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President By Day, High-Tech Headhunter By Night
theodp writes "The White House is following up on an offer made by President Barack Obama this week to help find a job for an unemployed semiconductor engineer in Texas. The offer was made during a live online town hall after the ex-TI engineer's wife questioned the government's policy concerning H-1B visa workers. Obama asked for EE Darin Wedel's resume and said he would 'forward it to some of these companies that are telling me they can't find enough engineers in this field.' While grateful, patent-holder Wedel said the president's view on the job prospects for engineers in his field 'is definitely not what's happening in the real world.' Duke adjunct professor Vivek Wadhwa offered his frank take on 40-year-old Wedel's predicament: 'The No. 1 issue in the tech world is as people get older, they generally become more expensive. So if you're an employer who can hire a worker fresh out of college who is making $60,000 versus an older worker who is making $150,000, and the younger worker has skills that are fresher, who would you hire?' Coincidentally, Texas Instruments sought President Obama's help in reducing restrictions on the hiring of younger foreign workers in 2009, the same year it laid off Wedel."
So if you're an employer who can hire a worker fresh out of college who is making $60,000 versus an older worker who is making $150,000, and the younger worker has skills that are fresher, who would you hire
Dont the older ones come with experience?
As an example (though not valid in this case, but still shows the point), a more experienced person would know to avoid using floats to save monetary values,etc...
In the tech industry, as in management, the top spots are obviously fewer than entry level, so over time many people will stagnate when climbing the ladder
How often in the real world do you find yourself thinking. "Gee he's never really done this before in an applied, practical setting. That makes his skills fresher!" In my case that would be a big never.
Chances are the new grads skills are fresher, but not as applicable as someone who's been in the field actively working. Hands-on experience is worth a lot...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
So if you're an employer who can hire a CEO fresh out of college who is making $60,000 versus an older wanker who is making $15,000,000 , and the younger MBA has skills that are fresher, who would you hire?
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
So if you're an employer who can hire a worker fresh out of college who is making $60,000 versus an older worker who is making $150,000, and the younger worker has skills that are fresher, who would you hire?
Fresher? Skills aren't vegetables. The older guy is also the wiser and more experienced. He knows the meta behind the skills, and what will work, and what won't. And if he's worth his titles, he has been constantly learning throughout his career. He knows how to be part of a team (even if he never grew into liking to "work with others"), and how to get things done.
The young guy is going to make a lot of mistakes. What he has is energy and drive, and fresh ideas. But too often, he'll work for 20 hours when an hour of thought would have led to a four hour solution that works better - a solution that would have occurred instantly to the old guy. He'll get the job done, but it won't have the eloquence that the older guy would have brought to the table. Many of his ideas will be naive, but through sheer force of will and energy, he'll make them work. But it'll be ten years before he has the experience to even come close to the depth and perception of the older engineer.
(Obviously, written by someone who's paid their dues for a couple of decades, and is still doing so.)
Check your premises.
He's trying to pull a fast one. Acting like he's all "concerned" and stuff. He should just remove the tax benefits from off-shoring, but that would only hurt the "contributors" to the party, so that's not gonna happen. The party will have none of that. Nothing but a little tear jerker for distraction purposes.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
They can't find work because they demand higher salaries than they are worth. The $60k a year they pay fresh grads is still better than lifelong industrial workers get for much harder work. $150k is ridiculous. Try getting off you ass, then may you'll appreciate $60k a year for sitting down and crunching some numbers. Disclaimer: I've worked both types of jobs... Engineering is easy work if you have the mind for it.
I have seen that Germany will require foreign visa holders to be paid some premium over the going rate. It may have been 5% or so. This ensures foreign visa holders are not economic replacements, but have a specific skill that is in short supply.
I think older people asking for higher pay than their younger counterparts, based on their experience, isn't necessarily simple math. I'd much rather have positions filled, relative to experience, based on the business need. Unless you're hiring a savant, a college graduate with no prior experience, is likely to need more time or training, depending on the task. Some graduates aren't even cut out for the task, and you won't know, until you try them. On the other hand, someone asking for a higher salary, with a nice CV/Resume and Letters of Recommendation--seems less likely to need as much hand holding. Unfortunately, in the real world, nothing is certain. Any way you go about it, hiring is a gamble. If you can't afford the risk, the lesser of the two evils, the lower income bracket, oftentimes does make more sense, at least to me.
You get what you pay for. You earn what you get, one way or another.
If you marry someone much prettier, you will have a live of submission. If you take a job paid too much, they won't let you forget it. If you lie or cheat, you will get-in over your head. There is always justice. If you come from segregation, your world view might need an adjustment.
Sometimes if you want experience you're better off paying up for the older engineer.
The President can't help himself. He naturally gravitates to peddling influence, and missing the point entirely while "looking good for his sycophants".
JJ
Spend less time whining on slashdot and more time working. Then, you won't have to worry about those hard-working, therefore evil, foreigners taking your jobs.
If you're an employer who can hire a worker fresh out of college who is making $60,000 versus an older worker who is making $150,000, and the younger worker has skills that are fresher, who would you hire?
I had to go back and reread the quote, just so I could see what exec was stupid enough to have actually said that. Can't pass up on an opportunity to short a company that's headed for the dustbin.
And surprise, it wasn't even a exec. It was a college prof - a member of a profession known for it's keen business acumen and ability to thrive in the real world.
Give me a break. Those who can do, do. Those who can't, demonstrate it with every word out of their mouth.
What does "Fresher skills" even mean? The only skills I've seen someone fresh out of college have are coding skills. That's not the same as software development skills. That 45 year old developer that cut his teeth on C/C++ can pick up Ruby in a short time, but it's going to take the fresh college graduate years before he learns the skills he needs to work on a large development effort as a part of a team. Granted, there are exceptions to both rules. Sometimes the 45 year old doesn't want to learn anything new, and sometimes the college grad is some kind of programming god. But what I've usually seen happen is that the senior members of the team end up cleaning up after the junior members.
What is true, of course, is that the new college grad is often willing to work for more hours and less pay than the older guy. But then, the older guy never comes in hung over and rarely breaks his leg on a ski trip or while mountain biking (I've had both happen to 20-something year old employees). And he's less likely to job hop -- one thing managers tend to underestimate is the cost of losing an employee because of all of the institutional knowledge that leaves with them.
