Tech Unemployment Hits 19-Year Low (dice.com) 305
New submitter SpaceForceCommander writes: Tech unemployment hasn't been this low since the turn of the century, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data crunched by CompTIA. As of May, tech's unemployment rate sat at 1.3 percent. "There is now the very real prospect of tech worker shortages affecting industry growth," Tim Herbert, executive vice president for research and market intelligence at CompTIA, wrote in a statement accompanying the data. "Firms seeking to expand into new areas such as the Internet of Things, robotic process automation or artificial intelligence may be inhibited by a lack of workers with these advanced skills, not to mention shortages in the complementary areas of technology infrastructure and cybersecurity."
Tech's unemployment rate previously hit 1.4 percent, in April 2007 and March 2018. (The BLS began measuring occupation-level employment data in January 2000.) However, not all segments within tech are adding jobs at the same rate; although custom software development and computer systems design gained 8,400 new positions in May, for example, both information services and telecommunications saw modest losses. Meanwhile, new data from PayScale suggests that wages within the tech industry grew 2.3 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2019. That's an indicator that the low unemployment rate is forcing employers to pay more in order to secure the talent they need.
Tech's unemployment rate previously hit 1.4 percent, in April 2007 and March 2018. (The BLS began measuring occupation-level employment data in January 2000.) However, not all segments within tech are adding jobs at the same rate; although custom software development and computer systems design gained 8,400 new positions in May, for example, both information services and telecommunications saw modest losses. Meanwhile, new data from PayScale suggests that wages within the tech industry grew 2.3 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2019. That's an indicator that the low unemployment rate is forcing employers to pay more in order to secure the talent they need.
Uh-huh (Score:5, Insightful)
Pull the other one. The game is in progress to raise the H-1B cap. Again.
Remember, it's usually cyclical (Score:3)
I'm fine with increasing the H-1B cap during a boom cycle, as long as they decrease it during bust cycles.
I lived in CA after the dot-com bust, and IT was slim pickens in the area. I was competing for jobs with visa workers. I survived by taking out-of-state contracts, but it was rough on the family.
Making the H-1B vetting stricter is one of the few things I agree with the Orange Guy on, as they are (were?) often being used to get cheap labor instead of actually to fill "shortages", the stated purpose of th
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where's the pay? (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm well paid, but salary growth has been sluggish. Been looking for a new job for 3 years and any offer I've gotten wasn't good enough for me to make the jump.
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Maybe you just think you're worth more than you are.
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Re:where's the pay? (Score:5, Insightful)
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any offer I've gotten wasn't good enough for me to make the jump.
Jumping jobs doesn't lower unemployment.
Pay increases will only lower tech unemployment if there are significant numbers of idle tech workers waiting for salaries to go up before they accept a job.
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Wrong way around. Pay increases when unemployment is low. This is because with low unemployment, you need to hire people away from other employers, which requires offering people enough to make a switch worth it.
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Its going up. 2 years ago, I was seeing 200K as the top out in NYC among series B/C startups. Now I'm getting 225K quoted to me at the top end. I expect the top is soft if they need the position enough, hiring is brutal right now.
How is that a brag? (Score:2)
Humble brag much?
Not being able to find a position to bump up your pay from Wendy's base level doesn't seem like much of a brag to me.
Way to go Mr. President... (Score:4, Insightful)
...new data from PayScale suggests that wages within the tech industry grew 2.3 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2019. That's an indicator that the low unemployment rate is forcing employers to pay more in order to secure the talent they need.
Folks, let's be serious...now, who can say this president isn't doing a fantastic job?
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I agree. Xi Jinping has been doing a fantastic job. Growth is off the charts!
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But... but... orange man bad!
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...new data from PayScale suggests that wages within the tech industry grew 2.3 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2019. That's an indicator that the low unemployment rate is forcing employers to pay more in order to secure the talent they need.
Folks, let's be serious...now, who can say this president isn't doing a fantastic job?
The statistical correlation is obvious, but the causation is not obvious. Is there anything in particular that you think Trump has done that can be linked to causation?
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Bringing the corporate tax rate down to the OECD average. That was a huge boot off the neck of business, especially with the smaller and manufacturing companies. And yes, those companies affect tech - they use cloud services, they use telecom and IT, their employees buy new gear, and they all use Facebook, Twitter and such for marketing and social media needs.
