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Tech Sector Expansion Blunting U.S. Job Outsourcing
xzvf writes "BusinessWeek summarizes a new report from the American Electronics Association (now known as AeA) that they think mitigates the effect of outsourcing on IT employment. US demand for tech workers is through the roof, the highest it has been since the boom of the late 90s. The tech sector added some 150,000 new jobs 2006, and there are no signs that interest will flag in the near future. 'There is so much global demand for employees proficient in programming languages, engineering, and other skills demanding higher level technology knowledge that outsourcing can't meet all U.S. needs. "There would have been a lot more than 147,000 jobs created here, but our companies are having difficulty finding Americans with the background," says William Archey, president and chief executive of the AeA. One culprit is the dearth of U.S. engineering and computer science college graduates. Second, immigration caps have made it difficult for highly skilled foreign-born employees to obtain work visas. Congress has been debating whether to increase the numbers of foreign skilled workers allowed into the country under the H-1B visa program.' "
(Sarcasm stemming from having to spend two years of my professional life on a contract fixing "subcontinental code" - ah well, I guess it paid MY bills).
Work smarter, not harder.
This was 100% predictable. I'm too lazy to go find where I predicted it, but every industry consists of a mix of inputs. The inputs are chosen based on their value to the company in producing the final product. If you make one of the inputs cheaper (by including outsourcing) (or by including Open Source) that causes the industry to use *more* of the product over time. In the short run, they'll use less because all of their processes are predicated on using the original mix. As they buy new equipment, hire people with different skills, and make new products, they can change the mix to make new of the new cheaper factor.
PLus, I'm in teh race for fr1st p0st.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
thesedays when a plumber or car mechanic or even a house painter can make more money and doesnt have to bother with degrees etc
dont blame education blame multi-millionaire executives (and shareholders who pay their wages) who think their workers are worth less than the person that paints their house or fixes their car, why would anybody bother ?
pay peanuts get monkeys
Being in IT as a software engineer, application developer etc is definitely a tough job, a wide variety of skills, abilities and knowledge are required. It's about time they realize that application development is a demanding job.
India will work at taking those jobs that much harder.
More tech workers means more bonuses for executives when they're all laid off.
I graduated 2 years ago, and had a very, very, hellish time getting a decent job - especially in the entry-level programmer space. Ever since BillGates.exe (sound that out) was talking his smack about not enough talent, I've had trouble getting a job that actually required any CS knowledge. To be honest, I tried to not work with Microshit technologies.
.Net crap?
Where are these jobs? Should I move out of the midwest and work on
"There would have been a lot more than 147,000 jobs created here, but our companies are having difficulty finding Americans with the background," says William Archey, president and chief executive of the AeA.
Sorry... That must have been misquoted. What Archey was meaning to say was "....but our companies are having difficulty finding Americans who will work long hours for substandard pay."
The tech sector added some 150,000 new jobs 2006, and there are no signs that interest will flag in the near future.
Emphasis mine. Now where have I heard this before? This should be your warning that the bottom is about to drop out of the economy again.
Once burned, twice shy: be careful; protect your wealth; keep the best interests of your family in mind; avoid irrational exuberance.
[ home ]
how skilled is the average US programmer versus the average outsourced programmer? it seems it would be harder to communicate effectively to the outsourced person due to locality and language barriers, and would therefore possibly create some interesting roadblocks to development of a project.
Great but now can we learn from our past mistakes of the 1990's?
Mistake 1: Thinking IT is on top of the food chain. No we are not IT is on the bottom of the food chain we need to service everyone. You may get paid more then the other guy and you may be more skilled but who ever you are doing work for is your boss.
Mistake 2: Not being professional. You should not stand out as the IT Guy because everyone else is wearing business casual and you are in tee-shirt and jeans. It is unfair and wrong but it is the way it is you need to dress to fit in. Otherwise you make people uncomfortable if they are uncomfortable your job can be at risk.
Mistake 3: Saying No. They need to get the job done just not doing it because you personally don't like it will not help anyone.
Mistake 4: Saying Yes. Being Blind to problems without brining them up in the beginning and getting someone else above you involved in a solution could lead you working on a quagmire.
Mistake 5: Thinking you are better then everyone else. Just because they don't know the difference between USB and Firewire doesn't make them stupid. Just because you do doesn't make you a genius. Respect the people you are working with, and they will respect you back.
Mistake 6: Respect your boss. They are a lot of bad bosses out there also a lot of good ones. Even if your boss seems to be cut from Dilbert you should give him the respect that they deserve. For being in that position. It means things like not publicly humiliating them and when arguing your point try not to make it personal.
Mistake 7: Trying to change the world. Don't try to change the world just try to make your work environment better. Put your feelings about GNU, Patents, Microsoft.... Aside and focus on getting your work done.
Mistake 8: Money doesn't matter. It does always keep an eye on how you are effecting the bottom line. You can save 10 minutes a day in computation but the cost for you to make that change would take 100 years to recover the costs then it is not worth doing.
Mistake 9: Work should always be fun. If that was the case most people wont have a job. You need to do the annoying stuff as well as the fun stuff. They hire you to do the stuff that others can't or are unwilling to do.
Mistake 10: You are separated from the business. Try to be involved in the business not make yourself a separate identity who just fixes the computers try to keep IT involved in the major decisions.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
AeA was founded to lobby the US Government for contracts for HP and HP suppliers.
Today they lobby the US government for increased H1-B quotas to keep employment costs down, in addition to lobbying for contracts. It is in the best interests of tech companies to have an increased supply of qualified labor. Great -- although there will be a lag, if pay and prestige increase for these high-demand positions, more students will enter comp sci and engineering programs. Instead, AeA is asking the US government to subsidize their industry by increasing the labor supply.
I'm not saying there wasn't job growth in tech sectors the past couple years. What I am saying is that AeA has an agenda to push, and it's not one necessarily aligned with tech workers.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
why they even give work visas still. It seems like the majority of "red blooded American's" don't even like foreigners.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
H-1B story orginally from New York Times : http://news.sulekha.com/newsitemdisplay.aspx?cid=5 43269
Biggest H-1B firms are biggest outsourcers. Time scale back this program or open it up to lawyers and doctors and reporters (then we'll see how long it lasts!!!).
Big business is trying to push through special subsidies in the form of expanded indentured servitude laws and easier outsourcing. Tell Congress to just say no to these bums.
Let me be the first one (I think) to say that this is just another conspiracy to import more programmers to depress domestic programmmers' wages.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
This angers me alot. I grew up in SC and you can walk down the street and find people with IS and other tech degrees. These young adults are stocking shelves at K-Mart, selling cell phones, et cetera. Maybe its racial (they are usually but not always of African American ancestry) or maybe just plain horde mentality but with an annual household income of about $34K (less than 1/2 of most places in CA) I believe the claims companies cannot find American works are just flat out bullshit.
Expect Freedom.
"but our companies are having difficulty finding Americans with the background"
If they didn't spend the past 5 or so years convincing the next generation of potential IT workers that all of their jobs were going to be sent overseas for next to nothing, they might have some people domestically with the skills they are looking for.
The bottom line is their are people in the U.S. with the skills, they just cost more. Now they are running short of people overseas, and they have to start paying more.
Yes, I am biased from my work on an Indian call center that included me being laid off at the completion of the project, so my ideas may be more emotional than rational. I think there is some truth in what I'm guessing.
Here's a quote from a Seattle Times article last week, that sums the point up rather nicely: Businesses bemoan the alleged shortage of Americans trained to do the work. But wait a second -- the law of supply and demand states that a shortage of something causes its price to rise. Wages in information technology have been flat.
The companies fret that not enough young Americans are studying science and technology. Well, cutting the pay in those fields isn't much of an incentive, is it? I have yet to see any of the people complaining about the "lack of U.S. skill" answer that question adequately...
I'm sure there's significant demand for skilled technical workers willing to work at crummy wages compared to other, easier to learn fields.
In a related story, there is also significant demand for $1.00 lakefront homes.
Every article about outsourcing or jobs in general has a quote along these lines. And they never qualify it with "for the rates they are willing to pay." Unless a company is doing some serious, way-out, pie-in-the-sky research, there are people that can and will do the job for the right price. Employers just don't want to pay it. If a company really wants a CCIE with 20 years experience in networking for a position in New York City, they just might have to pay a premium rate. I didn't take Econ 101, but it seems like simple supply and demand to me. How come limited supply increasing demand is good when companies want to sell products, but bad when they are hiring?
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
They're just desperate enough to pay anything to anyone.
It's because of quantity, not quality.
And that kind of thing will certainly attract more bad coders who just enter IT 'to pay the bills'.
I guess you have a long, prosperous life as an unhappy contractor ahead...
BW looks to have stopped accepting comments. I guess they don't want comments contrary to the viewpoint they are promoting.
Expect Freedom.
Even though I can't imagine it being done much worse than it already is. Guess that "we're just maximizing shareholder value" line is simply another version of "the check's in the mail" or "we don't need a condom - I tested negative."
:-)
But damn, it would be awesome to go to a meeting and have some VP ask me "How may I give you excellent customer service today?"
>"our companies are having difficulty finding Americans with the background"
That's because they've moved on. As the saying goes, fool me once...
I understand that our economic system has evolved to dismiss long term thinking*, but what happens when our knowledge-based jobs are fed mostly by outsourced workers, or workers who are intentionally not permanent residents? Management is difficult in the same sense rappers say pimping is difficult - anyone could do it, they just have to be willing to do it. What's needed is the workers... what, aside from unreasonable "intellectual property" schemes prevents outsourced workers from forming companies and completely doing away with American dominance of knowledge-based industries?
...to the point where a perceived lack of short-term thinking is grounds for a lawsuit for a publicly traded company.
Yes, we're going to get a few spikes in jobs for programmers filling gaps in the work that can be efficiently outsourced, and performing integration of outsourced work, but that only masks the shift away from our last reliable American industry outside of entertainment and service. Heedless outsourcing across decades invites the loss of our ability to do our own work.
To all programmers outside the US: This is by no stretch a complaint against you - I'm actually very glad to see this trend towards greater US money available to international professional programmers. I hope to see many new software companies started and outcompeting US companies, and I hope to work with many of them. My complaint is in the way our market is allowing the local US economy for programmers to shrink in terms of educating new programmers locally, switching existing programmers to a roll of managing outsourced programmers - I see that as long term strategy with a lot of negative consequences. Without a healthy entry level market for programmers, our programming economy may stall.
Ryan Fenton
*
You harvest what you sow.
When you sow the message that the path to gleaming limos and the high life is through thug culture and pimping out your women, and not through intellectual pursuits or even good old-fashioned productivity and invention, then that's the kind of youngsters you breed. And the effect on the nation's future in advanced technology is then 100% predictable.
Cool high tech doesn't appear by magic out of nowhere. You have to be highly educated (or at least self-taught and highly motivated) to work at the advancing edge of technology, and that requires a large amount of skill and deep interest in the topic. The message delivered by the telly is that those things are extremely uncool, unhip, and frankly "really dull, man".
But it's a free country, right? So people can broadcast whatever they want, even messages that are contrary to our self-interest?
Sure. But eventually you lose that precious freedom if you forget that real wealth (not just money) comes from progress and invention, because you'll end up in servitude to those nations that understand that you have to safeguard your future freedoms too, not just your current-day ones. And that means making education and technology and being intelligent cool in the public eye.
There is a solution, and it's compatible with our current concepts of daily freedom. We need special interest group and lobbying corporations and a whole raft of think tanks to be giving the message of "tech and education is damn cool, and very profitable" to media, business, politicians, the to blessed public too, alongside the output of MTV and the RIAA delivering the message of self-destruction.
It *is* possible. But it will require some effort on our part.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The industry chiefs finally realized that you get what you pay for. Amazing.
That statement is true only in a perfect equilibrium.
Most equilibriums have a degree of lag. Supply increases in one area, demand takes a while to catch up so costs are low. Demand increases in an area, supply takes a while to catch up, so costs are high.
Businesses are profitable by moving faster than that equilibrium shift and exploiting it. Businesses lose profitability the closer they are to an established equilibrium and they outright lose money when they fall behind it.
India is a great example:
There were a lot of very highly skilled engineers with minimal to no demand for their talents and thus would work for next to nothing. Smart businesses identified this and exploited them. Those businesses could now get high skill levels for very low cost.
Everyone else saw these profits, Newsweek wrote articles on it, everyone moved in to the sector. As demand increased towards supply, profitability decreased. As demand exceeded supply with many dumb U.S. businesses working on articles and quotes from three or four years earlier, costs increased rapidly, the supply of skilled engineered diminished, many poor engineers saturated the market looking for the now great wages, it became a lousy area for U.S. businesses to exploit.
The same has gone for big screen TVs. A few years ago, Circuit City, Best Buy, CompUSA, etc. were making a killing on every high end unit they sold. About a year ago, Walmart finally woke up, realized there was money to be made, slashed the margins so it could insert itself and killed their business model. For a long time, demand for TVs was greater than the number of stores supplying, profits were high. Once Walmart and Target realized there was money there, supply increased, profits decreased.
It happened in the U.S. with the dotcom bubble and it's happened more recently with housing. For a while, a given market is massively exploitable. Over time, everyone thinks it's exploitable, everyone moves in to doing it, the margins decrease, it loses its exploitability.
So, your statement is only partially true...
Over time, yes, you get what you pay for (you may even get less if you're on the wrong side of the wave).
BUT, if you're smart enough to identify the trends and get there ahead of others, you really can get far more than you pay for.
For those that bitch about high executive salaries, that's what they're often really getting paid for: They're people who've established they're good at staying ahead of the wave, surfing its leading edge and keeping their companies hugely profitable. If your ability can keep your company on the leading edge of the equilibrium wave, making $500m more a year than a company that rode the top of the wave, isn't it worth paying you $50m for that edge?
My thoughts exactly. There are plenty of jobs available for workers, and plenty of US workers available for jobs. This article is yet another round in the ongoing saga of corporate interests applying downward pressure on wages.
Easy as pie isn't it with the TN visas.
The growth is almost certainly more to do with the M3 figures.
Deleted
Most of us burned int he dot com fiasco gave up. Myself and probably at least 20 friends all lost our jobs while some exec got rich with his golden parachute. We've all since moved on to other things, some, like myself, went back to school and switched careers. Others went blue collar so they could spend time with family. The truth of the matter is the industry is corrupt as hell. I still remember my companies President walking around the office bragging how he was going to sell the company, fire us all, and retire in Tahiti. I had multiple CEO's in a matter of 6 months, each one trying to pimp the company off to the highest bidder. They never wanted to build anything, make anything, or provide any security. It was, and still is, about a quick buck.
I am a highly skilled IT person. I used to make a lot of money but have settled for less than a third of what I used to make simply to avoid being on call, working 18 hours a day and putting up with management that doesn't manage anything other than their own checkbooks. I would rather have a life, some self respect and dignity. Fuck IT. I'll never ever do that professionally again.
To say that there is not enough skilled IT workers in the US , is a load of shit. This has noting to do with the suppose lack of skilled worker, this is all about lower labor costs.
A few things you're not considering:
1) The only two pretty reliable technical degrees on the software development side are Computer Science and Software Engineering; IS/CIS/MIS/BIS/IT are dumbed down, and they pay a lot less on average for the same position because they're assumed to be bringing a weaker knowledge with them.
2) Non-software development positions are better filled by people with real experience of any kind that people with real technical degrees. There are very few schools that will teach you how to be an admin type.
3) You may have to move. To get a good job, I had to leave rural Virginia for Northern Virginia.
4) A lot of people who go into these degree programs are horrible at practical work. Not just lazy, but they genuinely suck at it. I'm not being elitist here, but just because you have a degree, doesn't mean you are capable of performing a job. GPA doesn't necessarily mean much either. Brilliant people often get 3.0 GPAs in Computer Science for a variety of reasons. I've known people who are mediocre at best who had 3.8-4.0 GPAs in the subject, all because of hard work and memorizing the textbook and lectures.
Don't forget that 180,000 H1-B Visas expire this year. This is the first part of the obscene growth in H1-B's from 6 years ago. We have two more years of 180,0000 limits to go through, because H1-B visas last for 6 years.
THIS is why all of the H1-B's were issued in one day this year; you've got 180,000+ people competing for 65,000 (or 85,000 to be more accurate) Visas. And you can look forward to the exact same phenomena happening over the next two years, before the limits went back down to 65,000 in 2004.
And this is exactly why the outsourcing industry has been pushing so hard to raise the limits. The big players stand to lose A LOT of money.
It's no coincidence that the U.S. job market is now starting to take off. 95,000 jobs is a large chunk of the current unemployment rate for U.S. tech workers.
Who find their skills degraded from six years of doing minimum wage jobs for a living. The problem with creative destruction is that there isn't always creation along with the destruction. Why should anybody trust the IT sector for a primary wage now, when the management has failed us so many times in the past?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
that US managers with any decency just throw away every resume with an indian-sounding name on it.
Well, I'm glad I didn't give up on engineering. After 20+ years in the field, working in analog, rf, and digital, I had almost given up and changed fields thinking that outsourcing plus imported workforces would finally kill my career off.
Hopefully the demand will keep wages where they should be. I'm tired of jerks with nothing more than a "C"-average MBA in spewing worthless marketspeak make twice my salary.
In order to attract good, skilled, qualified, dedicated people - you have to pay them. And add incentives, benefits, and merit raises to keep them. Not underpay them and have them sit under a dangling axe just waiting to be outsourced into oblivion.
What sensible person would put in 6+ years of engineering education plus student loans just to be underpaid and fear their job might go away at any moment.
Looks like the field might still have a chance of survival...for now.
-dh
I rode the dotcom roller coaster more times than I care to admit. I for one will not be leaving my stable fortune-500 job anytime soon...
I work as a QA software tester in a IT shop. The skill required for my job are fairly basic, Unix and SQL being a couple of them. Most of the other skills can be picked up on the job.
..
Recently, there were some open contractor positions open in my group. My manager and my colleague interviewed some potential candidates for the job. Guess what??...everybody we interviewed was on an H1-b( 90% of them from India), the reason being.. there wasn't a single resume of an American candidate sent to us from the staffing firms
I wrote this essay on my personal blog here but will duplicate it in this thread: Most of the complaints about offshoring service jobs center around the lower quality of service received. When a customer and a customer support representative have a language or accent barrier, the experience is already swinging into the negative. While this is a valid concern, there are more backlashes to offshoring than thick accents. I'm going to tell a story of a young man with no experience and no degree. Through basic computer knowledge and motivation alone, he started out as a level 1 tech support representative for a big modem company. This was a placement through a contract job and when a bigger networking company bought the modem company, the contract ended. (Later, the whole Skokie, Illinois building was sold and support was moved.) From there, he got several other fortunate contract placements that built his resume and experience significantly. From Level 1 tech support, he grew up through higher technical positions, then low to middle management positions, and mid-level to high-level engineering roles. Over a decade later, he's doing well for himself as a systems engineer for a very stable internet services company. While the lack of formal training and education have held him back a couple times, employers found his on-the-job skills and real-world experience to be very valuable. He's also a blogger. In fact, he's writing this post. I am sure I am not the only example of someone whose success is wholly attributed to "climbing the ranks." A decade later, there are more computers, gadgets, and connectivity systems than ever and it would be a great breeding ground the next generation of engineers... Except for one thing: There's no ground level. Entry-level CSR positions are now overseas, so anyone attempting to get into this industry must go into debt for a college degree. Four years and $80,000 later, they have to hope they can land one of the few remaining positions in the tech industry without any real-world experience. From there, it's a long, hard road to the higher positions. And what of the higher positions? What happens when the engineers do not have the experience and history of "face time" with end users? Do the designers know what the people want? Is there some fundamental disconnect that happens when engineers and developers are so far removed from customers? If you ever dealt with Windows Vista's security center, you may know. If corporations continue to destroy the ground floor of the technology base, we will have no more American engineers. Please, tech companies, bring the technical support and entry-level jobs back to America. It shows loyalty to your consumer base, dedication to quality service, and most importantly, a logical path for career growth for the next generation of geeks.
Tech hiring has always been cyclical and the severity of the cycles seems to be growing more extreme as companies are moving more toward Just-in-Time staff instead of "for lifers".
In light of this, it would be nice if gov't would shut off tech visa workers during down-times, perhaps sending some home. We need an Alan Greenspan-like figure to monitor techie jobs and visa workers. The gov't tinkers with interest rates to (try to) soften downturns, so why not visa workers also? Things were nasty during the last downturn. I had to take contracts far away from my family to survive. I've lived the downturn and it was NOT pleasent (and all the while the biz lobbyists were still claiming "shortage").
Table-ized A.I.
I've interviewed job candidates for the past 2 years for a small company and the honest truth of the matter is that most people with CS degrees are horrible programmers. About 50% don't make it past the phone interview, and of those who do, we've probably hired about 20%. We're mainly a C# shop, but we look for anyone with OOP background and if they know a C language or Java we'll phone them up for a pre-screen.
We require the candidate to do a couple critical thinking and programming tasks during the on-site interview, and you'd be surprised how bad other people's code can be. Three or more loops to collect data that could be done in one. No persistent data storage for objects. No comments in the code. Inability to fix code to the desired standard after being handed a spec. Not testing the code to see if it works (not even a paper run through).
The critical thinking exercises help us see how an individual tackles and solves a problem. We can discern whether they have more of an academic or pragmatic approach to coding. It also helps us see whether people can catch obvious answers if they're available. We use it to gauge how much direction they'll need if we hire them, and where they'd be immediately useful.
I doubt most companies are as rigorous as we are in the hiring process, but from my interviews it's blatantly apparent that the individuals who rely solely on academic credentials are at least 1-2 years from being useful to a company. Whereas candidates that do any kind of side project or personal coding on their own are more likely to be useful within a shorter amount of time.
In summary, learn the latest technologies, bring your OOP skills up to snuff, and do some fun side projects of your own choosing. There are enough free development platforms out there that it shouldn't be difficult to keep your skills in practice. And remember that just because you have a degree doesn't mean you're any good at coding.
Tip: Go to Worse Than Failure (formerly "The Daily WTF") and learn what NOT to do. So many people we've interviewed couldn't tell us what's wrong with some of the examples listed there.
Maybe, instead of rasing the cap on H1-B visas, it would be wiser to INVEST in our education infrastructure starting at the high school level. I don't know how many HS's are left that even teach things like basic electronics or engineering skills, but the earlier you start such the more likely you are to fire up interest in the students.
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
You know, i've actually had little brothers and sisters of friends come and ask me about a career in computing. And i've been extremely honest in telling them that unless they have an extremely high resistance to bullshit and doing crap jobs for a few years post graduation "so they build experience" to forget about it, and do something more constructive for society than work for the computing industry.
I'll give you a hot tip : because most of the "new" jobs are mostly trenchy and/or computer service over the phone type jobs. And while a lot of people win their lives with this stuff ( and i'm not knocking down the people working the trench, they should have their pay doubled, no questions asked ) it all comes down to quality of life. And stories of IT people going to work at K-Mart are too ingrained in our culture to make the prospect of that kind of employment a good strategy in the long term, UNLESS YOU REALLY DIG THE STUFF.
An electrician actually contributes more to society, is well paid and has a respected profession that will be in demand for most of his professional life. I'm not sure i can say the same for most of the IT profession.
Peace and happyness to you, by LullySing
"There would have been a lot more than 147,000 jobs created here, but our companies are having difficulty finding Americans with the background,"
That's because the supply of "doing it for the love" is exhausted.* Fortunately the "doing it for the money" are waiting in the wings, with the "doing it for the love" crowd standing with open arms to greet them.
*Of course the higher wages they're getting has nothing to do with it.
We need to take lessons from the Indians. Mumbai and any other large Indian city has countless trade schools, mostly sanctioned by the government. Unless we get the likes of these schools over here, we are never going to have a level playing field.
Our government and corporations have to have incentive for partially funding these schools.
So how about giving companies tax breaks for setting up trade schools to train their software employees, and keep these jobs in the US where they belong. Get the local community colleges involved by funneling some of those HUGE Phat dollars they pay top executives, and into the local community to make our failing education system work better for our local community.
m
From the article:
"Kids think it must be pretty boring to go into high-tech because if you do, you're a geek," says Archey. "We have to do a much better job showing how exciting the world of technology is."
and
"Money can help fuel interest. So, certainly the average high-tech salary of $75,500 in 2005..."
I got into CS because I was interested in it. I am having trouble finding a CS position that is not a cleverly masked IT job. I find that similar to the immigrant orange pickers and low level construction jobs these are jobs that most Americans don't want. This is why they are getting "outsourced". I have taken a non-paid technology directorship to fuel my interests in the CS venue where I can actually do some real work.
Basically, I have a paying job that is boring; I hate it and am looking for a better one. I am looking for a CS job where I have power and control and I can work on interesting problems. I personally think these companies are having trouble finding people because they are not offering real salaries and benefits for the up time demands they levy on their employees. The "IT" people are rarely ever at a managerial level and have to jump through hoops for people that know nothing about technology. You need to work very hard to stay up to date and they don't pay for that level of commitment. When I go into interviews they offer paltry pay and average benefits. then expect me to be on call all the time and not get overtime pay. The jobs are very low level in the company and normally there is some guy that knows less then me that is supposed to be my boss. Why would I want to work in these types of companies?
One commenter states many IT people are working in stores and selling cell phones. I have considered leaving the industry as I can make the same money and have less stress working in other fields. I just can not bring myself to do it because I really like what I do when I can actually get my hands wet in CS type stuff. It is getting harder and harder to actually get my hands wet with anything interesting while getting paid.
Why this isn't another bubble
Of course, I suppose the rejoinder is, "yet..."
On the other hand... I had a lot of fun during the bubble....
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
I agree with you 100%. I even considered becoming an electrician but am senior enough to make about as much programming and don't want to be a journeyman for a few years. I always tell youngsters not to go into tech for the money. I tell them to be lawyers. That's who runs this country. (And I hate having to tell them that too!)
Expect Freedom.
Where are these jobs? Where is this huge demand for experienced people?
I can't find these jobs anywhere I look. They aren't in the want ads. They aren't on the web sites. And the few people I know who are still making a living are holding on with their finger tips, sweating blood over whether they will have a job this afternoon.
This is just part of a PR campaign to increase the H1B visa cap.
Stonewolf
That's all I've got to say about the article. Parent is right on the money-- any time someone in the penny stock markets is having trouble selling their shares, the first thing they do is pump the stock as much as they can, get as many people interested in it as possible... "it's going through the roof!" "Hang on it's going to shoot up _fast_!" etc etc...to create demand for the stock. After all, you can't sell without demand.
How this applies here? Probably one of these two things: either they know we know the Tech market sucks and know we're looking to avoid it or get out of it (and they want to keep us in it until they're ready to dump so they can catch us off guard and run away with the money), or the Tech market really _is_ doing nicely; too nicely for the bigwigs' tastes, so they're trying to advertise this to get more people to join so they have a larger pool of cheaper labor to pull from to decrease the cost of operating the bottom line and increase their profits.
Issue #1 is pay - its been beat to death above. There aren't enough programmers willing to work for 35K a year.
Issue #2 - Companies don't want to hire a programmer, they want a language expert. Companies want to use all kinds of new technologies, but aren't willing to hire someone, teach and develop them. Meanwhile, the market hasn't developed the skills yet, so there isn't enough experience. What, you used your own time to learn that new language? Well, you haven't worked with it professionally yet, it doesn't count.
Issue #3 - companies are idiots. If I had a nickel for everytime I've seen a skill requirement that asks for more time than the technology has been around! Want someone with 25 years Macintosh experience? Tough, 2007-1984 = 23. You'd better be looking for one of the engineers that designed it. You want a minimum of 15 years working with web development? Then you can only hire one man because only Tim Berners-Lee has that much time at it. I've actually seen these and more.
Bleh. Who wants to work for such idiots. Fortunately, I'm far enough out of it that I don't have to deal with that kind of junk anymore.
saving capital on one type of cost (90s era IT positions) frees up capital to spend it on other types of costs (domestic IT sector positions in 2007).
Wealth is not a zero sum game.
It sucks in the very short term to be a worker who is laid off because someone else can do their job more cheaply, but its better for everyone else in the entire world economy. By and large, those who direct the employment of stock do not simply horde it, as they know that they can get more return by skillfullly investing it.
Humans are not insects. We can specialize when it suits us and we can adapt when it suits us. Do I ever fear losing my job? Sure. Do I have some money saved up to help? Yes. Am I developing contingency employment plans? Yes.
Security and Freedom are often at odds, and employment is no exception.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
You're a story teller. Liar.
I've seen time and time again, the more intelligent people shun TV that isn't intellectually "satisfying" to them. When they glamorize the "thug culture", the latest high-dollar fashions, and so forth - most intelligent kids reject the message, because they know there's no way it's compatible with their own lifestyle.
I really don't think we have an issue of a lack of suitable tech workers in America because of MTV, Hollywood, or any other aspect of television media.
There's actually a surprising amount of television that glamorizes science, technology or even math. (Think of the hit TV show "Numbers" for example, or high-tech crime-solving shows like CSI.) And countless people seem to watch the science-related shows on the Discovery channel, or historical information on the History channel.
Most TV caters to the "lowest common denominator" though. (Many bright people still won't turn down a chance to oogle at some sexy dancers on TV, right?) People like whatever they like, and many of the best innovations in the history of computers were put together by people working in a far more "computer/tech hostile" culture than what we've got right now.
One thing I have noticed in the past few weeks is the lack of entry level jobs. Many of them seem to require 1-2 years experience. One required 3-5. Furthermore, many required knowledge of something that cannot be found within the realm of academia. With all these requirements, how are college graduates supposed to find work?
There are plenty of business ppl who say the exact same thing about american coders. There is no doubt that many developers are springing up ALL over the place who are subpar. But that was no different than what we had here in the 90's. It was hard to find good coders at one time.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This is an honest question... I can cite famous coders from a great many different countries. Say high-target Microsoft or open source coders. Can anyone cite a very famous programmer from India? Can anyone name a famous programmer from India working in India?
I'm honestly asking. Wikipedia's list of famous programmers doesn't seem to have any programmer from India (the only one I thought sounded from India were actually from another country).
Why is that?
And related to TFA: are U.S. companies in short supply of good programmers in the U.S. because there aren't many and because they know they won't find any in India?
I'm not trolling, I cited Wikipedia (OK, not the best source for everything) and I do not have any agenda. I simply cannot honestly name a single famous programmer from India while I can cite a lot of programmers from mostly all over the world.
Why?
I'd be interested to know how many people who have worked in IT, have seen it from the inside and decided it sucks enough to go elsewhere. I've been a web developer for several years with a university CS degree and I still make under $20 / hour Canadian and I do boring repetitive work. I for one am trying to move into project management and then business management for my long term interests: money, security, and interesting work. IT doesn't pay crap in my city (southern Ontario).
My mechanic should, and does, make more money than your average CS geek. He should make more money than half the engineers and developers I know.
His family lives comfortably, and I know he loves what he does. He's a magician with cars and trucks. Highly valuable. Turns out, he's part owner of the business. He being doing it for over 25 years. Sure, he did not have to "bother with degrees", but he sure as hell works his ass off, and he's an unbelievable knowledgebase of automobile information.
Now plumbers on the other hand...$150 to fix my tub drain is outrageous!
It comes from BusinessWeek. It's market place is for business management not employees. Offshoring is not a myth. It continues and is growing. The story states nearly 150K jobs created but it also mention the fact that over 1 million jobs were sent out of the country. And this trend is not likely to stop or slowdown any time soon.
Also, Congress is looking to increase H-1Bs into this country. The dearth of qualified tech professionals was the same rallying cry for new visas ten years ago.
Basically, it is not a myth to offshore. H-1Bs do not solve the issue of filling in the gaps for businesses. Job openings are filled as soon as they are posted. The ones that go unfilled are posted by business managers who fail to see why a a good developer should be paid almost as much as they even though they they think it's that "same web stuff my kid does on his cell phone" belief.
Business will always want cheaper labor costs and they will continue to offshore until the benefits of it are no longer apparent. Dell is the perfect example: they pulled the business Help Desk call center from India when business threatened to stop paying on contracts and canceling orders because they couldn't understand what the heck Help Desk was saying. And this was only for business. They kept the personal computer Help Desk in India because losing one or two support contracts and people who have already bought the system was not losing them money.
As someone who has personally experienced the IT job market and having met so many others looking for IT jobs this complaining about a lack of candidates is plain false. There are so many IT people still working jobs where they are over qualified because they cant find anything any better. And it's still quite hard to get an IT job - they grill you through rounds of endless interviews and expect you to relocate ASAP and that's for the few lucky ones that even get an interview. If these businessmen believe in a capitalist supply and demand model then let wages rise. I bet you if wages rose by 25% in real terms in one year they would suddenly find all sorts of 'qualified candidates' popping out of the woodwork. But they refuse to pay for quality. They want low wages and low job security in the industry so they can ride roughshod over their employees. Simply put: If you want workers in your industry - pay them well and the market will take care of the rest.
but CS is not about "programming languages", it's about algorithms, logic, and deeper concepts.
if youre expecting immediately practical programming experience from entry level cs grads youre barking up the wrong tree, it would be like expecting 2 years floor trading experience from a corporate finance grad.
just because a degree has "computer" slapped on the side doesnt mean you don't have to give them the same type of training required for every other profession.
the only exceptions i know are the variations of medical, where residency is tightly integrated with final academic training.
In other words, you can't have your cake and eat it too. if firms will not collectively take it upon themselves to take in and train cs grads fresh out of school they wont have an experienced labor force later on.
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Average American is *NOT* benefiting from globalism.
Mexicans, Indians, American corporation owners, people with maids are better off.
Joe Workingman in the USA is not.
Reagan/Bush/Clinton has just not been a good deal for the median wage earner.
"our companies are having difficulty finding Americans with the background,"
Yeah, right.
You're having difficulty because the hiring process is broken beyond repair. not because there are no Americans with "the background".
Hire cheap-ass stupid bastards as management and you'll continue to "have difficulty".
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I said it before in this thread. unlike other professions, entry level is defined in this field as multiple years of experience in 4+ languages and scripting.
if they make entry level what it's supposed to be, that is fresh out of school, i'd give greater consideration to putting my cs degree to use professionally.
make it a round 37k with an industry standardized rapid advancement as your skills develop (rather than their special and unreasonable version of "entry level"), along with contractual clauses guaranteeing you wont be training your indian replacement upon pain of severance cuts, and you'll suddenly be buried in applicants.
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After high school, I got a 2 year IT degree, and my first job outside college was selling PC and Mac based recording equipment. After that, I had a few more technically oriented sales jobs, finally landing an entry level support job 3 years after I graduated college.
Honestly, I beat out several people who had more IT experience than me, just because of the sales experience. If you really want to work on computers for a living, you may need to work your way up.
It was worth it for me, as I love my current job.
I've been in IT for about 6-7 years, since I graduated college. I really don't like the way things are neither, but it's like Darwin's theory - survival of the fittest. I've had to study more, get certified, worker harder and longer. Do what you can to adapt and survive. Sitting here & complain is not a good option.
You are correct, he was also in business for himself.
My father-in-law is an engineer and his neighbor is just a plumber.
A lot of folks think that a "tradesman" is the guy that comes to your house to fix a clog. No, he's just some schlub working under the tradesman's license to do that work. The licensed tradesman is making the six figures or close to it. Remember, to become a plumber, electrician, HVAC, etc... in most states, you have to work under one of these guys for a few years.
They neglected to mention the median salary for the positions they're trying to fill. Most reports lamenting the lack of available IT talent do. Perhaps they learned a lesson from the regular complaints about the lack of qualified teachers which are routinely riposted with a complaint about the lack of qualified teacher salaries.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I can always claim to be able to have grown a business more if I could just find more workers to accept niggardly wages. If IT wages kept pace with executive wages and we were in this situation I might be more sympathetic.
I started at Ernst and Young in 1997 as a "consultant". Back then, there were 5 levels: Partner, senior manager, manager, sr. consultant, and consultant.
My salary - directly out of college - was $48,500 + bonus.
And that was back in 1997. Since then, I got out of IT because it "wasn't going anyware". Sure, I had PLENTY of mid-level job opportunities but for me, I could see the writing on the wall. And the writing said: this is a lousy career because nobody will pay you what you are REALLY worth.
In almost every other type of career I can think of, the workers "share" in the success of a company. It may be delayed, but it eventually trickles down into better pay and better bonuses (and options if you are lucky). IT is the only area where I never saw that happen. I saw lots of capital expenditure budgets go up, but I never saw the actual workers making more money. That pretty much sums up why I still *love* technology and computers but I can not imagine how anyone "gets ahead" in this career. Unless you are an owner of one of these companies......and I am not.
"There would have been a lot more than 147,000 jobs created here, but our companies are having difficulty finding Americans with the background," says William Archey, president and chief executive of the AeA.
Maybe it's time you stopped writing the requirements that no US Citizen could fill. Otherwise the only solution left would be to rightfully tax foreign assets as domestic except if used to allow domestic industry to continue - allowing workers to fund a humane transition.
Otherwise, don't be surprised if 2009 brings in the lynch mob for globalization.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
how skilled is the average US programmer versus the average outsourced programmer?/i
One need only look at the number of companies requiring cleanup by a US citizen for the mistake of choosing the gilded cup of globalization.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Problem is that a lot of those shows make science/technology seem cool and push-button easy, and the characters are designed to be smart, but not so smart that the audience thinks they're all geeky and can't relate to them.
