cap was that big
these days. I'm kind of sittingthere going gosh, I kind of I
missed the boat on that. Andhere's the thing. They are profitable still
(19:11):
for the last twelve months. Youtake a look at net income and it's
running it, you know, nearlytwo billion dollars. So there's you know,
there's a good business there. Freecash flow is three point three six
billion dollars, so even you know, adjusting for accounting stuff, like they're
they're free cash flow positive. Like, okay, there's there's something there.
The question with a company like thisis, hey, you're trading seventy five
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times earnings and twenty nine times forwardearnings, and if your profits are not
going to consistently go up, well, then what's what's the deal with that
valuation? And that's that's going tobe the question here. So if their
profits are going to get back togrowing you know, forty fifty sixty percent
(19:56):
a year, okay, you've you'vegot some thing, but there's not a
whole you know, long track recordof that kind of improvement, especially you
know, since they've been positive.Remember this is a company that basically lost
money every quarter for the first sixyears that it was publicly traded. And
so if this business is barely profitable, which again I know that on you
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know, I said they had youknow, two billion dollars in profit,
but their margins are two point nineto eight percent for the last twelve months.
If you're barely profitable in a discretionarybusiness with unemployment running under four percent,
how do you get to profitability whenthe inevitable slowdown hits? I don't
know. I don't have an answerto that. I don't know, but
(20:41):
that's that's the question that they're goingto have to answer at some point,
is can't you make a profit inthis business when things are not as hot
as they are right now? Yeah? I don't know what's the plan.
So you've got that. Also,Uber and instacart, Uh, they just
formed an alliance. You must havea pun I was waiting for. I'm
(21:03):
sorry, I didn't mean to putyou on the spot, but this is
ripe for a zada pun. Well, I was I was gonna say,
like this goes down, you know, in terms of some of the great
alliances in history, you know,the US and the French teaming up against
the British back in seventeen seventy six. I mean, like you, there's
there's some big ones that you couldpotentially put out there, But I never
thought of it that way. Well, I don't think it's actually that important
(21:25):
because, let's be honest, gettingtakeout delivered to your home, I never
get it delivered ever, ever,ever, ever, ever. I don't
like the way. This is phraseactually, just to begin with it says
you can now get restaurant takeout deliveredthrough instacart. When you get a pizza
delivered directly from the pizza place,do you say you're doing takeout, no
(21:45):
delivery, You're doing delivery. Yeah, it's not delivered takeout, it's delivery.
It's redundant, redundant from the it'sfrom the redundant department of redundancy.
You know you don't. You don'tget takeout delivered. It's just delivery.
It's like an ATM machine. No, it's just an ATM. Tucker,
what do you have? What's yourbeef with no no pun with a takeout?
(22:10):
The fees delivered, the fees.It's not even the fees. I
use it myself, and I'm justwondering, like I'll just go down the
stream and get it. Oh,it's as simple as that. It's a
laziness thing. Like I'm trying tofight the laziness. That's all. It's
just a me thing. So inany case, Tucker, I'm getting some
feedback. I don't give me asecond. In any case, door Dash
(22:33):
is the eight hundred pound gorilla.I guess in the food delivery business,
and Instacart and Uber Eats teaming upto allow Instacart customers to order from all
these different restaurants that are now ontheir app that will be delivered through Uber
Eats. So it's basically integrating theirplatforms so that you have access to Uber
eats his restaurants through the Instacart platform. Okay, I'm with you, that's
(22:57):
what it seems. It's not blowinganybody skirt up here, though it sounds
like Ticker's thoroughly unimpressed. I don'tknow if this is enough to move the
needle. I kind of feel like, once you're locked into one of these
ecosystems, you just order all fromthat one. It's kind of like,
Hey, if you have an Amazonaccount, you don't really go to Walmart
and shop around on Walmart's website becauseyou like you just your default is Amazon.
(23:19):
Vice versa too. If if you'reused to buying all your stuff on
Walmart, you don't really go priceshop on Amazon in a lot of cases
for your default card for some items, you might for others, you'll be
less discriminating. If it's just so, it depends on I guess that I'm
not gonna bicker, yeah, onthis subject. But yeah, for the
most part, No, people probablydon't. Normal people. I think putting
(23:40):
myself in that category, I thinkyou just kind of get focused on that.
I mean, looks easy. I'mthe one. I do all of
my grocery shopping at BJ's now becauseit's cheaper. So it's you know,
they deliver or do they have amodel? They do have one that you
can do. I don't use it. It's like one hundred bucks a year
for unlimited delivery of groceries. Ifyou want it, that's excellent, so
you could do it. But quitehonestly, I take my daughter and we
(24:00):
run around the store and everything,and you know, we make it a
whole party. So it's it's fun. And you go Saturday morning or something
like Sunday morning, Sunday morning.Sunday morning is so weat breakfast on Sunday
morning and then nine am we're offto Bejays and we do the grocery shop.
I want to be a zoos atthat time, though it's not really
it's not. It's probably Saturdays.I've heard that costcos are always packed,
(24:22):
right, but the beaches that Igo to is not I've never been in
a case where it's like jammed andI can't get through there. It's it's
just not I've never even quite honestly, I've never even had to wait in
line for checkout. Really. OhI remember going back in the when I
was in college, and I wouldhave to sit there for like fifteen minutes.
(24:42):
I do this self checkout because youknow, we get twenty things for
the week, because you know,you get one eight pound box of grapes
and you're kind of good. ButI mean that covers at least a meal
these days. Yeah, you knowwho I am, right, And they
say, yeah, Bill Burr.No, it's I'm not tall to be
Bill Burke. I think he's likehe's like in his sixes, right,
(25:03):
I don't get the reference. Youdon't really look like him. I was
trying to think of someone who wassimilarly shaped, but a well known Massachusetts
personality. You know who I usedto get actually back in the day was
Dustin Pedroia. No, I couldsee that yet. I used to get
that occasionally. You know. It'swe're both short, bald guys who happened
to be ridiculously athletic. So Icould see that you know, got a
(25:25):
little bit of the long nose,and you know we do what we do.