The best hiring decision I made was bringing in a 50 year old developer to work on a project that had been developed by our young, bright team. The project was becoming unmaintainable, bugs were adding up and the team was falling behind. The senior guy helped rearchitect the software to make it not only more maintainable, but more scalable - the newly designed product was more easily scaled horizontally and it needed about 30% less hardware to run. Th funny thing is that since we were competing with startups, we were paying some of the younger team members more than the more senior guy.
this is a misrepresentation of what President Barack Obama actually said. he said he would *investigate*, by putting this guy's resume in front of companies and ask them the pointed question of why such skilled engineers are not being prioritised for jobs. he didn't say "i'll find you a job".
what was actually much more stunning to my mind was the fact that it appears that the U.S. has a President who is willing to say "I Don't Know The Answer Right Now". he did it incredibly subtly: he said something along the lines of "this is very interesting and i too would like to find out what the answer is", which is just... it takes my breath away that he could be that sensible.
i thought politicians were supposed to be ignorant, arrogant and had to pretend to have all the answers - or at least to be intelligent enough to give the impression of being arrogant. although i fully appreciate that in the case of George W. Bush (jr), his ultra-low IQ means that he really was genuinely ignorant ["if the president of Ireland needs anything, anything at all, he only has to ask, now excuse me i gotta go get a burger"].
WTF is wrong with US election campaigns? Are voters really that dumb to base their decisions on single cases like Joe the Plumber?
If this continues, there will soon only be professional actors at campaign events and the candidate that has most money to pay for actors will be the one who wins.
As old people cost more to have health care.
It's the new rage. We're all going to be fine even though only me and my pals are. You should hope for the best because me and my friends are hoping alongside you.
I keep seeing this "older workers are more expensive".
I was so deperate for work that I was willing to take an entry level salary. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to express that because no one even bothered to interview me. Anyway, after several years of trying (and depleting all of my savings), I got the hint and left the profession.
Clearly the president is totally out of touch with the Jobs situation... but I can understand the hiring companies point of view. I work on a team of 2... and my co-worker went out sick about 6months ago... I've been screwed ever since. Management finally decided that he might not be coming back so we started the interview process last week. We had 3 kinds of candidates: 1. Kids, currently in school, usually for the wrong thing with no practical experience. 2. Guy's with several masters degrees in multiple fields. Knew every programming language I'd ever heard of, had worked at Google, Apple, IBM, ATT, and every other hightech giant you could think of... but had been out of work for a year or more... and were asking a minimum of $150k. 3. Older people that only knew 2 or 3 languages, usually something like Cobol, show no interest in learning anything new despite our assurances that we'll pay for classes. I actually had one guy tell me "Oh I could do that (referring to an example I gave him of something I written) but I'd do it in Cobol." Well, we don't use that... no one here works on that... how are we supposed to maintain it? These guys still wanted $75k+ This is an entry level position... for someone with limited but at least some experience in a languages that are less that 20yrs old. If you've got 30 years of experience in languages left over from the 70's, well yea... there aren't jobs out there for that.
Then we have our interns from India. We asked one of them for help until we find someone and she said "Ok" went home, learned the relevant material over the weekend and came in Monday already swimming circles around me. Luckily for me the interns are very transient and never stay in one place for long. They're always looking for the better job, or going off to get married (their weddings are 2 month long deals) and the Job I have really needs someone that knows the inner workings of the company and how all our tables fit together.
I have seen projects run like this and management literally does not understand that one set of skills may be absolutely meaningless compared to the older way of doing things if the experience delta is high enough. For example, you may have the freshest "hot skills," but the senior guy making 2.5x more can actually get the work done in a "fuddy duddy language" like Java or C# in substantially less time and under budget. When you do contract work, that's what matters. A typical customer doesn't give a rat's ass if you're some wunderkind with Ruby or PHP if they have to sacrifice either code quality or more money than by hiring a more seasoned developer with a very solid, but conservative skill set.
Why the hell is this modded "Funny"?! It's very true on every level!
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
This exposes the true nature of the H1 B program. It is a lie that there is an engineer shortage in the US, we have tens of thousand of unemployed engineers right now. The H1 B program sole purpose is to destroy the domestic job force by bringing in cheap disposable foreign labor so that a higher rate of return on capital can be earned by the companies who have lobbied for this program. The H1 B program is destroying the tech industry and our middle class and should be gotten rid of immediately.
As then people coming out of school will have real skills and not just people who area cheaper and replace older works that and end up F*ing up as they don't know what they are doing and the people who do have to come back some times at X2 - X3 what they used to be paid to fix it.
The HB1 come for places where there is a lot more cheating in schools as well. Now with a real apprenticeships system that can fix that may letting people get tested in a real work place.
The real problem is that hiring less experienced engineers is always a win if the product can be shipped no matter whether it is ready or not and the costs are less. Even if problems surface later there are no consequences because it's impossible to prove that the problems would not have occurred with more experienced but costlier engineers. The pressure is to use cheaper engineers and not worry about quality in order to make the product ship dates. The only failure is the failure to get the product out the door. Now days most products are web products that are slapped together as quickly as possible and released so customers can test them. Get the functionality in place and worry about the bugs later because time to market is the critical element.
So, as a hiring manager, I would say most media views on this really miss the mark. Reduced wages is not what motivates H1-B support (at least in my experience), because there is typically a legal cost to the company in supporting that hire, especially if they decide they want to get a green card and your want to retain them. The reality is simply this: finding good people in the tech sector is very hard. You see many candidates who claim to have the skills, but when you test the candidate they frequently disappoint. When you finally find a candidate that you feel would be a fit for the position, you don't want anything to stand in the way of hiring them, like their visa status.
The (older == wiser) || (older == expensive) versus (younger == cheaper) debate is kind of misrepresented too. What it frequent turns out to be is (older == set in their ways) versus ( younger == eager to learn). Now I'll be the first to say I've hired older candidates that were eager to learn new things and their prior experience typically makes that process go much faster and smoother than for younger candidates. But (my perception of) reality is that "older and more experienced" candidates typically come to the interview looking to do what they know rather looking to grow. Maybe some employers like that, but tech companies tend to prefer people who will grow with the company.
What job has a salary range of 60,000 to 150,000? Look at the Federal Govt pay scale for the DFW area, http://www.opm.gov/oca/12tables/pdf/DFW.pdf Note, you would see that a entry level engineer (no adv degree) is a GS-9 about 55,000 whereas a senior level manager, GS-15, pay tops out at about 150,000. Personally I doubt that a senior level manager could do the tasks assigned to the entry level engineer any better than the new hire, except of course design powerpoint slides. In really, the important senior level skills are cost, time and personnel management Not the same job at all.
When the decision is made to hire a younger vs. an older worker, it's simply about costs. the older workers want more money, the younger, often foreign worker will settle for less. Younger workers can work more hours too. They need less because the don't have families to support, and the come from places where the acceptable standards of living are far lower than ours. I find the skills problem to be more of an issue when screening for developers. most companies demand all sorts of very specific experience with one or another technology, without realizing that all of them are so similar that any good tech worker can learn them quickly. So, HR departments often screen out people who could be very good candidates.
