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Is There REALLY an IT Worker Shortage in the US?
dwalker asks: " I found a disturbing manifesto while I was investigating the H-1B situation. Dr. Norman Matloff is a computer science teacher at UC Davis and he makes some radical claims about the tech industry including ,
'Rampant age discrimination...at age 35', H-1B workers as cheap labor and 'Indentured Servants' , and he claims that there is no labor shortage. His testimony was presented to the U.S House Subcommittee on Immigration in 1998 right before the last H-1B visa increase. Plus he has quotes and documentation to back up his claims, everything from personal e-mail to articles in the Washington Post. I'm not in the workforce yet but if this guy is right my CS Degree isn't gonna mean much. I'm curious what the tech community at large thinks of this guy and his claims, especially now after 2 years?"
Well, I'm an H-1B in US, working for a non-profit. I'm paid mostly within 90% of the market rate. Oh yes, I'm from India as well :-) It is always the money that matters in these things. We are paid better here than in India, and employer gets a hard working person for little less. Because of H-1B terms (which are now changing), the employer is surer to keep the employee for a little more time. In my couple of years here, I've seen the following assumptions by employers:
1. More people in a project means more efficiency.
2. More managers also implies more efficiency.
3. More analysts are also better.
4. More meetings are great as well.
Needless to say, I disagree with all these. Very few Americans who are CS degree holders want to
be programming after 5 years on the job. A lot less number of folks from other background who
just had some HTML-ASP course want to actually do coding for more than a year. Everyone wants to be an analyst or coordinator or manager or the idea guy. If they need to code, they are unhappy and thanks to the citizenship, they can easily change jobs - that said, I've really seen employee shortage atleast around DC area. And many American companies' IT departments seldom follow any kind of written standards for software projects - I'm talking about companies with primary business NOT being software development. This makes it very difficult to cope up with a change in work force.
what corporate America needs is experienced work force and some decent HR policies to keep them.
My suggestions:
1. No need to increase the H-1B cap, this just makes it worse.
2. Relax the H-1B restrictions so that changing employers are easier.
Isn't America built upon the principles of competition? This will help keep the pay higher, and will certainly make employers see the light in hiring experienced American employees.
3. After 6 years on H-1B, one needs to take an year out of USA. Lift this restriction.
This will help the employers and employees financially.
4. And for God's sake, before any one starts on an IT project, have a plan before the first line of code is written or the first resource is committed.
About the report of the Professor, it just seems like a political rhetoric, in tune with the rest of the world. I say this because before USA, I had worked in Europe, Middle East and Japan. And India. Similar sons-of-soil preachers are on the rise there too.
It makes sense about a small % of H-1Bs are really really good though. And that the emphasis should be made on general programming talent and learnability.
It's important to remember that just because there may be no shortage of candidates with CS degrees, MCSE, , that does NOT mean there is an equally sufficient number of skilled, gifted or CLUEFUL individuals for a given position. The real shortage, in my experience, is not in the number of people getting into the IT field - we have more than ever before. In fact, we're practically flooded in comparison with recent years. But we're not being flooded with clueful, knowledgeable, SKILLFUL sysadmins/network admins/engineers. Most of the tide, like *any* popular movement, is filled with people who are along because it's popular, pays well, or because they want to get in on "the next big thing." The individuals who are here because they love what they're doing, would be doing it for free if they weren't making a career out of it, and have a firm grasp on the cluebat still seem to be fairly few and far between. A degree/certification doth not a competent admin/engineer make.
illum oportet crescere me autem minui
With all these supposedly out of work, over the hill, US-born computer programmers, where are the resumes of these people? People in SV are desparately looking for qualified programmers. Yet, they don't seem to get any applicants, and they are nowhere to be seen online either. Why doesn't Matloff take some pro-active measures and actually create a job web site for the people he claims to care so much about?
My challenge to Matloff is this: put up or shut up. If there are large crowds of qualified, unemployed programmers, do everybody a favor and publish their resumes so that employers can find them.
MCSE, MCDBA, and NCA about commoditizing basic computer management skills. It's roughly the equivalent of learning some skills as part of working at a food or car maintenance franchise. That's hardly the sort of thing that commands high salaries. In fact, the thing that makes Microsoft software so popular with management is the promise that it makes IT functions supposedly easy enough so that anybody can be trained to perform them.
