The idea that American workers are being left in the dust because they lack technological savvy does not stand up to scrutiny. Our focus should be on coordination and communication between workers and employers.
Technology enthusiasts and entrepreneurs are among the loudest voices declaiming this conventional wisdom (see "The Hunt for Qualified Workers").
Two recent developments have heightened debate over the idea of a "skills gap": an unemployment rate below 5 percent, and the growing fear that automation will render less-skilled workers permanently unemployable.
Proponents of the idea tell an intuitively appealing story: information technology has hit American firms like a whirlwind, intensifying demand for technical skills and leaving unprepared American workers in the dust. The mismatch between high employer requirements and low employee skills leads to bad outcomes such as high unemployment and slow economic growth.
The problem is, when we look closely at the data, this story doesn't match the facts. What's more, this view of the nation's economic challenges distracts us from more productive ways of thinking about skills and economic growth while promoting unproductive hand-wringing and a blinkered focus on only the supply side of the labor market—that is, the workers.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608707/the-myth-of-the-skills-gap/
What do you think, is there a shortage of skilled workers ??
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 25 2017, @03:44PM (3 children)
There is a shortage of Americans willing to work for a dollar a day, or even ten dollars a day. In much of the country, there are plenty of people willing to work for a hundred dollars a day.
Oh - does that sound like a lot of money? A hundred dollars a day? Does that scare anyone? Well - guy earns $500/week, Uncle takes about $100. That leaves our hero with about $400/week, or $1600/month. Rent - minimum $500. Food, couple hundred. Transportation, maybe he's lucky, and he can get to work all month for fifty bucks. Utilties, another couple hundred. What's left? Not enough to raise a family.
How about corporations pay what people are worth, and stop paying those fatassed CEO's multimillion dollar bonuses for wrecking companies?
THERE is a shortage! America has a serious shortage of competent management. Maybe we can import some CEO's from China or India?
(Score: 5, Informative) by TheGratefulNet on Friday August 25 2017, @04:05PM (1 child)
I was browsing linkedin and came across this posting:
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/387705974 [linkedin.com]
look at the seniority level: 'entry level'
look at the experience asked for: 10+ years on this and that.
now, either they already have an h1b lined up and are just posting this to cover their ass (or to scare away locals); OR they truly are as clueless as they seem to have become, lately.
there is no shortage of skilled workers, but there seems to be a shortage of skilled MANAGERS who know the diff between try level and extreme senior. 10+ years is senior to principal level, NOT entry level, dammit.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 25 2017, @04:20PM
Wow. Saw youre post, clicked the link, read the listing. I flipped back here, to post a flippant remark. Then it really hit me. "Entry level". FFS, they're asking for a four year degree, PLUS eight year's expereince? And, it's "entry level"?? Maybe they're trying to recruit Methuselah.
Oh, the flippant remarks. They forgot a couple of qualifications. "Must be able to fellate submerged in a hot tub." "A golf handicap less than 20 will disqualify any applicant." I'm sure we could come up with some more "meaningful" qualifications.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:36PM
It would be rather nice if corporate leadership would be patriotic, placing the health of our nation above the wealth of companies and their leaders. That'll never happen. It's about as likely as workers in a communist "worker's paradise" not being lazy. Companies will want cheap labor; there is no changing this.
It is the proper role of government to say "no", to a certain extent. I don't mean minimum wage, which causes quite a bit of trouble. We need to make international outsourcing stop being cost-effective. We need to make bringing in foreign workers stop being cost-effective. Blocking a few types of abusive practices (for example, random scheduling of many low-paid workers that prevents taking a second job) is also reasonable.
Trouble is, mostly our government doesn't work for it. It works for corporations.
The real political battle happens between corporations. For example: news media companies, music/movie media companies, big web sites, software companies, ISPs, and electronics vendors all battle each other over laws like SOPA and DMCA and COPPA and TPP. Meanwhile, the public is distracted by superficial easy-to-understand issues that generate outrage: abortion, homo marriage, flag burning, school prayer, pedophiles, pot, assisted suicide, etc. News media companies encourage this.
So the voter is distracted away from issues that are vital to our country. There is nobody patriotic who will hold politicians feet to the fire.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by GlennC on Friday August 25 2017, @03:49PM (17 children)
I've been in the IT field for over 25 years, and like many of us I have worked with many different technologies. I've obtained many different certifications, and worked my way from Desktop Support to Project Management. I currently hold a PMP, Scrum Master, and ITIL certifications.
However, after being out of work for over a year, I recently got my Commercial Learner's Permit and DOT card, and have accepted an offer to become a long-haul truck driver. I will be paid while I attend training, and after I complete 8 months of work I will be able to either leave and go to another carrier, or get my own rig and become an owner-operator.
