Labor shortages

Anyone experience major labor shortages where your not able to produce enough skilled workers. For the last 3 real months I have been experiencing major problems with it. I use to have a 130 health system. 150 education system and 100% social security system. Today no priority is able to balance it. Now i am a large nation but even my slave nation is experiencing problems with labor. Im trying to fix this but nothing has worked. I have sent the game master a message on this but he may have over looked or missed my message since he can be very busy.
Is anyone else having the same problem? And I have given up trying to fix it after 2 months and put it all on automatic and there were some improvements but not enough to satisfy my indexes

Country and world?

kebir blue. Imperial states of america

the easiest thing to point at, is your education priority of 9 for HTX, is 2 low, probably 15-21

usually 15 is about right, for HTX and HTS, with 18 a good cruising speed for HTE,

any given time i may need to raise them to deal with a problem, or reduce them before the unemployed numbers get high enough that they start looking for burger flipping jobs, just to pay the bills

if i iswitch the priority than another job will go inthe same problem. Anytime i change on it will effect another and im back at square 1 again

o jeese

thats the way it works, you'll have to constantly make adjustments, but you can get on top, rather than playing catch up

No fast food joints in my country Orbiter, but we do use a lot of LLW to harvest the soy beans ;)

lol

in the game documentation, look under game features, 10. education, look for Prevent overheating

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

It may become necessary to reduce the education priorities and reduce the number of graduates. Unchecked growth in education may result in a large number of unemployed professionals. As they become obsolete, they will move to other professions at lower levels.<!-/Quote-!>

the way it works, is if you need say, 100 HTX, and 1000 MLM for a corp, you have 2000 MLM, but only 50 HTX, then the corp will hire 50 HTX, and 500 MLM, even tho their are 1500 unemployed MLM it will still say that you need 500. now, with the "obsolete umployed" feature, for this example, everything over 400 MLM will keep getting demoted to LLW. so those extra 1500 will gradually decline to 400, while they are waiting for the other 50 HTX, and it will look like your having a problem with both, when really your only having a problem with one. and if you raise your MLM priorities, those extra MLM, will just get demoted to being LLW

the solution, is to fix the HTX problem, and once that starts to fall in line, adjust to fix the MLM. when it gets really bad, it might take a while, and a number of adjustments, but eventually, you'll be able to fully staff your corps, assuming that you haven't built to many.

the country posted above, having this problem, with its education index, should be able to handle smoothing out the work force, with the only actual issue left is the common HLW problem, (which is a different yet related discussion,) and even that can be resolved with built in fall back features.

honestly, the country in question needs to raise the education priorities of HTX, until that problem is under control, then adjust for the next shortage. but it is fix-able.

i could talk further about the countries education priorities, such that the teachers and uni-teachers are over done, and several points can be easily re-distributed to HTX, the health care stuff could be more effiecent with higher government salaries, the current priorities that are set, would normally cause a large increase in health workers, but those workers are in decline because of poor pay. the LLM, MLM, and HLM are all about 2-4 points higher than neccessary, all of this can be redestributed to HTX, for a short period, to correct that problem, and adjusted back when neccessary. the HTE of 16 is probably ok, but it could go easily to 18+ the HTS of 16 is about right, the EXE of 9, is perfect,

the main problem is the HTX of 9, it should probably be 15ish for cruising speed, and can be over 20 to handle a crisis.

Meh, you assume everyone plays like you Orbiter.

If you dont upgrade corps you will need lower HT priorities. You (or your CEOs) might prefer many Hi Tech corps, others may grow their own food for self supply. Some people have high edu and health, others prefer lower. You forget the influence of the age demographic.

While I'm sure you are basically right for your set up, you should remember to add this caveat in your advice.

Your ed priorities would cripple my work force and I have been a HOF player, No.1 countries and ents etc etc.

