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."

Comments

Not Just Workers

[Mikkeles]

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?

what germany does/did

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:what germany does/did

[amiga3D]

Now that's an idea I like. Force them to pay foreigners more than they would a US worker. Thus they don't have an incentive to hire foreigners unless the shortage is real and when the shortage goes away they'll hire US workers. No wonder Germany manages to continue to be successful even though the EU flounders.

Fresher skills?

[hawguy]

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.

misunderstanding of TFA

[lkcl]

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"].

Re:Fresher skills?

[St.Creed]

Yes, because the patentholder with 200 patents is completely interchangeable with all those young graduates with 5 years experience. I'm pretty sure they'll all rack up that sort of trackrecord too.

This sort of thinking stems from the "humans as cookies" school of thought. All cookies are the same. So you can replace cookies with other cookies. Somehow this never really works out when you work with humans.

I'll never forget my fathers company. They had one administrator do most of the bookkeeping. He didn't automate much, but he knew the status of every invoice in detail, where it was, who had it, etc. He worked about 5 hours a day and spent the other 3 composing music. In his office.

When he retired they had to hire two people who work full time to replace him. Yeah, completely interchangeable. Not.

Re:Old is gold?

[TheGratefulNet]

I'm 50, out of work and in the bay area. I'll save you the details, but trust me, I'M NOT LYING. its hard as hell to find work when everyone is half your age (or less) and willing to slave for wages that end up putting me backwards.

you see the people around you. IN JOBS. and you declare there is not a problem.

wow...

let me say again, there is very much a problem and I'm living proof. worked at a who's who and have 25+ yrs in C and generic hardware/software engineering. but no one wants to hire (fulltime with benes; lots of contract offers but they are all lowballs) someone my age. you don't belive it but its still true and I'm living proof.

I was cocky in my 20's and 30's. I thought I owned the world and every big-name company I worked for 'stroked' me. but when I hit 40, things changed. and now that I'm 50, things VERY much changed.

you are wrong. just plain wrong. your data sample size is too small. otoh, I have a group of friends my age and they ALL have this problem. some are damned near genius level and no one wants older guys, not even if they've been everywhere and done everything. older means expensive and also not willing to be abused by the employer.

they don't want us anymore, for many reasons.

Re:Old is gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet so many people bitch about unions. Especially nerds, geeks, hackers and other techies.

People died for the 40 hour week. Literally. They were f$cking killed while fight corporations for the right.

People died for the 5 day work week.

People died for the lifestyle we have now. But we give it up because we don't believe in organizing. We give it up because we're "mavericks", we're too creative. And now, we're all paying the price. Oh, but our stock options are worth so much more now, eh?

Re:Old is gold?

[mdf356]

Send me your resume, or just go to the careers part of our site. EMC/Isilon is hiring; we have an office in Campbell though the main one is in Seattle. I'm 36, but there are people older than me doing dev work.

Now if by "no one wants older guys" you mean "won't pay what I demand", well, that is a part of economics. I'm paid significantly more than a starting employee. Maybe not quite as much as I could get elsewhere, but it seems comparable with industry pay for my level.

Re:Old IS gold

[mounthood]

Yes, but is the experience worth an extra $90,000 a year?

Speaking as a guy who just retired from running a tech company, yes, it is.

Companies could hire experienced workers for dirt cheap, by just giving the retiring baby boomers what they really want: medical coverage, lots of time off with a flexible schedule, and a small amount of money to pay the bills. Imagine how many 60+ year old EE's you could hire with this deal:

* 1/4 salary ($37,500)
* Work 3 days a week
* 2 months vacation (40 days off)
* Medical and other standard benefits

Many professionals have already saved for retirement and paid off the house, and they just want to take it easy. It's interesting to note that the economy already provides a version of this for experienced professionals: contracting. Working at high pay for very short periods of time, they get a small salary and lots of time off. But the companies get screwed rather then having a loyal employee who loves working for them!

Re:Old is gold?

[JustNilt]

Now if by "no one wants older guys" you mean "won't pay what I demand", well, that is a part of economics. I'm paid significantly more than a starting employee. Maybe not quite as much as I could get elsewhere, but it seems comparable with industry pay for my level.

In my experience this has a lot to do with it. People got used to massive salaries during the boom years and adjusted their lifestyles to match that income. Now that the boom's over and sanity is restored, many "can't afford to survive" on what the market will bear.

In my case, I used to work at MSFT. Yeah, I got stock options and incredible benefits. Sure, I exercised my options ... all of them, when I was laid off and the stock was still above $100. That money went into my retirement trust. I didn't use the money to buy a new car every 3 weeks (no exaggeration) like one of my former co-workers. After cycling through several contract gigs I went into business for myself and I've been self employed for 10 years now, making about the same on average each year as I did at MSFT but without counting those options. My retirement's covered and I'm fine but most folks I used to work with at MSFT aren't. They got used to having the ridiculous levels of income and can't handle that they no longer have "what they deserve".

So many folks nowadays refuse to see that those salaries aren't "what we all deserve" but are, instead, a result of a booming new industry that must eventually settle down to normalcy or burn itself out. During the dot com boom I kept hearing the statement that "all the old rules are out and it's a whole new world without limits". During the housing boom I kept hearing the statement that "real estate is a perfect investment ... it never depreciates in price". In both cases, I knew better. Boom times come and go; in business these are usually referred to as peaks and valleys. The trick is to know when you're in a peak so you can save for the coming valley.

Back OT, the key is to not adjust your lifestyle above where it needs to be and, if you're unable to find work at that salary level then you need to find another career, adjust your expectations or branch out on your own. We, as a society, have allowed at least two generations to grow up not planning for the future other than long term retirement. We've taught people to use their homes as a credit card and to use their financial well being as a prop to live life as though they're far wealthier than they are. This cannot be sustained; it must change.

Re:Old is gold?

[edxwelch]

> putting a priority on savings
Unfortunately, most people's savings weren't in cash when the 2008 crash came.
They were invested in things that were consider safe at the time, like property and bank shares.

Re:Old is gold?

[EQ]

Why the hell go into tech then? Why not choose a field that rewards experience instead? Who the hell wants a field that peaks at 35, and then be treated as leftovers after that?

Exactly! This is exactly what I tell younger engineers when they ask me what I would do differently in my career.

For instance, Medical technology and medical care are under-served, with RN's who have been (software or hardware) engineering leads being very valuable. And if not, RNs will pretty much be in demand for the foreseeable future anyway, and they do not get discarded with age unless they can no longer perform their duties. They pay isn't 150K, but it is steady and substantial (add up 20 years of steady work at 80K from 45-65 versus intermittent work and massive stress in tech during those same years), and with a masters, you can even go into practice and get those 6 figures of income. Also, the work can have a moral quality to it that is missing in most software or high-tech. Knowing that you can and are making a difference in another life gains allure over coding a tiny part of "the next big thing" (which will be forgotten in 5 years anyway), It makes this particular later-in-life career changeover viable to me, since I will be able to continue to work as an RN well past an age when I would have been forced out completely of tech.