The problem is, limiting the number of H1B visas to keep cheap labor out of us jobs doesn't and cannot work. foreign workers come in on other sorts of visas like L1, where the works is a foreigner working for a foreign company in an office on US soil. Further, the expensive, older tech worker can also be replaced by foreign workers on foreign soil through outsourcing. The real solution is to eliminate all of these restricted visas, and make it easier for tech talent to immigrate here, and can enter the market without restriction. H1B visas turn foreign tech workers into indentured servants.If they are instead allowed to become citizens, they will be able to change jobs more often and move up the skills and experience ladder to better pay sooner, thus close the pay gap between us and foreign workers. It also allow then to be better protected under US labor laws. Under H1B an employer can threaten a work with firing, which means being sent back to the country of origin.More smart younger tech workers coming here mean more new companies forming, and more jobs.
i dont get why you people complain about this, after subjecting yourself to, supporting, praising and furthering the capitalist system you have been living in through all these decades.
capitalist system seeks to maximize profits of the stakeholders. anyone who is not holding a stake, is expendable as long as s/he is replaceable.
huge short term gains at the cost of anything, enabled through 'deregulation' for the sake of free market is the epitome of this. if you just sit and evaluate this equation, you will find that anything is justifiable as long as it flies - from destruction of oceans to near-slavery. and the wealth amassed furthers the power of the wealth owner to turn everything from public (non)opinion to justice/law in their favor. its circular.
what did you expect in such an environment ? goodwill ? social responsibility ? decency ?
or, did you think that being a better, more experienced engineer (through age or other means) would increase your value ?
well, they just made society get used to accepting subpar products/services in everything, then they replaced you with those who would do shabbier jobs for cheaper......
in a dog eat dog society, you cant expect decency.
the ultimate end of this is, practical aristocracy/monarchy/empire with a seemingly 'democratic' storefront (late roman empire) and after the point society gets used to it, outright aristocracy/monarchy/empire (roman empire after octavianus).
Read radical news here
Don't employers attempt to negotiate salary requirements? If someone is currently unemployed is asking for 150k/yr might want to take 60k/yr given the choice between that and nothing. Would things be smoother if the Employee/Employment marketplace were more liquid?
Speaking as a guy who just retired from running a tech company, yes, it is. In the EE realm, with which I am most familiar, the experienced guy has been through the FCC testing rigamarole and can just be sent off to do it without supervision -- and he'll come back with a product that passed, because he knew what the requirements were when he designed it.
The experienced guy knows all the suppliers; knows where to call for what components; knows to check for multiple sources and to avoid single source vulnerabilities if at all possible; has written in programming languages A..M and when presented with N, can learn it in very little time, whereas New EE Guy knows languages L,M and N and is absolutely clueless when it comes to maintaining product X's assembly code written in F, nor has he the depth needed to pick it up, and the product design with all its little foibles, that the experienced guy has.
The experienced guy has tons of product experience and puts that to work for you every time a new design is required. New EE guy will probably get caught asking your techs questions instead of educating them. The experienced guy knows that the GPL is a box of landmines, and that it must be avoided at all costs; New EE Guy is likely to walk around for quite some time proclaiming open source is great before he actually understands that the company needs to make money and needs to retain the technology to do so exclusively for as long as possible in order to to pay him.
The experienced EE can do a myriad of things; interview new hires (if you let HR do this, you're already half way to screwed, frankly) he can answer questions at any level from customer to any tier of technical support, he can actually *resolve* problems and in minutes because he's familiar with your products (if you kept him on... if he's experienced but a new hire to you, his benefit is he will learn them a lot faster.) The experienced guy probably even knows a lot about things he wasn't directly involved with, by a sort of office osmosis... people talk about the biz, especially if they're well compensated and treated well, and a synergy arises that New EE Guy simply can't roll into blind.
New EE guy has a limited number of tools in his "toolbox" and very little, if any, experience employing them. The experienced guy has enormous depth and is likely to solve any given problem faster, better, and more to the company's long term benefit than the New EE guy can.
Yes, the experienced EE costs more for insurance, deserves (doesn't always get) higher compensation, should have accrued more vacation time, probably has kids... he or she costs more, all right, but you get so much more it's an obvious decision if the goal is for the company to do well in the long run.
If, however, the goal is to appease myopic beancounters about the upcoming quarter... yeah, that experienced guy is getting replaced by New EE Guy, the bottom line looks better for a few months, and future products will have to look after themselves. And looking at the state of today's US tech companies, with the notable exception of Apple... I can't say I'm surprised at all. By and large, they are reaping what they have sown.
Having said all that, companies still need New EE Guy. but not as a means to kick out some experienced fellow; you want the new guy hired ten years or more before the experienced guy is going to retire so he can learn FROM the experienced guy, and then, when Really Experienced Guy retires, New EE Guy isn't New EE Guy any more, he is Experienced Guy.
If you don't invest in the future, you won't fucking have a future. Company executives should inscribe that on a bat and beat the damned beancounters over the head with it on a regular basis. Figuratively speaking.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
President lawnchair took the pro-big-business action that lead to this guy losing his job. Now he's giving lip service to the guy's predicament but not doing anything meaningful to help the rest of the millions of people who have lost their jobs under these three consecutive bush administration terms.
The only thing Obama accomplishes in this action is he helps secure his own reelection. There is not a single republican contender who would have done anything any differently, which makes it senseless and wasteful to vote for any of them to take over and keep doing the same exact shit.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Shhhhh! They know where the bodies are buried.
"So if you're an employer who can hire a worker fresh out of college who is making $60,000 versus an older worker who is making $150,000, and the younger worker has skills that are fresher, who would you hire?'"
the graduates skills are NOT fresher. i have never EVER met a new grad that had "fresher skills" than someone who has actually worked in the field for even just a few years.
Who are these very poorly educated hiring managers that actually believe that a recent grad has "fresher" skills? I buy the "we are chepskates" angle but no way in hell a grad knows even 1/10th of what a experienced professional knows about a field.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Kids, currently in school should be at a tech school or apprenticeship leering the right skills and not CS for learning usually for the wrong thing.
Yes, exactly, precisely, perfectly on-target.
Beancounters see salary and associated costs, and nothing else. And that view rewards them next quarter after a replacement with many dollars. Later in the year, when the second hire has to be made, the beancounter's sole reaction will be to make sure it's the cheapest person they can find -- and there is no realization that the entire cost came from the beancounter's error in the first place.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Should have been "IT is evolving rapidly, making experience worth more than in more traditional fields."
In traditional fields, a lot of the problems have generally accepted answers. In IT, because it is evolving so fast, the new entries make the same mistakes that the old ones did. You need to be involved in at least 3 huge failures to really know your stuff, because a lot of it isn't technical - it's office politics, general stupidity, nepotism, rampant sexism, etc ...
Think of it - the last time I looked up the numbers, projects only failed for technical reasons 7% of the time. It was mostly people problems, bad communications, mis-management, same as any other field.
