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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday October 27 2015, @10:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the they-are-hiding dept.

A couple of years ago it was reported that in 2012 more than half of all American wage earners made less than $30,000 per year. The Social Security Administration's new earnings report for 2014 is out and there's still much gnashing of teeth about the dying middle class. With earnings numbers that haven't changed much in 2 years, estimates running as high as 100 million working age Americans without a job, and no one tracking the population of H-1B visa holders, where are the jobs really?

The July 9, 2015, issue of The New York Review of Books carried a very thoughtful piece by Andrew Hacker. In "The Frenzy About High-Tech Talent," Hacker discusses a number of books and reports that address whether or not there really is a need for more tech talent, the justification for the H-1B visa program, and issues in the American educational system.

[...] Throughout his piece Hacker is basically questioning two things:

1. Is there really an unfilled need for STEM graduates, or are we actually graduating too many so that many end up unemployed or employed in different areas?

2. Are there flaws in the American education system, both at the K-12 level and in college, that lead us to be very dependent on foreign STEM graduates?

[...] The texts Hacker is reviewing, and his own information, seem to dwell predominately on overall job projections for the STEM fields. Nowhere does there appear a breakout of the job forecast for computing related job categories. With the increased ubiquity of computing across all industries and employment sectors, it seems unlikely that we will see the "deskilling" trend that may be occurring in engineering (whereby engineers create equipment that means they and others like them no longer have job opportunities). We know that there are many jobs in the "tech sector" but there are also a lot of computing jobs in banking, finance, manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, etc. We can get an accurate picture of future job openings only if we can make a good determination of the computing jobs that exist outside of the "tech sector."


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Rich on Tuesday October 27 2015, @05:18PM

    by Rich (945) on Tuesday October 27 2015, @05:18PM (#255189) Journal

    The most common blue collar job in the U.S. seems to be "Truck driver!"

    http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state [npr.org]

    Ask the article question again when we've got self-driving cargo vehicles.

    Other than that, I see little hope for the "organizational" upper middle class that's rewarded with a decent salary, benefits and a representative company car for managing and paper shuffling: Just out of curiosity to see how good the Chinese are these days, I bought a "funny-brand" smartphone off ebay the other week. The company name still sounds a bit like modern sanitary solutions for pets ("Doogee") and their Engrish has its funny moments ("moist touch"). But they have learned a LOT.

    The device itself approaches flawlessness: plain design, edges with a precision that we've only seen from Apple before, CNC post-machined holes, soft-painted back, Gorillaglass front, a superb well lit 1280x720 IPS panel, 1 GHz 64-bit Quadcore, 2GB RAM, 16 GB Flash, SD slot, 2 SIM slots, snap-in battery... for 80 EUR. Eighty. It runs perfectly smooth. On their way to perfection they (or someone else) will improve the sub-par camera, change their package so the cardboard ribs don't show anymore beneath the (already there) gloss-black on satin-black print and unboxing is more of a happening and less of a mess.

    After playing with it for a while, I have to ask myself what kind of organization is able to get this widget from the line in China to my door at this price point after the components are paid. They certainly can't affort the layer of middle management we're used to in our big companies. So I guess that layer will eventually take a massive hit, too.

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  • (Score: 1) by PocketSizeSUn on Tuesday October 27 2015, @07:38PM

    by PocketSizeSUn (5340) on Tuesday October 27 2015, @07:38PM (#255253)

    80 euro is what I like to call MFG cost. The cost of the item based on the MFG making a profit and staying in business.
    For *most* name brand electronics the retail cost is 3x MFG cost.
    So if you were buying from a local merchant that handled (some) of the stocking/return/warranty you would expect to pay 240 euro.

    Every top-tier phone on the market today is targeting a USD $200 as MFG cost. How much cool stuff can we pack into the package that the MFG will build for no more than $200.

    When Apple reports that $400 is is the MFG cost that is after an apple subsidiary locked out $200 in profits is some low tax jurisdiction. After all everyone else is building to a similar spec for $200 *and* the have less control over their vendor pipeline.

    • (Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Tuesday October 27 2015, @09:57PM

      by SanityCheck (5190) on Tuesday October 27 2015, @09:57PM (#255298)

      Well perhaps we are moving into new style of accounting, where the marketing cost is directly tied to the manufacturing cost. "Sure we can make it for $X, but it will suck so hard we will need $Y in marketing to push it down pleb's throats."

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @08:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @08:09AM (#257399)

    The price is probably subsidized via spam-ware and pest-ware installed.