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The New Corporate Recruitment Pool: Workers In Dead-End Jobs (msn.com)
New submitter cdreimer writes: According a report from The Wall Street Journal (Warning: source may be paywalled, alternative source), corporations looking to hire new employees are opening offices in cities with high concentration of workers in dead-end jobs who are reluctant to locate but are cheaper to hire than competing locally in tight labor markets. From the report: "Pressed for workers, a New Jersey-based software company went hunting for a U.S. city with a surplus of talented employees stuck in dead-end jobs. Brian Brown, chief operating officer at AvePoint, Inc., struck gold in Richmond. Despite the city's low unemployment rate, the company had no trouble filling 70 jobs there, some at 20% below what it paid in New Jersey. New hires, meanwhile, got more interesting work and healthy raises. Irvine, Calif.-based mortgage lender Network Capital Funding Corp. opened an office in Miami to scoop up an attractive subset of college graduates -- those who settled for tolerable jobs in exchange for living in a city they loved. 'They were not in real careers,' said Tri Nguyen, Network Capital chief executive. He now plans a similar expansion in Philadelphia. Americans have traditionally moved to find jobs. But with a growing reluctance by workers to relocate, some companies have decided to move closer to potential hires. Firms are expanding to cities with a bounty of underemployed, retrieving men and women from freelance gigs, manual labor and part-time jobs with duties that, one worker said, required only a heartbeat to perform. With the national jobless rate near a 16-year low, these pockets of underemployment are a wellspring for companies that recognize most new hires already have jobs but can be poached with better pay and room for advancement. That's preferable to competing for higher-priced workers at home in a tight labor market."
Capitalism and the free market actually work.
Any excuse not to hire the unemployed, who do not exist.
There's a skills shortage because so many skilled workers are sitting idle after being laid off, since "being employed" is a skill just like "being young" is a skill and "being female" is a skill and "being brown" is a skill.
Every day you see some slashdot turdbro declare full employment, as long as millions of unemployed old white men stay out of sight and out of mind.
First Post!!!!
I had to get halfway through TFA before I realized that they weren't talking about Richmond, British Columbia. Or Richmond California, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio or Oregon. Who knew there was a town called Richmond in Virginia?
Have gnu, will travel.
This. Never gotten more than a long weekend off in the over 25 years since I graduated college. Of course, my Indian coworkers get two to three weeks off contiguous since it's expensive and time-consuming for them to fly home. I get that, but it sucks that I can't take any time off since they take so much. If a new employer promised me two weeks off every year, I would quit.
Quit replying to yourself you piss of shit.
> Network Capital Funding Corp. opened an office in Miami to scoop up an attractive subset of college graduates -- those who settled for tolerable jobs in exchange for living in a city they loved
Honestly, my reluctance to relocate (which I've overcome a couple of times) is more related to how far I'd have to move from my ageing parents or how far I'd be pulling my kids from their social network.
When I was younger (and my parents were too!) and unmarried, I frequently considered moving elsewhere in the Empire for a good job. Now though? These roots aren't pulling up again until my parents have died and my kids have moved out, at a minimum.
There's no real shortage of nice places to live, but there's a massive shortage of places to live near my folks and my kids' friends.
Never been allowed to take more than a long weekend off. I'd kill for a long vacation. Worked as a dev in the Seattle area since 1989. Of course my Indian coworkers get real vacations unfairly.
Sucks how we get no time off but they get weeks at a time. Sad how Microsoft is OK with that.
editor is a dead-end job, too.
wow. This is starting to sound almost like a free market again.
If these jobs are so simple, they will be automated soon anyway.
I've made some brilliant hires by looking for people in my company who were stuck in dead-end jobs and looking for a way out. They knew the business, which is usually the hard part. A little training and they were productive in short order, and reenergized to boot.
Graduated in Comp Eng in 1990. Never been allowed more than a long weekend off. If companies were smart, they'd promise us time off.
As if that is a Microsoft-only problem. Worked for many companies in the Seattle area, and whites weren't allowed any time off.
I negotiated three weeks off per year, non-contiguous. Then as soon as I turned 30, I was laid off permanently, and never worked again. I miss food.
a New Jersey-based software company went hunting for a U.S. city with a surplus of talented employees stuck in dead-end jobs...some companies have decided to move closer to potential hires.
Software company, but no working from home option? They prefer the expensive moving the office option instead of providing a cheap remote option especially for 'dead-end jobs' staffs?
What a disappointment.
That is a trade-off. Older companies sometimes allow vacation time but tech companies never do.
The last real vacation I had was in 1986...
