Accenture To Create 15,000 Jobs In US (reuters.com)

Accenture said on Friday it would create 15,000 "highly skilled" new jobs in the United States, as IT services firms brace for a more protectionist U.S. technology visa program under President Donald Trump. From a report on Reuters: The company, which is domiciled in Dublin, Ireland, said the new jobs would increase the company's U.S. workforce by 30 percent to more than 65,000 by the end of 2020. Accenture has more than 394,000 employees, of which about 140,000 are in India. IT services companies have come under the spotlight after Trump said that his administration would focus on creating more jobs for U.S. workers, who had been affected by the outsourcing of jobs abroad. Major IT service companies, particularly those based in India, fly engineers to the United States using H-1B visas to service clients, but some opponents argue they are misusing the visa program to replace U.S. jobs.

Comments

That much demand for being lied to?

[HornWumpus]

Accenture? Companies still hire them? Seriously?

If you hire companies to 'tell you what you want to hear', you have nobody to blame but yourself.

I'm not sure what skills they are talking about, but they are certainly in the 'soft skills' catagory (AKA bullshiting).

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[Anonymous Coward]

The purpose of "consulting" isn't to "consult" but to give C-level executives cover should their big ideas/plans fail and trigger a raft of shareholder lawsuits. Consultants keep the CEO off the witness stand. As with most things in business it's all about covering your own personal rear end.

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[sinij]

If you hire companies to 'tell you what you want to hear', you have nobody to blame but yourself.

I don't think you quite get it. This is invaluable optimization method of CEO compensation package maximization. Think of all the efficiencies gained in CEO's self-serving process. Countless hours saved, and at the going CEO hourly rate IRR is more than justifies this service.

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a gov't department that hired them for a project. I think in the end they did an ok job, however they had to be watched and vetted to make sure they weren't milking us. For example, bringing in resources to work on COTS software, but then we find out those resources don't have the necessary experience and they are essentially training them on our dime. Also requiring man power at specific cost tiers but filling the roles with people who didn't qualify for those tiers.

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[HornWumpus]

Sounds like you caught about 10% of their shananigans.

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[__aaclcg7560]

I work for a gov't department that hired them [...] training them on our dime.

That's interesting. I'm a contractor in government IT. I get training all the time... security training... application training... dealing with Congress training. More training than I ever got at a Fortune 500 company.

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[HornWumpus]

The big consultancies are infamous for bait and switch tactics.

EDS actually had a very few competent people (hard to believe, I know). You would meet them during contract negotiations. Once the deal was inked you would never see anybody who knew anything again.

It's not on the job training that people complain about, it's being promised industry experts and being delivered recent college graduates (C students) or non-english speaking H1Bs. Who proceeded to try and learn their jobs on your dime. Worse, they usually fail at learning, if they succeed, they get transferred to another client that is further up the 'pissed off curve'.

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[HornWumpus]

The 'skilled person' involved was the negotiator that determined that the 'fromage grande' wanted a reason to go back to MS.

After that it was just a matter of producing TCO numbers to justify the conclusion already in the mayor's head. Easy peasy.

I don't understand why people don't start laughing when Accenture's name is mentioned.

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a company that hired Accenture consultants. After a large project announced delays, the higher-ups wanted to know what was going on. Accenture was one of a bunch of companies hired. Since we have many disciplines: engineering, chemistry, etc, the company contracted different organizations to handle each discipline. The best part was that Accenture basically came-back and blamed management. :-) We've been telling them that their timelines were unreal for a long while now, and the consultants basically agreed with us, recommending that the higher-ups get training on the systems they are imposing on us. Overall, the result was awesome. They did their jobs, and they gave *real* results instead of telling the company what it wanted to hear.

Sorry for posting AC, but the product isn't announced and my name can be tied to the company.

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[Opportunist]

This.

I am a consultant. Most of the times, in the preparation to the audit you already know that all they really want is a CYA paper. They don't want to know about their security situation, they don't want to know how to remedy whatever security issues they may have, what they want is a document they can wave at whoever when the shit hits the fan to show that they had a security audit.

And believe it or not, that is actually already enough. Yes. You needn't be secure. All you have to do for your get-out-of-jail-card is to document your security issues.

Yes. You heard me. Knowing that you have a glaring security hole and not doing anything about it is ok. Not knowing that it's there isn't. Don't ask me why, I don't make the laws, I only abuse them.