Am I bitter? Yes, a little. However, I've been fascinated with trucks since I can remember, and I'm done fighting against the fact that as a middle-aged, straight, white, US citizen I feel like I'm shoved to the back of the line.
And I'm not worried about self-driving trucks...by the time they're commercially accepted, I should be old enough to retire.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 25 2017, @04:02PM (3 children)
Sucks, don't it? If you and I had to be born evil white males, we should have been born a hundred years ago, when evil white males were worshipped around the world!
Hey, I hope things work out for you. But, warning: if the company "helps" you to buy your own truck, you're setting yourself up for a fall. Sign a 48 month lease, and they run you ragged for 44 months. Starting with month 45, you spend more time at home, than on the road. Dispatch tells you, "There's just no freight, sorry man!" Month 49, they repo your truck, and sell it, and you're screwed.
The only way to be certain that this scam works for you, is to have those last four payments in the bank, far in advance. You get down to those last four months, and they sideline you, you make the last four payments, and take your truck with you.
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Friday August 25 2017, @05:24PM (1 child)
Thanks for the advice. I had my concerns about that kind of arrangement, but it's always nice to get additional input.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NewNic on Friday August 25 2017, @08:48PM
Read this story:
https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forced-into-debt-worked-past-exhaustion-left-with-nothing/ [usatoday.com]
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @09:26PM
That happened to a buddy of mine too. Thankfully I literally hit the lottery and was able to loan him the money to pay them off. I also helped a bunch of workers by finding out where the auction was and buying a bunch of trucks for super cheap. Interesting how only the businesses the people worked for bought the trucks as they came up even though there were 10+ companies there, and for little more than the underlying debt....
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 25 2017, @04:30PM (5 children)
You are not getting outsourced or "rightsized" (may whoever came up with that one rot in hell...) for being straight, white, or male. It's all about money. The pissfucks running this scam, who are also almost all straight white men, only see one color: green. Stop blaming other racial groups and put the blame where it belongs, viz., on the heads of the greedy motherfuckers who would sell the country to Satan for a corn chip.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday August 25 2017, @04:47PM
I agree with your analysis.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by GlennC on Friday August 25 2017, @05:21PM (3 children)
I wholeheartedly agree with you on the responsible parties. I'm just pointing out that for certain recognized minorities it's slightly less bad.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:25PM
Reference?
I'm not necessarily disputing the claim - I'd actually just like to look at the data. Typically, low-status minorities, as a group, have things worse than the majority group.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:39PM
Nixon's Southern Strategy (adopted by Reagan):
When a black or brown guy is out of work, it's -his- fault.
When -you- are out of work, it's a black or brown guy's fault.
(It's never the fault of the Capitalist Ownership Class which actually decides who gets hired.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Alias on Friday September 01 2017, @02:22AM
It really isn't less bad for those minorities. They are just getting hired because it is assumed they won't negotiate pay as well and will therefore be cheaper.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @05:03PM (2 children)
Not just the US, similar story here in Britain. In my case, after finding that even though there's an alleged 'skills shortage' I couldn't get a job despite having the 'skills', so, I've jumped from IT to woodworking, as it's something I always wanted to try anyway (up to this point my career has been all IT, Electronics, 'Science' and metal-bashing...).
The money isn't great (in fact, it's piss-poor), and it's quite telling that all my (similarly piss-poor paid) workmates have local accents, whereas most of the other businesses in the area foreign ones abound...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:51PM (1 child)
Suma Corporation is the largest worker-owned cooperative in UK.
They don't have poverty wages there.
They democratically decided that every worker-owner there is paid a proper wage. [google.com]
You might want to look into starting your own co-op, based on their model.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:32AM
Thanks for that, I was unaware of this group, and your suggestion about starting a co-op based on their model has a lot of merit, I was planning on going the 'self employed, one man band route..' I'll have to see how applicable the whole idea is to what I'm currently doing and have another think about this.
Looking through the article you linked to, and the differences between the way they work and the way the organisation I currently work for do things, I really had to laugh when I saw
“Members are always on the lookout for the forming of cliques, and people behaving a selfish and individualistic way,”
'cliques', Oh yes, the organisation I currently work for is riddled with them, in fact, seems to specialise in hiring manglement types who either bring with them ready formed ones or create them as soon as they arrive and that is, in my view, the root cause of a lot of their current problems..and some future ones they're currently blissfully unaware of (not my circus, not my monkeys but Rule #1 when hiring people, forget the Internet, just ask the ex-customers of the family business they inherited and ran into the ground about their supposed skills.).
'selfish', again, yes, I see that as being a problem, and on a daily basis I see it at work and it causes friction, delays etc. etc. ..