For me it was 1993, but I got chicken pox so I couldn't enjoy it. I went over six days without eating. Since then, I got a pretty good job at Microsoft, but haven't been allowed to take an entire week off. My friends that work at Amazon have it even worse since they don't allow them to take even a single day off. It just sucks having nothing to look forward to. Never been to Vegas, Mexico, or even Canada even thought I live only 140 miles from Vancouver, BC, but have never been. I had tickets to US vs Norway in 2010, but my boss here at Microsoft wouldn't let me go. I'm sill pissed off about that even over seven years later.
Microsoft doesn't allow white people to take time off. It's part of their social justice system. I started working there in 1994, and I've only been allowed a few long weekends off. My Asian coworkers almost always get allowed two+ weeks off so they can fly home with their families. I understand that their travel time is 24+ hours and the flights expensive, but I too should be allowed time off.
This. Never gotten more than a long weekend off in the over 25 years since I graduated college. Of course, my Indian coworkers get two to three weeks off contiguous since it's expensive and time-consuming for them to fly home. I get that, but it sucks that I can't take any time off since they take so much. If a new employer promised me two weeks off every year, I would quit.
You have it easy. I've been working non-stop for 30 years (after I quite my apprenticeship as a ditch digger, which I now regret). I work 21 hour days but get 15 minutes lunch break. They let me go home for an hour back in 91, that was my bonus. Boss says I'm doing a good job and might get promoted in a few years!
Of course, my Indian coworkers get two to three weeks off contiguous since it's expensive and time-consuming for them to fly home.
Wow, this. We should be allowed a day off, but since those Indians take so much time off, we can't take time off. I understand that their flights home are expensive and time consuming, but that shouldn't keep us from taking time off.
I'm all in too for any company that allows me to take vacation time. I've worked for just under thirty years as a programmer, but I've never been allowed even one day off. There's a shortage of good programmers so I get that the best people must be allowed to work, but it sucks in the long-term.
Never had a real vacation as an adult by my Indian coworkers are allowed one every year.
"What, and quit show business?"
Having Microsoft on your resume should get you in the door just about anywhere. You might not get the prestige of seeing your work on millions of PCs but you might get a vacation once in a while. And money goes a lot further in places that aren't known for their coffee and pretentiousness, so don't think of it as a pay cut.
Seattle doesn't believe in vacations unless you're Asian.
It's almost like reparations. We don't get time off but they do.
I work for a company based out of South Lake Union in Seattle. We've convinced a lot of people to join us by lying about vacation time. We don't have enough extra capacity to allow that, so it's just a lie. I don't feel guilty since most companies in the Seattle area do this too.
That is just typical for this area. We just aren't allowed vacation time off.
Sucks how certain other races are allowed time off, but we aren't.
Never been allowed to take more than a long weekend off. I'd kill for a long vacation. Worked as a dev in the Seattle area since 1989. Of course my Indian coworkers get real vacations unfairly.
Same here. The longest vacation I've had in 28 years of working was four day. This sucks. Of course my Asian coworkers got longer off to travel home with their families.
> The last real vacation I had was in 1986
1989 for me when I went to Daytona. I was sick that week, so it wasn't a very fun week off. Since then, Microsoft hasn't allowed me to take more than a single day off in the same week. I have so many lazy Asian coworkers that constantly take time off that we can't allow the smarter and harder working people any time off.
'They were not in real careers,' said Tri Nguyen, Network Capital chief executive. That's a pretty disgusting attitude from Mr. Nguyen. I won't be doing business with Network Capital.
each and every one of these businesses will get sweetheart deals with massive subsidies that pay for the wages and land paid for by bonds taken out against the taxpayer's future earnings. What was that old quote? "Capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich"...
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you're doing better than most. 40 years of the non-stop shitshow that is the US Economy for the working class has done a good job shattering those for a lot. There's plenty who would move. What we don't have is people willing to move and _able_. I moved from one city to another 5 years ago for a job and it cost me $3 grand (gas, uhaul, apartment deposits, etc, etc).
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Sucks how we get no time off but they get weeks at a time. Sad how Microsoft is OK with that.
That's how it has been for many years at Microsoft. We get no time off while Asians get an amazing at least two weeks off every year.
I work about 36-40 hours a week, and have no problem taking time off. Sounds like you all are doing something very wrong.
Our families our close by. Theirs are on the other side of the planet. There's a reason they get time off and we don't.
They want the recent grad at 90k who is indebted vs the expensive experienced guy.
It sucks having to work constantly while certain other people are allowed time off.
Why shouldn't they when it is so much more expensive and time-consuming for them to travel home?
Old school companies allow vacation time sometimes. That is their best way to compete with the excitement of a startup.
It doesn't work well enough to embrace telecommuting which would solve a lot of labor problems.
I'd be happy if more companies went this route than playing the H-1B visa scheme or sending every scrap of work to Tata or Infosys because their competitors are doing it. And this is coming from someone who lives near a high cost city. HR departments, don't do anything their competitors don't do, and they will only listen to management consultants as a source of new ideas. It explains why nearly every company suddenly jumped on the outsourcing bandwagon at the same time, adopted the Google open office stuff, and enacted all sorts of other management fads. Maybe we have a mole inside of McKinsey who's starting to plant employee-friendly ideas in client's heads!
