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when will companies:
Listen to employees..
run training centers..
TRAIN in and after schooling..
GIVE activities that further PUSH students into working for them..as we USED to train kids how to change money in school..it was a math test.
USA corps ask NOTHING and GIVE NOTHING..
I don’t know==something strikes me as “off.” Old people should retire and get out of the way. Boring soul destroying work is for young people.
Seems to me the wrong problem has been identified here.
@#2
What is ‘old’ today, 40/50/60/70 ?
So BMW wants to keep 50 year old skilled workers rather than firing them and hiring cheap 18 year olds who might not have the same pride in their work.
The biggest DIY chain here started a policy of hiring over 50s, especially men that have retired from a lifetime in the construction trade.
Who would you rather have help you – them or the 17year old who didn’t get the job at McDs?
Nobody==your excellent questions only underline the issues I raised. Yes, how should a young unskilled labor force be brought up to task? On the job Mentoring/Craft Guilds?
Societies function is how to balance the competing factors==not to be co-opted by the political winds of the day to support one interest over the other. What is the function of “industry” in general? To make stockholders rich? To make executives rich? To make workers rich? To provide an engine of richness for the entire economy?
Think outside the smallest box you can imagine.
Wow, a developed country that still makes stuff. Who would have thunk it.
This is nothing new. This is my specialty as a multi-discipline engineer. It matters what age it is, you change the environment to give you the best results, whether that be productivity, profits or just as simple as comfort.
Apparently “Think outside the smallest box you can imagine.” applies to everyone posting here, proving once again the retards with no experience whatsoever has to have a say. Thank God/Alien for free blogs! Love America!
These are good ideas. They don’t cost that much and make a big difference. I’ve taken the tour of the BMW plant in Spartanburg SC. Its a nice operation.
Why would anyone want to buy a BMW?
SIMPLE , COMMON SENSE … SADLY IT NEVER WILL HAPPEN HERE.
I only wish we did this as a nation for all workers .
USA now home of the broken , depressed & cowardly .
I wonder what BMW plans to do about it’s aging customers?
I have been told Ford won’t spend $0.05 to grind down, smooth, the sharp edges on the sheet metal in engine compartments.
So the extra $7,000 you pay for a BMW doesn’t go into building a better car, but goes into building a better manufacturing facility for the workers?
Well Father, that would be true if Fords and BMWs were essentially the same. I honestly don’t know that answer, but I’ll bet they’re not comparable.
Anyway I’m glad someone is thinking in these terms, since fewer of us will be able to retire, like, ever, so we’ll need some accommodation.
“Why would anyone want to buy a BMW?”
Do you really not know? Because BMWs are tight, hot and luxurious. Tight: engineered to close tolerances, with high compression engines, accurate steering and road-hugging suspensions. Hot: powerful — when called upon to go fast, they go fast, quite rapidly if need be. Luxurious: what BMW does for their aging customers. I imagine those three factors account for most of the $7000 premium over Fords.
I think you should realise that people are choosing to still work at BMW. They are not being forced to do so.
If BMW are making simple changes that have a positive effect on their workers AND their output, what’s the problem?
But the key problem with the report is the assertion that the population is “getting gray” as though a load of 50+ people just sprang into existence. They are not appearing, they as just not dying off as fast as they used too. Birth rates have been pretty flat in Germany for a number of years. If the older population doesn’t die younger, they appear to be a larger demographic; simply by still being around.
This kind of false statistics is very common in the news media.
Uncle Patso,
Have you driven a new Ford Fusion? I think it compares better than you may be suggesting.
Moreover, your talk about “when called upon to go fast, they go fast, quite rapidly if need be” is odd, to say the least. Are you taking your BMW to the race track? Because everywhere I drive, the speed limit is quite conservative, and “fast” doesn’t begin to tax my AWD 165 HP Subaru Impreza ($19,000+).
Also “engineering” close tolerances seems to exaggerate what it means to have close tolerances.
Likewise, a “high compression” engine is simply an engine that has a large change in available cylinder volume as the piston sweeps between bottom-dead-center and top-dead-center (which is not what I think you think it means).
I do agree that BMWs had relatively great “driving feel” 10 years ago, but I think Ford has made good advancements in this area.
Invest in a company that makes reading glasses!!!
I have more of them than iPods!!
and I STILL CAN’t FIND ONE to read DU!
HA!