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More Tech, STEM Workers Voluntarily Quitting Their Jobs (dice.com)
Nerval's Lobster writes: New data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) suggests that more tech professionals are voluntarily quitting their jobs. In August, some 507,000 people in Professional and Business Services (which encompasses tech and STEM positions) quit their positions, up from 493,000 in July. It's also a significant increase over August 2014, when 456,000 professionals quit. Voluntary quits could be taken as a sign of a good economy (Dice link), hinting that people feel confident enough about the market to jump to a new position (likely with better pay and benefits), if not strike out on their own as an independent. For tech pros, things are particularly rosy at the moment; according to the BLS, the national unemployment rate among tech pros has hovered at under 3 percent for the past year, although not all segments have equally benefitted from that trend: Programmers, for example, saw their unemployment rate dip precipitously between the first and second quarters of this year, even as joblessness among Web developers, computer support specialists, and network and systems engineers ticked upwards during the same period. If there's one tech segment that hasn't enjoyed economic buoyancy, it's manufacturing, which has suffered from layoffs and steady declines in open positions over the past several quarters.
disability? there's lots from which to choose.
Pay us well and treat us well, and we won't keep job-hopping.
At HP, there are a LOT of people leaving, as morale is at an all-time low. Those with marketable skills would rather leave on their own than get a dreaded "offer" to work at Ciber or Modis at 30% less pay, reduction in benefits, and a loss of seniority - and finding they can make more at a company willing to actually offer reasonable compensation increases on a regular basis.
There may be other companies, not as high profile as HP, where this is also occurring. Obviously, there are many companies "below average" (Kind of has to be that way), but the disparity is pretty high - when people start shopping around, they quickly realize they are underpaid, and the rest of the pieces start falling into place.
It can't go on forever... which is all the more reason those people confident in their ability to place at better companies are going now, rather than waiting.
More people are clueing into the fact that working conditions suck, that sh*t always rolls downhill when it comes to missed deadlines or ever changing specs, and that it's not worth it. Ageism and the up or out mentality, where there are too few jobs to move up to, doesn't help.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I see more and more people in IT leaving their jobs to work on something else.
People are fed up with low pay, crazy schedules, lots of pressure -often times for no reason!- and technology changing at Formula 1 speed (just take a look at the web: what was good and trendy 2 years ago is proscribed today).
To top that up, add off-shoring: today you are key, tomorrow your job is in India, Vietnam or who knows where. People do not like job insecurity.
What are they moving to? Everything else: law, gardening, plumbing, cake shops, teaching, whatever with a more relaxed schedule, people not discussing about hourly cost and difficult or impossible to offshore. Really.
STEM: Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics
They've finished training their H1-B replacements, after all.
#DeleteChrome
I have seen ads for jobs as desktop techs, asking for a masters degree in engineering.
Costco starts out at $20.00 an hour. Walmart truck drivers make $82K a year. I see ads for developers, asking for a degree, and five years experience, for $14 an hour. I see ads for interns that require five years experience.
Honestly, if I thought I could get scheduled 40 hours/wk at Costco I'd turn in a resume. That's probably about my current salary if you divided it by my overtime.
If I could get a consistent schedule, I'd pick up a second part-time job to make up the difference. Probably do a bit of open-source dabbling on the weekends once programming stopped being work and started being something where I can solve problems and have fun.
Reality is, though, employers these days shit on all their workers by scheduling them part time, then changing the schedules every few days. Oh, you've got another part time job? Well, now we want you to come in every other hour for the next two weeks. Good luck keeping both your jobs, wouldn't want you to earn enough to get out of poverty, now would we!
Are you kidding? I got laid off from my tech job just before the government shutdown in October 2013 and I was out of work for eight months. Meanwhile, the CEO gave himself a 60% pay raise and bought a new yacht for having a lousy fiscal year. That didn't stop the company from hiring Indian workers to replace American workers.
I have seen ads for jobs as desktop techs, asking for a masters degree in engineering.
That should clue you in that the company doesn't want to hire American workers.
I just got into an argument with someone over this being the reason we have to keep minimum wage. You give companies the ability to use peoples desperation for work as an incentive to for less and we will quickly see wages drop to sweat job levels in just a few years.
Are we really extrapolating a trend from a single month-to-month increase? Sure, 493,000 professionals quit in July and 507,000 quit in August. That's actually a pretty negligible change. All the more so when you consider that 510,000 quit in June and 516,000 quit in May.
Indeed, from the report itself:
So once again -- lies, damn lies, etc.
Breakfast served all day!
"Nerval's Lobster" is the Dice marketing department account.
When all of their cow-orkers speak Hindi..
What is big business going to do when the short term payoff HB-1 workers go home and take their new found knowledge with them?
They will cry crocodile tears about how the offshore engineers are beating them at their own game.
They will need more government subsidies and tax breaks to survive!
Rick B.