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[__aaclcg7560]

[...] being delivered recent college graduates (C students) or non-english speaking H1Bs.

The project I'm working on has contractors with 20+ years of IT experience. The few recent college graduates have master degrees and the few green cards from Europe speak multiple languages (including fluent English). This is the most experienced crew I ever worked with. The few people who think they could slack off on a government job got fired within two weeks of being hired.

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[__aaclcg7560]

Said every government employee/contractor, ever. 99% are lying, mostly to themselves.

I used to believe that until I got my government IT job. Everyone is trying to do their damn best with few resources and almost no respect from the public. Your cynical attitude is why this country is a mess.

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[dave562]

I /think/ that you are slightly over simplifying things.

You have to document the security issue(s) / risk(s) and then decide to act upon them, or not. The decision to not act upon them is perfectly fine, but it is not a free pass. If that risk materializes and it affects the organization, then the person who signed off on it could be facing a 'resume generating event' at best. At worst, there could be some legal liabilities, either for the organization or the individual, depending on the outcome.

I am not an expert in HIPAA or SOX compliance, but I think that there are some pretty serious repercussions for failing to mitigate security risks that result in data breaches or information disclosure.

Am I misguided here?

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Depends on the industry. The companies that handle the bulk electric grid in the the US and Canada do have rules and regulations covering their security. While not quite as strong companies handling payment card information also have some rules but they don't come backed with the force of law.

Re:That much demand for being lied to?

[HornWumpus]

I know this is ironic. But I've 'consulted' (more than 50% of our clients were former EDS/EMA clients, this phenomenon was an opportunity) for many government organizations and non-profit NGOs (in the Electric power industry, I'm counting PUD/MUDs as NGOs). 90% air thieves watching clocks, 10% actual workers. (In the office at the overripe ones...linemen/plant operators etc are just different, in no small part because they have real jobs that have real metrics. There is no bullshitting a down power line. They still featherbed, but jobs got done.)

Sure they are mostly 'doing their best with few resources' but one of those few resources is typically 'intelligence and motivation'.

The older the NGO/government department the higher % of staff is connected people that the rest of the staff wished had 'no show jobs' as they only get in the way, costing 2 or 3 times their direct salary in wasted time/resources. Peter principle corollary at work.

Which isn't to say 'for profits' with government granted monopolies are much better.

It is largely a problem with old fossilized organizations. We were watching the old order fall apart as previous monopolists were forced to prepare for competition in power pools. You could see those with no hope of competing vs. those getting ready. Also the whole deal was colored by these places being Engineering focused, power companies have no bullshit possible metrics, rate and reliability. Which is why we were able to displace the likes of EDS, no matter how many blowjobs their suits were giving. They knew the days of 'making a profit remodeling the president's office' were ending.

Curious, I know you know a little about Sac. Are you familiar with CA's General Services Admin (GSA)? You realize it's a government administration whose only purpose is to be a 'transfer destination' for air thieves in other parts of CA government? They can't fire them, just transfer them to GSA, where they 'work' until retirement. Building is about six stories, one full city block, south of Broadway in downtown Sacramento.

Globalization vs. Protectionism

[sinij]

We were told that globalization is the future, it will increase our prosperity and so on. After decades of this most consumer goods are very cheap and very poorly made. All salaries stagnated. At the same time a whole bunch of folks are out of jobs and can't afford to buy food.

Now we are trying protectionism. Consumer good are still relatively cheap but the jobs are gradually coming back. Salaries ticked up for the first time since 90s.

So could someone explain to me why we hate protectionism?

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[amiga3D]

Because Trump ran and won on it. Anything Trump is for is wrong.

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially when our largest trading partners employ the strongest types of protectionism.

For example, besides the draconian and taciturn restrictions on foreign goods sold there in the PRC you cannot start up a branch or company, you must take on a Chinese partner and if the venture is large enough you must havea CPC member on your board.

In India the only any a foreign national can work legally is if they are transferred within a branch of an existing corporation.

Both India and the PRC are full of pirates with most using stolen software.

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[gtall]

On the other hand, a lot more poor countries in the world, which would happen with de-globalization, means increased immigration, legal and illegal, to rich countries. You can pay now or pay later, but either way you will pay.

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[bluefoxlucid]

Uh, 5% unemployment at historically-high labor force participation rates? We're not at peak, but we're above the 59% historical labor force maximum participation rate. Even adjusting for a peak participation rate and counting the number of employed against that, unemployment rates wouldn't break 6%.