'individualistic', for what they do, maybe, but I'd have a problem seeing that as a negative quality, as I'm sick of telling manglement, you want everything to be the same? use CNC machines and robots, wooden products made by hand will vary depending on who makes/turns them, the clue's in the 'hand made' bit.. no matter how many stupid template designs you come up with there will be variations (I should point out, just to add to the fun, these templates were designed and posited by a manglement type who has never used a tool in his life, other than a screwdriver and maybe an electric drill, yet he's an expert on the use of lathes, routers etc. no understanding about the limitations of the tools, and yet we have to humour him..)
Sorry, this has developed into a bit of a minor rant, it's been a bad week..anyhoo, the idea that you can have an organisation without the 'Bob, the born leader' types appeals greatly to me at the moment.
(Score: 1) by Zal42 on Friday August 25 2017, @05:47PM (2 children)
It's amazing how many software engineers go into long-haul trucking to take a break from software engineering. I personally know 4.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @07:19PM (1 child)
Used to sitting for long periods? check
Don't have to deal with software bugs? check
Paid a reasonable amount, relatively easy to get into? check
Work outside yet inside? double check
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:02AM
Look outside the window? Whoops! [youtube.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @08:23PM
And concrete pump operator (latter will take more years to get 'qualified', but is just as high paying of a job, generally lower risk, but a lot dirtier at the end of the day.)
An ex-friend went through this quandry around 10-12 years ago. He went from tech (bubble burst right as he finished) to culinary arts (had a knack for it, but nobody local was hiring outside of temp jobs while their 'regular staff' was on vacation.) Long story short, after a personal loss while going broke, a friend sponsored him to go take a CDL class for a month. In his first year he was making 133% of what he would've made 'entry level' as either a chef or a computer tech, despite years and a degree in each. And within 2 years he was making approx 200 percent pay, although due to seniority his work could be irregular. You know what the sick part was though? He also made *MUCH* more in unemployment thanks to yearly pay raise and as long as his previous year's pay was high he could get ~25 percent of that even during months long lulls in work, meaning he made more unemployed as a truck driver than he would've made busting his ass in a minimum wage job during the lulls. And since they usually had work show back up within a month or two he didn't even have to go job hunting, but could leech off unemployment when he was bumped for low senority, then get paid the big bucks when jobs were flush again.
Makes you feel sorry for the little guys who bust their ass 8-16 hours a day for work, get barely 4 hours sleep, and are making close to minimum wage at each job. When they get fired or laid off they're lucky to get enough to cover their bills at the end of the night, but those truck drivers are going to be doing ok either way unless they grossly mismanaged their finances.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @03:56PM (3 children)
It's the global wage gap. The end.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 25 2017, @04:05PM (2 children)
Not exactly. It's the banking industry's artificial manipulation of currency. If it costs a day's work to feed and house a family in the Philippines, and it costs a day's work to feed and house a family in Bermuda - why should the currencies have vastly different values?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:00PM
Because there's different people managing the currencies and they can't be used outside those countries without conversion.
Currencies are arbitraged regularly. But ultimately, if there's nothing for sale in one of the currencies, people aren't going to want to buy that currency. Likewise if the currency is subject to large scale inflation people aren't going to want to hold it.
The cost of living is a short term estimate of the value that gets more and more inaccurate the further you look into the future. Plus if a country has a terrible recession, it can make the currency worthless.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @07:13PM
Reactionaries/Neoliberals, with Ronnie Raygun as point man, skewed the tax structure.
For decades, capital gains (e.g. stock options) have been taxed at a much lower rate than wages.
The "$1/year" executives have an incentive to manipulate the stock price so that their own compensation packages improve.
...and, in the process, screw those folks who are actually producing the company's goods/services.
Leave their wages flat and start reducing their benefit package.
...even though the productivity of The Workers continues to increase.
Isn't Capitalism/Oligarchy wonderful?
...with Runaway1956 as Head Cheerleader for The Ownership Class clawing back the gains made by Joe Average via The New Deal, BTW.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 25 2017, @04:01PM (2 children)
Of course there isn't a shortage of skilled workers! I saw news stories crying over the supposed lack of skilled workers even in 2008-2010, when the Great Recession had pushed unemployment to 25%, and more than a few of the unemployed were tech workers. We also heard proof that the H1B program was being manipulated, with seminars offered to businesses advising them how best to do it. We've all heard of job postings asking for more years of experience in a technology than that technology has existed, blatant stuff like "wanted: 10 years experience in Windows Server 2008".