Regards old boy.

its interesting, i've been told i'm wrong, because i have to many agg and mining corps, and now, because i don't have enough.

further, in my countries, i've been running at 100 EI, with HI ranging from 60-95, in the past, i've ran 120-150 for EI, and even had countries with 200 EI,

I've tried many, many things, many different ways, over the 9 years i've played. Their are some thing that have been pretty consistent.

assuming that your government salaries are with in a decent range of your corp salaries, 4-5 for teachers, UT, nurses, doctors, and senior doctors, will give you a healthy increase. unless you are having a problem, or are trying to increase your index fast, its not necessary to raise them higher

for the other things, it does largely depend on what your work force needs, but my numbers are a good starting point. considering that when i orginally looked at the country in question is was -26K HTX, its pretty safe to say that an education priority of 9, is too low. the country has lost 12 corps, with a decline of 4K HTX in the last 3 days, and is left with a 15K demand, and a decreasing employment index. Between LLM, MLM, HLM, EXE, HTE, and HTS, their are 612K professionals, roughly spread out, waiting for HTX, and of those, only HTE, and HTS are short the total needed.

this country needs to focus more on the HT professionals. once those are brought more in line, other adjustments may be needed, but it will continue to have problems, until the main problem is fixed.

as far as not upgrading, i did have my corps set to not upgrade, efficiency, and recently started them upgrading again.

the country i'm talking about, has a natural increase of HLW, at 260M, which no one else is able to do. upgrading would lower the demand of HLW, but it kicked my ass, mostly in the HLM catagory. so i had to stop upgrading, to catch up, which i did, by raising my priorities to adjust. the funny thing is, while the need for HLM became terrible, it put allot of my other professionals out of work. before making adjustments to my priorities, these catagories, that where naturally increasing, started declining, do to large numbers of unemployed, even tho i need them to go back to work. so i had to focus largely on the biggest problem, HLM, until that was more level to my other problems, and fix each professional, in the order they where hurting. tell eventually i was able to fix them all.

and this was with an EI of 100.

another thing to note, as an aside, is the LLW age categories, in older countries, you see a reverse bell shaped curve for the LLW, with allot of LLW at the younger ages, and the older ages. how ever, this is pretty much the only worker/professional category like this. what happens when you have a large amount of unemployed professionals, is they are demoted into LLW, and it seems that its the older unemployed that are demoted, in the long run, i think this runs a muck the MLW/HLW process.

with my above experience, i noticed along with the decline of unemployed, yet needed professionals, their was also a significant increase in the older LLW catagories, meaning that the "obsolete unemployed," that where being demoted, where mostly the older ones. once i got things working again, and training just enough for a moderate increase in each profession, i noticed the older LLW declining. when i compair my country to countries having consistant HLW problem, they have larger numbers of old LLW, MLW and HLWs. So over training, results demotion of older workers, that round about fill the HLW worker ranks, then quickly retire. or so it seems

so thats something you got in your favor, TC, if you over train, it ends up screwing up your work force. it doesn't happen right away, it takes a little while for it to kick in, and when it does, you (not you, from your post it sounds like you get this, generic you,) will think that its a game bug, because it always worked that way, when you didn't really get, it that it never worked that way.

going with more agg and mining, low brow type corps, stabilizing the work force faster, with less future problems, this much i know for certain. my next step, is to find a healthy transition from a agg/mining econ, to industrial/tech econ. as it works in the real world, it should work in sim country.

but as in the real world, factory didn't just appear, the local econ, nearly always started with some natural resource, which drew people to the area, then as the local economy evolved, it became less dependant on farming/mining, and more on factories and technology.

i believe that, going for heavy tech/industry right away in a country, will have long term worker problems, you must first stabalize your force, with a low EI, low HI, and low tech corps, and mature your country. but if you go straight for those HT corps, you'll over train, drawing to heavily from your HLW, creating long term problems. so the short term success, has long term problems. that players often misunderstand as a bug.

sim country is a long term game, i've been playing for 9 years, their are people that have played longer. if you really think about it, their shouldn't be a issue with spending a couple years maturing and developing a country.

Orbiter, I saute you, that could almost be a dissertation

I'm not so sure about the HLW though. I am already seeing 0 of them after a couple of weeks and only building level 2 corps with 5 ceo hi tech corps. I have a declining average age of 32 ish and the age range of most my HLW is 40-50 which also happens to be about the peak age for working population... Hmm, seems I remember this from several years ago.