I sorta get your sentiment, but you didn't finish it. What exactly are they doing about it? Are they joining communes? Committing Sepuku? Otherwise there's 3 possibilities: a) they're starting their own businesses, unlikely in this economy. b) They're job hopping because that's the only way to move up in the world or c) they're having nervous breakdowns and/or being forced to quit/retire.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
they're legally required to offer the job to an American. Then when no one 'qualified' applies they get to bring in an H1-B. Vote Bernie, he's the only one against it all.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What are the reasons for the quit? Are they going politely because:
a) A stash of cash as gratuity is being offered
b) There's no point fighting, and they think going politely increases their chances for a new position
c) They are actually going to new/better/better paid jobs
d) Giving up on that type of career
Right now in michigan the wages are unreasonably low so there is a massive brain drain as most skilled tech people are leaving the state in droves. Why work here for $45K-$65K when the EXACT SAME JOB in Colorado or elsewhere is paying $ $79K-$102K
Plus you can be way away from the cesspool that is known as Detroit.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Sometechcompany has contintuity and visibility. The Company writes policy, press releases, public relations statements, etc. So, year after year after year, The Company keeps reiterating how great they are, and how unappreciated they are.
The techs who have worked for The Company in the past and the present have no such outlet. Their reasons for leaving aren't publicized. Two, or six, or twenty people might know your real reasons for leaving, but none of it is publicized. Outside of your immediate freinds and associates, no one knows how shitty The Company has been treating you.
And, it is the job of HR to ensure that your reasons are twisted, perverted, and/or hidden from public view. Often enough, it would cost your freinds and associates their jobs to make any attempt to set the record straight.
So, when all is said and done, The Company just gets away with whatever the hell they please, and you have no recourse other than leaving.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I sucked so bad that I only had 60+ job interviews during those eight months, had three job offers towards the end, and still working at the job that I accepted 14 months later.
Get off your high horse. I graduated with a degree in electrical engineering just after the Enron crisis unraveled and the dotcom boom went bust. Even though I spent each day applying for every technical role imaginable, I ended up working at Sears for a few dollars over minimum wage. That lasted almost six months until I took a job several states away from my home in Dallas. Many tech workers who are unexpectedly laid off face a unique challenge of being very good at one particular specialty. Even though they can be just as effective with a very different role, employers often seek out a candidate that exactly meets the job specification. So someone with four years experience designing 10kW power supplies will be deemed under qualified or an unfit match for a job requesting five years experience designing 2kw power supplies. A second candidate with ten years experience designing power supplies ranging from 1kW to 10kW would be deemed over qualified. The company then justifies recruiting a candidate from a third world country that will work for whichever wage keeps him employed and allowed to remain in the country. The fact that no one understands his emails, and he has to repeat what he says two or three times before anyone can make out what he's trying to say doesn't seem to matter.
We definitely should bring in talent from around the world, but often times in STEM fields the H-1B visa holders have a very narrow skill set and are expected to work extreme hours for low pay. But it gets the message across and keeps the rest of the STEM workers from demanding too much. Of course when today's technology is made obsolete the H-1B workers are sent home rather than retrained. But by then there are millions trained on the latest trend and they import replacements.
Wasn't there a Mitch Hedberg on this? "I'll pay you minimum wage, but if I could pay you less, I would"
God spoke to me
Problem is that the minimum wage can actually work against all of us if the wage isn't properly adjusted for inflation. Otherwise a minimum wage eventually leaves a full time worker living in poverty and requiring medicaid, food stamps, and housing assistance just to get by. It sets an artificial baseline that employers will try to aim for. So if semi-skilled workers get minimum wage, skilled workers get minimum wage plus a bag of peanuts. An artificially low minimum wage drags down wages for all workers except those that assign their own compensation - those executives that sit on each other's boards of directors and, like monkeys grooming each other, mutually decide to keep increasing each others pay regardless of whether the company is profitable or failing. Meanwhile shareholders have been conditioned to expect returns that fall below inflation (when they aren't negative), and workers have grown accustomed to just trying to keep whatever job they have rather than believing they deserve a reasonable share of the profits they produce. The collective fear of the workers makes sure that those few who may have the audacity to make demands can easily be replaced by a more agreeable and subservient employee.
When the minimum wage is a living wage, every worker can have confidence confronting employers about working hours, working conditions, or even ask for more pay, knowing that a worst case scenario is they have to get a job elsewhere that pays a wage that they can manage to live with. Workers higher up on the pay scale can afford to take chances with their careers knowing that in the short term they can always fall back to a lower paying job if their plans don't work out. It's ultimately better for the economy as a whole. Satisfied workers are more productive and less likely to leave, even if the short term cost to employers is to pay more. But as all employers would be paying the same they wouldn't be going out of business from paying better wages.
Take it up a notch. Pay everyone a Basic Income, sufficient for a basic but not awful existence. That way no employer can use the collective desperation of the masses to pay them shitty wages - they have to offer something that's better than nothing, instead.