What seems in shorter supply these days is honesty and respect for facts and science. I hoped the Bush Administration's use of lies and propaganda to start a completely stupid, wasteful, unnecessary, and cruel war in Iraq would spur long lasting changes for the better and so bring about some good from that war. Instead, it seems only to have whet their appetites for more. What is Trump likely to do should the noose of impeachment get too tight around his neck? Distract everyone if he can, and what better distraction than a war? He might like the infamy from being the first since WWII to use nuclear bombs. Then there will be plenty of jobs in the armed forces. Or, dead people don't need jobs.
The only question is war with whom? North Korea is plainly too pathetically weak to grab everyone's attention, despite their history of nuclear blackmail. Might be able to play up Iran as big and strong enough to pose a threat, but that one is also hard to credit. Mexico, for refusing to pay for a border wall? No, it's got to be a bigger power, and of the big ones, maybe China is the easiest to paint black, what with them still being Commies and all. Russia would seem a likely choice if Trump wasn't such an admirer of Putin, maybe even had their help getting elected. And Russia and China aren't friends with each other, far from it. I can see Russia liking the idea of hostilities between the US and China, as long as it doesn't get out of hand and the nukes start flying.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Friday August 25 2017, @08:21PM
There does appear to be a shortage of skilled workers in the CNC machining industry. A lot of us left the field during the recession after being "downsized" like a commodity, and switched to less stressful and demanding careers, or retired a bit early. Most of those remaining are approaching retirement age now; at 42 I'm one of the youngest among my peers. There are a few younger than me but they are few and far between; people don't want to enter an industry where you have to start at the bottom and sweep the floors for a while until you've learned enough not to be dangerous on a machine, especially since the industry has shown that if the stock market dips they'll toss you out on the street. As a result, those with the skills can demand top dollar, but in another decade or two the manufacturing industry is going to be hurting. It takes at least 20 years to make someone with 20 years of experience, you can't just poof them onto existence on demand.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:53AM
Nobody is saying American workers are too unskilled anymore, because they know that we know they are full of shit.
Now their other dominoes are falling as well -- the "diversity" myths and their hysterical PC monocultures being two of them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @04:02PM (6 children)
Willing to work at the wages that employers want to pay.
I take myself as an example. My wife and I graduated from a top 10 university, both in computer science, both in the top of our respective classes with a healthy portfolio. Her best offer was $40k working for Boeing in Idaho with no vacation and no holiday. At the time I was already making substantial income in another field online and didn't bother applying to traditional jobs. Now a decade later we're living half way around the world and she's an administrator at a school and I'm starting my own software business.
Back to the article, it's rather disingenuous in only considering the U3 unemployment rated reported by the government. If you have a doctorate and worked 1 hour at McDonalds last month you're considered employed by the U3. If there were exactly 100 jobs in the country and every single person in the country applied for them and 99.99% were unemployed, we'd have 0% unemployment a matter of months later due to how unemployment is defined. The top of the field jobs in tech are mostly at places like Google where you generate a healthy 7 figures of revenue and get compensated with a very low 6 figures for salary. There's a reason tech turnover is absurd. We are companies, yet get tossed scraps in exchange for our efforts. Keep this sort of system up long enough and yeah suddenly guys from India who'd struggle [itwire.com] to write a single functional program are suddenly looking like top tier talent.
The problem is indeed systemic, but the people complaining about it are the ones creating it. I also intend to pay shit wages, but I'll do so fully knowing that I'll never be attracting the next Elon Musk. But I'd be the first to admit why.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @05:13PM (5 children)
> I also intend to pay shit wages, but I'll do so fully knowing that I'll never be attracting the next Elon Musk.
Of course you don't want the next Musk, anyone with that much drive will soon be their own boss. Don't waste time training someone who is just going to leave you.
I have been running my own small business for ~20 years now and from my experience, if you hire the best possible people it will make you and your customers very happy. Yes, you will have to pay more to get and retain top talent, but they will be productive and they will manage their own time (saving you many headaches on scheduling). Happy customers who get quality work will be repeat customers--this will save you a huge amount of time selling your services and if you want to expand, more time to go on the road to get new customers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Friday August 25 2017, @05:46PM
I heard it in the sixties. Yes, that was a long time ago. The next sixties are now closer than the last sixties:
When hiring programmers, if you can't afford the top talent, you certainly can't afford the cheaper, inferior talent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:05PM (3 children)
That right there is why businesses are in such bad shape. If you treat people like they're just going to leave, why would they stay? People don't generally like looking for work. It's miserable and degrading. But it's also the only way to get a decent raise anymore as companies are too shortsighted to properly compensate for the work being done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @07:23PM
We had a story that was very much concerned with this topic:
Be your own boss.
Swedish Worker Cooperative Software Development Company Has No Boss [soylentnews.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @07:53PM (1 child)
I'm the AC above -- my little business is in great shape -- no debt, money in the bank and (touch wood) a great primary customer that has stuck with us for 15+ years now. Carried us right through the "great recession" with hardly any problems.