Of course, I can (and will) work around it with population transfers from C3s. It just does seem, not a bug, but maybe a matter that has always needed a touch of re-examination by GM. HLW balance should maybe be more achievable in house.

i believe the HLW problems has many aspects, but give this a try, instead of always having your education priorities always add up to 120, keep them in the 80-120 range, training just the stuff you need for the next corp.

if you have allot of extra teachers, or MLM, or what ever, go ahead and lower the priorities for those, even if you only need to use 90 total points,

for instance, and just for example, a chemical corp uses 8000 LLM, what need do you have for 70K umemployed? maybe make a target unemployed level of LLM of 20K, if it starts going over, reduce your EP, if under, then raise it. thats 50K professionals that wont be trained, and remain in your worker pool, making their way through the ranks to HLW... same is true for MLM and so on

just don't go below 80, or maybe give it a try, i never have, but i think that the game will close schools

short term, this means that early on, you'll be building low tech corps, to stabalize your work force, and establish the worker promotions, but later on, you'll be able to build HT corps

about GM involvement, at this time, the only thing i'd ask for, is a higher limit before the "obsolete unemployed" feature kicks in, given that corporations are much larger now, we need a larger pool to draw from

for instance, the auto-demotion feature kicks in for HLW in the 75k-ish range, but the auto-promotion feature kicks in at 40K, which automatically raises the total number of HLW to the demotion range. so right after you hit 40K, it will shoot up to 80K, then right after drop to 65K. also, if you want to avoid both features, that means that you only have about a max window of 32K, i realize this wont make since to most, but i'll figure out a better way to explain it, eventually

an extra tid bit

comparing my country to one of similar size, with a higher HI, and lower average age, one that should have a better birth rate, but mine is higher, at 260M you don't really have a birth rate, but a 0.004 difference, for those of such large countries, its worth looking at.

my theory, is older LLW throw off the birth rate. when i brush over his age categories, health index, and basics, he should have a better birth rate, but he doesn't, what i've got is less elderly workers, about 20% less

but this one is only a guess, making changes that dramatically effect the work force, can take some time, so its possible that things could switch. but if i'm right, it would only strengthen my over all premise of "over training"

again, don't run to the bank on this one, its just worth looking at

Average age owns natural growth over birth rate. I am experiencing +150k in monthly natural growth vs. your +5k. I have more older seniors but I have many more of the younger students as well where you have more in the 50-65ish range. Training is difficult to explain with my demographics as I am doing a series of worker trades and pop transfers. My focus has been on average age to increase pop growth and I have had some success with it.

o aries,

i was talking birth rates, not natural growth, you've got about 35 points to your health index, so yea, your gonna have more pop growth, but with your average age, you should be having a higher birth rate, but thats not the case. its marginal, i'm just pointing out that in spite of having everything we normally look at for birth rates, in your favor, the actual birth rate is not.

i'm offering that because i have a higher percent "baby making workers," it translates into a higher birth rate, but as i said, i wasn't certain, i also have an over all higher percent of population in that range, and both countries have the same number beside each age catagory, you know, i think the whole pop growth thing thing has become clearer, or atleast some things to try out, i've been considering how to make those higher indexes for those high Peace game levels work, and this has given me more to consider

as far as the students go, you also have a higher EI, which you always run with 120 total EP, so of course your going to have more students, but under normal circumstances, my HLW will increase with out the 40K back up feature, where yours does not, a large amount of what i've said above, is how that drains from your HLW pool, and how it is not only unnecessary, but counter productive to continue training professionals, once a certain unemployment level has been reach.

which means, until you can build up a worker and professional base, training professionals hard, will have short term gains, with long term issues.

you must develop your work force, Shepard, rather than manhandle it.

Yes, you have more "baby making workers". Why the beginning of your post played like there is a mystery is humorous. You have more in the 24-40 range while I have more in very bottom of the range, the 18-21s.

You have not addressed why I have more babies though. Not a few more. Many many more. In fact, my population from ages 0-12 is staying stable with my population size/growth, while your population is declining in this area while your overall population grows. Why is this?