Consumer goods have had all of 2 months to deal with all of nothing. Consumer goods are still made where they've been made for the past decade and a half.

Wages can't stagnate. It's mathematically-impossible. You know all those tech job layoffs, reorganizations, and other shit that ended with fewer total IT workers in one department or another? Those reduced the number of labor-hours of wages paid to make things. For prices to stay the same, you have to raise wages to compensate for that reduction; yet we have inflation, which means wages are being raised even faster than that. That means wages are actually rising faster than inflation--they have to, or else you don't have inflation.

People like to adjust wages directly to inflation, and somehow get "real wages" that stay flat or decrease while the median-income buying power of those wages increases. Middle- and lower-class people are spending more of their income on luxuries, and are obtaining more and better healthcare than before. Food and clothing are more affordable. Utilities aren't growing in price as fast as wages. Median-income Americans today can buy more than people of 5, 10, and 20 years ago, and yet we say "their wages are going down". Falling wages are the kind of lie people repeat to themselves at night to give them a reason to be angry at not being rich.

We can't see anything about jobs coming back yet. Unemployment was 0.1% higher in January 2017 than December 2016--no surprise, there's always that slump. Where will it be in June? In 2018?

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[cayenne8]

On the other hand, a lot more poor countries in the world, which would happen with de-globalization, means increased immigration, legal and illegal, to rich countries.

Well, if we started guarding and enforcing borders like they did in the past...you can keep them out for the most part. I'm talking only about the illegal immigrants.

Legal immigrants are welcome, but the process must be followed and any country should be able to regulate amounts and types of immigration (skill level, etc).

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[DogDude]

A. "Hate" is not a word to describe broad socio-economic policies. That's childish and indicative of simplistic thinking that is not sufficient to address this subject.
B. Why protectionism doesn't work would require you to pick up a history book or two.
C. Globalism has largely brought an increase in the standard of living to millions and millions of people. You're talking about "stagnating salaries" only among the working class in the US. Across the world, standards of living generally increase with global trade.
D. "Salaries ticked up for the first time since 90s." What salaries, when and according to who? This sounds like something you just pulled out of your ass.

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[moeinvt]

If you care about what's going on beyond your borders, why would you support so-called "free trade"?

Agreements like GATT, NAFTA and the WTO treaty simply give corporations a way to avoid all of the health, safety, labor and environmental protections that apply in the USA while maintaining their access to USA markets.

When you're importing those cheap foreign-made goods, you're exporting pollution and sweat shops. Some "protectionism" (a disparaging globalist term for a sensible policy) to prevent corporations from cutting costs through regulatory arbitrage would be a good thing for America and the world.

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[TheSync]

[This entire post regards the United States]

Uh, 5% unemployment at historically-high labor force participation rates? We're not at peak, but we're above the 59% historical labor force maximum participation rate.

See US Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate which is currently 62.9%, down from a peak of just over 67% 1998-2000, now back to a level reached in mid-1977. It has been flatlined for about 2 years.

But yes, the labor force participation rate is higher than when women worked in the kitchen barefoot & pregnant...

You might be thinking of the Civilian Employment-Population Ratio which is at 59.9%, a level equivalent to Dec. 1984. It has been rising since July, 2011.

Regarding wages, Average Hourly Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees: Total Private is currently at an all-time high, $21.84/hour.

If you'd like to adjust for hours worked and inflation, and look at a median instead of an average, Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over is also at an all-time high of $348 1982-84 CPI Adjusted Dollars, but frankly that isn't too much higher than $335 in 1979, but above the lowest point of $309 in 1981.

Over the last 10 years, the following costs are up: food, health care, child care, vehicle maintenance, and college is way up. On the other hand these prices have fallen slightly: housing, personal care, clothing, cell phone service, and these are much less expensive: toys, computers, televisions.

Unemployment was 0.1% higher in January 2017 than December 2016--no surprise, there's always that slump.

At least the total number of jobs has been increasing since March, 2010.

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[asylumx]

...like they did in the past...

When?