Of course, just like MacDonald's didn't eliminate the need for good, experienced chefs, Microsoft hasn't eliminated the need for good, experienced IT staff. At best, you can use an MCSE as a stepping stone to getting some real experience. If you don't quickly broaden your horizons beyond MCSE, you are likely going to see yourself out of a job pretty soon.
Regardless of the claims of worker shortages, I know several IT people, those who are just starting out as well as those who've been employed for years and are now looking for other work, who aren't finding work as easily as they did two years ago. Or even last year. The jobs aren't paying as much, there isn't the sense that the company is desperate to find someone to do the work...
I'm in the Midwest (Wisconsin), so maybe the situation is different toward the coasts, but you no longer hear of newly graduated/newly certified people getting top-dollar jobs, as they did in the recent past.
Believe nothing, not even if I say it, if it violates your sense of reason -- Buddha
With more Americans not getting programmer jobs, and more H1B workers taking them instead, and going back home after they can't, or won't, work here anymore, there will come to be a new and real shortage ... of people who have actual long term programing experience to take jobs as project leaders and managers. We'll be effectively sending that experience overseas.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I dont think it's so much a matter of education as it is a matter of having skills. More and more these days, IT jobs have a pretty wide spectrum of possibiliies for demonstrating that you have experience... You know, "Bachelors degree and 2 years experience OR 4 years related experience." sort of things. The problem is, most places arent willing to go to the line when it comes to salaries. For example, I could get a position here at the University doing system administration, but i'd have to take 10-15K below industry standard wage since the University cant afford to keep step with the rest of the industry. To make matters worse, they invite recruiters onto campus to gobble up most people before they even graduate.
Theres a point of diminishing returns..Your peak of marketability is what matters. A subtle formula of age, skills, and competencies.
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
Candidate A is single and has no problem working 60 hour weeks, while B has a wife and 3 kids and wants to work only 40 hours. How can you expect the company to ignore the fact that A is going to give them more for their money?
The prospective employer cannot whether know Candidate B is married or has kids because these are illegal, discriminitory interview questions. Therefore the employer has no (legal) way to make this "value for their money" comparison.
cpeterso
I can say that I'm fairly young (26).
I've seen this 'aging IT worker' shortage happen.
Let me say.. I know several 50+ year old programmers who are worth *TEN* younger programmers. Sure, their attitudes are different. Sure.. they don't put up with 80 hour workweeks.
And they produce nice, clean code at an amazingly steady rate. Oh sure, it might be 4 or 5 or maybe 10 lines of perfect code a day....
But that's awesome!
WHen they say something will take them 10 days? It takes them 10 days.
While I think that you have some good arguments, a quick perusal of the Want Ads brings many of them into question, to wit:
.NET etc.) The fact is that employers are setting up criterea that CANNOT be met.
A programmer who has been out of work and hasn't even bothered as much as to learn Perl or Java does not seem to be a very attractive candidate, simply because they don't seem very motivated or interested in the job.
The problem with this statement is that employers are requiring two years or more experience in the given technology. Saying that I took the time to study J2EE while I was unemployed is NOT going to get me a job. Even more egregious are the insane advertisements "require - 5 years programming experience with C#,
The argument for keeping foreign IT workers out of the US is that that would allow US workers to take those jobs, or at least increase demand and raise wages.
But that is illusory. If the foreign IT workers can't come here, they'll simply work for a subsidiary or contracting firm in Europe or Asia.
Nice theory, but it just doesn't work that way. IT companies who import workers have to pay MUCH higher wages in the US than they do abroad. The incentive to set up low wage programming shops has been IMMENSE for many years. There are in fact such shops, most notably in India. The problem is that there are tremendous communications difficulties that make development of a team impossible, and team building is perhaps the most critical element determining the success or failure of a programming project.
The real reason to object to the mass importation of H1B IT workers is that it is ruining the education system in this country, distorting the employment marketplace, and destroying the attractiveness of technical careers in the minds of the youth in this country. Who wants to become a computer programmer when you are going to be working in a group of expatriats? What is the potential for long term career advancement when you are in that sort of atmosphere? In reality is it any different than saying that you want to become a farm worker and compete with illegal immigrants in their labor market?