I pay very well and get top talent, it's a win-win-win all around (including my satisfied customers).
The comment "from the 60's" was also very apt, thanks for adding that.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @09:31AM
I think the thing you have going for you is the same I had in a little aerospace company I used to work for. You own the company. You control it. You have not sold out to stockholders, which bleed the lifeblood out of your company before they sell it short.
I saw what happened when a big military industrial contractor bought us.
When I joined the company, one man ( fine engineer too! ) flat owned the company.
It was similar to butchering livestock. First to go were the old men on "mahogany row" who were the original engineers the rest of us went to for technical guidance.
Soon, the work began piling up, and no one seemed to know what to do.
We no longer had those old men to ask. Those old men had done this before - and offered invaluable insight on how to go about doing what our customer wanted. Not only that, they had been working with the customer long before people like me came there. These men were way too valuable to spend their last hours on this planet doing things like parts lists and making drawings. I considered them what I aspired to be one day... they loved coming to work even though they were way past retirement age. This is what they loved to do. Teaching us. We lost them. By signature of someone who seemed to have no idea what we did - with their main asset a "leadership" degree from some diploma mill.
We made a lot of money - for about three years. Like heating your house by setting it on fire. It took about that long before our customer realized he was never going to get what he paid for. The land now has a church and welfare office on it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by leftover on Friday August 25 2017, @04:08PM (1 child)
We have skilled engineers and software developers switching careers because employers want only cheap sheep. We have "statisticians" reporting the number of unfilled jobs by counting ads from all sources and summing them. Most significantly, we have a business culture that believes all value is created on Wall Street, one of the most astonishingly stupid concepts to be proposed in the history of mankind.
Our lives will continue to decline until the self-proclaimed geniuses setting the shape of business administration realize that all value is created by skilled people doing their jobs. (Including finance weenies, proportional to their actual minor role.)
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @07:32PM
A way to demonstrate that all capital is only a representation of the labor of The Working Class would be a general strike.
This, however, was outlawed (by both Repugs and Dumbocrats) via The Taft-Hartley Act in 1947.
There has been no serious effort by any politician of which I am aware to improve this state of affairs for Joe Average.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday August 25 2017, @04:15PM
In general, no. We need to be more specific to come up with the desired “yes” answer. There is a shortage of skilled cisfemale workers in professions that are currently under assault, to the exclusion of other professions that lack gender parity, by feminism.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Friday August 25 2017, @04:24PM
This is apples and oranges.
Yes, all three of the professions covered (manufacturing, lab tech, IT help desk) are "technical" jobs and require certain specific skills to perform. And there are some rich findings in the article (e.g. noting that few jobs stay open more than 3 months despite 75% of industry execs claiming a chronic problem finding skilled workers).
But you're studying a completely different population than the ones the "tech entrepreneurs" referenced are looking for. Facebook isn't looking for lab techs - they're looking for programmers. So is Google. So is Microsoft. Those are the skills they're claiming are hard to find, and the ones they're pushing hardest to get from H1-B visa holders from overseas because they "can't find" local talent.
I'm sure some of the conclusions are valid across all "requires some technical skills" jobs, but the study performed doesn't directly address the same jobs that business leaders are claiming they can't find.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Grishnakh on Friday August 25 2017, @04:43PM (5 children)
There's a serious shortage of highly-qualified tech workers, and it's exacerbated by all the Negative Nancies and other whiners and complainers who seem to think these jobs should be highly-paid. Tech workers should be happy to have a job doing work they love, so they should be happy to get paid $30k or so, and as much as $50k for the most experienced ones. Spare me all your whining about student loans; if you live in your car, you can dedicate your salary to paying off your student loans. The other thing tech workers whine too much about is working hours; they should be happy to spend all their waking hours at the office, except for the time they spend sleeping in their car or showering at the Y. Companies need to keep salaries low so that they can hire the best executive talent and provide them with extremely generous compensation packages. Executives deserve a lot of money, and tech workers deserve only enough to survive on, and should just be happy to be helping the executives buy megayachts with their labor.
Honestly, the level of entitlement among tech workers is just insane. Who do you people think you are?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 25 2017, @05:03PM (4 children)
> if you live in your car
Oops, you missed there. Cars are expensive luxury items. Scrappy, independent tech workers live in tents.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday August 25 2017, @05:14PM (3 children)
You can get a used car for as low as $500. This advice isn't helpful for all tech workers, as cars are a big inconvenience in some urban areas (like NYC), but there's tons of tech employers outside those places and a car is a necessity to work there. So tech workers should be happy buying old used cars and living in them if necessary, or when they're raking in more money they can upgrade to living in a small apartment with a few roommates.