Yes, there was a corporate tax cut, but what was that extra money used for? Investments? Hiring? Stock buybacks? Executive bonuses? Lobbying? It's not clear that there was causation between the tax cuts and macroeconomic metrics.
BTW, this is not just a dig at Trump. This is true for the impact on macroeconomics for most presidents.
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Is this attributable to Trump? And even if it is, does it make up for all the really shitty things he has done?
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If you look at the trend lines you literally cannot see any difference from the tail end of Obama's presidency and the beginning of Trump's. All that can be said for Trump is that he's so incompetent that he can't even get his bad ideas implemented. The only legislation with a potential major economic impact that has passed under Trump is lowering taxes on the wealthy, which definitely hasn't done what it's proponents said it would. Trump's crazy budgets were completely ignored by Congress which passed budg
I don't mean to toot my own horn (Score:5, Interesting)
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I got modded "troll" for calling this economy a paper tiger, because Trump's tax cuts got totally negated by affects his trade war has had on the cost of goods and services. Backed it all up with citations, too.
Unfortunately, we're living in a post-fact era, where the "I've got mine" folks simply don't care so long as things look rosy from where they're standing.
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Presidents generally can't have a lot of impact on the economy in the short term. Most bad laws and related debt tend to cause most of their damage down the road, after the President is out of office.
For example, Bill Clinton's banking deregulation contributed to the depth of the crash a decade later. Fortunately, his restraint from excess spending during his tenure also allowed a bigger stimulus after the crash. Both of these happened when he was already out of office.
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What exactly has he done to contribute to this?
There are times and places where the best contribution a person can make is to do nothing. This is likely one of those cases.
Re: Lets hope so! (Score:5, Insightful)
Opposing the tyranny and abuses of Israel isn't anti-Semitic any more than opposing Trump's KKK-based brand of nationalism is anti-White.
But go ahead, keep up with praising your brand of patriotism. Only those who worship the Great Orange Chump are worthy. All who stand in defiance must be driven out! One Nation, One Party, One Leader, One God! All Hail Trump the Great Golden Ass! Freedom in Tyranny! Peace in Strife! Prosperity in Poverty! Love in Hate!
2000 low? (Score:3, Insightful)
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I know what you mean. I prefer legal invasions of countries. Unless a lawyer okays it, I am against invasions.
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Maybe you're joking and maybe you're questioning whether the war was illegal but some proper background on this, every nation signed up to the United Nations also signed onto the charter agreement that, among other things, basically prohibits countries from attacking each other unless there is clear evidence of eminent threat. Something like an army massed at ones boarder would be an example of this.
This is covered in chapters 6 and/or 7 of the charter agreement (I don't remember which). All of the evidence
Re:2000 low? (Score:5, Funny)
Smart. Real estate in states like California and New York and DC are very safe. There isn't a real estate bubble at all in those states at all. You are a really smart guy.
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People like you make it sound like people are running for the borders to flee California. What's really happening is that there are people who bought a house there 25 years ago when property values were still somewhat sane, are now approaching retirement age, realized that their fairly average house is now worth several MILLION dollars, and are simply cashing in & using the money to (semi-)retire early someplace cheaper because they'd rather retire at 62 in Arizona or New Mexico than spend another 5 yea
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None of those people are selling their houses, they're renting them out for $5000-6000/month, doing bare-minimum repairs, and paying the same property taxes from 1995.
Supply and demand (Score:2)
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2.3 percent is good? (Score:5, Insightful)
2.3 percent salary growth isn't even enough to cover inflation (the real stuff, not the fake numbers put out).
This is how skewed things have become. We consider a near-inflation level rise in pay as good whereas the C levels are getting at least a ten percent increase (and they're already making millions).
We keep hearing about this "shortage" of IT workers, yet if there truly was a shortage, employers would be offering higher salaries to get those they need.
That this is not happening, in both IT and across all industries, shows the lies of those who claim they can't find employees. It also shows that despite the largest wealth transfer in this country's history, trickle down economics has once again failed miserably.
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2.3 percent salary growth isn't even enough to cover inflation (the real stuff, not the fake numbers put out).
What's the real inflation rate, then?
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For me It's about 4.5% a year (Score:2)
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Ask yourself how much transportation, groceries, housing has gone up in your area.
Not much. Is it more or less than 2.3%? That's very hard to judge. Actually 2.3% seems about right.