They say "a rising tide lifts all boats", but most of us don't have a boat. If you give everyone at least a life-raft, then offering someone a life-raft as an alternative to drowning stops being a thing. You have to offer someone a boat.
My first wife earned far more than I did for many years and the tables only turned recently (and not by much).
We parted amicably, our only common financial interests were the house (we split evenly because while she earned more, I was more frugal and paid substantial chunks of the mortgage off), and our daughter.
My current GF earns about a quarter what I do but still insists on paying her way equally, which works fine because we both have pretty modest lifestyle demands.
The only kinds of women who are expensive are the ones who are into you for the money.
CxO's who run "big business" have only one allegiance, and that's their own profit, nothing else. They don't give a shit about firing thousands, tens of thousands of engineers (Carly Fiorina), the state of the US tech industry, the US as a country or its people... they only care about their own bonuses and then fuck the hell off once the company is screwed. Or the country is screwed.
Please read up about corporate psychopaths. "Snakes in suits" is a good book.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
My brother-in-law quit IT to drive a truck.
Truck drivers can do very well.
There seems to be a polarization in these threads. Some people seem to think there are no jobs available and some people seem to think there are positions that can't be filled. This makes me if there are distinct hot spots for jobs and you simply have to be there in that area to get that job. This would affect job switchers as well, since it would take a radical amount of money to get people to move for a job and I don't see that kind of money being offered.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Alas, here in the UK a lie on your CV/resume once found out, can result in a criminal conviction for fraud.
a cv is pure marketing, everyone knows that. if company pr isn't held to the same standard then that's nonsense, i wonder if there was a single one you couldn't sue to oblivion after just the first week on the job.
Oh please. Stop it.
Maybe you were unscathed, but the economic downturn was real. I had a neighbor in banking, who originated certain kinds of corporate loans. His skills were highly sought after, and he was out of a job for a year and a half. When he was hired, it was back into (nearly) the same department, doing the same kind of job. What happened was the bank just decided to no offer such loans till the economy recovered a bit.
I have a second neighbor who lost his job, and opted to go back to school. Technically he didn't become "unemployed", but if you asked him why he was in school, the answer was "I don't have a chance to land a job in this market" He just reentered the market two months ago.
I have a distant relative, with a Master's in Comp Sci. He worked for a small five-man shop. The owner worked so hard during the downturn that my relative attributes the owner's heart attack to the crash. The owner's partner didn't fill the gap as well as could be hoped, and after a year he lost his job (and the company folded). He eventually got a job at 70% pay with the city. It took a year and a half (and leveraged inside connections).
In a hot market, I'd be inclined to agree with your sentiment, but we don't have one of those. Even when my company laid me off, and I had another large company trying to talk about my working for them for two months prior to the termination date, it still took me four months before I walked on the new job. Many companies just don't hire quickly anymore. And trust me, I believe it, as after I left that one (was poached away) it took four months for a company that wanted to poach me to get me through their "accelerated paperwork" path.
Tech W2 employment in America is an awful game:
1. Employment-at-will is cruel. Most of the world does not have employment-at-will, it uses the "just-cause" model.
2. Exempt employees put in long hours because of #1. There are no laws limiting working time in the US.
3. Employers are almost impossible to take to court due to binding arbitration.
4. Employees in most states can be forced to sign non-compete agreements or be fired.
5. American employers offer some of the most paltry fringe benefits when compared to other industrialized nations.
6. Once you get into your 50's, you'll have a hard time getting hired regardless of how good you are
Many tech workers who are unexpectedly laid off face a unique challenge of being very good at one particular specialty.
I had the opposite problem of being a jack of all trades and a master of none. As an I.T. support contractor for contracts that lasted one day to one year, I rarely had the luxury of picking and choosing my next contract. I've always took whatever came along next. For recruiters who are looking for someone with a minimum of three years in each of the last three jobs, they declared that I've lacked focus. Never mind they were looking for someone to fill a short-term contract.
OTOH, when they retire that last mainframe running RPG, you'll be first on the RIF-list.
IBM introduced a new mainframe this year that can "process 2.5 billion transactions a day (or the equivalent of 100 Cyber Mondays every day, according to the company)."
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/z13-mainframe/
I'm calling B.S. on that. Some people out of work have completely marketable skills but are fed up with employers having too much power, and don't have to work W2 because they can live off passive income and investments. It's these people which start their own businesses, or decide to contribute in other ways such as writing open source software and creating open source hardware.
How many of those recruiters are willing to hire someone from anywhere? I dont lot happening from my meditate location. Sure its easy if you live in New York LA or silicon valley. Also how are recruiters finding out about you?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The software industry is booming and growth is not reflected in staffing level increases. That means it is more likely that tech professionals quit and move to other positions because they had enough of working 14 hour days, nights and weekends.