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[LeftCoastThinker]

We are NOT trying protectionism, that is what the rest of the world has been doing for literally forever... We are moving to fair trade around the world. Let me educate you my fellow slashdot citizens: The US during the cold war set up trade deals to foster freedom and democracy around the world. We essentially used our economy to subsidize other free countries to help them grow and stabilize many regions. The cold war ended over 25 years ago, but the lopsided trade deals remained and many of our trading partners have further pushed their unfair trade advantages with the US to further extremes. The American people have been hurting ever since the dot com bubble burst and the 9-11 terrorist attacks drained ~$3 trillion from the US economy, with the war on terror draining another ~$3 trillion, with the rest of the world offering only token support while they grow fat on their socialistic benefits, made possible in large part by the US subsidizing their national defense with our military and subsidizing their economy with lopsided trade deals. The US citizens have looked around the world and collectively said WTF, no more of this bullshit and elected Trump to do what every other leader of every other country around the world does and is expected to do: put his own country's interests first...

Fact: The labor participation rates under Obama were the lowest they have been in 40 years (since Jimmy Carter).

Inflation has been created by the Fed lending the federal government trillions of dollars (more than half to most of the $12T of debt that Obama racked up in his 8 years, we don't have accurate numbers because the Fed or treasury won't release them). My guess is Trump won't release them either for fear of panicking the markets and destroying the economy even further thanks to Obama.

Median income growth was -2.3% in the US (that is just a hard fact) over the 8 years since Obama took office. That might not seem like much, but under Bill Clinton and Ronald Regan's presidencies that number was around 4% PER YEAR, that means than in either 8 year term you could expect to see your income rise by 37% on average if you were between the ages of 25-39 (where most of the middle class' bump up in income). Beyond that, if you use a real CPI, based on the things that real people buy, real income is down much more than 2.3%.

I know personally that 10 years ago I could buy more with my dollar than today, and the things I bought weren't cheap Chicom knockoffs from once proud companies that have been bankrupted by the flood of cheap junk competition from China. Probably 50% of our landfills today are filled with junk from China that was a "better deal" but only lasted 6 months before falling apart.

http://www.nationalreview.com/...
https://www.brookings.edu/blog...

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[HornWumpus]

Eisenhower. Operation wetback.

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[bluefoxlucid]

Median income growth was -2.3% in the US (that is just a hard fact) over the 8 years since Obama took office.

You mean through a recession caused by the Clintons, which came to force right at the end of Bush's economy-destroying war?

I know personally that 10 years ago I could buy more with my dollar than today

That's called inflation. The question is: could you buy more with the median income of dollars then than you can now? Answer is no.

Fact: The labor participation rates under Obama were the lowest they have been in 40 years (since Jimmy Carter).

Labor participation rates reflect the percent of working-aged Americans who feel they need a job. That is to say: if a two-adult, poor household is struggling to get by and both adults believe they need jobs, you have two people in the labor force; if a two-adult, middle-income household is comfortable and the woman decides to stay home and not seek employment because the household finances are fine and life is comfortable, you have one person in the labor force.

Labor force participation rates don't reflect the ability or lack thereof to get a job. Higher participation rates can reflect cultural behaviors (e.g. social status based in employment) or economic crisis (e.g. people can't survive, so every man, woman, and 16-year-old high schooler works themselves to the bone to try to get by). Lower participation rates reflect economic comfort.

elected Trump to do what every other leader of every other country around the world does and is expected to do: put his own country's interests first..

Cutting off the import of just men's and boys's pants from China means minimum-wage Americans work 3.03 hours instead of 1.87 hours to afford a pair of pants; median-income Americans work 0.92 instead of 0.55 hours to afford a pair of pants; and factory workers producing those Made-in-America pants work for minimum wage. If the factory workers make, say, $21/hr, then the minimum-wage Americans work over 6.13 hours to afford them; middle-incomes work 1.87 hours; and we have ~90,000 fewer American jobs in total versus current economy (a 0.06% increase in unemployment rate).

Is working long hours for lower pay in the interest of our own country?

Is expanding poverty to more households in America in the interest of our own country?

Is destroying good American jobs, either for hazardous low-pay jobs or simply to create a hole in our job market and an increase in unemployment, in the interest of our own country?

If you want to see the direction Trump is steering America, look to North Korea.

Re:Globalization vs. Protectionism

[HornWumpus]

We have better and cheaper ways now, a simple national ID program required for jobs (with teeth against employers) would have them leaving at near zero cost to us. Bonus: It would make the holy rollers even _crazier_.

The question was 'When were immigration laws enforced'. I took it to mean in the USA, answering 'All along' would have applied to both Mexico and Canada.

Surely you're not citing Salon as anything but pure propaganda?