Those who have been in the field for a few decades have the perspective, and the experience, to deal with at least some of this, and to pass that knowledge on to the next generation (because if you've been in the field for a couple of decades, you don't worry about the stupid p***ing contests that people get into) - but that's not happening because of two things:
1. "crap" is "good 'nuff"
2. clueless individuals, from HR to management, all focused on keeping employee expenses down to justify their wages.
Pass over tech school / people who learned on there own / people who took drop in classes.
Part of that comes from the gap in skills that you learn from tech schools / community colleges tech classes that you can take as Drop in. CS is not IT and some times the any 4 year degree is a joke how is some with a 4 year Underwater basket weaving degree better then some who want to a 2 year tech school / community college? Or did tech work on there own? I think a lot of HR types don't see what skills that CS lacks and some don't see that IT / tech has a lot of on going education and taking drop in classes is a better fit and less time then say going for a PHD or MA to learn about what is new in tech.
online job applications systems that suck some of them are a pain to enter data and others have this big skills list that has a lot over lap and some even stuff rate 1-5 or 1-5 years for stuff like have A+ or Have a car that should be yes / no.
poor job descriptions like the need 5 years in x? some times it has even not been out for 5 years.
Buzzword bingo
A big list of skills that you will be hard passed to find some who did not lie about have all that is on your list or if they do it will hard to be good at all of them.
job descriptions that read like it's the job of 2-3 people
There would be no reason someone in the higher education business would be promoting their 'product', is there?
If enrollments go down, what happens to him?
The cry of the software industry "I can't get any experienced developers" in America is bullshit.
What they can't get is experienced developers who will work for peanuts.
A company can outsource a development job to India for around $20/hour, and not have to pay FICA, health insurance, etc. on that. Compared to paying a decent fresh-out a salary of $60-70K, plus taxes and benefits, that's over twice the cost of the outsourced labor.
The same is true for H1-B visa holders. By law, they are supposed to be paid at the "prevailing wage", which means ~$25/hour around here. Trust me, they are not getting paid the same as a similarly qualified American. Again, this is way cheaper than hiring a decent fresh-out.
In both cases, the H1-B or outsourced, overseas labor is likely less (way less!) than half the price of hiring a competent American developer. However, there is a steep price to be paid elsewhere. The H1-B or outsourced developer is a mercenary, available to the highest bidder. He has no loyalty to the company, and, if offshore, is hard to pursue if IP is wrongfully appropriated. He knows his employment is temporary from the start, there is no need to develop for the future. Get the job done, and move along. It will be somebody else's problem next year.
Still, short-sighted management seeks the best numbers on quarterly P&L statements. Long term value is sacrificed for short term gains. Management makes their numbers and makes their bonus. They don't understand the business, or just don't care about the long term viability of the business. Software development (and probably semiconductor engineering) is not like manufacturing, where human automatons repeat the same tasks endlessly. Development is both a skill and a craft, and both grow over the developer's career. Development is also unlike manufacturing, where manufacturing creates the same product over and over again, a worker may become more adept at that one task, software grows and morphs from release to release, and this is where the high turn of H1-B and offshore workers really hurts a company. Product knowledge and domain knowledge, acquired over years, is what seasoned developers (and engineers) have, and what makes them worth the money.
Industry lobbyists cry "we cannot get good help" and bribe Congress to allow more cheap temporary foreign labor in. This is good, short term, for the companies that hire these mercenaries. It is bad, short term for the American worker who's job is displaced. It's bad, long term, for technical professions in America; how can you convince a young person to study for a career that has no future? It is also bad, long term, for all Americans, to see well-paying jobs disappear, and our economy, once the most powerful in the world, shrivel like a raisin in the sun.
If ol' Barack is serious about this problem, the H1-B visa cap should be proportionally adjusted based on unemployment numbers of American engineers. 4% unemployment for engineers? Let some H1-Bs in. 6% unemployment for engineers? Let NONE in.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
So there needs to be a better way for Old, "experienced" people to pick up new skills in faster way then going back to college for 2-4 years and some times even having to retake gen edu's + filler classes. No there should be stuff like other trades where you can go to a trade school and drop into classes that will get you the newer skills.
All these third world H-1B engineers and family are pretty much slamdunk votes at election time for anybody who let them into this country.
It's about staying in office, not about quality of workmanship or costs.
If these third world engineers are so capable, why are their home countries like India total shitholes?
President By Day, High-Tech Headhunter By Night
Not really. More like Campaigner By Day, Fundraiser By Night. Doesn't leave much time for Presidenting as we've seen in the past three years
This problem is not specific to the tech industry, and it isn't caused by any particular government policy. While it is true that the high allowance of H1B visas are adding fuel to the fire, tightening the restrictions won't put the fire out.
The older, more experienced workers who can't find jobs are absolutely worth the salary that they are requesting. However, there aren't very many businesses that actually need that level of experience and quality. The market for their products will bear a lower level of quality, and in fact the customers wouldn't be willing to buy if the price tag was higher even if the quality level more than made up for it. So the businesses don't need and can't justify the cost of top-tier talent.
Also, as everyone is aware, the total number of tech businesses only shrinks over time. This is a natural progression of the free market; the winners buy up the losers and centralize efforts, meaning that a smaller number of engineers is making products that serve a bigger market.
To put it simply: you only need one team of engineers to make the iPhone in order for everyone who could afford one to be able to have one. You also only need one team of developers to make a solid office suite in order for the whole world to be able to use it.
Yes, there is still some competition in the market. We will probably never reach a state of true global monopoly. However, there is a whole lot less competition than there used to be, and that shrinkage (though asymptotic) will continue. That is, in fact, how a free market is expected to work. The winners eliminate the competition and then establish monopolies or cartels, and the need for skilled labor plummets. So we can safely predict a supply of top-tier talent that is much greater than the demand.
In theory you can respond to this problem with government and/or union intervention. In practice the end result is never as good as the theory should be.
If we invent a new wildly disruptive technology we may create some young markets with lots of demand for laborers, but in these mature markets (like software development and computer engineering) it is better to recognize the reality and make plans accordingly. If you are young and looking to enter tech, either:
1) expect to move up to management, and build your skillset and all your career decisions around this expectation. Also, actively push this agenda on your employers.
-or-
2) Find a job with long-term prospects at a company with a reputation for retaining talent, and keep your costs of living nice and low as you invest as much as you can.
I'm sorry if both options are unappealing. I didn't create the world, I am just observing it.
Yes, but is the experience worth an extra $90,000 a year? The value of experience usually hits a plateau, but workers still want wages to continue increasing.
Same failure logic that led Circuit City to lay off expensive, experienced sales with cheaper new hires. Then sales tanked.
It's almost as if experienced people demand higher wages because they are more productive. (Okay, maybe not managers because the experience can be in shifting blame, looting the company and appearances instead of real productivity.)
the only way to fight a multinational corporation is with a multinational labor movement. we should try to join together with the IT people in India and go on strikes, global world wide IT strikes, in order to bring the hedge fund managers and investment bankers to some kind of agreement.
unless this guy is willing to do that, i have little sympathy for him. i work next to plenty of highly skilled, educated people every day. you can go to any mall and find them working the cash registers.