Aries, of course you have more babies from your larger population of 18-21s than Orbiters 24-40s, don't you remember being than young ;p

Seriously, I admire your devotion in understanding how these things work, and I will relay the actual facts of the matter for you once my superior intellect has absorbed enough data to arrive at an empirical conclusion.

aries, your really good at reading enough to agrue, i did say why, you have 35 points higher health index, which is the main reason for the more babies, which is something i can clearly change.

but as health indexes, and ever declining populations at higher levels, has always been a problem, i'm doing a variation of my own "sim plague" experiment. that has been recreated, and verified by at least one other player.

i don't do many worker exchanges, being at WL2, limits this, i can of course make exchanges with my slaves, but i prefer not to, to keep my population as unmolested as i can,

my current experiment with pop, is, well, i'm curious is the main problem with high health indexes is the sudden increase, and not the actual number? if you increase the HI, is lowers the death rate, meaning pop of all ages have less death. this has the greatest effect on babies, and elderly. so if you raise your health index, more babies will survive, but your elderly will see higher growth before your "new" babies make their own babies. how ever, if you have mild or modest increase, will that give your babies time to have their own babies, before they are over burdened with taking care of the retirees? i don't know, and it will take a long time to find out

the other thought, is every where is says "100 for good quality," it has always said that, but the way we play, we consider that low. how differently does it work to run thing low? this too, does also take some time.

aries, you are predictable, what i said about the birthrates, was to bate you into a discussion, it was off the subject, but you couldn't avoid a pissing contest.

i offered bate higher up in the thread, that could have created a pleasant, conversation, a meeting of the minds to solve a sim-problem that has always been around, but you only read enough to argue.

You offered up such a small bit of data to the overall picture. The birth rate is such a trivial piece of data.

I believe I am on to something bigger and think I currently have the monopoly on it. Countries with substantial positive growth with populations greater than 200 million are difficult to find. I have developed Candinnalm into a baby-making country of sorts. It has sustainable natural growth. Demographically, it has a very young population. This maintains the growth at a cost of a smaller workforce. Notice my working people+jobless numbers about 121.5 million compared to over 124 million for Dreamland.

My country Garrotte has taken this to a greater extent while I have several more countries I am developing to be similar. I have found that developing countries in this way requires utilizing tools beyond the health index, which I find to have a more marginal influence on things that what you would think.

while i have 10K more birth per year, i have a 33% higher death rate of babies my 0.342 to your 0.247. when you compair my 6.6% of 0-4 year olds, to your 8.1%, even with fewer births, its because yours have a better survival chance.


your trading pop in a way to manipulate your death rate. and keep your babies alive. good job, i might consider a version of that, i'm not sure i want to try tho, its tempting. but i'm at wl2 because i don't want to be committed to that much effort.

and i must add, by looking around, some of the things i thought about death rates, and birth rates, i was under the assumption that death rates where effected by HI and life expectancy, clearly HI has that effect, but in comparing Dream land to CC5, that have similar health indexes, CC5 with a higher life expectancy, has a significant higher death rate, at 120M pop less, it will of course have a higher birth rate, it does have a higher average age, which makes me curious if that effects death rates? your post above would lead me to believe you think so.

all that said, i still, don't have the HLW problem, unless i have another problem i have to deal with

the only HLW problem i have, is because the GM have "fixed" the problem so many times, that the auto-correct has kicked in. which i try hard to avoid. when the trigger was 30K that was reasonable, but safe window to avoid game triggers, is barely enough for some corps

the main thing that needs to change, is an increase to the "obsolete unemployed feature," why don't we talk about that? which has been a large amount of thread until you got defensive.

aries, also, at a personal note, where do you see yourself in 5 years? do you really want to spend 5 years trading imaginary workers in a browser game? just to be an 800 pound gorilla, until you step out the front door?

wouldn't it be more rewarding to figure out how the game works, and let it work for you, freeing your time up to have a life, and still be good in sim country? some how, i think that was the original intention, not this min/max crap that always ends up with long term problems.

i've said it before, and yet again, Jozi created a very deep game, with robust features, that we have yet to really figure out, a decade after its creation.