The fundamental problem is this crazy idea that highly-educated and experienced tech workers are entitled to being paid enough to enjoy a middle-class lifestyle.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday August 25 2017, @08:32PM (2 children)
Having a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in is "middle class lifestyle" now? That's sad.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday August 25 2017, @08:43PM
Having a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in is "middle class lifestyle" now? That's sad.
See, there's that entitlement mentality I was talking about. You should be happy to be getting enough to pay off your loans in 20 years and to eat and afford a Y membership for showering. You'll also have enough money to afford a computer which you can use to keep your tech skills sharp, so you can provide more value to your employer, so your CEO can afford a bigger yacht so his family can enjoy nicer vacations. Stop being so selfish and thinking about yourself all the time, and think more about what you can do for your company and your CEO.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 25 2017, @08:59PM
Pretty sure Grishnakh is being satirical here. Poe's Law strikes again!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by Zal42 on Friday August 25 2017, @05:45PM (9 children)
All of the companies I've worked for or with over the last decade or so have a rather difficult time finding qualified employees in the US. It's not for lack of trying -- it's because software engineers being trained are typically being trained in for particular subset of the industry. They know Java, Python, and are skilled at Stack Overflow, but aren't very capable outside of that. As a company, that's all well and good if you need those skills -- but it's not terrible helpful otherwise because of the large amount of training required to bring them up to speed.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:10PM (4 children)
If they can't figure it out, they don't need the work done that badly. Why is it always the employees responsibility to train for possible job openings from employers too cheap to cover the costs?
Of they need the work done, they have to either provide the training or better pay. If better pay doesn't work, then they have to provide training as the market has spoken.
Funny how the market is only working when it screws employees, otherwise it's a serious problem.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Friday August 25 2017, @07:03PM (2 children)
The other factor is location. I see a lot of job ads from companies in out-of-the way places like Indianapolis, Erie PA, Wisconsin, etc. You can get locals to work in places like that, but it's hard to entice people to move from out-of-state for a job in places like that which requires significant skills and experience. Not only is the location not terribly attractive to most people, but there's a huge danger that the job won't work out, and now you're stuck there or have to pay large moving expenses out-of-pocket to go someplace else for another job (and don't forget the cost of breaking your lease).
This isn't such a problem if you offer a signing bonus and relocation reimbursement or bonus, like they used to do during the dot-com boom, since some candidates would be happy to try a different location esp. when the housing cost is lower and it's not as crowded as the urban centers, but these days it's hard to find companies offering this stuff, so they sit around wondering why they can't get anyone to interview for their job in BFE. They probably don't even want to pay to fly them there for an interview.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:04AM
Hell I applied at many places like that. Met 99% of their qualifications. Out of 100 or so maybe 10 called back. They are setting themselves up to hire H1B. They don't 'say' it but it is pretty obvious. I am not stupid. But why did they waste my time...
I would even pay out of pocket to move. Its actually semi cheap to move if you box it up yourself which is not that hard.
They probably don't even want to pay to fly them there for an interview.
They do not even call you. I saw one that was some obscure variant of BASIC for a particular machine in the middle of nowhere. They wanted local candidates only. Yeah good luck with that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:53PM
Suppose you move from NYC to Melbourne, FL. You take a job at Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Thales, DRS, Harris, or one of the many cybersecurity start-ups. (nerdy defense contractor work)
Half a year later, you realize that you hate your boss. Somehow, you also manage to get rejected by all the other local companies. You move back to NYC.
You probably come out ahead based on cost of living. Just the taxes alone might do that. Just the rent alone might do that. Put those together though, along with all the other price differences, and you'll easily cover the moving expenses.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:29PM
The meta observation is they pretend to want an employee relationship involving long tenure, playing the pyramid game of promotions, training, but when the rubber meets the road, they really want short term pre-trained contractors.
The solution seems obvious... fix the regulation thats confusing the marketplace at the high end, and at the low end, if want short term contractors, become a contractor.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @08:42PM
When was the last time you saw an ad for a retail job that required three years of experience operating a specific brand of cash register? Never, because they train you up. It seems that only the tech industry expects not to have to train people.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:29AM (2 children)
My personal anecdote is that we were searching like crazy and couldn't find any contractor who'd be able to take an existing Android project and make changes in it. It's not even a difficult project - mostly USB and OpenGL, with some JNI thrown in. The candidates struggled for weeks to even comprehend who calls who. They were asked to add some gestures using an existing gesture processor class to resize some parameters... FAIL. We tried Indians, we tried Americans - no difference. The project is on hold for lack of smart people.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PocketSizeSUn on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:46AM (1 child)
Usually when I see jobs like you describe come up there are short term low budget deals.