Corporations use H1-B visas for the same reason they offshore: getting foreigners to do the same job for less money. Yet you never hear of VP's getting fired and replaced with cheap MBA's from India at 1/10th the cost....
Fixed that up a bit, as the whole purpose of the H1-B visa program is to depress wages. See: when companies like IBM laid off 5,000 workers while continuing to import foreign labor.
There is no shortage of engineers, only a shortage of companies willing to pay for what they want to get. But Human Resources comes to save the day - by drawing up a big list of job requirements like a graduate degree and five years experience, yet offers $40,000 to start. Then they're shocked, shocked! when they face a shortage of "qualified" American applicants and thus turn to H1-B.....
This program should have been terminated, with prejudice, after the Dot Com crash. Then again after the economy collapsed in 2008.
The current requirements for looking domestically to fill the positions prior to getting an H1B are BS. I know 2 companies that have repeatedly falsified those requirements.
The State Department should require each individual job where an H1B is sought, with salary and benefits (including relocation and housing) to be posted for 90 days on a NATIONAL job-search system with electronic preliminary application ability. Every preliminary application must be listed by the company, and a specific reason for its rejection. All that pass preliminary must go to additional screening, and ultimately interviews in necessary. No H1B gets granted until the company can demonstrate it considered and rejected each domestic applicant, and document each applicant's rejection for specific criteria. Then they can not accept any H1B foreign worker that would have been rejected if they had been a domestic applicant.
Sure you will still get pricks that cite "their personality was not compatible with out work-group environment" or other BS, but OTOH, if the expense of dotting those I's and crossing those T's to fake the rejections just to get a cheap H1B, it might dissuade at lease some of them from doing it. And who knows, with the increased mobility, the H1B rules allowing only advertising locally are out of date.
In my line of work, 99% of the time, the older worker is preferred to the younger worker. EXPERIENCE is better from a "break in" standpoint. Plus, most of the time the experienced worker is "settled", married, has roots, and is more dependable to actually show up for work, than a younger worker. It's nothing personal. I remember when I was fresh out of school. You'd go out sometimes at night, during the week, and feel like crap the next morning. I never missed a day from a hangover, but, the productivity of someone like that the next day is less. It comes from age. More experienced workers, older, are usually more dependable than a younger worker.
Stuttering clusterfuck of a miserable failure 24 hours a day.
Many people get stuck "out of work" because they refuse to consider relocating.
You can also consider looking in related areas if your skill set.
Age is one thing, culture is another. On the IT engineering front the old guys tend to be the ones who have seen many different Unix flavors along with Windows, have seen bizarre problems come up and know that the solutions are usually simple answers. They also know to break touch problems down into layers, subsequently throwing out layers in hardware, OS, application that don't make sense to apply to the problem. Windows and Unix Engineers tend to think differently about the problems though by in large your Windows folks will be the young guys and Unix will be the older guys. You also tend to see a greater server to engineer ratio on the Unix, but also on the older side. With virtualization becoming mainstream in many shops you are seeing a 3rd culture of engineering. Interestingly enough though I see the age groups mixed as virtualization, "cloud computing" if you will, is relatively young. The young and old have had to adapt. The young learn, the old use what wisdom they already have and bend it to work with the new thing they need to engineer. To tell you the truth I think there is significant benefit to having a new guy that is always learning and full of piss and vinegar as well the old guy, who constantly see's the faults with the young guy but is reminded from time to time that there are always new ideas and the old way isn't always the best way. Companies with HR and upper management that don't understand this won't have the most efficient operation. Though business has interesting ways of covering its faults.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
From both personal experience and experience of those people I know socially (but not necessarily professionally) I see that, at least as of right now, finding a software development position that pays well (i.e. $150K) is quite doable, and age does not seem to be much of a handicap if any.
I am not a "young grad". I've been working in this field for 20 years. Anecdotally, my hairdresser keeps suggesting that I use hair color to hide gray hair (I figure - no one can be fooled that way, and I pretty much have to pour a bucket of paint over the head to "cover up", so why bother).
Even so, I've had a few offers just recently that were well in realm of what an experienced engineer could/should make. Curiously, some (all?) of the companies that made these offers also had outsourced development centers, along with those in US. I also know of a number of engineers who made employment changes in the recent past, including someone who is almost 60 y/o, and found position in the Bay area.
Personally, based on both my experience and discussion here, I feel that there are opposing forces at play at any time (i.e. "w need cheap graduate" vs. "we need an experienced guy"), and on the balance both groups encounter challenges and success in employment search approximately on par.
Many companies hire H1Bs because they are less expensive. It's a simple fact. You can also treat them relatively poorly and not give them decent raises over the years. So basically, unless you've got a PhD in Comp Sci, you're not adding true value.
Most H1Bs I see are people who have master's degrees from some rinky dink college here in the US. Someone with a masters probably is no par with someone with 4-5 years of experience. But the tech companies hire them generally for less and hold onto them for a promise of a green card.
So with all the H1Bs, it makes the talent pool larger, for not necessarily good gains (except once again PhDs). Simple supply and demand will dictate that overall costs for tech companies who employ this practice will go down.
So perhaps change the laws necessary for H1Bs. PhDs only perhaps?
I am a H1B worker. I am smart (I think), motivated(I think) and better than any 'american' developer in the company. I also did graduate out of MIT which no other american engineer in my company did (all my MIT friends went into Finance).
I think if this country forces me to leave, thats fine. No problem. I am anyway planning to leave this country which discriminates people they way they do.
This is a somewhat long, but very powerful, article. I think it's worth a quick look. You can leave a comment on the site.
What Obama is saying comes from a manufactured myth that there is a shortage of skilled workers, and that a supposed “skill-gap” is hurting our economy. Like the fraudulent assertion that illegal aliens take jobs that Americans won’t do, this is a ploy to displace American workers with cheap foreign labor.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), last year the United States lost 19,740 computer jobs, 107,200 engineering jobs, and 243,870 science jobs. In spite of massive job losses, some 3 million guest workers were brought into the country, including about 100,000 engineers.
In California, a state that has disposed of tens of thousands of teachers, over 12,000 visas have been issued to supposedly meet the high demand for educators. It is incredulous to suggest that we have a labor shortage in the middle of a great depression.
What is truly amazing is that the majority of engineers and scientists working in the U.S. today are here on “temporary” visas; and the result has been a disaster, as over 70% of today’s development projects fail.
http://www.rightsidenews.com/2012020415533/us/politics-and-economics/obama-and-cheap-foreign-labor-the-real-story.html
Here is a short preview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfJopZsNe3U
I think they took the full story off youtube. But, you can get from iTunes for $1.99. It's worth watch, if you want to know the truth about the situation.