Just take a quick break here.When we come back, we're gonna
be joined by Corey Adams Robert Half. We're talking about current trends in hiring
in terms of education versus skills,what our employers prioritizing. We'll talk with
him after this. The Financial Exchangestreams live on YouTube. Like our page
(25:47):
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(26:21):
American Veterans Department of Massachusetts. Thisyear's race is Saturday, November ninth at
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Your gifts will support a wide varietyof initiatives, like the DAV Transportation Program,
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which takes disabled vets to important medicalappointments that supply both the physical and
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DAV fivek dot Boston. The DAVfive K Boston is presented by Veterans Development
Corporation. As promised, were nowjoined by Core Adams from Robert haf here
to talk a little bit about currenttrends in what hiring managers are looking for.
(27:07):
Corey, how are you doing today? Good Chuck, how are you
doing well? Can you talk alittle bit about the results of your latest
survey that you put out here?Sure? So, we surveyed more than
twenty five hundred workers and seventy ninepercent said that they believe that their demonstrated
skills in work experience are more valuablethan their education and credentials through the eyes
(27:29):
of an employer. Additionally, ona separate survey over two thousand hiring managers,
this revealed that when considering applicants withthe necessary skills, managers are most
willing to bend on years of experience, requirements or education and certification. So
you kind of have two different thingshappening here, right, So finding skill
(27:51):
talent is really challenging. It's beenchallenging for years. We've been talking about
it for years, and so companiesprobably should start thinking about potentially update their
hiring strategies to place greater weights onskills and experience versus education and credentials,
and in doing so, this couldgive companies a better chance that landing talent
for specific top key roles. Andthen just the other side, real quick
(28:14):
workers workers with multiple workers with therequisite skills who may lack formal education in
their field shouldn't be discouraged from applyingfor roles with the otherwise might meet the
qualifications. How do employers go aboutfiguring out if someone that they're trying to
hire has the skills that they want. I mean, it's one thing to
say, hey, they should prioritizethis. What does that look like in
(28:36):
a practical sense? Sure, well, so some companies probably haven't instituted this
yet, and maybe because of justsome of the demand and hiring they might
be considering making this move. So, first off, if you're thinking about
implementing hiring around skills baates hiring specifically, I would say a couple of things
you should do. Number one,you're going to want to update your job
(28:56):
description making sure the focus is onthe response ability and requisite skills and obviously
not an education. And how youdo that is you describe the specific task
that you want the individual hired intothis role and what the you're responsible for,
and you also want to note thekey performance indicators that will be used
to measure success. The other thingI would recommend is you may want to
(29:18):
consider adding a skills assessment to yourhiring process. And so this could be
something like a writing sample or acoding test. It could potentially even include
a personality evaluation or an exercise designedto evaluate cognitive abilities. And so this
is going to help you not onlyget a better idea of how the candidate's
(29:40):
actual skills match up with the descriptionon their resume, but you never know,
this might actually help you identify anemployee with significant growth potential. You
mentioned that right now it's still challengingfor a lot of employers to hire the
people that they want to hire.What about training existing employees in new skills
and you know, with new capabilities, what kind of thoughts they have on
(30:03):
that. Sure, this is animportant one because this we're hearing a lot
of this lately, and this revolvesof both upskilling and what we call reskilling.
And so before even jump into that. There's two pieces of data that
I think are really important to sharearound this. So, according to Robert
Haff Research, forty six percent ofhiring managers say that they're in the market
for new talent because their current teamsdo not possess the requisite skills needed to
(30:26):
fill a job or to execute ona project. Additionally, fifty one percent
of managers surveyed who are looking tohire are having difficulty finding skilled talent on
the market. So you have existingmanagers who can't find people that they want
to hire with the skills needed,you have current managers who don't have the
skills needed on their infrastructure. Andso, simply stated, managers can help
(30:48):
solve the skills gap by focusing onupskilling and trainings within their existing staff and
when necessary, reskilling can also helpyour current employer, help your current employees
develop their career path and actually givesyou an advantage. So bottom line,
what we sort of share is thatboth upskilling and reskilling are effective strategies that
can really help you boost with notjust retention but just hiring long term in
(31:11):
general. What about for workers,what advice do you have on that side
of the ledger? In terms ofwhat could help them in a skills based
hiring push. So for this we'dlike to refer to the DASH technique.
So first is do your research.Two out of every three hiring managers have
stated that the candidates and the applicantswho take the time to research the company
(31:36):
understand the mission. The value goas far as looking at who you're interviewing
with that is going to separate youapart from the other applicants. From there,
you want to ask good questions.So curiosity demonstrates genuine interest, and
so it's a really good idea tohave some really well thought out, intelligent
questions that you can ask through eachstep of the interview process, whether it's
(31:57):
one round or it's multiple rounds.Next would be showcase your SAWCE skills.
Employers are assessing candidates into personal andcommunication skills because they want to make sure
that you have the ability to collaborateand interact with all levels within an organization.