Citation Required

[Comboman]

Now we are trying protectionism. Consumer good are still relatively cheap but the jobs are gradually coming back. Salaries ticked up for the first time since 90s.

Citation Required. Even if it were true, it defies all economic sense that 4 weeks of protectionist policy changes (most of which haven't even been implemented yet) were the cause of a salary rise. Unless you're talking about CEOs giving themselves a raise in preparation for the plundering that's about to commence.

Don't Worry

[Comboman]

Even the high end stuff at Nordstroms today isn't made to the same spec as stuff was back then.

Don't worry, Nordstroms just got rid of a line of low-quality imported goods they used to sell with some blonde bimbo's name on it, so the quality is definitely improving.

Put the blame where it belongs.

[mmell]

If an company can do what they need to cheaper by hiring someone from overseas - especially a disposable someone who they can use and dispose of - they're going to do exactly that. US law has forbidden indentured servitude for a long time, but the H1B visa represents a legal version of exactly that. Here, try this:

Get rid of work visas outright. If a company can't find talent here in the US, they should feel free to sponsor a foreign national for citizenship - and take away the ability to summarily deport the foreign worker when they're through with them. Instead of a revolving door of H1B visa holders, we'll end up with more US citizens - workers who will be incentivized to demand the same pay and working conditions as their peers in the workplace.

I know of a certain international business machine firm that uses (abuses) huge numbers of H1B visa holders precisely because they can get away with it. It's great for their bottom line; they get employees that are willing to accept vastly substandard wages and work unpaid overtime in sweatshop-style conditions because they know that should they even think of standing up to it they'll be shipped back to wherever they came from. Now, if these guys were on the path to citizenship, I'm sure the manufacturer in question could still discharge them (after all, they're only contractors, not employees) - but they'll have a harder time making the case that there's no local talent to be had, because there will be all of these qualified personnel right here working towards citizenship.

Oh, the firm I'm not-so-subtly talking about? They don't pay US citizens very well, either. What should have been at least a $70,000/year salary gig for me ended up being a $24.04/hour job - contractors will be paid better, but they will end up providing unpaid overtime to make up for it (I know; I went down that path with them as well). In the end, I'm not saying we should prevent immigrants from finding work here in the US. I'm saying we should prevent visitors from allowing large enterprises to degrade compensation and work conditions for employees in the US.

Had to be said

[SuperKendall]

Didn't see a post on it yet, but yet another Trump job creation victory! Seems like we'll be hearing a lot more like this in the coming four years.

I wonder what Trumps re-election prospects will be given a dramatic rise in jobs and economic growth is pretty much assured at this point, due to the administration before holding the economy down for so long... the geologic concept of elastic rebound applies here I think.

Ban H1Bs from ever consulting

[LeftCoastThinker]

Any company that does consulting should be automatically ineligible for H1B as their business model is to provide labor directly on a speculative basis. H1B is meant to fill existing jobs that no one in the country can/will fill, and this does not meet the description of any job in a consulting business model.

Don't Enrich These Guys

[Kagato]

Accenture makes it money off outsourcing. There's a lot of companies out there that do outsourcing and consulting business. No matter who the consulting company is the market rate is the market rate for a position. Let's say the market rate for an IT position is $100/hour. If I work for a big company like Accenture I'll see maybe $50/hour for that work. If I work for a smaller local company with less layers of management I'll see $80-90/hour.

And nobody should want them

[Arkham]

If you're a competent developer, you should avoid companies like this. Bad hours, lots of travel, and substandard pay. Of course, they don't plan on staffing it with competent developers.

Re:It defies nothing, certainly drives behavior

[drinkypoo]

Given that most companies will be able to spend more, why would you not plan for the future right now?

Because Trump is breaking campaign promises as rapidly as he can. Odds are that any tax breaks will be for large corporations and will not assist the small to medium business owner. If the ACA does go away, that might help them somewhat, but odds are good that it will just be replaced with something equally offensive at best.

And they will promptly fill...

[nomad63]

.. all of those 15K jobs with H1B slaves they import from India.

Sure they will

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"Accenture said on Friday it would create 15,000 "highly skilled" new jobs in the United States"

I'll believe it when I see it.

Accenture Sucks

[sycodon]

Donald Knuth himself couldn't get hired by these guys as a programmer because he doesn't have X years experience in the latest fad programming language.

Accenture is about trained code monkeys.