My experience with this issue -- a top quartile 2002 EE/CS grad from a top quartile school. Sent my resume to hundreds of tech companies in the wake of the 2000-2001 collapse. Nobody was hiring new grads, and the rejections that came in were mysterious "position was cancelled" notifications (if my resume was responded to at all). A decade later, still unemployed.
As far as I can tell, employers have stopped hiring domestic grads, and have staffed their workforces exclusively, at the entry level, with H-1B's. Or simply outsourced/offshored the work. 90%+ of the people in my graduating class were white males, yet you have Silicon Valley tech companies that basically everyone under 35 is obviously an offshore importee.
If firms find they can't find or hire US workers, then they need to start actually treating us in good faith. A typical company will post multiples of the jobs they actually have available -- how about not throwing my resume away if I apply for a position and it gets filled with someone else?
Now someone might be quick to say that I'm dumb or retarded. But if my applications are not being responded to, disclosing completion of 2 degrees in under 5 years, including summer work experience, a substantial completed project in embedded programming, PCB design, and integration -- and consulting experience -- just how am I even supposed to know what skills, if any, I am missing? That is what makes H-1B so toxic; employers have used the program to just hang up on domestic talent, to the point that white males like myself under 35 are a rarity in the Silicon Valley.
I think it's funny when you talk about the problems with the H1-B program, Indian people seem to be the most vocal proponents of the system, are the first to try to deflect criticism of the program, point the blame on other things such as "older workers cost more", etc. The reality here is that the H1-B system has been abused for decades to get lower paid workers, regardless of whether or not there was actually ever a US Citizen worker that could do the work. Unfortunately, the H1-B system will continue to be abused as a tool by large organizations to hire overseas workers at 1/3rd the cost of hiring US workers to do the same job. I think in most industries, the argument that there are not enough US workers is not based on facts. It's usually coming from the heads of large entities that are saving millions or billions per year by utilizing the program. As long as the program exists, it will continue to be abused this way. The H1-B program has nothing to do with "not enough skilled US citizens who can do the work", and alot to do with "I can hire the same guy for 1/3rd the price". Anyone who says differently is focused on some biased side of the conversation. The Indians think its a great program because it naturally enriches their poor country which would otherwise have been disenfranchised without the support of this program. The large organizations love the program because they get the workers for 1/3rd the price.
Older professors can be very good. Some of them have continued to do good work their whole time and are experts in their field. They have a depth of understanding unmatched by newcomers. Also they have experience teaching classes and so do a better job of it (since for whatever reason universities require no teaching certifications at all for professors).
However others are old fossils who are badly stuck in the past. They ask students to learn, but refuse to learn themselves. They want to teach things using old software, old methods and so on. They refuse to update their curricula, won't learn how to use new classroom technology (simple things, like digital projectors) and that kind of thing. They do a shit job teaching, but of course are tenured and so are here to stay.
Old doesn't mean good. It can but it doesn't always. Old or young, there are people who are good and bad. The experience of old age can be valuable, but not if it is also combined with inflexibility and refusal to learn, which often accompany it.
If I had to choose between a 50 year old who's knowledge was 30 years out of date and who refused to learn anything new or a 20 year old who had no real world experience and a cocky attitude, but was quick to learn and flexible, I'd take the 20 year old. In tech, the ability to learn is more important than experience. I want both, you give me a 50 year old who is willing to learn and adapt and has current knowledge and tons of experience that is by far who I'd most like to have. However learning is the important part and experience doesn't matter as much particular if "experience" means "been doing things the same way for decades".
Doctors are smart. They control how many people are legally allowed to compete with them. They control how many medical schools there are and get laws passed to prevent competition from foreign doctors.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
in their heads. They have learned to pay attention to money and ignore "cool" unless "cool" makes money. They may not know a specific technology, but if they know a technology exists, they can usually figure out how to use it even if they don't know the particulars. Yes, you could hire a Ruby expert, but the older programmer or engineer would know whether or not Ruby was the best fit in the first place and might also be inclined to think in cost/benefit ratios (e.g. "Yes, you could spend $50K making the background software crash less often, but until then, can't we wrap it in a recursive batch file that calls itself whenever the program terminates?"). There's a quality of judgment you acquire when you do anything long enough that can't be matched by an inexperienced person no matter what technology they know.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
The reason there are fewer US students going into STEM is due to H1Bs and the huge influx of foreign skilled labor.
As a student going into college you look all of the cheap foreign technology labor being brought in, abused, and working for peanuts on fear of deportation. You hear about outsourcing and technology jobs being shipped overseas. What kind of student starting out in college sees that and thinks "Yes, I want to lower my standard of living to compete with desperate (but intelligent) people from the third world." Not just that but STEM majors are not easy. You end up working your ass off in school only to enter a job market competing with desperate foreign H1Bs and abusive employers. What high school graduate looking for a college major will find that attractive? Only the most masochistic.
In the mean time, companies, fed on cheap H1B labor are hungry for more. As less US citizens go into STEM, companies cry that they can't find cheap labor in the US and then convince congress to bring in more H1Bs. The next generation sees the huge influx of H1Bs and the process repeats.
There's a reason for the surge of liberal arts/business/law majors and it's not because US citizens are lazy or think it's too hard.Those liberal arts and business majors were smarter than me after all. It's because they see competing with desperate, abusable H1B working as undesirable and can you blame them? If I could do it over again, I wouldn't have gone into engineering as the future only looks abysmal for anyone but desperate immigrants (who will wind up unhappy when their children face the same problems that current US citizens do. I bet you their children wont go into STEM.)
Maybe in your experience this is true, but in mine, we have large projects that going into massive amounts of overtime. This rolls off the shoulders of all the old 50+ people without issue. The younger ones (30 and below) seem entitled to having 2hrs for every 1hr worked over 40 hours. They eventually get moved into groups that don't do much of anything on the risk level, and thus never get promoted.
Where I work, yonger guys are going for higher paid management jobs because they need to buy houses. Older guys stay in more interesting and lower paid engineering jobs because they have paid off their house.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
In most positions in a company there is some sort of career track that allows for skilled workers to justify higher pay by taking on additional responsibility or by acquiring additional abilities.
An engineer with 30 years of experience should have gained some useful skills that a kid fresh out of college would not possess. What are they and can those skills be leveraged to move older engineers into positions of responsibility, oversight, mentoring, and guidance? I don't buy that these guys are just dead weight. Some of course are... but some are also extremely valuable and some are just as valuable as they always were just in different ways.
Give them a different position. Change the job in some way. Firing them and then importing cheap foreign labor is self destructive. It sends a strong signal to US students that there is no job security in technical professions. Which means that an existing shortage will get worse because no one will want to work in the industry. That will require more outsourcing or more importing of foreign specialists. In either case that will empower foreign competitors which will increasingly get an edge. Eventually, the US companies will be marginalized for lack of having any marketable technology, products, or services.