NO, it is not. The fact of the matter is that by importing large number of H1B workers into the US, we are surpressing the natural rise in wages that would occur in the presence of a real labor shortage. This rise in wages WOULD encourage companies to invest in training, spur US colleges and universities to expand their programs in the fields of interest and otherwise. What is happening instead is that Colleges and Universities OUTSIDE the US are expanding their IT programs in order to fill the needs of their students who wish to immigrate to the US.
It is my own opinion that the H1B program is the worst public policy imaginable, and policy makers in the US will rue the day this was passed.
One thing I think is a problem is that people see the prices being offered in Silicon Valley and apply accross the country. However living in Silicon Valley requires 100k just to have the same cost of living as most other parts of North America get for 50k. So you start comparing apples and oranges and as always when making fruit salad, you get yourself into trouble.
:)
On the other hand, in my experience there is work out there on the sysadmin side (can't speak to softeng, since I'm not one) of the fence. Even at high profile firms.
And I'm one of those people that even if IT workers got paid the same as window washers at traffic lights, I'd be doing it. No choice, it's how I'm wired. I ran a fidonet node when I was 13. Such is life
Minupla
----
Remove the rocks from my head to send email
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
H1B's have always allowed job changes.
That is technically true. The reality is somewhat different. Here's the reality:
1) A person with an H1B visa who is unemployed has 7 days to exit the country or be considered an illegal alien.
2) The H1B application process often takes substantially longer than a month.
3) Getting a new job requires a new H1B.
4) Early on in the H1B application process, your current employer is notified that you have applied for a new H1B.
5) Current employer says, screw you, you are fired.
6) You are deported.
Additionally, most H1B people who work for bodyshops like Tata have employment contracts that require them to pay a penalty fee for quiting before their H1B visa expires (3-6 years). Of course it isn't called a penalty fee, that would be illegal. Instead they call it reimbursement for training, legal and transportation costs. Basically if you quit a bodyshop, they want $10-20K to 'cover' their expenses for training you and importing you to the US. Doesn't matter that the costs are trumped up and that they've made them back many times over in the first 6 months of your employment.
Also, don't forget that anyone applying for a green card must stay with their current employer (often for 3-4 years) or the green card application process must start all over again.
So, you see that yeah, H1B people can technically change jobs whenever they want. But the reality is that for a large number of them it is infeasible to do so.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
What really annoys me are the constant comments from your average L^Huser that "you are so lucky" to be a geek in this day and age. Bullshit, you're better off as a lawyer, doctor or chartered accountant. Even a pinhead with a BA and experience in personnel is better off once past 35.
Fsck 'em.
:wq
I personally feel that the US should open its doors to the infow of talent from whereever it may come. It is the thing that has kept the US vital and inventive. But, there has to be a way to protect folks that are imported like this.
Personally, I've noticed a trend over the last few years; as I've applied for jobs for which I'm truly well-qualified (i.e. many years of relevant and up-to-date experience in exactly the pertinent areas) I've found that not only do I not get the job, my cover letter/resume submission isn't even ack'd.
I find this puzzling, given how often this submission is done electronically, making the process of ack'ing it trivial. I would have expected that as more and more of this interaction takes place online, that we'd see increased responsiveness from employers, not less. And in the case of a handful of positions that I applied for this year, I'm outright baffled: they listed X buzzwords, I have 90% of them in theory and practice and a bunch of related stuff that they didn't bother to list. (I make a continuous effort to keep my skills current, and while, for example, I haven't tackled PHP yet, I do speak perl and Java, run Linux and BSD, speak fluent sendmail and DNS and Apache, etc.)
So why didn't I even get called for an interview?
Could it be because I'm in my 40's, because I expect to be well-paid for what I bring to the table, and don't expect to work 80 hours/week because my employers are too cheap to hire two people to do two peoples' work?
I don't know. The lack of interaction with potential employers means that I'm speculating and trying to correlate anecdotal evidence with experience. But I find the trend disturbing, not only because of how it impacts me, but because of what it means for those who are entering the workforce twenty years behind me.
I'm concerned that employers who avoid people like me -- because we're (relatively) expensive and won't work ourselves to death -- will try to take advantage of younger workers, and that they will succeed. Again, the evidence is mostly anecdotal, but I'll bet that at least half the people reading this worked more than 60 hours this week and were not fairly compensated for it. I'll further bet that a quarter worked more than 80 while being paid a salary commensurate with 40.