And then finally, and this isa big one, but you want
(32:17):
to have responses for the hard hittingquestions in interview process. You're going to
be asked direct questions and so youneed to be comfortable and figure out how
to answer those. There's one inparticular, the most important one that anyone
in the workforce knows it's going tohappen. This question is coming and is
what are your salary expectations or requirements? And so for this, this is
(32:39):
something that's going to require some practice, whether you role play or you do
mock interviews with a friend, afamily member, a mentor. My biggest
thing I would say is whether you'renewly in the workforce or you're about to
enter into the workforce, the firsttime that you answer that question should not
be in the first interview that youhave. So it's something that definitely takes
(33:01):
practice and getting comfortable with. Verygood Corey, thanks so much for joining
us today. We appreciate it.Thank you, Chuck, have you good
week. That is Corey Adams fromRobert Haff talking about education versus skills based
hiring. Mark, what do yougot for me for stack Roulette? Anything
we haven't covered that you want toget to. There's a lot of chatter
lately about the four to oh oneK and other individual retirement accounts. I'm
(33:23):
not using that as in the senseof an IRA, just as in the
sense of individually owned and managed somehowbeing a mistake because they've left some people
behind. And there's an article inthe New York Times to this effect.
Today, there's a great book Idon't necessarily agree with its conclusions for what
it's worth, but by a famouslabor economist that makes that argument lately.
So I went back and looked atthe returns on stocks from nineteen eighty one,
(33:44):
the first year that somebody figured out. A guy named Ted Bena figured
out that was a loophole in theinternal revenue code to create a four oh
one K. Since that time,stocks have returned twelve percent on average a
year, some harrowing years. Isthat the S and P five hundred years.
Thank you. When I say stocks, I mean the S and P
technically the morning Star Large Cap Index, because that's the series I've got the
best data. Four So, whilethe four to one K is certainly not
(34:06):
a panacea, and iras are certainlynot a magic bullet for those who saved
in disciplined fashion starting a virtually anytime, even at market peaks over the
last few generations, if you wereable to save, that is a big
if we don't all have that privilegein ability. They've been an enormous success.
Has their reach been broad enough?No? Is that reason to end
(34:28):
the experiment in self directed retirement savings? My personal two cents is no,
not if you can commit to aplan and stick with it. It's been
wildly successful for those of us whohad access to them. What's been the
argument against They don't provide the sameretirement income security as pensions did. Duh,
Yeah, no kidding. Pensions werea luxury that companies couldn't afford.
(34:51):
It sent some into bankruptcy. Asanyone who lived through the nineteen eighties and
is familiar with the General Motors andother Big three stories, No, they
simply weren't affordable. You can blameSHREWLLL holders for not being willing to part
with some of those profits, butthey were doomed. As Ted Benna,
the so called father of the fourone K points out in this Times article,
pensions were going away, going waystoo strong. It was just a
matter of whether or not it wasgoing to be another te to be replaced
(35:12):
by something. Yeah. So,plenty of flaws in the four h one
K and plenty of laws in theway the industry implements it. Some funds
are too expensive, Some record keeperscharge fees that are too high right on
down the line. In terms ofcriticisms, nobody can disagree with many of
those, but by and large it'sbeen a wonderful wealth accumulation vehicle for Americans
who been privileged enough to participate.We are done for the day, Back
at it tomorrow on the Financial Exchange. Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday,
(35:37):
and we will see you tomorrow.
The Financial Exchanges produced by Money MattersRadio and is hosted by employees of the
Armstrong Advisory Group, a registered investmentadvisor that provides investment advisory services. All
opinions expressed are solely those of thehosts, do not reflect the opinions of
Armstrong Advisory or anyone else, anddo not guarantee profit. Investments can lose
money. This program does not offerany specific financial or investment advice. Please
(00:21):
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decisions. Armstrong and Money Matters Radiodo not compensate each other for referrals and
are not affiliated. This is TheFinancial Exchange, with Chuck Zada and Mark
Vandetti, your exclusive look at businessand financial news affecting your day, your
(00:42):
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(01:03):
five K Boston is presented by VeteransDevelopment Corporation FACE he's the Financial Exchange with
Chuck Zada and Mark Vandetti Chuck markinTucker with you in market's not really doing
much of anything today. It's youknow, you're kind of poking it with
a stick, saying, hey,do something. And the Dow is up
sixty two points, less than aquarter percent, the SMP is down less
(01:26):
than one point, which is pointzero one percent, and the Nasdaq is
off tenth of a percent, aboutsixteen points. So just not much of
anything going on there. Tenure USTreasury is up two basis points to four
point four to eight percent. We'vegot oil up fifteen cents barrel to seventy
eight to fifty three on West TextIntermediate, and we've got gold up a
dollar and ounce to twenty three,twenty five and twenty cents. And quite
(01:51):
honestly, this is because there's nomeaningful news happening today. So if you're
listening to us, quiet week,not just like this one of the quietest
when the biggest thing happening is Airbnbreporting earnings. Yeah, after the bell
today, am We got that afterthe bell today, and we got a
little bit of mortgage data. There'sthree FED speakers today because man, we
(02:16):
just we really need to hear morefrom the FED. God forbid, those
guys don't just read a book,take take a it. I'm not suggesting
they're not literate. They are,no, but you're just saying, take
a break. Well, there's there'sa reason there's not the Chase Lounge.
Listen. My grandfather always said he'snot the only one who said this.
He said, there's a reason whyGod gave you two ears in one mouth.
(02:37):
You know, it's because you shouldlisten twice as much as you talk.
And that's why I'm on this showtalking right now. It's because I
didn't listen. Let's talk. Let'stalk a little bit about social security.
When it comes to social security,the latest information is that the soci Security
Trust Fund is going to be depletedin twenty thirty three, and at which
(03:01):
point you will see an immediate twentypercent plus reduction in social security benefits paid
out. Based on our anlogy,the system is set up. So congratulations,
Mark, good luck, You're welcome. Now, a couple things that
I have to say about this.The first, and I'm curious to get
to your thought because I haven't actuallytalked to you about this mark when the
(03:22):
solution eventually comes, because we're notjust going to let a bunch of sixty
five plus zero old people see atwenty percent drop in their primary source of
income. Thank you, when theeventual solution comes. What do you think
the most likely path is to fixingit? Because I I'm not out here
(03:42):
to say like, oh, thisis going to happen, because they're going
to fix it. The reason whythis is going to end up being fixed,
probably in twenty thirty two, isbecause the most heavily voting demographic is
sixty five plus and so politicians arenot going to screw them over just to
have themselves voted out of Rather,they're going to screw younger generations over.