This is a very bad situation. I'm not saying this in defense of domestic workers. I'm saying this in defense of the very multinational corporations that THINK they're making a good choice here when really they're cutting their own throats little by little.
These companies can't survive without a technical advantage. That is their primary business model at this point. They lose that and they're done.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Why shouldn't a more-qualified foreigner be hired for a job? The company is willing to pay H1B fees in addition to salary that they would presumably also offer to a domestic worker. This may not help Joe American, but it does help Prasad Indian. Does Joe deserve the job more than Prasad simply because Joe was born in the US?
Now, I realize it is the US government's job to look after the interests of US citizens. But why should an individual or company favor US citizens?
From the worker's perspective, the argument goes that restrictions, even arbitrary ones, increase scarcity and therefore their value to employers. Those restrictions must feel great when you happen to fall on the employable side of the dividing line. That doesn't make them right.
Companies aren't running around firing everyone over 20+ years because they're run by completely clueless morons who don't understand how the company works. They're laying off people whose yearly raises have put their salary/pay in a tier that they no longer deserve. Plenty of really good engineers are being retained by the companies they work for. You're not because you've failed to increase your knowledge base and/or take on more responsibility/leadership roles, and the company has finally realized that you're just not worth the six figure sum they fork over to you every year. Or maybe your boss just hates you, who knows?
Judging by the content of most college curriculum, I doubt that.. however I'll let that one slide.
That said, for an embedded developer I have to wonder just how those "fresh" skills are helping.
"So if you're an employer who can hire a worker fresh out of college who is making $60,000 versus an older worker who is making $150,000, and the younger worker has skills that are fresher, who would you hire?"
The one with the work and business experience and a developed work ethic, who can handle politics and corporate idiots, wont make a million dollar mistake because he doesnt know any better, and offers the ability to teach his younger peers about the 95% of work stuff that isnt taught in college. I dont give a shit about 'fresh' skills, I can hire contractors for cheap money to do 'fresh skill' stuff when I need it.
Oh, by the way, thats not the $60,000 guy. I used to hire kids out of college and they werent worth a damn until I spent a year teaching them. In my last department, I had to hire a couple of 50's something guys to prevent the 20-somethings from wasting half a week on something they'd already know if they had any time on the job.
$150K? Are you serious?
Good EEs wih 25 yrs experience, leading teams earn about $110K here, not $150K. The director of engineering might earn $130-$200k if he has 50 people reporting to him.
Average desk engineers earn more like $75-$90k with specific industry experience.
If you need a job and were qualified at a senior level and someone offered you a $80K job, you'd accept. The issue is that companies think a $60K engineer is the same as an $80K engineer. That probably is not true, however, many middle-aged folks are set in their ways and aren't as flexible as the company would like.
'nuf said.
The stupid employers keep cranking up pay until you get into your 40s, then suddenly you are too expensive to keep around. I was laid off from TI when I was 45. Over the last 8 or 9 years as an engineer I talked to HR people from multiple companies about why they pay so much when what people really want is more time off. I knew a lot of other engineers and talked to them about things like pay and benefits and almost everyone was satisfied with the money- they all wanted more time off (and time that you could actually take off without getting the hairy eye-ball from their managers). I used to tell HR people that if they offered an extra week of vacation they'd have people lining up down the block for their jobs and it wouldn't cost them a dime extra.
The problem is that the big engineering employers collude to set salaries because it prevents people jumping ship to other companies looking for a better deal. The whole H1B visa thing got popular when there was an engineering "shortage" in the early 90s and companies were having to pay signing bonuses to recruit people. They figured out that if they claimed there wasn't enough domestic talent available they could hire H1B slaves. They created the shortage by kicking engineers in their 40s to the curb, then proceeded to replace them with H1B slaves that they could work for 80 hours per week and if they didn't like it, threaten to send them back to wherever they came from.
I got fed up with the whole mess and went back to school and became a dentist.
What does RN mean?
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
New Stuff + Gold Experience = write a book to assist the youngsters to accomplish their goals
I'm 48 and starting, definitely, to see the writing on the wall when it comes to the culture of most tech companies. It's the culture that has to shift. It's fine to be here on /. and tell it like it is, but that won't crank any change in the assumptions and cultural momentum of the industry.
What if we older bastards banded together and start up something new? A "Space Cowboys" for the tech world? Let's tackle something smart and potent and give it life.
of what you want, since the 'world is flat'. ask anyone who worked in any industry that was outsourced what happened to wages - your job can be outsourced too.
the union will strike for working conditions, not just wages. actually it might be best to completely forget about wages, and go for working conditions since that is something everyone can agree on.
The experienced guy knows that the GPL is a box of landmines, and that it must be avoided at all costs
I'm probably more experienced than you are and my experience is that the GPL is wonderfully simple compared to your usual commercial license (now *that* can be a box of landmines, can't it. With a few notable exceptions, far apart).
Mixing agenda with knowledge? Tsk, tsk. Those raving anti-GPL zealots. ;-)
I do agree on your other points, though.
It's been happening for years, and once those H1-B people get their Green card, so they can work in the US, the company fires them since they are willing to eat dirt before they get their Green card, but afterwards they want a job that pays what their skills are worth. At which point they are as expensive as their American counter-parts so the company fires them and hires more cheap labor.
It is as simple as that. If you are I sponsor a foreign national into the US for a Green card we have to swear we'll provide them healthcare, and a place to live, as well as money to spend. (This is set up so you can bring in your Spouse, but aren't going to marry someone on a whim who will pay you since you're on the hook for a LOT.) Companies on the other hand have to do none of these things. Thus it is profitable for them to do this. Just make them follow the same rules as you or I do, and suddenly there would be more than enough US engineers for the jobs we have...
It's unlikely that the 'kids' walk in on a job and save
the parent company a couple of mils within the first
week of employment.
That's what WE do.
jr
"So if you're an employer who can hire a worker fresh out of college who is making $60,000 versus an older worker who is making $150,000, and the younger worker has skills that are fresher, who would you hire?'" This isn't really the case, the older, more experienced person doesn't have a job, he's making $0 now. I'm 54, made $120k 10 years ago, and had a hell of a time getting re-employed. I had no demands or expectations for $120K, was happy getting $60k after a year of looking. For those of you that can move quickly from one $120K job to another $120K, congratulations! Yes, workers get more expensive as they get older and gain experience, duh. Don't we all expect growth in our careers? But there is a real problem in the tech industry with older, unemployed workers. I had to move back to the bottom again to get a job, but fully expect to move up quicker then the first time around because of my experience.
This guy is in semiconductors. The semiconductor industry has largely moved offshore over the 10+ years. 85% of all semiconductors are manufactured in Asia with the last 15% split between Europe and the US. India is spinning up now to mop up that last 15%. The future trend is not in his favor.