Of course, there's no way for me to know if I'm right about that or not; maybe I'm way off base here. (shrug) But my advice is not to buy into the PHB-propagated myth that you are somehow obligated to do this for the company you work for. You're not. And if you do, you may find that twenty years down the road, you'll discover that all the sacrifices you made, all the things you gave up, were never appreciated or paid for -- but that the people above you, the ones who have profited handsomely from everything you gave up, have taken their money and gone somewhere else to repeat the cycle.
Exactly. I recently had a phone conversation with an HR drone. She was trying to talk me into one of their positions. I told her how much money I wanted. It was about $20k more than they were listing the position. She told me that she thought I was being unrealistic. I told her "that's why that position is still open" and hung up.
Another job I know of was listed for at least 6 months, 3 of those after the "application deadline". I know of two well-qualified people that applied for it. So why didn't it get filled? The company wouldn't make a decision and eventually decided not to fill the position due to a money crunch.
In my opinion, that's the labor shortage in a nutshell. Every open position I see has a story behind why it's still open. It isn't because there aren't people out there looking for work. It's because the job is underpaid, they aren't really hiring, nobody can make a decision about hiring, etc. I've seen plenty of jobs listed where it's obvious that the someone priced the position using 1997's salary chart.
My conjecture is simple - older tech workers are not nearly as numerous or willing to take staff coding positions as any of you claim. Until I hear at least one useful statistic, or at least one convincing realistic anecodte, I treating this issue of vast and systemic age discrmimination as complete hooey.
My counter anecdote is that I work for an internet company that you would think is on the cutting edge of just about anything, and we certainly have numerous programmers old enough to be my ...very old uncle.
Then fuck you. You get fired, you slacking lazy graying old bastard.
Then when this fired worker applies for his next job it's, (interviewer to himself) "What? You're married with two kids?" (interviewer to you) "I'm sorry but you're { not qualified | too expensive | not what we're looking for }". It is discrimination pure and simple.
H1B visas are not about filling in skills US workers lack.
Nor do employers want more H1B visas so they can pay workers less.
H1Bs are a source of people with no family ties or other responsibilities whatsoever. H1B workers, along with most fresh college grads, are the only work group that can work the really really long hours, and devote their entire waking hours to "the company".
Now that the first wave of IT workers is getting married and having kids, employers are saying there is a "shortage of IT workers". Bullshit. There is only a shortage of workers who will let themselves be treated like crap. And yes, even if well paid, 70-100 hour work weeks == crap treatment and abuse of a salaried worker. Just like you can't justify exposing workers to workplace hazards by claiming, "they're paid well and accepted the job", so too can you not justify abusive work hours by claiming "they're paid well and accepted the job". In the USA, workers have rights, wheather you agree or not. Just get over it and accept it, or, move your business China. But if you want to operate in the US, then you play by US rules. It's just that simple.
Expect to see IT worker unions form if employers don't clean up their act. Do you hate unions? Hate the corruption? Hate the politics? Well, you have your chance to fix things now. Get off your ass and set things straights before the unions form. And don't bitch and whine about how unions are holding your company by the balls later because it'll only be your fault for fucking people over now.
Of course, I could be wrong, some people keep their youthful arrogance as they grow older; they are the ones who never learn anything worth knowing.
Age gives you the opportunity to gain some wisdom. Whether you choose to take advantage of that opportunity is up to you.
Ok, lets take a little quiz to put things into perspective for you: When you were born I was oh say 27. I'm a pretty bright guy, and I've never stopped learning, and doing it at an ever increasing rate; I've learned how to learn more efficiently over the years. I think that even you will admit that when you were born I knew more than you did. So the question is: "Exactly when do you think that your level of knowledge passed mine, when you were 12, 18, 22, last week maybe?" Does it occur to you that there is no way you could know as much as I do, simply because you haven't been around long enough to pass me up yet? Congratulations, that would be the beginning of wisdom on your part.
The funny part is that a guy had to do the html page for Dr. Norman Matloff.
That had to have been funny. ex:
"hey timmy (html grunt worker), yea you in the cubicle, convert this page to html and index it" - Dr. Norman Matloff
"What's it on?" -Timmy (html grunt worker)
"How you're going to be out of a job in 2 years" -Dr. Norman Matloff