It's just the question of how.And I'm curious what your thoughts are on
(04:06):
how they end up fixing this.I have no idea. We know we
need more revenue to keep benefits constant. I assume that people in my generation
Gen X born between sixty five Ithink in nineteen eighty are going to have
to work a little bit longer,assuming they make those changes soon, because
it's very difficult to take benefits awayonce they've commenced exactly so they're going to
(04:26):
have to start that today, andmy generation is going to have to step
up. As I said to MikeArmstrong yesterday, gen X needs to step
up and take one for the team. I've written baby boomers off. I
know a lot of you are inthat cohort, and I apologize, but
most of you don't care about SocialSecurity because yours is commenced, and you
very understandably don't want to see thatbenefit reduced. You paid in, you
waited, you planned. It wouldbe unfair to cut benefits for people who
(04:47):
have planned. Since we're just talkingoff the cuff here, I have no
analytics to share, sure, butit's not unfair to cut benefits for those
who have not already begun benefits likemy generation that'll be eligible starting in geez
for the oldest part of gen Xin just a few years. For those
in the middle and about ten,and then those on the tail end a
(05:08):
little later, we're going to haveto work longer and probably make do with
lower benefits. That's the only wayto avoid severe tax hikes on younger people.
I would be equally unfair. Iwould be surprised if gen X even
gets hit particularly hard on this.I think because we're so close, it's
so commencement that will become more vocal. But in terms of numbers, we
(05:30):
don't have the voting. If thebaby boomers and the younger cohorts gang up
on Gen X, we're not gonnahave a choice. So by that I
mean both both both sort of vetothrough voting changes today or changes that might
affect younger cohords. Doesn't part ofthis also depend on really poorly said sorry?
Doesn't part of this also depend onwhat the composition of Congress is in
(05:50):
twenty thirty two in terms of ohsure, generational la factors chruge, I've
I'm not even talking like partisan wise, I'm talking I know ideologically who's actually
in there? From an age perspective. I'll give you an example. This
is one that I actually just heardabout a couple of weeks ago. Did
you know that in New Hampshire youused to have to think, I don't
(06:13):
know if it was when you wereover sixty five or over seventy, used
to have to take a driving testevery five years in order to renew your
driver's license. You did no.I did not know that now you did
no? Because I've never been aresident who cares. It was no offense
too. That was great Listeners repealeda number of years ago, largely because
of an older demographic in the NewHampshire State Senate that said, yes,
(06:35):
we don't want to take our drivingtests every five like, we don't want
to do this. I bring thisup because it's relevant to social security in
terms of hey, what buttons andwhat levers do you pull and press?
Is going to be dependent on thedemographics when the fix actually happens. And
this is an area where the counterpointto what I said earlier about how gen
X might not be affected the millennialgeneration and typically gets screwed by baby boomers.
(07:02):
It's just like it's what we've kindof come to expect. Gen X
kind of gets screwed by everyone becausethe classic gen X gripe is everyone forgets
you, like people just like noone talks about you. It's either the
boomers or the millennials who everyone talksabout. No one talks about gen X.
I was having a good day.So like the hypothetical, really funny
situation is, hey, we're gonnafix social security by taking away taking it
(07:25):
away from gen X. Yeah,they won't complain. It's like, oh,
like like you'll just sark actually happen, But that's the gen X joke
is like, yeah, you'll justtake it away from us completely to object
with sarcasm, yes and muttering that'swhat we do. Where the sort of
snefeld, where's the monials? We'lljust whine, you know, like that's
what we do. Like, you'realso bigger. Your cohort is like eighty
(07:46):
million people roughly the size. Iappreciate that we did a lot of work
to get there, you know,but you're like the side and baby boomers
are getting smaller. We're bigger nowthan the baby they're dying off, I'm
sorry to say, or be unnaturalfor them to live forever, So I
guess I'm not. So we're allheading to the same place, frightening prospect.
Right. So you guys are goingto determine the future of all of
(08:07):
these entitlement programs. We know they'reon an unsustainable path. And I suspect
given our history as a country ofnot confronting a crisis until it's at our
doorstep, because it's hard as democraciesto do something that's far sighted that imposes
pain. Today like look at globalwarming. So what was in Churchill said
about us? You can always counton Americans to do what's right after exhausting
every other option first. Yeah,yeah, yeah, But that's the way
(08:31):
democracies work, and arguably you arriveat better solutions than some idiot autocrat who
becomes more and more insane. Andevery day there's there's good, the the
the the give and take of ademocracy is not a bad thing. It
ensures that a stupid idea doesn't getvery far most of the time. So
if history has any indication, whetheryou look at the Civil War, World
War two, amusing military examples herethat you know better than I do.
(08:52):
We don't do something until a crisisis at our doorstep. Generally, civil
war's a little unfair because we didtry to resolve slavery with a couple compromises,
few compromises that didn't end up workingout. So that's that's a little
unfair. But you know what Imean, We're not going to do anything
until benefits. This trust fund,I guess pays for the difference between what
comes in in taxes and what goesout in benefits. I was reminded of
that by the article that Mike Armstrongand I reviewed yesterday. So when the
(09:13):
trust fund dries up, it's notlike there's no money to pay benefits.
