Slashdot Mirror
Tech Turnover Rate Lowest Since The 80's
cimmer writes "USA Today, the San Jose Business Journal and the suspiciously captivating monitor thing in the elevator are reporting the results of a survey conducted by Aon Consulting that states voluntary turnover in the tech industry is at 8.9%, 'the lowest in the history of the surveys, which date back to the mid-1980s'. Given all of the talk about an economic turnaround, are we looking at a potential tech turnover spike as individuals leave positions they have stayed in only because of a dismal job market? Aon seems to think so. Interestingly, the results of this study are released just as CNN.com reports that personal income growth is at its weakest in two years. Also of note is a discrepancy in the reported sample size, with USA Today stating the results are based upon input from 595 companies while the Business Journal reports that over 950 companies participated."
The funny thing is that wages and salaries were up in July, but other sources of personal income were down enough to reduce total personal income. From NASDAQ/Econoday:
But importantly wages and salaries did rise in the month, up 0.4 percent. Other sources of income weakened, including Medicare reimbursements, rental income, and interest income.
Call me a "spinmeister", but expressing turnover as a perentage seems far more informative to me than comparing the total number of individuals changing tech jobs in 2004 compared to 1984. Unless you own a moving company or a cubicle nameplate maker.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Exactly! But for those who didn't RTFA, it does say "The numbers do not include workers who are laid off, Aon says. Last year, 11.2% of the workforce left jobs involuntarily, compared with 20.3% in 2001, when the tech bubble burst." So it appears that involuntary layoffs are also down.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
California is expensive to live in. Make sure you've done your cost of living adjustments properly.
My house here in Florida would cost me 3 times as much in California. But I wouldn't earn 3 times as much for my current position. So I'd lose if I moved.
And then there's the issue where a company brings you over and lays you off a year and a half later (happened to an associate who came over from Germany). Gave him a severance, but it wasn't anything near what he needed to get back to Germany. Just be prepared for a one way trip, or get a contract that relocates you back home (if you can get relocation at all).
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Also of note is a discrepancy in the reported sample size, with USA Today stating the results are based upon input from 595 companies while the Business Journal reports that over 950 companies participated.
The 950 number is the correct one, according to the AON Press Release and the (AON-owned) Radford Surveys benchmark study overview.
Not sure where USA Today found their numbers...
Another possibility is that the low turnover rate indicates seniority positions that survived the crash.
My experience from before, during, and after the IT bubble is the exact opposite. Most of the older tech guys I knew before the bubble took ridiculously high offers from 1997-2000. Then, they all got fired when the tech market collapsed. Now, they are still asking for those salaries. For the numbers: I live in South Carolina - notorious for low pay. A web designer here makes $20k-$40k. A programmer makes $30k-$60k. We get older web designers asking for $80k+ and programmers asking $120k+. The younger guys are asking for salaries that are in the range people are willing to pay and then filling up the jobs.
Of course, this is all regional. It is very possible that the older guys in your area aren't dumb enough to think they can still make the salaries of the late 90's.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
USA Today makes the distinction that it was 595 tech firms that had the 8.9% voluntary turnover rate.
The Business Journal states that it was 950 companies that responded, but even it states that the 8.9% voluntary turnover number was arrived ONLY from Tech Companies (i.e., not from ALL the companies that responded):
From the Journal Article:
Voluntary turnover among surveyed tech companies is at 8.9 percent, according to Aon's research.
Let's read a little closer before making assumptions, shall we?
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
Right here - "Chief executives at U.S. companies that shipped jobs overseas won a 46 percent pay hike last year, more than five times the average CEO raise, while ordinary workers' paychecks barely budged, a study showed on Tuesday."
I have no idea how they can find that the tech turnover rate has declined..
Silicon Valley: SE or even London cost of living, but probably for a slightly better salary. I think rents have come down a little. Be prepared to do a lot of driving.
;) I'm a bit older now and I have a family and other commitments, and don't want to throw away everything I've built up in my life. I really don't want the uncertainty of being on an H1b again. I like being a little more settled and don't want the temporariness of such a visa hanging over my head. Hence my advice to apply for the GC immediately as it could reduce your stress in the long run.
Be sure you know what you're getting yourself in to with an H1b. If you're going to be there more than a year enter the US with the dual intent of permanent residency: apply for a green card immediately, and pressure your employer to pay for it. Get them to agree before you agree to go. Hey: they might even take it as a commitment to the job position.
I'm a Briton who spent three years in the US under H1b. I'm now a permanent resident of Canada and filling out the paper work for citizenship here. I don't think I would want to be an H1b again.
H1b was fine in my early 20s. I had no responsibilities and was just looking for a good time. I got to live and travel in the US, paid for by a good job there. If I lost my job it didn't bother me that I might have to leave the US and start all over again elsewhere. Besides, the economy was good then
Don't even start thinking about what applying for something permanent in the US means. It doesn't mean you're becoming an American. It doesn't mean you're turning your back on your culture and past. But this is what a lot of people think and feel. It does mean that you're hedging your bets and perhaps making your choices and stress levels easier in the future. It does mean that you want to make your life easier. It does mean that you don't want so much hassle from those nasty ignorant c**ts on the border. At the end of the day, if you don't want to stay in the US, you can stop the process, or you can leave with an option to return more easily in the future. It's about choice.