The two hotspots for semiconductor over the last 20 years have been Silicon Valley (which makes so little silicon any more it should probably be forced to change its name) and Texas. In addition to the national trend of losing semiconductor manufacturing, Texas has also been losing tech companies faster. Partly due to bat-shit crazy Christians in the legislature screwing up the future workforce by pushing even more religion into the schools - several company have left specifically because Texas is getting less Tech friendly in this way. Partly due to the fact even Texas isn't cheap enough and Asia is looking better.
This guy has a wife and kids, and thus probably has a house. And that house is probably underwater. And he lives in a "recourse" state (TX) which means he can't walk away from mortgage. Which means he's has almost no option for relocation unless a job offer includes buying his house in Texas at the mortgage price rather than the market price. Good luck with that. Won't happen. He could take a minimum wage job what probably won't pay his mortgage (the majority of job opening in Texas are minimum wage with no real college experience required) but he's competing for each job with 100+ other job seekers.
He could try to switch specialties but engineers are NOT interchangeable - having skills in one specialty doesn't mean you can drop into a new, unfamiliar one and start being productive from day 1. Being an engineer means you are flexible enough to adapt given enough time but no one can instantly adapt and that's what employers want: a perfect fit or buh-buy, looking at the next resume.
Internet job applications don't help here much either. Electronic form reduces the amount of information a job seeker can transmit to a hiring manager and they hiring manager has less information overall to make any hiring decisions. Most HR departments are flooded by electronic job applications and they can do little more than find ways to discard as many as possible. Hiring managers get information overload from too many resumes that are all so vanilla and interchangeable they can't really identify the right person and usually get the hire wrong. This is why most companies prefer to not to use electronic jobs services if the value getting good employees. I was leading an IT team once to develop ways of rejecting 100% of all unsolicited resumes from electronic sources while staying within EEOC requirements. The only source of hires actually ever used were employee referrals; the quality and cost of processing was orders of magnitude lower.
So if he can't "network", especially if he's approaching 40 (this is the witching hour when American companies believe you cease to be a net positive value to them), he's completely screwed and not even networking through Obama is likely to fix this problem.
I am 58 years old, still in IT, still doing software development for a large corporation that would prefer to outsource all such work to India. However, my immediate supervisor knows the value of what I contribute and my job is safe as any such job could be today. I might make it to 65, I might not.
Whether I make it or not ultimately will have little to do with my merits or lack thereof. Although I am good at what I do and worth every penny I'm paid (I certainly do NOT fit the stereotype of the guy who hasn't learned anything new in 20 years - I'm typically the guy who INTRODUCES new technologies to the team), if it would have been left to the HR beancounters, I'd more than likely be unemployed as I was 8 years ago.
Then, as a "Java developer" laid off from an Internet startup in Chicago that didn't make it, I realized I was viewed as a dime a dozen. My resume was dead as a doornail. Until I got a call from a recruiter about a client who was intrigued by the fact that I listed "Jython" as one of the other skills I had. I met with this guy and quickly decided he was a lunatic. He wanted to replace a legacy business sales/inventory system and it just had to be written in Jython. He did not want Java, he hated Java. Being unemployed with no other obvious prospects, I said, "sure, I can do that". When I arrived for my first day on the job, I learned that this was the lunatic's last week. Everybody hated him. Oh great, I thought. But I met with two other contractors who started at the same time as me. Their first question for me was "what the hell is this Jython for?" "Beats, me", I replied. "That's what Mr. Lunatic wanted, and I need a job so I wasn't about to argue with him. But I'm a good Java developer and if you guys want to do this thing in Java, I'm more than okay with that." The lead consultant heard that and said "you'll do". The gig was supposed to last 3 months, it lasted 4, and when it was done, the consulting firm decided I was presentable.
My next gig was with the Megacorp I''m still working for. After 3 months of consulting they hired me fulltime. For three years I hated it, a typical mismanaged monster project that "the whole company depended on" with more and more pieces offshored, loaded with Project Managers, who, according to corporate dogma, shouldn't need to know anything about technology, only how to use Microsoft Project. I was looking for a job again.
Then I got lucky once more. A developer on a small team within Megacorp quit, and I got the job. This is a sideline business that company engages in for "good corporate citizen " browniepoints. It has kept me going for the last four years. I doubt I could have lasted much longer on the old team.
So, while I am suitably proud of my skill set and abilities, I am acutely aware that that and five bucks will buy me a latte at Starbucks. If not for luck, nobody would ever have noticed me. I would have been pigeonholed by the clueless bean-counters and probably working for someplace like Home Depot. My skill set has kept me employed as those who manage me learn my worth, but without more than average luck, I never get in the door.
Hell yeah, the present system is dysfunctional.
sehr schön i like the text :) http://www.autoankauf-fahrzeug.de
Having been in the Aerospace, Hardware, and Software business for 30 years, I can tell you for an absolute fact that hiring a professional that has keep their skills up and has the knowledge base of a few decades is well worth the money. I could give you many examples of serious project damage done through in-experience. If you are in a business that has history, the long term knowledge of these employees is also invaluable. Happy Trails
While I greatly revere the experience and knowledge base of my senior engineers, it is also important to realize as you get older that there are only so many High Paid Engineering positions for very senior engineers. 75% of those over 50 need to be looking for a position in management, or somewhere else to make their money. Most companies don't have the margins to keep you on.
I was lucky enough to be employed and fairly (+/-) paid until I was over sixty. At the end of my career I worked for in a large governmental bureaucracy. Eventually I was ignored and pushed out. My experience and perspective was a threat to those career 'cubicle/office' occupants of the entrenched hierarchy. They were always promarily concerned with looking for the next promotion, hiring outside consultants/contractors to do work their own staffs could do so they could always deflect any responsibilty and then getting jobs with those same outsiders after they retired to add to already very good retirement packages.
It's always the same: pure and simple - you are either going to be in the 'club' - or you are going to 'do the right thing'.
I am a small business owner. I sell software and solutions. If I have to pay myself or my workers the 150k per year, I will be out of business because of pricing.
There is a salary range for every job description.
A programmer in Montreal Quebec finishing college can expect a salary range between 40k to 60k. If he is a business analyst with some programming skills, add 20k to the upper level.
If he progresses to management where he has 6 or 7 teams reporting to him, and he has some project management experience / skills, he is worth another 25k.
If he is a real good PMP, with great business skills (MBA or non MBA), add another 20k for the upper level.
Those salaries tend to top out at 125k. It is not realistic for a programmer or engineer, without business or project management skills to expect the upper salaries. Sorry. If you want that, invest in the market, and most of all, in industrial real-estate, as land and building values usually go up with time.
In Montreal, if you are bilingual (French / English), you can add $5k to your income level.
The idea that there is a constant and steady progression is a false idea. You do top out, even as a small business man. The importance is to be happy.
Things will improve when the USA and other countries start to legislate that 50% of every product must be developed domestically. Offshore gets limited to a max of 50%, not the 90% of the benefit.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada