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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.' "
> The industry chiefs finally realized that you get what you pay for. Amazing.
Not really. This is part of a PR blitz to raise the H-1B cap. Otherwise, in order to increase supply they'd have to increase salaries. And we wouldn't want that, would we?
[Insert pithy quote here]
Because some people enjoy it?
I don't know about you, but I could never see myself as a plumber or car mechanic or house painter. They're probably far easier than computer science could ever be, but I don't think I could find a fulfilling life in it.
Why are people teachers when there's not a lot of money in it? Scientists? Come on.
One problem I've seen is students have focused on Microsoft .net but in reality there are very few jobs there. Most large corporate systems rely on more standard technologies. Here in RTP we cannot find decent java/j2ee folks. Lots of posers who cannot answer basic CompSci questions... I hate to say it but I really question that some unscrupulous people from India may not even have the tech degrees they advertise. At a past company I asked the offshore team (HCL) to do a design document and even stubbed out the entire thing. They could not, within a month, produce anything worthy of even a D in a 102 CompSci class. I assume HCL actually has them staffed on 50 projects as the offshore team so they do little to nothing for each project. That allows HCL to have an L1 "manager" at each of the 50 projects who is really an individual contributor in fact. I saw Wipro doing this in the late 1990's too so it must be a common technique among the Indian contractors. Americans cannot compete because they send in resumes with real experience rather than hypothetical experience. Give me an MS from an American University any time over some poser claiming expertise in the latest fad technology.
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