Hey Bill,
You have this right: the economy is chaotic and can not be predicted. Yeah for Chaos Theory...
We can say what ought to probably happen based on history and common sense, but in the end, we just do not know what will happen.
Best regards,
Mark
I went to school when I was an operator, got my degree, then became a programmer. I got my degree, a career, car, wife, then a house and baby. I made sure I was as secure as possible before I did anything that needed that security to be there.
:)
I dont know your situation, and I wont assume, but I just wanted to let people know it's not all doom and gloom. Just work hard, and make the right decisions, and you can be successful.
I recently wrote a small research oriented paper for a class on employee turnover. The surveys and research performed over the last year or so all agree that when the job market comes back, there will be a mass exodus of knowledge from organizations.
IIRC roughtly 35% of IT workers are actively seeking new jobs (currently employed), while another 15% are waiting until the economy improves before they begin the active seeking phase.
The paper also went into how the costs of employee turnover affect the bottom line. The commonly quoted figure of $10,000 to replace an employee is WAY OFF. With labor, advertising, lost productivity, additional training, etc... the actual cost is between 50-150% of the previous person's annual salary.
Good incentive to keep your employees. My last company didn't heed my warning a few months ago. But my remaining coworkers over there DID get big raises as soon as I left and they started asking for the same things I had been for 2 years. Glad I could help.
Interestingly, there has already been vast speculation that there will be major layoffs after the Presidential election. HP for example, is planning on reducing staff in the United States and has agreed to wait until after the election to perform cuts in staff. All of the bits of news like this one are nothing short of propoganda...or food for starving wishful thinkers.
The relatively large herd thing is a left over from the dot com era. At that time a large percentage of folks got into it not because they wanted to do it, but because they could make alot of money doing it. Now thanks to offshoring and falling wages people who were in it just for the money are leaving.
Good Riddance. The Tech employment percentage is getting closer to what it was in the late 80's early ninties. Which is probably about right.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
"I don't hear many claims to understand why the US economy has thrived for decades, often with a *negative* average consumer savings rate."
That's because you are wrong about that. And a bit else, but I am sick and tired of trying to inject basic, responsible economic theory into conversations like this. People like fudging, wink-wink-nudge-nudging and generally ignoring any possibility that things might not work out so great over the next fifty years (which I and most others here will most likely be alive for) as long as they can get that Hummer/plasma tv/wtf'ever shiny thing right now. Check out mises.org and decide what to think for yourself.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Our company was recently acquired, and I asked about a tuition reimbursement plan (like the prior company had). I was told that in the current market, with low turnover, there is no need to offer such a benefit in order to retain employees. I was not so much shocked by the reason as by the fact that they actually freely admitted this.
Thanks for the post. I often wondered about replacement costs. Of course, replacing a slacker might not cost too much :-)
I'm reminded of the second hand story about a former co-worker who now works for Intel. For about two years he'd picked up jobs as people left and was doing the work of 3-4 people and it was too much. For about a year he asked for a new hire. Finally Intel gave him the budget: $6k. Get someone in China and start learning Chinese.
Don't breathe that sigh of relief as this might be your last breath (in tech). At least we can all get in shape when we're picking cans from the garbage piles like the husband and wife team outside my apartment this morning!!!
Expect Freedom.
Recently my company conducted a "climate survey." One of the items that came up over and over and over again in the climate survey--and not just in IT--is that we are underpaid compared to other similar companies in our geographic area.
So what did the PHBs do? Decide that they obviously weren't telling us enough about the salary survey that they use that shows that we aren't underpaid. This despite the fact that people in my department know what programmers at other companies are making, and it's consistently 10-20% more for the same level of experience and responsibility, whether a mainframe programmer, VB code monkey, or DBA.
The trick is, they figure in the extra sick time (that we're not allowed to take due to deadlines), the pension plan (that we will never see because we'll get laid off before then), the 401(k) (that they no longer match contributions to), the health insurance (same as everybody else in town), and the free parking spaces (w00t) into our "compensation." So they underpay us, and then say, "Well, you get 15 sick days a year, nobody else gets that!" Uh, yeah, and the last guy I knew that took double-digit sick days a year got shitcanned...what's your point?
"Settle down, Beavis. We've got an experiment to do."
How the fuck is this a troll, oh, the truth hurts, doesn't it? The truth shouldn't hurt unless it makes you feel guilty. oh that's right shititarians/refuckicans don't have a fucking heart, The refuckicans believe believe the same way except that their unoffical saying is "If you don't work, you don't eat, if you can't work, well, piss on you, you're worthless and you need to die." and to them poor, disabled, not-white, homosexuals=worthless. Women to them should be barefoot and pregnant and should not have any fucking rights. The women to them should be under subjection to their husband, and they're not married to a man by a 35, then they should die because to them, they're worthless. So as the parent post said, Fuck the Shititarian and Refuckican parties.