Which is why I'm surprised that FOX's show "Bones" is still going. There's the obligatory love story, but there's a significant portion of show content (including humor) that relies on audience knowledge without spoon feeding the technical background to the viewer.
This angers me alot. I grew up in SC and you can walk down the street and find people with IS and other tech degrees.
Your state sold out to globalization, plain and simple. Maybe the constituents should have listened to the warning the textile industry gave and made sure that any continued progress(as well as applying such downwards) up the food chain is inhibited if not blocked(unless there are provisions that insure the well-being of those displaced until their transition to another industry of similar/greater compensation).
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Tell that to my devalued stock. WFMI has lost 30% of its value in the last year.
(and to complete that thought):
"... At the salaries companies want to pay."
I call triple-dog bullshit on any spokesdrone that claims there's a shortage of IT people in the US. There's only a shortage of people willing to put up with the bullshit of on-call, politics, idiots deciding on technology based on how hot the sales rep is or how heavy the lobster was at the sales lunch, etc. for how much the beancounters want to pay them..
Meh.
While I agree that this is truly sound advice, I must interject that this is true for many, if not ALL jobs/fields.
Again, while I agree that there is certainly career longevity in going into the electrical field (especially Critical Electrical like Static Switches, UPS's, ATS's, etc), bear in mind that the "entry level" positions in this field also unfortunately require "doing crap jobs for a few years". The same experienced and well paid electrician you are thinking of was once the apprentice who had to crawl under disgusting houses to repair burnt wires or spent hours at 3 in the morning running conduit under a floor on a Saturday night because it had to be done while the UPS was offline.
I guess I'm saying, everyone has to pay their dues, regardless of the field. Additionally, while the electrical field (for example) might be a little better insulated from rapid changes in technology, I don't know that I can necessarily agree that it "contributes more to society". Unfortunately, IT (and all the workers in it) don't get nearly enough credit with how much their work contributes to society. It might not always feel like it while you're doing to work, but I bet that electrician feels the same way a lot of the time.
It's weird, I've worked in IT in North America, Europe and China.
In Asia they are so much more careful about believing what you tell them.
In Canada, I've had job interviews start with "Well, we read your resume and here's what you'll be doing" (no interview)
In China I had one start with the premise that I was lying about everything and they tried to tear it apart: "So, you claim to have worked with team on a JBoss/Servlets application 2 years ago... write out a valid security XML file for that setup that will do the following..."
(they took the fact that I never wrote the security file, and even though I had altered it, I couldn't remember anything 2 years later as proof that I was lying)
A12A.713 is the root of ASC('evil')
the subjects youre talking about are covered in "deeper concepts".. but that's the point.
if you hire an economist you still have to familiarize him with the nature of how his science is applied and the tools used to apply it.
this guy is doing with CS the equivalent of hiring a linguist to be an interpreter.
sure the linguist understands languages, but he wont be able to speak fluent russian if he took french, italian, or japanese as a focus instead.
if you want someone who knows the languages and apis you use by heart enough to debug your code at first sight you need trade school grads, but don't expect any flexibility from them down the road.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Bones is on FOX?
FOX really puts out a show where the protagonist routinely calls Christianity names like spooky magic goobledygook?
(That raises my opinion of FOX, I thought it was a one-opinion monolith)
A12A.713 is the root of ASC('evil')
If they would let American workers telecommute more, and were more willing to pay decent salaries they would probably find more available, willing, and qualified Americans to do the work. But I know that I, for one, am not willing to take a pay cut of 25% or more to be asked to work twice as many hours with a big commute.
Move.
Brand new CS grads with zero experience make that much or more in bloody Regina (typically a low-wage Canadian city). In Calgary you could start at nearly 50% more.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I have nothing to contribute, other than to try to get the parent post some due recognition. Sometimes I wish Slashdot threads were ordered by relevance rather than time of posting. If that were the case, the parent should be listed first.
[ Off topic: It's like the endless discussion on other sites yesterday about Sheryl Crow's comment about one square of toilet paper per sitting. Nobody on digg got it, but toward the end of the thread on metafilter someone finally pointed out what I wanted to say: she's a girl, and she's talking about "#1" not "#2". All of the male posters were too busy ranting about the insanity of using one square for #2 to realize that women have different restroom usage patterns than men. The point I'm trying to make here is that everyone's too busy ranting on their own misunderstanding of the problem, and someone finally got it right, but nobody's paying attention because the comment was made by an Anonymous Coward. ]
Wages have been generally flat since 2000. (disclaimer; mine have been going up but that's what the paper said today-- interesting that multiple sources are pushing this slant today with non-identical articles-- astroturf campaign??)
Our company has over 200 indian nationals working for us from infosys INSTEAD of Americans.
And there are rumors they plan to offshore the rest of our jobs in the next two to three years. It is really a race against inflation and appreciation of the rupee (18% combined inflation and appreciation means indian workers will be *double* the cost in only four years).
While I hope these companies fry in the pan they made by destroying so many american IT people's lives that the students all got the correct idea that you didnt' want to spend $50,000 to train for a field where you might get 3-5 years of work before being laid off for a year- lose your house- your insurance- etc.
I understand that indians are cheaper and speak english. I have nothing against them and obviously work on a lot of projects with them. They can take these wages and live like kings back home for now.
But I don't understand and agree with paying $5.50 a pill for my BP medicine that sells there for $.10. I don't understand paying $20.00 for the same DVD that sells there for $2.49. I dont' understand microsoft GIVING AWAY
And I understand but burn with the hippocracy of laying off a $80k programmer but not laying off a $800,000 executive (whose job could easily be done by a competant indian executive).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I was in business (technically) as he was and I paid the same shit he did.
Here's my suggestion, buy a small biz as an investment. They're cheap compared to Wall Street.
Then bitch at me.
Where's the sign on bonus like in the late 90's? Where's the hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for referrals?
- real hackers don't have sigs -
There may be more jobs, but they are not anything like 90s. For one, I would get tech recruiter calls every day. I don't see that now. Two, the $ isn't there. I know, I had this "fortunate" event to get my pre-dot.com-bust salary locked in since 2000. No one wants to pay me my current salary. I suppose some could say I need to update skills etc...and I know I can learn more things...but, I'm not working with ancient technologies either. I'm working with C#, WinForms, ASP.net. I have architect and proj. mgmt experience as well. This is pretty standard fare stuff these I think... Right now if I wanted to get a job badly enough, and I'm getting to the point of seriosly considering it, I will have to take $15K to 20K USD cut in salary, plus the other losses. :(
So no I do not think the job market is all that good.
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
(That raises my opinion of FOX, I thought it was a one-opinion monolith)
This is the same short-sighted trap that the people who are convinced that the big media are all liberal mouthpieces fall into. The media is there to make money, and whatever message makes them the money is what gets put out there.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Some of the numbers here don't jive with the Occupational Employment Statistics from the Bureau of Labor Stats and given the choice, I trust them more than an industry group interested in making its industry look good.
The article claims the average is $75,500; however, if you look up at Occupation: Computer Programmers (SOC code 151021) in the BLS, the average and median salary is $63,420 and average is $67,400. $10k / year on average is a substantial difference. If you want to broaden "hi-tech" degrees to the broader field of: Occupation: Computer and Mathematical Occupations (SOC code 150000) the mean/median appear similarly 10k / year lower than the article.
The Job outlook description for Computer programmers says to expect slower than average growth. Maybe things are looking up for Web2.0 but its not definite, and definitely not the trend across programming jobs, just one type.
To further muddy the waters: some multi-national companies don't technically outsource, they just have their internal employees in other countries do work for them. I used to work in upstate NY running programs on a mainframe in the UK until my job got "moved" to a team located in Bangalore. Since the mainframe was in the UK, what did it matter who ran the programs? The Bangalor employees made roughly 1/20th of what I made, and I came straight from college and made WAY less than the averages quoted above.