In any case, random guesses like that are far less useful than the CPI.
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Well the inflation rate that the fed uses is called Core Inflation and excludes energy and food prices. The Fed uses core inflation in assessing the state of the US economy because food and energy prices are considered too volatile to make for reliable data. I'm assuming the above parent is advocating for viewing the wage increase data for the tech sector in the context of what I've heard referred to as headline inflation which does not exclude those things.
Interestingly enough however, (if I'm looking at
Re:2.3 percent is good? (Score:5, Insightful)
As I said, it's not only the IT industry. All industries have this notion if they keep whining long enough, they'll get someone to fill a position whereas if they would raise the salary, they would get more bites.
Since the 80s I've heard and read the sob stories of companies saying they can't find people to fill positions. Even in the middle of the Bush recession, when millions had lost their jobs, all we heard was businesses couldn't find people.
If you can't find someone to fill a position during a recession, it's not the people, it's you.
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The trick to the claim that they can't find tech workers is that they can't find tech workers to do what they'd like to do at the price that their product's sales potential justifies.
It is like saying "I could put GM out of business with a sub $10K car if I could just find enough high-quality workers that will assemble cars in the US for $3 per hour".
Bubble? Recession to follow? (Score:2, Informative)
Umm, 19 years ago was at the end of the dotcom bubble and all it's irrational exuberance. It was followed by a fairly ugly recession and then a few years later by a REALLY ugly one. Those who don't learn from history tend to repeat it.
Taking lessons (Score:2)
If Trump followers didn't take any lessons from 1930's Germany they won't learn from previous recessions.
Oh they took lessons from 1930s Germany alright...
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If Trump followers didn't take any lessons from 1930's Germany they won't learn from previous recessions.
I don't see the basis upon which this is current moderated as "funny". Some kind of troll mod? MEPR could fix that.
Anyway, Trump's supporters don't believe the 1930s ever happened.
By the way, I think the "Send her back" chant is not at all surprising, and I'm only surprised we haven't already seen a "Lock kids up" chant. On the one hand, I want to run like hell from such people, but on the other hand, I don't want to be the good person who did nothing. And don't forget that Putin is advising Trump to be a w
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I'm calling bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
They have to try harder (Score:3)
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You should consider other things than just salary when looking for work. If you are only looking at money: a good way to really make money is through stock options/grants. Salary is just a nice base.
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As somebody with friends (Score:5, Informative)
Meanwhile HR 1044 [duckduckgo.com] passed without so much as a peep from the tech news press. I only know about it because another
This is just more fake data for employers to use to get more cheap visas. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Breitbart was railing against 1044, clearly with intention to shame Senate Republicans and/or Trump into not passing it. I am not aware that it passed the Senate yet:
"In the House, it has 108 Republican and 203 Democratic cosponsors. In the Senate, it has 19 Republicans, including Senator Tom Cotton, and 15 Democratic cosponsors. The bill passed the House today by a bipartisan vote of 365-65."
Whether the shaming worked/will work or not, it appears Breitbart is your friends' friend, at least when it comes to
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And I have no doubt Republicans would vote for it without a moment's thought if Trump weren't President.
As for Omar, same thing here -- enemy of my enemy.
I tend to pay attention to Rand Paul's arguments, who I imagine you're not a fan of. He broke ranks from Republicans on occasion for reasons of sound principles, not moralizing or virtue signaling, and not caring for peer pressure. If he said 1044 should be passed I'd consider his arguments. ... OK just did a search where he stands on this and found "The K
What's wrong with Omar? (Score:2)
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I don't like her anti Israel stance but I like even less people shouting her down by calling her antisemite.
Unless she is calling for Jews to be harmed or their livelihood taken she should be free to speak. And I do think she has guts so I respect that.
Looking at your list, here's another person you might find you're unlikely siding with: Fox's Tucker Carlson. He surprisingly endorsed Warren's economic plan. He said what country needs is not far left social justice, not conservative full on free market, not
I'm hiring (Score:2)
I'm hiring jobs in tech. I'm having a tough time finding anybody with real skills and/or anything more than a boot camp education. At least for me, the stats are real.
I've cut multiple offers at well above what I would have paid last year and had the folks use them to get counters from their current employers.
If you're looking for work, have front-end or back-end skills, click the link and submit a resume; you won't be disappointed.
Get out of California (Score:2)
Want a fix to your problem?