You just have to raise taxes topay benefits or cut benefits. It becomes
simpler, calculation become simplicy. Here'swhat my solution is. And the tool
that I'm using to do this mathis not my own. It's from the
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.Yeah, they've got a too out there.
It's called the Reformer. Anyone ofyou can go and you know,
(09:35):
pull it up online. But Iactually have managed to cover one hundred and
four percent of the shortfall. Andhere's what I would do. At this
point, anyone knew who is goingto be collecting Social Security, their full
retirement age is going to be agesixty seven. That's where it is based
on how things have moved up.So all I would do index age two
(09:56):
longevity after it hits age sixty seven. So if life spans go up,
great, you're going to see thefull retirement age gradually go up. If
they don't, then it won't.That's going to cover nineteen percent of the
shortfall just by indexing full retirement ageto longevity, not even adjusting it right
now, just if it changes inthe future. Second part, and the
biggest thing, apply the Social Securitytax to all wages above four hundred thousand,
(10:20):
so you're not impacting you know,anyone who's making less than four hundred
thousand in any way, shape orform. And that's going to cover sixty
six percent of the shortfall is justby covering those those higher wages a big
tax pike, yep, but noton ninety seven percent of Americans. That's
kind of how I look at it. And oh, look, if somebody's
got to bite the bullet on this. The third piece, the third piece,
(10:41):
and this would probably be the leastpopular part for most Americans. I
would change the cost of living adjustmentto the chain CPI, so it's not
going to be as robust of acost of living adjustment going forward. And
that's eighteen percent of the gap.Those three changes cover one hundred and four
percent of it with out impacting ninetyseven percent of Americans from a tax perspective.
(11:03):
And the only meaningful shift is,hey, if life spans get longer,
full retirement age goes up, andthe cost of living adjustment will not
be as high. It's self evidentthat it's not as easy as that calculator
suggests because nothing's been done. Idon't know. Sometimes Congress has trouble doing
really easy things. True, butseveral congresses more competent than the current one
(11:26):
arguably have failed to act on thisa generation's worth. In fact, I
think it's just because no one wantsto no one wants to be blamed for
it. It's not hard to fixSocial Security Medicare. It's hard to fix.
Medicare is kind of scrupy. Similaractuarial issues their time value money issues.
So I guess, if you're listeningto this, what is the upshot
(11:48):
of all this speculation? Save more? You can't? I know some planners
like to say, you save toomuch, you'll probably die with a lot
of money. You can always giveit away later. I'd rather have too
much of anything than not. Youknow, when you you overdo it so
you don't have, so you don'thave, you know, a board that's
too short. I think the samething probably applies to savings. That was
a terrible carpentry analogy, but youknow what I mean. No, it's
fun. You did great. Thefinancial exchange is now available on your Alexis
(12:13):
smart speaker has to play the FinancialExchange and catch up on anything you might
have missed. This is the FinancialExchange Radio Network. This is your home
for the most comprehensive coverage of theeconomy and the trends on Wall Street.
This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network. According to data from the Mortgage Bankers
Association, the contract rate on thirtyor fixed rate mortgages fell from seven point
(12:39):
twenty nine percent to seven point oneeight percent last week. Is the first
decline in weekly mortgage rates since lateMarch. And when I look at the
state of US housing, I thinkone of the big themes in the next
decade, in my opinion, isgoing to be I really don't need to
(13:01):
say in my opinion. That's whyI giggled. Yeah, it's obviously my
opinion. In Mark's opinion, Ithink one of the key themes and this
is this is gonna be so differentfrom what we're used to that I think
it's gonna throw a lot of usfor a loop. Is the fact that
I think the economy is going tobe so rate sensitive when whenever interest rates
(13:26):
move down in that when we lookat the amount of equity that's tied up
in housing right now. It's somuch higher both nominally and percentage wise compared
to what it's been over the lasttwenty years, in that households are way
less levered to home prices than they'vebeen in a generation. You just haven't
(13:48):
seen this level of home equity intwenty five years on a percentage basis.
And what I think it means that'sreally interesting to me is that if you
ever start seeing meaningful moves to thedown side on mortgage rates, I think
there is just a tsunami of homeownerswho are sitting there ready to tap their
home equity and throw a ton ofeconomic activity into the economy on a very
(14:16):
short term, rapid basis. Thatprovides a ton of support to the economy
and may prevent any kind of deep, earth shattering recession over that time.
I don't know of any historical precedentfor that. I see your point that
it could work that way, andthis is obvious, but it depends on
why rates are coming down. Ifthey're coming down because the economy is contracting,
(14:37):
then they will not jeopardize their homeby tapping it in atm like.
I don't know about that, Sookay, The reason why I say I
don't know about that is because oftwo things. The first is, when
given access to debt, Americans justlove to take it like they It's It's
(15:01):
one thing that we've proven time andtime again. We always talk about how,
you know, we want to befrugal in this and that, but
in the aggregate, we love borrowing, don't we. We do. Yeah,
we use it as a Yeah,we like spending, and that's the
obvious tool. Yeah, I knowwhat you're saying. So like I come
back to that first and foremost.The second piece is and this is kind
(15:22):
of dangerous, I guess, butthere's this idea that's always out there of
you know, is there you know, pent up demand because of you know,
a lack of spending. And Ithink on you know, the home
equity side of things, it's absolutelytrue how many people you know are sitting
there saying, Gee, I'd loveto go and redo a bathroom, but
I'm not going to do it whenhome equity lines a creditor being quoted at
eight percent. Gee, I'd loveto do you know, I love to
(15:46):
put in a pool, but I'mnot going to do when when home equity
lines a creditor at eight percent,those come down to you know, six
and a half. Hey, youknow what, we can do this.