The experience need for USB, OpenGL and JNI are each crossing boundaries that inexperienced people will have never touched.
JNI: Means you have to know Java and C well enough to understand the bridging API and it's caveats. It's not hard, but for people who were only taught 'Java' it is a non-starter.
OpenGL: Yet another sub-language in and of itself with several sub-variants (The original OpenGL 1 is a completely different beast from 2.0 in a lot of ways the difference from 2.0 to OpenGL ES is relatively minor. And to do anything non-trivial you almost always need to be aware of vendor specific crap.
USB: Another wide open mess, again, if you have not done it then it's a real non-starter ... what do you need to talk to and what API exists to get there?
So I'm not at all surprised you are having trouble finding someone.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday August 26 2017, @08:02PM
If it interests anyone, the project was supposed to be a GUI monitor for an industrial hardware. The machine produces some data for graphs and charts and streams it through the USB (slowly enough) into the Android device. Here is where JNI comes in - the API for the hardware is written in C and is portable. The USB stack, though, is native - LibUSB required root last time I checked, and that is a big inconvenience. Anyway, there is nothing to hack there - this part works.
The OpenGL ES handles the 2D charts [ntu.edu.sg]. They need to be updated fast enough without reliance upon the CPU, so OpenGL is very good choice here. The projection matrix is already configured and works. The GPU renderer is programmed and works. Lots of other code exists to handle the gestures, annotations (OpenGL is weak on text,) the reticle grid, and many more. There is nothing left to invent from scratch - we always do that first. What needs to be done is just the usual maintenance - add this button here, this little function there, improve the scrolling, update the API to the latest, etc.
I was amazed primarily with general ineptness of the candidates. I can understand if they don't quite grok the layout of the arrays of vertices, for example - I can explain that and it won't take long, OpenGL has only ten primitives [khronos.org]. But what happened is that they look at the code and fail to comprehend what they see. That cannot be explained, unless I read them the book "Android for dummies" for a year. I got a feeling that they ran the IDE before and, possibly, compiled the stock "Hello, World!" app - but had done not much more than that. Candidates came with excellent self-written resumes, but these writings appeared to be just a waste of electrons.
We were not looking for the cheapest coders - and, in fact, these candidates were expensive, for the month that they were given to get started. This project had sufficient funding. I can suspect that Google and Apple, our neighbors, vacuumed up everyone who can [successfuly pretend to know how to] code for Android, and the rest, who know what they are doing, turned into one-man shops that sell inexpensive apps. The "free electrons" - those contractors - appear to be those who cannot get hired by the big guys and who cannot hang their own shingle. No surprise that they cannot handle a relatively simple task, even though the task is linked against a few specialized libraries. Their problem was not in specialized stuff, but in basics - one of the candidates, for the life of him, could not comprehend how the screen coordinates are translated into the world coordinates - and the code has a set of convenient classes exactly for doing that! They failed miserably - not because they had a wrong color of skin or a wrong accent (they were from different places, including locals) but simply because they are incapable of doing the work.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @08:46PM
Unless and until a critical mass of people finally realize that the whole global economy, and by division all regional, national, and local economies, are hopelessly rigged top-to-bottom by the globalist-capitalist elite and their well-compensated lackeys, we're just studying a reflection in a mud puddle and trying to polish a turd.
We've been headed that way since the fraud of fiat currency was first established.
Labor market analyses, economic studies, and political platforms are all bullshit till a) enough people becomed enlightened and outraged enough, b) the whole corrupt rotten mess collapses of it's own cannibalistic decay, or c) the world ends and makes the point moot.
Unfortunately, c) seems the most likely.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @09:19PM (4 children)
As others have said, employers pay people too little and therefore fail to attract truly competent people.
In software development, you have scores of graduates who can't even write a simple FizzBuzz program, as if most colleges and universities have become little more than money-making degree mills. Yet, most employers will not employ people without degrees, even if they are well-educated and can easily do the job. Degree discrimination drives away even more talent.