Get the hell out of California. The problem is that tech managers there want an army of child-less, life-less drones that will kill themselves for stock options. Come to Kansas, I'd kill for somebody with your experience and skill set. To top it off, after you sell your house there, I'd wager you could pay cash for 3x the square footage here and a better school system.
And are tech salaries rising in response (Score:2, Troll)
Wage growth too low (Score:3)
Can't Find a Job? Change tactics. (Score:3)
Consider ditching the idea of chasing recent tech skills. They are the most commoditized. Think about learning "dead" tech for which unfilled jobs are plentiful.
People willing and able to work in deprecated Oracle Forms and Reports have a lot of years of gainful employment in front of them.
Experience? Yes... and maybe no. (Score:3)
Depends on how much they need that skill, and for how long. If the need is high and long term, the company may be willing to take on somebody who has at least taken the initiative to start climbing the hill. Provided there's some history of competence in other areas.
Of course a company with only short term needs, to your point, wouldn't bite.
2.3 pct growth is not high (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember when pay scales went up 8-22 percent for a few years.
Try again.
During my job search I've seen delusional companie (Score:2)
Re:Make America Great Again! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Make America Great Again! (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet, there is a pretty clear 30 year trend of Republicans pumping up the economy with corporate give-aways (tax-cuts, deregulation), which inevitability result in recessions, which the Democrats then clean up with responsible taxes and corporate governance
When will the gop be recognized as fear-mongerers that they are and the Dems get credit for fiscal conservatism?
Re:Make America Great Again! (Score:5, Insightful)
Democrats noted for fiscal conservatism? When Reagan decided on tax cuts, he had an agreement with Tip O'Neill where Tip and the Democrats would cut spending. They reneged. At that point, Reagan should have reneged but couldn't because the tax cuts were already enacted and getting them back would look like he was caving, so he didn't.
Clinton only balanced the budget because he had a Republican legislature and they couldn't agree on spending or tax cuts. The economy was humming right along due to the dot.com boom. Then came the dot.com bust which occurred roughly 8 months before Bush took office. They could see surpluses as far as the eye could see, so they pissed it off on tax cuts and Iraq.
Bush's Administration didn't believe in regulation, so Wall Street sold America down the river, Alan Greenspan weenied out, and Americans thought buying 2nd and 3rd homes as "investments" was a good idea. The economy tanked and then Obama came in. He made the Bush tax cuts permanent and allowed spending to balloon. We got Big Deficits.
Then Asshole became la Presidente Tweetie and we got more tax cuts. Well, we didn't, but corporations and rich people did. Now we have trillion dollar deficits year on year going forward.
I don't see much restraint by either party, just a lot of sticking their heads up their asses and whistling past our financial graveyard. SS and Medicare breaking the budget, but we don't need no stinkin' immigrants to add to the base of people paying for those programs. Nope, immigrants paying taxes. Sheesh, they aren't even white.
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So could these Liberal Policies be what is keeping Tech Workers unemployment at a low.
Liberal policies like importing foreign workers to undercut local workers?
Re:Make America Great Again! (Score:5, Informative)
Compared to outsourcing, importing workers isn't a problem. As such workers may get the raw deal from the tech company for a little while, until they realize their skills can bring in more money, will then go shopping for for better opportunities. This puts companies trying to save a quick buck into problems with high turnover, and dealing with the brunt of importing employees. Most companies try this for a few years, then realize if they can get help locally it is overall a better value.
Also part of the issue that had created the Tech bubble, was a lack of supply of tech workers, so a college grad in the late 1990's could be making a 6 figure salary, with lame skills, say a Microsoft Front-Page developer. What happened was the Clinton Administration near the end of its term increased the number of foreign tech workers into the US, I feel the number may had been too high, to try to deflate the bubble. But what happened was the Tech workers price was too high, and any way a company can lower its price it jumped on and did. Causing the bubble to pop, because what wasn't factored in was a lot of the demand was for Y2K coding, and or replacing older systems with newer Y2K complaint systems. Once Y2k had happened, the demand for the jobs dropped with the influx of workers caused the pop. Now the bubble would had popped, but it may have stung more then it did if workers were still high salary for low skills.
Importing workers hurts me more than outsourcing (Score:2)
The Y2K bubble wasn't all that big a deal. There's plenty of IT work beyond that. Currently there's a massive push across all industries to get off expensive IBM mainframes and onto "cloud" based solutions.