And keep in mind most people don'trealize that on most helocks the rate floats,
so it's gonna end up back eightpercent of rates go back up anyways,
but that quoted rate is what peoplepay attention to. There's a lot
(16:06):
of this, in my opinion,that is lingering out there, and so
I think one of the underappreciated storiesfor the next decade could be that there's
a ton of equity in Americans homesand they're just getting ready to tap it
because they haven't for the last severalyears because of where rates have been.
Yeah, again it's obvious to pointthis out, but that equity could evaporate
(16:30):
if rates come down because of economiccontraction. Because of it could potentially but
I think, yeah, all lseqwould be a good thing. I'm not
disputing the premise. Yeah. Takinga look at markets, as we had
towards the bottom of the hour,the Dow remains in positive territory, now
up ninety four points, about aquarter percent. S and P five hundred
(16:51):
down two points. In NASDAK nowdown about a quarter percent. Off thirty
four points, so tech lagging alittle bit today and that dragging the Nasdaq
with it. Also, we've gotbonds, the ten year treasury at four
point four eight percent. I'm veryinterested to see where this moves over the
(17:11):
next week. With we've got CPIand PPI both coming out next week.
They're the uh, they're always thesecond full week in the month. It
was a little bit confusing just becauseof when May started. I was kind
of expecting, oh, like,normally they're the week after the jobs report,
and this there's a one week gapbetween them, which is why this
week is just so boring. Butnext week, curious to see if we
(17:36):
get any resolution on the next directionof rates. That's gonna be uh,
you know, interesting to see.So Tuesday we got PPI and Wednesday CPI,
the order reversed from how they normallyare. Also bringing the latest financial
news straight to your radio every day, it's the Financial Exchange, a Financial
(18:00):
Exchange radio network. Miss any ofthe show, catch up at your convenience
by visiting Financial Exchange show dot comand clicking the on demand icon, where
you'll find all of our interviews infull shows. This is your home for
the latest business and financial news inNew England and around the country. This
is the Financial Exchange radio network.UBER swings to loss despite rising revenue.
(18:25):
That's that's never good. You don'twant to have your revenue go up but
your profits go down. I betit happens a lot. But now they
did just say this was largely I'msure it does largely because of some legal
settlements and investments that they made oneoffs, one offs. So I'm not
excusing it away. I'm just makingexcuses like a CFO would, sorry,
go no, they are one offs. And I think what you can say
(18:47):
about Uber is when when you lookat them and try to make sense out
of hey, where do they gofrom here? The first thing that was
remarkable to me is this is acompany with a market cap of one hundred
and thirty three billion dollars. Ididn't realize the market cap was that big
these days. I'm kind of sittingthere going gosh, I kind of I
missed the boat on that. Andhere's the thing. They are profitable still
(19:11):
for the last twelve months. Youtake a look at net income and it's
running it, you know, nearlytwo billion dollars. So there's you know,
there's a good business there. Freecash flow is three point three six
billion dollars, so even you know, adjusting for accounting stuff, like they're
they're free cash flow positive. Like, okay, there's there's something there.
The question with a company like thisis, hey, you're trading seventy five
(19:34):
times earnings and twenty nine times forwardearnings, and if your profits are not
going to consistently go up, well, then what's what's the deal with that
valuation? And that's that's going tobe the question here. So if their
profits are going to get back togrowing you know, forty fifty sixty percent
(19:56):
a year, okay, you've you'vegot some thing, but there's not a
whole you know, long track recordof that kind of improvement, especially you
know, since they've been positive.Remember this is a company that basically lost
money every quarter for the first sixyears that it was publicly traded. And
so if this business is barely profitable, which again I know that on you
(20:18):
know, I said they had youknow, two billion dollars in profit,
but their margins are two point nineto eight percent for the last twelve months.
If you're barely profitable in a discretionarybusiness with unemployment running under four percent,
how do you get to profitability whenthe inevitable slowdown hits? I don't
know. I don't have an answerto that. I don't know, but
(20:41):
that's that's the question that they're goingto have to answer at some point,
is can't you make a profit inthis business when things are not as hot
as they are right now? Yeah? I don't know what's the plan.
So you've got that. Also,Uber and instacart, Uh, they just
formed an alliance. You must havea pun I was waiting for. I'm
(21:03):
sorry, I didn't mean to putyou on the spot, but this is
ripe for a zada pun. Well, I was I was gonna say,
like this goes down, you know, in terms of some of the great
alliances in history, you know,the US and the French teaming up against
the British back in seventeen seventy six. I mean, like you, there's
there's some big ones that you couldpotentially put out there, But I never
thought of it that way. Well, I don't think it's actually that important
(21:25):
because, let's be honest, gettingtakeout delivered to your home, I never
get it delivered ever, ever,ever, ever, ever. I don't
like the way. This is phraseactually, just to begin with it says
you can now get restaurant takeout deliveredthrough instacart. When you get a pizza
delivered directly from the pizza place,do you say you're doing takeout, no
(21:45):
delivery, You're doing delivery. Yeah, it's not delivered takeout, it's delivery.
It's redundant, redundant from the it'sfrom the redundant department of redundancy.
You know you don't. You don'tget takeout delivered. It's just delivery.
It's like an ATM machine. No, it's just an ATM. Tucker,
what do you have? What's yourbeef with no no pun with a takeout?