Satellite offices in cheaper parts of the country aren't new. Even IBM (before they went nuts and moved everyone to India) and other deep-pocketed companies had them back in the day, and that was when it was harder to stay in touch. The only difference was that the office was in Pittsburgh and not Pune, or Moline and not Mumbai. I remember reading something some time back that mentioned IBM would strategically locate big engineering facilities just far enough away from large business centers to be a short flight or medium length drive. They'd import the workers or hire from local university talent pools, and the execs would be mollified because they still felt like they had control. IBM used to have big facilities in Burlington, VT and Rochester, MN that fit that description perfectly. They probably didn't have to pay anything near what they'd have to pay for people in Westchester or Dutchess County, NY.
Spreading out the wealth of a big company over a bigger area is a good thing. Silicon Valley/SF and California in general are out of control in terms of housing prices and cost of living. Metro New York (where I live) isn't far behind at all. If enough employees could be convinced to move to a low cost city, sell the house and save 2/3 of its value while buying a mansion with the other 1/3, that would definitely lower housing prices. You can get over $1M for a total dump in SV, over $400K in outer NYC suburbs and way more when you get closer to the city. That's lots of peoples' retirement fallback plan from what I can tell.
I just think it's funny that companies are "rediscovering" that it's cheaper to employ people who don't have million-dollar houses to maintain. Expectations do need to come down on both sides. Companies have to be willing to invest in people, and employees can't demand unreasonable salaries or else they're just going to continue with the offshoring. The market can't sustain conditions where everyone who can fog a mirror and write Rust or Node.js gets over $200K, nor can it maintain a world with only super-rich executives and massive unemployment in every other class.
Worked at Boeing and never got a single day off. Maybe that is true about some companies, but it isn't about most.
So there are people that don't live in the Valley or New York? Why? What are they doing out there?
I think these companies need to take care; you never know what kind of unreformed Deplorable you might end up hiring in Richmond. Ew. And Miami? That's gone now right? The global warming hurricane destroyed Miami; I saw that on CNN. Philadelphia? Where is that? Do I need my passport? Someone told me it was a colony where all the white people came from............... hmm.
if you choose to live in a shithole like the US, and take it up the arse from your employer, that is your whiny fault.
Want good working conditions, join a union or STFU
Which company is this? ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
So buyers get off their arses and look for sellers (of labour): Who would've thought, that's how a free market works?
HR departments have worked in reverse for the last few decades because there was an excess of sellers. I wonder how long this state of normality will last?
...doesn't need a job with an investment firm. They can day trade their way into billionaire status.
"who are reluctant to locate but are cheaper to hire than competing locally in tight labor markets."
What does that mean? "reluctant to locate". Did they mean "reluctant to relocate"? What does "are cheaper to hire than competing locally" mean? Did they mean "are cheaper to hire than workers competing locally"? I don't know. The summary writer is an idiot. But then, this is Slashdot. Sorry - 'Climatedot'. Who let this article that doesn't mention 'climate change' through the net?
If a job has a good wage, it will be listed. If the pay sucks, it will not be listed.
...gets shit done.
"required only a heartbeat to perform." ...and advancement only requires a slightly faster heartbeat?
I negotiated three weeks off per year, non-contiguous. Then as soon as I turned 30, I was laid off permanently, and never worked again. I miss food.
I work in a country that protects the rights of its workers. I have 20 weeks holiday as standard. My employer gives me an additional 5 as part of my salary package, I can purchase another 5 by sacrificing my salary and there are 8 bank holidays (public holidays). I'm 35 and still gainfully employed, many of my colleagues are even older. I also earn more than my US colleagues.
I also miss food, but that's because I live in England and the closest place for a decent meal is across the channel.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I negotiated three weeks off per year, non-contiguous. Then as soon as I turned 30, I was laid off permanently, and never worked again. I miss food.
I work in a country that protects the rights of its workers. I have 20 days holiday as standard. My employer gives me an additional 5 as part of my salary package, I can purchase another 5 by sacrificing my salary and there are 8 bank holidays (public holidays). I'm 35 and still gainfully employed, many of my colleagues are even older. I also earn more than my US colleagues. I also miss food, but that's because I live in England and the closest place for a decent meal is across the channel.
Sigh, that's meant to be 20 days (4 working weeks).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
"required only a heartbeat to perform." ...and advancement only requires a slightly faster heartbeat?
I for one welcome our AI posting overlords.
It's good that AIs don't need vacation!
Only very few people have a job where they can fulfill their dreams and make this world a better place.
The rest of us just wants to pay the bills and has to work for it.