What imported labor lets companies do is not have to pay to train. I can't compete with somebody trained in India. I'm to
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Compared to outsourcing, importing workers isn't a problem. As such workers may get the raw deal from the tech company for a little while, until they realize their skills can bring in more money, will then go shopping for for better opportunities
Which is why H1B visas require the imported worker to keep working for the same company.
(Theoretically an H1B can be transferred, but that means you lose out on the time the worker already spent in the US. 95% of the time, it's better to import a new H1B worker)
Re:Make America Great Again! (Score:5, Informative)
The Red States are about to be hurt even more. With global warming, the Red States in their denial aren't taking any remedial actions to lessen the impact
Climate change doesn't work that way. The atmosphere is global, and CO2 doesn't stay within political borders.
My lack of concern hurts you as much as it hurts me. Your sacrifices benefit me as much as they benefit you.
Preparations (Score:2)
Climate change doesn't work that way. The atmosphere is global, and CO2 doesn't stay within political borders.
No but the financial and infrastructure plans to deal with it are affected by political borders. If sea levels rise and I build my house to deal with it and you don't then you are going to suffer more financially than me even if I help you out.
My lack of concern hurts you as much as it hurts me. Your sacrifices benefit me as much as they benefit you.
Only partially true. There are lots of things I can do to prepare for climate change that will help me and won't help you. If it kill us all then sure, you win the argument but since that isn't the most likely outcome it isn't a zero sum game where we share all ben
He's referring to stuff like prepping for droughts (Score:2)
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Are these desalination plants just for drinking water, or can they also sustain California's agriculture ?
Do you mean is it potable? (Score:2)
The main thing is raising the tax revenue to pay for the infrastructure. Red States aren't or can't do that.
Re:He's referring to stuff like prepping for droug (Score:4)
California built 6 desalinization plants
Are you seriously claiming this is an example of "Blue State Wisdom"?
They built desalinization plants at a cost of billions, which can supply less than 1% of California's water consumption, while simultaneously squandering far more water growing subsidized rice in the desert.
That isn't "wise". It is insanely stupid.
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Climate change doesn't work that way. The atmosphere is global, and CO2 doesn't stay within political borders.
The blue states are updating building codes, flood maps, and so on.
The red states are rebuilding in places that just flooded two years ago.
Yes, both red and blue will be hit with climate change, but blue is setting themselves up to deal with it, red is relying on "fuck you libtards" to avoid it.
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we emit more per person than China, which emits double the CO2 that we do.
China has four times as many people. They emit more overall, but half as much per person.
If Bubba emits twice what Chiang emits, it is silly to expect them both to make equal sacrifices.
Besides, China is doing a lot. They are number one in solar and wind. Within a decade they will be number one in nukes and EVs.
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Red ocean (Score:2)
Most of the "Red States" don't have ocean-front property.
You mean except for North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana? (not to mention big swaths of Virginia and Florida) Yeah, hardly any ocean front land at all there. Just half the eastern seaboard and much of the Gulf of Mexico...
Why would they care if the oceans rise?
Because a lot of people live there. Of course they'll be too busy acting out the parable of King Canute [wikipedia.org] to be bothered by the incoming water.
Re:Make America Great Again! (Score:5, Interesting)
The Red States are about to be hurt even more. With global warming, the Red States in their denial aren't taking any remedial actions to lessen the impact since they don't believe it exists.
Whether they believe it or not I'm seeing a lot of windmills going up in "red" states.
I also noticed a lot of solar panels on rooftops lately. And my phone keeps ringing from people trying to sell me solar panels. I live in one Midwestern "red" state and my cell phone area code is from another "red" state to the south.
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Global warming is real, but global warming is slow (at least in human terms - pretty quick on geologic timeframes). I doubt anyone will truly feel significant negative impact for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years. The likelihood that anything resembling our current political climate is still around by then is virtually nil.
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The current impact of global warming over the last century has resulted in an average temperature increase of 1 degree Celsius. A one degree change does not trip the difference between human habitability. Now, at that rate in 1,000 years, a 10 degrees Celsius increase is getting into "Oh shit!" territory, but the reality is that people won't see an appreciable change within their own lifetimes.
And that's honestly why most people don't care about Global Warming. We won't live to see it bite us in the ass.
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We allow you to work in your underwear, if it suits you...
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