Techie Pay Approaches All-time High

Stony Stevenson sent in this ITNews story which opens, "Techies were paid nearly record-high hourly wages in the third quarter, according to a new report released Thursday by staffing firm Yoh. Based on data compiled from 75 Yoh field offices and 5,000 technology professionals contracted in short and long-term projects, pay increased an average of more than 5.5 percent for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared to the same period last year."

Comments

Well duh

[Reason58]

McDonald's workers were also paid more than any other time in history. If you are going to a study like this without adjusting for ever-present inflation, then of course you will constantly see new records.

Re:Well duh

[Opportunist]

Compared to what? Internationally or nationally? I don't know about the national inflation of the US, but when you compare the USD to other currencies from large markets, I'd say no, it didn't lose 5.5 percent of its value. It lost much more.

Re:Well duh

[Z34107]

Need I go on? A 5.5% raise is still a 4-7% DECREASE in buying power verses the world economy.

No it doesn't.

A 5.5% raise means you have 5.5% more money.

An 11.1% fall against the Euro means you have 11.1% less purchasing power when buying goods imported from Europe. You're not any "poorer" than they are.

It also means our goods are 11.1% less expensive for Europeans, which means more exports and lessened trade deficit.

Just because our currency lost value against another country's doesn't mean we're now "poorer" than they are.

Re:Well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

As your currency goes down, you are in fact more poor: Wealth, income and purchasing power are all lower on a globally defined basis. Your domestically defined purchasing power is indeed higher compared to other countries domestically defined purchasing power, but given the rather grotesque trade deficit you're carrying, net-net it means you're gonna pay more for stuff overall.

Granted, it also means that your assets (including labor) are cheaper on a global basis, and other countries will buy more of them when the bloodletting starts to end. But, you can't have it both ways. They will buy more of you and your stuff because, indeed, you are poorer.

Re:Well duh

[mrlibertarian]

An 11.1% fall against the Euro means you have 11.1% less purchasing power when buying goods imported from Europe.

Huh? Doesn't it mean dollar holders lose, in general, 11.1% of their purchasing power for any good that could be sold on the global market?

For example, imagine a world in which you could buy one gold ounce for 1000 dollars, or one gold ounce for 1000 euros. In that case, the exchange rate would probably be 1:1. If the exchange rate were to ever go to 2:1, everyone would instantly have an arbitrage opportunity: Sell 1 gold ounce for 1000 euros, exchange those euros for 2000 dollars, and buy 2 gold ounces, for a profit of 1 gold ounce. But market action like that would quickly drive the exchange ratio back to 1:1.

So, if the exchange ratio were to ever go to 2:1, we could reason that either 1) the new exchange ratio will be short lived or 2) we will see a general price increase of 100%, in terms of dollars, on goods that could be (but will not necessarily be) exchanged on the global market. You seem to be treating the exchange rate as though it is unrelated to domestic prices, but perhaps I don't understand your position.

Where?

[damn_registrars]

This is a link to a news source in Australia. They then link to informationweek.com, who is in the US. But I've never heard of the company who runs the survey they are talking about, so I have no way to know who was surveyed about their wages.

Contractor versus Full-Time

[Gybrwe666]

The other problem with this comparison is that this is only looking at contractor pay, not full-time employee salaries. As full disclosure, I work for a firm that provides IT Staffing as one of its services. Yes, certain in-demand skill sets are getting big bucks. Where I work locally, there have been so many positions posted for various C programmers that we simply can't find anymore, and the ones who will move for a short term or mid-term project are asking and, by and large, getting ridiculous salaries.

But when we do full-time placements, I'm not seeing a big increase. Not only that, but the majority of positions we filled this year were full-time placements.

So I think saying they are at an all-time high needs to be qualified: for certain contractors, which are the jobs where companies like Yoh are most likely to be placing candidates.

Bill

Well duh. The H1-B visa expansion is also expiring

[Anonymous Coward]

People forget that each H1-B visa lasts for basically 7 years. And that the limits were wildly expanded during the dot-com boom. Starting in 2000, they went from 65,000 to 130,000. And this continued well after the dot-com bust had happened. It was only in 2004 that the limits went back down to 65,000.

Since this limit wasn't expanded this year (yet), that means lots of H1-Bs are starting to go home. This is why all of the visas that were issued in April were gobbled up in a single day. And none of this is something that you'll see in the mainstream press.

So a lot of H1-B's are going home this year. The local labor market WILL get tighter, and wages WILL rise.

If the limits aren't expanded this year, it's unlikely they'll be expanded next year either, as that's a major election year.

If Hillary Clinton is elected though (which seems likely), you can expect them to again be doubled, as she's been aggressively promoting their expansion, even on her current website.

So, expect wages to go up, while the H1-B's go home. And enjoy it while it lasts, as it won't last forever.

It's just more proof that H1-B's are all about cheap labor and not about a lack of talent.

Re:I'm in the wrong business...

[Surt]

Garbagemen make a lot too. You have to pay people to get them to do painful tasks.