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.' "

Comments

Re:Incredible

[rlp]

> 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?

Re:In a perfect equilibrium...

[syntaxglitch]

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? I don't think anyone would begrudge your hypothetical executive his huge salary. The complaints usually center more on poor evaluation of performance--the salaries of all executives are set at a level fully appropriate for the highly skilled exec you describe, but underperforming execs are typically not punished much and, because of organizational inertia, may even have already left with big bonuses before the problems they caused become apparent.