(22:10):
The fees delivered, the fees.It's not even the fees. I
use it myself, and I'm justwondering, like I'll just go down the
stream and get it. Oh,it's as simple as that. It's a
laziness thing. Like I'm trying tofight the laziness. That's all. It's
just a me thing. So inany case, Tucker, I'm getting some
feedback. I don't give me asecond. In any case, door Dash
(22:33):
is the eight hundred pound gorilla.I guess in the food delivery business,
and Instacart and Uber Eats teaming upto allow Instacart customers to order from all
these different restaurants that are now ontheir app that will be delivered through Uber
Eats. So it's basically integrating theirplatforms so that you have access to Uber
eats his restaurants through the Instacart platform. Okay, I'm with you, that's
(22:57):
what it seems. It's not blowinganybody skirt up here, though it sounds
like Ticker's thoroughly unimpressed. I don'tknow if this is enough to move the
needle. I kind of feel like, once you're locked into one of these
ecosystems, you just order all fromthat one. It's kind of like,
Hey, if you have an Amazonaccount, you don't really go to Walmart
and shop around on Walmart's website becauseyou like you just your default is Amazon.
(23:19):
Vice versa too. If if you'reused to buying all your stuff on
Walmart, you don't really go priceshop on Amazon in a lot of cases
for your default card for some items, you might for others, you'll be
less discriminating. If it's just so, it depends on I guess that I'm
not gonna bicker, yeah, onthis subject. But yeah, for the
most part, No, people probablydon't. Normal people. I think putting
(23:40):
myself in that category, I thinkyou just kind of get focused on that.
I mean, looks easy. I'mthe one. I do all of
my grocery shopping at BJ's now becauseit's cheaper. So it's you know,
they deliver or do they have amodel? They do have one that you
can do. I don't use it. It's like one hundred bucks a year
for unlimited delivery of groceries. Ifyou want it, that's excellent, so
you could do it. But quitehonestly, I take my daughter and we
(24:00):
run around the store and everything,and you know, we make it a
whole party. So it's it's fun. And you go Saturday morning or something
like Sunday morning, Sunday morning.Sunday morning is so weat breakfast on Sunday
morning and then nine am we're offto Bejays and we do the grocery shop.
I want to be a zoos atthat time, though it's not really
it's not. It's probably Saturdays.I've heard that costcos are always packed,
(24:22):
right, but the beaches that Igo to is not I've never been in
a case where it's like jammed andI can't get through there. It's it's
just not I've never even quite honestly, I've never even had to wait in
line for checkout. Really. OhI remember going back in the when I
was in college, and I wouldhave to sit there for like fifteen minutes.
(24:42):
I do this self checkout because youknow, we get twenty things for
the week, because you know,you get one eight pound box of grapes
and you're kind of good. ButI mean that covers at least a meal
these days. Yeah, you knowwho I am, right, And they
say, yeah, Bill Burr.No, it's I'm not tall to be
Bill Burke. I think he's likehe's like in his sixes, right,
(25:03):
I don't get the reference. Youdon't really look like him. I was
trying to think of someone who wassimilarly shaped, but a well known Massachusetts
personality. You know who I usedto get actually back in the day was
Dustin Pedroia. No, I couldsee that yet. I used to get
that occasionally. You know. It'swe're both short, bald guys who happened
to be ridiculously athletic. So Icould see that you know, got a
(25:25):
little bit of the long nose,and you know we do what we do.
Just take a quick break here.When we come back, we're gonna
be joined by Corey Adams Robert Half. We're talking about current trends in hiring
in terms of education versus skills,what our employers prioritizing. We'll talk with
him after this. The Financial Exchangestreams live on YouTube. Like our page
(25:47):
and stay up to date on breakingbusiness news all morning long. This is
the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Missedone of our shows. Catch up anytime
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(26:21):
American Veterans Department of Massachusetts. Thisyear's race is Saturday, November ninth at
Fort Independence on Castle Island and registrationsnow open. Help us support these great
American heroes by visiting DAV fivek dotBoston and registering for this year's race.
Your gifts will support a wide varietyof initiatives, like the DAV Transportation Program,
(26:41):
which takes disabled vets to important medicalappointments that supply both the physical and
mental care they need. For moreinformation or to make a donation, visit
DAV fivek dot Boston. The DAVfive K Boston is presented by Veterans Development
Corporation. As promised, were nowjoined by Core Adams from Robert haf here
to talk a little bit about currenttrends in what hiring managers are looking for.
(27:07):
Corey, how are you doing today? Good Chuck, how are you
doing well? Can you talk alittle bit about the results of your latest
survey that you put out here?Sure? So, we surveyed more than
twenty five hundred workers and seventy ninepercent said that they believe that their demonstrated
skills in work experience are more valuablethan their education and credentials through the eyes
(27:29):
of an employer. Additionally, ona separate survey over two thousand hiring managers,
this revealed that when considering applicants withthe necessary skills, managers are most
willing to bend on years of experience, requirements or education and certification. So
you kind of have two different thingshappening here, right, So finding skill
(27:51):
talent is really challenging. It's beenchallenging for years. We've been talking about
it for years, and so companiesprobably should start thinking about potentially update their
hiring strategies to place greater weights onskills and experience versus education and credentials,
and in doing so, this couldgive companies a better chance that landing talent
for specific top key roles. Andthen just the other side, real quick
(28:14):
workers workers with multiple workers with therequisite skills who may lack formal education in
their field shouldn't be discouraged from applyingfor roles with the otherwise might meet the
qualifications. How do employers go aboutfiguring out if someone that they're trying to
hire has the skills that they want. I mean, it's one thing to
say, hey, they should prioritizethis. What does that look like in
(28:36):
a practical sense? Sure, well, so some companies probably haven't instituted this
yet, and maybe because of justsome of the demand and hiring they might
be considering making this move. So, first off, if you're thinking about
implementing hiring around skills baates hiring specifically, I would say a couple of things
you should do. Number one,you're going to want to update your job
(28:56):
description making sure the focus is onthe response ability and requisite skills and obviously
not an education. And how youdo that is you describe the specific task
that you want the individual hired intothis role and what the you're responsible for,
and you also want to note thekey performance indicators that will be used
to measure success. The other thingI would recommend is you may want to
(29:18):
consider adding a skills assessment to yourhiring process. And so this could be
something like a writing sample or acoding test. It could potentially even include
a personality evaluation or an exercise designedto evaluate cognitive abilities. And so this
is going to help you not onlyget a better idea of how the candidate's
(29:40):
actual skills match up with the descriptionon their resume, but you never know,
this might actually help you identify anemployee with significant growth potential. You
mentioned that right now it's still challengingfor a lot of employers to hire the
people that they want to hire.What about training existing employees in new skills
and you know, with new capabilities, what kind of thoughts they have on
(30:03):
that. Sure, this is animportant one because this we're hearing a lot
of this lately, and this revolvesof both upskilling and what we call reskilling.