As a White person who is a "Racist" & on many of the "Top Internet Nazis" lists, I am offended by this!
Virtue signal harder. I didn't quite understand your bullshit. How many women do I have to beat to become like you? She was asking for it.
#punchanazi.
I can't really speak so much for how difficult it is to find good programming talent, these days. I've spent most of my career in the hardware side of things, doing workstation support, server and networking support and build-outs, etc. Pretty much everything EXCEPT software coding.
But I do know that when it comes to hiring a computer support person capable of serving as "jack of all trades" for small or mid-sized companies, there are some very capable people out there who remain underemployed, often struggling along with their own small computer-related business.
One of my old acquaintances has been self-employed for the last 15 years or more, running various computer stores, comic book shops or coffee shops. He's kind of an outdoorsy type so he's always lived in the midwest -- currently outside Branson, MO. Truth is, he's got 99% of the skills any small business would ever need if they decided to hire a single I.T. guy to take care of things in-house. And if they offered him even $60,000/yr. or so, I'm pretty sure that would far exceed his current income and be a really tempting offer.
Unfortunately, there's really no business in that area who would hire a guy like him. So he scrapes by, helping grandma get that old Windows '98 PC upgraded to something more modern, or fixing old Joe's inkjet printer that clogged up its print-head again.
In general? I think there's a whole generation of computer geeks out there who grew up with the 8-bit machines in the 80's and pretty much lived and breathed computers for many years. I consider myself part of that group .... ran a BBS as a hobby for over a decade, before latching on to the first chances to get on the Internet using "high speed" via overpriced DSL connections. Worked in mom and pop computer stores, sometimes not even for any pay, just for the fun of learning to build computers from parts and benchmarking the latest tech to see how well it ran. Played with pretty much every software package that came along, even if I had to get a pirated registration key or what-not to make it run. A whole lot of us eventually wound up hitting a "brick wall" of sorts, as computers in business became more formalized and colleges and universities caught up with the times. Back when I was in college, you couldn't even really pursue such a thing as an MIS degree. It was either "Computer Science" (mostly math and theory), "programming" or "data entry". So folks like me just said, "Screw it .... not interested in any of those." and went down other paths.
Most people with this history are going to be excellent hires for any technical/computer-related job they're interested in doing. But these days? Most will be overlooked from the get-go, if they even make the effort to apply, because they can't get past the H.R. gatekeeper who is looking for specific credentials, college degrees, or "X years of experience" with the latest buzzwords. I mean, even if a hiring manager sees past that stuff and recognizes their intelligence and talents? They're all in their 40's.... almost too OLD to consider, vs. the new talent coming out of the colleges with shiny new degrees.
When I look back at my old friends from the 80's who I still keep tabs on? I see a distinct pattern where the financially successful ones got promoted to some type of management position in a mid-sized or larger company they got hired on with a long time ago. Then, the management experience gave them a "springboard" to job hop for higher pay and better benefits, as they climbed the ladder. Everyone else floundered when businesses they worked for did layoffs, cutbacks or just went under, and they kept fighting with long periods of unemployment followed by short term I.T. gigs. Most of them went into other fields just to make ends meet.
So my point? There's some great, untapped talent out there in the 40-something age group. But you may find some of them driving trucks or working sound and lights for concerts or ?? because corporate I.T. neglected to realize their value for too long.
Never had a real vacation as an adult by my Indian coworkers are allowed one every year.
The only time I had a job like this a long time ago it was even more annoying as that Indian dude wasn't using that time off to "go home" like it was supposedly meant for. He was indeed using it to travel all over the USA and had the vacation photos to prove it. Good for him and all but the reason for why he got more time off than me was still so damn disingenuous.
> I also miss food, but that's because I live in England and the closest place for a decent meal is across the channel.
Birmingham is full of very nice Indian restaurants.
It's good that you clarified that since I started off assuming you were in France and was confused why you'd want to cross the Channel for food in England.
Microsoft doesn't allow white people to take time off. It's part of their social justice system. I started working there in 1994, and I've only been allowed a few long weekends off.
Complete bullshit. I worked at MS from mid-90's to mid-2000's and saw plenty of "white people", myself included take long vacations or even sabbaticals.
Same thing at Amazon, where I worked from the mid 2000's to the early 2010's.
Taking vacation was NEVER an issue as long as I had accrued the time. And if I remember correctly, I believe that at Amazon you could even "borrow" some vacation time (that is use days you had not accrued yet). I think that's how I took a 3 week European vacation when I had only 2 weeks on my account.
Parent is some alt-right moron stirring up shit by spreading made up and incorrect info.
> I also miss food, but that's because I live in England and the closest place for a decent meal is across the channel.
Birmingham is full of very nice Indian restaurants.
Given my present location, France is closer than Birmingham.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.