Lastly, the claim that companies hire for anything other than a skill set is a complete lie. If this is the case, then why are there job descriptions? Every job has a specific function requiring a specific skill. Once that skill is no longer needed then you are laid off. You will notice the phrase "ROI hiring" at the end of the article. If i'm a veteran employee and I make $80,000/year, at what point does it become cheaper to lay me off (provide a few months severance) and replace me with someone straight from college making $20,000-$30,000? How about with someone in another country who has similar qualification and because of the exchange rate, they cost $2,000-5,000 / year. Remember, ROI, If I get 10 projects done with a veteran @ 80,000/ year I have a lower ROI than 10 employees each doing 1 project @ $5,000 / year. Factor in that the veteran employee needs to be trained and the 10 rookies don't and you're compounding the difference in ROI.
Long story short, you're not safe from outsourcing, no one will train/retrain you so keep up with the industry and never stop learning! Challenge yourself and learn new languages and skills. There will be more tech jobs; but don't expect a second coming of the 2000 tech boom.
Overall, does the "Dehli discount" really cut costs all that deeply? Or, by the time you write, and re-write, the specs, etc. do you end up spending more? Will the present obstiticles to offshoring be overcome, and thereby totally decimate technology jobs in the USA? Or, will rising costs associated with offshoring cause the practise to level out? What technical specializations do you consider especially vulnerable, or invulnerable, to offshore outsourcing?
"Let me be the first one (I think) to say that this is just another conspiracy to import more programmers to depress domestic programmmers' wages."
Are you implying the immigrants aren't doing it for the love? Oh wait, that's another group of immigrants.
...find the on/off switch for your brain. Turn it on only when you are actually doing IT work. Make sure that your lips attach to the nearest PHB's ass when your brain is off.
Sorry, but my ego just doesn't fit in the tiny vial that you seem to have managed to fit yours into. Hubris is, after all, one of the traits of the best programmers. What a strange dilemma.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
I said that if you are talking about formal education, the ones that are really, really bad tend to come from the CIS/IS/BIS/MIS/etc. These are usually the people who can't cut it in SWE or CS, in the major classes, where a self-taught person would generally be able to do well. Even I did well because I was self-taught and I can't take standardized tests. I'd get a 95 on the project, and a 70 on the exam. Personally, I would hire someone based exclusively on their work history, and by work everything they've worked on, not just what they've been paid to do.
Gee, I guess the multinational bank I consult for must be missing something. They have a layoff coming up for IT. While they will likely get rid of some crap they will definitely get rid of some good people. These are NOT entry level people. It's all about the money. They'll almost bend over backwards to give you someone in Singapore, India and other countries but they want to can experienced people in major cities. Of course, the replacements can barely converse in English in most cases, have practically zero business experience and will switch jobs at the drop of a hat for say $5K. The turnover rate is at least 25%. Then, of course, there are those really good people that are leaving of their own choice simply because they are tired of doing more work, dealing with people who know nothing, having to make nightly business calls to Asia, etc. Some are even leaving without another job to go to.
So who does this benefit? Simple, the CIO they hired. He'll make his "numbers" get his bonus and then just before the SH*T hits the fan he'll depart for a better opportunity so he doesn't get any on himself. The next clown will come in and repeat the process.
Why hasnt anyone mentioned that ALL individual management salaries exceed those for engineering, and there are always two or three managers (at least) per software developer so this is just muliplied. In our division at IBM we had 10 software engineers and dozens and dozens of managers for the same product (not including sales which is a different animal along with help desk). I guess if management is looking to "save" money, they are first to cut the lower paid workers rather than themselves. What a shocker, they are not even working for the shareholders best interests to save money, but are looking to save money and protect there own skins! Outsource management, I wonder why that hasnt caught on, thats where the biggest cost is as far as salaries.
I'm no business expert, but I play one on TV.
There are apparently an increasing number of businesses who are now figuring out that short term outsourcing == mid-and-long-term headaches. Though it seems a lot of "sweeping under the rug" of the monetary effects can be done with fancy accounting techniques.
Why was I cursed with being able to understand programming languages and the ability to fix a computer? In a past life, did I perhaps murder an innocent virgin during an orgy of indulgence? Is this my punishment?
:( That would be cool....can you imagine if we had conditioned society to accept corrupt and pointless charges for mundane services?
:(
Why could I have not been born with the ability to take apart a transmission blindfolder and tell you how the color of your car's interior paint will affect your engine performance?
Not to mention, people always expect me to be able to fix their computers, their printer, anything else with a cable and power supply. As a mechanic, people would at least expect me to overcharge them
"You want your cache cleaned and the spyware removed? Ok, you're going to have to leave your box in the shop, we'll call you when its ready."
72 hours later.....
"Well, we got it fixed up for you. While we were getting rid of the spyware we found a trojan and a cute little keylogger. We added it into the bill, that's gonna be $450."
Damn you linux geeks for telling everyone that fixing this shit is free. You've ruined my imaginary IT utopia. I hate you all
the more intelligent people shun TV that isn't intellectually "satisfying" to them. When they glamorize the "thug culture", the latest high-dollar fashions, and so forth - most intelligent kids reject the message
By the time kids have the maturity and social awareness to do the shunning and rejecting, it's too late, they've been indoctrinated into a self-destructive worldview of what is cool and what isn't. The only ones who don't fall into the trap are those with highly doctrinal parents who have been preaching a very strong counter-message to them.
This won't change, since we don't live in a planned society. But we should at least give the positive messages a decent amount of airtime, and the same amount of kid-attracting glitz.
What's more, that can be done quite easily without being doctrinal in the slightest, for example by providing more hobbiest shows to cater for those kids who have other interests beyond just "hanging out". It just requires the will and some social mindedness in topic selection when making programmes, rather than always chasing the biggest buck.
Your company sounds like a good fit--I'm looking to get into a mid-level development position after having spent five years in the QA trenches, writing test harnesses and the like when I was lucky, running manual test scripts when I wasn't. I do hold my BS in CS, so I have that in my favor, along with whatever experience I got writing/maintaining test harnesses.
Am getting laid off in a few months from Symantec (whole site in southern Virginia is being closed so that our projects can be moved to the new office in India), and so I'm currently on the lookout for work. Where are you based? If it's somewhere I'd like relocate to (and you're accepting resumes) I could fire you an email.
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
There are plenty of USA workers. These articles make no sense, they never have.
No matter what trade school you go to, there will somebody in India, or East-Europe, to work for 1/3rd your salary.
Unless you speak Hindi, or Russian, then you don't have have the special skills these companies need.
operations?
Maybe the special skills that employers can not find in the USA, is fluency in Russian, or Hindi?
As companies export IT as fast as they possibly can, I expect that is very helpful to have somebody state-side who can speak their language, and who understands their culture.
That's all you need. The problem see, is corporations no longer want to hire entry level workers. They want cream of the crop programmers only, hence this bullshit about not finding "the right person for the job".
Fucking hire entry level programmers, spend a little time training, pay them well and they will stick around for the long haul.
Fake 'reports' from corporate trade groups with an 'outsourcing is not a problem' headline are pro-outsoursing propaganda.
This is detailed in the great book "Outsourcing America: What's Behind Our National Crisis And How We Can Reclaim American Jobs" by two second generation Indian immigrants Ron Hira and Anil Hira.
These fake reports are used to encourage Congress to make decisions favorable to the industry group. Campaign contributions to Congress are a second way of influencing Congress.