And so before even jump into that. There's two pieces of data that
I think are really important to sharearound this. So, according to Robert
Haff Research, forty six percent ofhiring managers say that they're in the market
for new talent because their current teamsdo not possess the requisite skills needed to
(30:26):
fill a job or to execute ona project. Additionally, fifty one percent
of managers surveyed who are looking tohire are having difficulty finding skilled talent on
the market. So you have existingmanagers who can't find people that they want
to hire with the skills needed,you have current managers who don't have the
skills needed on their infrastructure. Andso, simply stated, managers can help
(30:48):
solve the skills gap by focusing onupskilling and trainings within their existing staff and
when necessary, reskilling can also helpyour current employer, help your current employees
develop their career path and actually givesyou an advantage. So bottom line,
what we sort of share is thatboth upskilling and reskilling are effective strategies that
can really help you boost with notjust retention but just hiring long term in
(31:11):
general. What about for workers,what advice do you have on that side
of the ledger? In terms ofwhat could help them in a skills based
hiring push. So for this we'dlike to refer to the DASH technique.
So first is do your research.Two out of every three hiring managers have
stated that the candidates and the applicantswho take the time to research the company
(31:36):
understand the mission. The value goas far as looking at who you're interviewing
with that is going to separate youapart from the other applicants. From there,
you want to ask good questions.So curiosity demonstrates genuine interest, and
so it's a really good idea tohave some really well thought out, intelligent
questions that you can ask through eachstep of the interview process, whether it's
(31:57):
one round or it's multiple rounds.Next would be showcase your SAWCE skills.
Employers are assessing candidates into personal andcommunication skills because they want to make sure
that you have the ability to collaborateand interact with all levels within an organization.
And then finally, and this isa big one, but you want
(32:17):
to have responses for the hard hittingquestions in interview process. You're going to
be asked direct questions and so youneed to be comfortable and figure out how
to answer those. There's one inparticular, the most important one that anyone
in the workforce knows it's going tohappen. This question is coming and is
what are your salary expectations or requirements? And so for this, this is
(32:39):
something that's going to require some practice, whether you role play or you do
mock interviews with a friend, afamily member, a mentor. My biggest
thing I would say is whether you'renewly in the workforce or you're about to
enter into the workforce, the firsttime that you answer that question should not
be in the first interview that youhave. So it's something that definitely takes
(33:01):
practice and getting comfortable with. Verygood Corey, thanks so much for joining
us today. We appreciate it.Thank you, Chuck, have you good
week. That is Corey Adams fromRobert Haff talking about education versus skills based
hiring. Mark, what do yougot for me for stack Roulette? Anything
we haven't covered that you want toget to. There's a lot of chatter
lately about the four to oh oneK and other individual retirement accounts. I'm
(33:23):
not using that as in the senseof an IRA, just as in the
sense of individually owned and managed somehowbeing a mistake because they've left some people
behind. And there's an article inthe New York Times to this effect.
Today, there's a great book Idon't necessarily agree with its conclusions for what
it's worth, but by a famouslabor economist that makes that argument lately.
So I went back and looked atthe returns on stocks from nineteen eighty one,
(33:44):
the first year that somebody figured out. A guy named Ted Bena figured
out that was a loophole in theinternal revenue code to create a four oh
one K. Since that time,stocks have returned twelve percent on average a
year, some harrowing years. Isthat the S and P five hundred years.
Thank you. When I say stocks, I mean the S and P
technically the morning Star Large Cap Index, because that's the series I've got the
best data. Four So, whilethe four to one K is certainly not
(34:06):
a panacea, and iras are certainlynot a magic bullet for those who saved
in disciplined fashion starting a virtually anytime, even at market peaks over the
last few generations, if you wereable to save, that is a big
if we don't all have that privilegein ability. They've been an enormous success.
Has their reach been broad enough?No? Is that reason to end
(34:28):
the experiment in self directed retirement savings? My personal two cents is no,
not if you can commit to aplan and stick with it. It's been
wildly successful for those of us whohad access to them. What's been the
argument against They don't provide the sameretirement income security as pensions did. Duh,
Yeah, no kidding. Pensions werea luxury that companies couldn't afford.
(34:51):
It sent some into bankruptcy. Asanyone who lived through the nineteen eighties and
is familiar with the General Motors andother Big three stories, No, they
simply weren't affordable. You can blameSHREWLLL holders for not being willing to part
with some of those profits, butthey were doomed. As Ted Benna,
the so called father of the fourone K points out in this Times article,
pensions were going away, going waystoo strong. It was just a
matter of whether or not it wasgoing to be another te to be replaced
(35:12):
by something. Yeah. So,plenty of flaws in the four h one
K and plenty of laws in theway the industry implements it. Some funds
are too expensive, Some record keeperscharge fees that are too high right on
down the line. In terms ofcriticisms, nobody can disagree with many of
those, but by and large it'sbeen a wonderful wealth accumulation vehicle for Americans
who been privileged enough to participate.We are done for the day, Back
at it tomorrow on the Financial Exchange. Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday,
(35:37):
and we will see you tomorrow.
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