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IT Labor Shortage Is Just a Myth
buzzardsbay writes "For the past few years, we've heard a number of analysts and high-profile IT industry executives, Bill Gates and Craig Barrett among them, promoting the idea that there's an ever-present shortage of skilled IT workers to fill the industry's demand. But now there's growing evidence suggesting the "shortage" is simply a self-serving myth. "It seems like every three years you've got one group or another saying, the world is going to come to an end there is going to be a shortage and so on," says Vivek Wadhwa, a professor for Duke University's Master of Engineering Management Program and a former technology CEO himself. "This whole concept of shortages is bogus, it shows a lack of understanding of the labor pool in the USA.""
Mostly to lower wages, increase profits and cut expenses. If you keep on feeding the myth of a shortage and getting cheap labor influxes its hard to give up on the myth when it can make you so much more money. I mean really, everything labor related is is labor expenses - thats what it boils down to. Its not that there aren't enough people working in the field, its just that the field wants to lower its costs with cheaper labor.
Its the ongoing commoditization of not just the products but the people that maintain them. They've already commoditized the manufacturing and they're desperately trying to do the same to the engineering, infrastructure and support sides.
Put a price on it and compete on price alone. The holy grail of Capitalist pigs the angst of the modern day IT worker.
Many companies seem to be averse to hiring lower level positions. They don't want to hire anyone who is junior and train them, they expect that they should be able to hire people fully qualified for whatever it is they want, even if that thing is very esoteric and requires lots of specialised knowledge.
Well, sorry, but that just isn't realistic. Experience has to come from somewhere and this idea that "somewhere" is always going to be "somewhere else" just isn't realistic. I think maybe these companies need to say "Ok well we can't get enough people who are ideally qualified, so let's back off the requirements and hire some people we can train."
You don't even necessarily need things like apprenticeships or anything, just hire some lower level job. Ok so you are doing Java development and you need some people who are good at J2EE. You want some real experts so you try to hire vets with 10 years experience and some major projects to their name. Ok but you find you can only get 2 people for that, and you need more. Well then maybe back off and hire some mid level people, and then if you still don't have enough back off and hire some entry level people.
Ok so it isn't the highly trained dream team you wanted but at least you now have the people. Now you start training them, you let the veterans lead the team and the newer people learn. In time, you have a highly skilled team, and you probably ended up getting it for less money (and perhaps more loyalty).
Too many companies seem to think that experienced employees should just pop up out of the ground. No, sorry, not how it works. If you want someone with 10 years experience, well that means the only way they can have it is actually having been in the workforce for 10 years somewhere. There is just going to be a limited number of those.
The key there is SKILLED.
It's hard to be skilled when the HR people ask for 10 years of experience in a technology that's only existed for 5.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Ageing technologies like Unix and mainframe are on the way out of what you need to know these days.
Yeah, these days, it's all Linux.
the Unix side can't provide the kinds of availability numbers we can and the upper-ups are getting tired of hearing the financial systems aren't available so often.
IMO, this is more a function of the ability of your admins and the fact that you're using Oracle Apps.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Yes, because the problem is QUALITY workers. There are plenty of people who are paper cert IT admins or are just not qualified to do any of the work they are given. Recently while hiring we went through reams of resumes and even then plenty of interviews with people who had lied on their resumes. There is not a lot of good talent out there for true administration, and a lot of one trick admins that don't see the need to diversify their talent against changes in the industry. I'm not saying everyone needs to be a jack of all trades, but it's nice to have people who can shift gears in exchange for a 6 figure salary.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."