The American Electronics Association is a trade group made of companies that wanted government help and protectionism in the 1980s to protect them from competing directly with the Japanese semiconductor makers. They got that protection (i.e., government hand out). They are against anyone else getting such government help (e.g., technology workers getting protection against imported labor driving down wages).
The article fails to mention the declining take home pay for average technology worker's during 2000 to 2006 and conviently also fails to mention that inflation has eroded an additional 20% of a worker's purchasing power during 2000 to 2006.
Damn right. Those jobs didn't exist when I graduated in 2002.
simple, fast homepage with your links: http://www.ngumbi.com/
Kwitcherbitchen.... WFMI over the last five years has outperformed the S&P 500 and the DJIA, not to mention Kroger and Safeway. Sure there's been a bit of a dip since the first of the year, but if you bought five years ago, you're still sitting on top of better than double your money. Most folks don't do that well over the long term.... and if you're not in it for the long term, then the stock market is just a numbers racket and you get what you pay for (which is where I believe this thread started out, no?)
Fair notice: I have no financial interest in any of the above-mentioned companies. I moved my money out of American stocks to pay my rent many, many moons ago.
I'll temper my sarcasm when I stop hearing about other over-30 IT guys like me having to (attempt to) train their replacements, or when more than 2 of the 60 or so over-40 IT guys like me have a job again in the industry we built. Bitter? You're damn straight I'm bitter; in the last ten years, my income has gone down literally 94%...which isn't compatible with living a middle-class lifestyle in what was once the United States of America. I'm the first generation in my family for nearly 300 years never to have to pick cotton for a living - but guess what? exploited, below-minimum-wage farmworkers in California made twice as much as I did last month - and I did better than a half-dozen of my more experienced colleagues. "Expect freedom"? Too many people have been doing that for the last 30-35 years, and not nearly enough doing anything to make it actually expectable, or sustainable. Witness the current corporate-fascist kleptocracy that replaced what once was a perfectly decent constitutional Republic. Santayana was a blithering optimist.
Globalization will only succeed when wage slavery is prevented in the developing nations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery
Slashdot = Sarcasm
The demand for computer professionals has been going up and up. You should choose an exciting career in the field of Information Technology. High pay and job satisfaction await you.
Also, we are winning the War on Terror. Who could have seen it? It started with the horrors of 9/11 and now we are building democracy in Iraq. But the fight is not over. The spectre of terror attacks in The Motherland is forever with us.
We must give Uncle Sam our support and the tools he needs to get the job done. Advanced information gathering and extraction techniques have made us safer than ever. Imagine if a terrorist was about to kill your children and our heroic men and women of law enforcement were unable to remove the monster from socieity. I bet you'd wish there was a place where they could take the enemy where good, God-fearing Americans could be safe from him forever.
I agree with the comments that have been made regarding H-1B visas and outsourcing. There seems to be another disturbing development keeping people from jobs though. Human resources departments seem to be over-qualifying positions -- "over-credentializing" them. More requirements have to be met for even simple jobs. More credentials are required for the most basic of tasks. And companies are willing to let positions sit unfilled for months or even years while they WAIT for the "perfect" candidate. There seems to be absolutely no wiggle room anymore. Either you just walked out of that very same job at another company yesterday or you are out of luck. This is true of even service jobs like dental assistant or customer service representative. Changing bedpans in a nursing home now requires certification to do. One experienced dental assistant (holds tools) told me she applied to a doctor's ad for a dental assistant position and he told her he required a college degree---for 10,000 dollars a year.
It is even worse at tech and engineering levels. There are no careers, only jobs. And when that job goes away, your detailed credentials are not likely to qualify you for anything else. You may as well be completely uneducated and inexperienced.
Entry level in programming now seems to go something like this: "Must know half dozen computer languages to expertise doing this and only this thing daily for 5-10 years. If you have this background, we will deign to let you in the door for an interview you will probably fail anyway."
Something sick is developing rapidly in human resources departments nationwide. I don't know if it is just an advanced case of "cover-your-ass," or what. Are they growingly more incompetent at doing the job, and falling back on more and more qualifications and credentials to make decisions for them? "Don't blame me, he had all the credentials," kind of thinking. This has even advanced to the point that computers are screening potential employees now. Insanity. In pursuit of the goal of the perfectly qualified employee, they guarantee they will have problems finding ANY qualified employees. Hiring is an art they are trying desperately to make into a science. It isn't working in my opinion.
E Proelio Veritas.
I read about what you programmer types are experiencing in a book back in 1984...
It is the understanding that at it's very basic level, software programing is cottage industry. You can do it from anywhere, with the advent of the PC, you dont need a lot of expensive equipment, and its easy for anyone with a little experience and drive to do.
Its also difficult to put a price on bad programing vs good programing, thanks to the power of modern machines. Lets face it, crap code that takes twice as long to run as good code simply isnt the issue it once was.
So, understanding that at the tender age of 14, I shifted into something more interesting and potentialy profitable : hardware and networking.
I cant be outsourced, my job requires my physical presence. I code things that I'm interested in, without fear of losing my job.
Why dont you just blame open source for the whole slump in the programing market while your at it? Dont be pissed at the world because you failed to relize the dynamics of software programing, as a career or business. Its nothing personal, you are simply in an industry where you, as an American, living in a hideously expensive country, are at a huge disadvantage.
... the most expensive stuff you can find.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I would never be a plumber. I don't care if they earn 3 or 4 times more than me.
I don't want to be fixing toilets for a living, thank you very much.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And laying pipes.
And installing dishwashers and washing machines.
In IT and CS your mentors are some of the greatest minds ever.
In plumbing, er, can you fix my toilet please?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And present an intellectual challenge far superior to watching the paint dry in the wall.
If somebody really considers going to paint walls or fix toiletts (and sorry, I don't care how long the apprentiships are, they are dull jobs by definition) as a wise carrer move, I posit that they did not have any idea what he or she wanted in life anyway.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So basically what you are suggesting is to leave in the door all what you could bring to a company that is valuable in order to "toe the party line".
It is people that want to change the world and that do not forget their principles and beliefs who actually make a difference.
Those people that tiressly promoted GPLed software and that made sure sure their bosses did made possible for their companies to save lots of money and to be ahead of the wave of adoption of free software.
Do no listen to the parent post. Good companies will want you in spite of your lousy T-shirts.
The only thing I may concur is where respect is mentioned, but for bunnies sakes, that is a matter of basic good manners, it should not even be mentioned in a list of things to do to keep a job.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I pay more for quality products manufactured in America, whenever I can. Sometimes this means I pay a bit more than inexpensive imported goods, but I benefit by a) knowing I have superior merchandise and b) knowing I helped keep a manufacturing job in the US. My Mazda B-3000 has a lot of non-US components, but it was made in Edison, NJ.
Fucking hire entry level programmers, spend a little time training, pay them well and they will stick around for the long haul.
Amen. I have been trying to get an entry-level programming job since I graduated from college almost 10 years ago. Gotta have experience to get a job, and vice-versa. It's the stupidest catch-22 ever devised in this IT black hole that I live in (Ohio).
I am determined to either leave this state or leave IT altogether if someone does not give me a chance soon. One would think that having knowledge in 10 different languages should be sufficient....
before the tech bubble burst, I was an instructor (adjunct) at a local college, teaching CS. After the bubble burst, my classes dried up, and were cut. Students did not want to learn CS. HELLO? IS ANYONE LISTENING? The reason that we do not have enough home-grown IT TECHIES is simply because the jobs dried up and salaries are so low. Relatively. THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE. More jobs and higher salaries. Then more students will go into CS. The workforce grows. Joe Cotton
I don't believe that having lots of job openings necessarily translates to lots of hiring. Everyone's hiring, but no-one is getting hired. The bar appears to be quite high for skills now.