Employers also don't want to offer on-the-job training to get people up to speed, because that costs money. The shortsightedness is amazing, so no wonder they're claiming that there is a lack of qualified people.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @09:50PM
Captcha: Greed
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:37AM (2 children)
at my workplace, we hired a lab admin to do (mostly) wiring level stuff and racking/stacking. we hired a very young guy with very little experience, but with a good attitude and the ability to learn.
have we sent him to any kind of data center wiring training? have we even mentored him on it? no, of course not.
and yet, I see my boss constantly annoyed at him for not knowing what is in (the boss') mind. he's put into a tough situation and he's all stressed out.
we made the decision to 'hire on the cheap' and we got what we paid for, but we are not happy. when I say 'we' I mean just the boss.
it pisses me off to see this happen. and there's little I can do since I am not in mgmt and have no say as to what goes on.
most american tech companies are broken by design. it pains me to see this happen over and over again ;(
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:37PM (1 child)
Ya know, before I got my BS degree I got an AS degree to get the job to pay for the BS degree etc, and the local uni won't teach stuff like wiring color codes (for like 25 pair cables, etc) and 66 and 110 punchdown blocks and terminating and testing cat-5 cable or fiber because they're too high end and every uni grad will spend their careers exclusively writing compilers and solving automata theory problems (I took those classes for my BS degree). That combined with HR demanding a BS degree because they can due to unemployment results in people unqualified to wire a datacenter being stuck wiring a datacenter. I got my first "real" job at this financial services company and mystified by boss by already knowing all that lower level stuff from having taken classes. It was not hard to learn and the pay was "OK" for an AS degree.
Honestly they should have hired an AS community college grad not a uni grad.
It sounds great that we graduate only cardiologists now, we're all cardiologists now, isn't that great? The problem is there's more than a few cardiologists who can't put on a band-aid because they were too busy memorizing heart artery names, while most of the real world workload is for band-aid level medical problems.
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:27PM
Wow - wiring and termination... learned that on the job decades ago. Brings back a lot of memories. I still have BIX and Krone punchdown tools, an AMP RJ-xx crimper, and various coax tools. The other day, I ran across an old ThickNet vampire tap - I plan on putting it in a shadow box, as a nerd conversation piece.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 25 2017, @10:33PM (2 children)
When employers today bemoan the lack of skills, it's not tech skills they're talking about. TFA is nothing but beating on a strawman.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:22AM (1 child)
Then what are they talking about? Is it their intolerance of people who don't dress like they want them to, speak like they want them to, socialize with others as much as they want them to, etc.? Just what skills do so many lack, if not tech skills?
And for the record, there is a shortage of people with good tech skills, since colleges and universities pump out losers who have no business holding degrees at truly astonishing rates.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:53AM
"Skilled labor" means the same thing today it meant fifty years ago. It never included tech. It does include machinists, welders, electricians, and quite a lot of other occupations though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @10:48PM
Posting AC.
I run an MSP. I employ local.
I have no degree or certification.
I've been through 22 different folks trying to find an acceptable, trainable person.
I'd take a woman, I'd take a man, I'd take an asexual, I'd take a .. furry? slimey? whatever. I don't care what they do with their home life - we don't even piss test.
I want someone with decent phone etiquette.
Can lift 10-20 pounds consistently, 60 pounds once a month for 5 minutes (server racks).
I want someone trainable.
I want someone who understands to just fucking google it.
My current barely acceptable minion is getting 13USD per hour. Not minimum wage.
I can't find anyone, I'm having to make due.
I hate to generalize, but every one I've gotten so far has issues. Refusing to read a manual. Refusal to be polite on the phones. Refusal to be in to work on time. Refusal to put issues on the calendar. Disappearing 3 times a day for extended "smoke breaks". Unable to take constructive criticism ( I took classes after the third person couldn't handle criticism, the teacher said I'm "decent, not great, at holding a blameless critique with direction to fix the issue at heart".)
I've had moments where I write out the instructions in step-by-step form, and they still fail to remember those instructions a week later, despite them being stickeynoted to their monitor.
Hell's jingling bells, I've had one refuse to plug a computer in because it wasn't in their job description.
I decided to go younger. I worked with a local school, got things set so they could come in during school hours and be trained, and paid (I don't do free internships, fsck that shite).
The kids only had to pass some basic tests and training - 2.5 hours of watching a video and answering multiple choice questions and he could have come in during school hours to make money.
You know what happened? He demanded to be paid for his 2.5 hours of training.
My problem is all the competent kids wind up going to the big city for college, get saddled with so much debt they can't take my job and they never come back.
Or I'm too old for this shite and should stopp inviting kids onto my lawn just to yell at them to get off.
But I think there's a real problem.
17 of those folks couldn't balance a check book (and they were 20+ in age)
Most of them failed abominably at phone etiquette - are they not learning to be polite these days?
All of them demanded soft starting times - couldn't demand they be here within 5 minutes of 8:30am.
Most of them wanted 3 smoke/bathroom breaks and an hour+ long lunch.
An H1B visa is not a possibility for me - not interested in even seeing if I could do that.
But I'm at my wit's end. How do I find polite, courteous people in their 20s to train?
I live in SmallTown, USA. Rural community, town of 3k, with cities of 10k within 30m of drivetime.
Sincerely,
A drunk, distressed, tired business owner.