Posted on 02/15/2017 3:11:43 PM PST by 11th_VA
Diesel mechs in rural Georgia top out at $38 hourly, and that’s with certs and experience. $49 to haul a 2x4 around the job site? Imma need my waders yo, cuz this bullsqueeze is deep!!!
Asplundh employs relatively highly skilled workers. They would not do this sort of thing systematically. If you want to find criminal migrant workers, look at the low skilled landscape companies. “Brightview” landscaping is probably employing half the criminal Mexicans in this country.
So you agree that there are some jobs Americans wont take.
The reality is my daughter has worked for Tata and been scrude by Tata. I have worked beside many from Tata. The Tata client rep for a large insurance company was my roommate. I’ve seen what employers paid Tata. The cost of a consultant had more variance than citizens working for TEK, the firm I worked for.
But there were some Tata consultants who made far more than citizens of the same skill level and duties. Of course, that is true of citizens also.
The reality is that consultant rates vary greatly and depend more on the negotiating skill of the individual consultant more than IT, business or English skill.
I know one Tata DBA who is in the top tier of DBA pay and yet is totally ignorant of IT and business skills. But a great BSer, even with a heavy accent.
Tata consultants, on average, cost employers more than Infosys consultants. That is because Tata negotiates better than Infosys and not because its people are any better.
I worked directly for the Asplundhs for 10 years. I know Larry well. I also know all the regional managers. The manager has to deal with huge turnover, largely because no one wants to work in the elements for crappy pay.
Asplundh contracts with some municipalities but their largest customers are Investor Owned Utilities. Some union, most not. Pay in some states is barely above minimum wage (i.e., Mississippi) while pay in other states is respectable (i.e., Oregon).
What kind of name is that - Asplundh?
I don’t know what kind of name it is, but when there is a large storm heading for the south, you always see a large convoy of Asplundh trucks heading south on 95.
At those rates you could get college educated workers to do “flag man” work. LOL.
It’s the last name of the family who founded the company. I’ve met many of them a number of years ago. They are damn good people. Don’t know if they are still involved with the company anymore or not.
So you agree that there are some jobs Americans wont take.>>> no i think there is a c team that is cheaper. I worked with tata way back when GE brought some in. They needed a lot of hand holding as they had no business sense with their COBOL chops. I still remember the guy asking about pallidating part numbers. they were great people but paid half of we where and we had to work twice as hard filling in for their lack of business skills. It was an MRP system. Then another group replace our IT where i now work. When they had an issue one night. never called me (business now) for guidance. Fixed the error and ran the jobs. Three days later we realized they sent in a duplicate file of $8M in payments. It took me almost two months to clear those payments.
My father broke me in to
hanging Sheetrock when I
was in highschool, late
60’s/early 70’s. Petaluma
California at that time,
had a huge housing boom.
Most on the jobsite were
young white guys, with a few
blacks. No Hispanics that I
can remember.
I suffered an accident that
caused a sudden turn in my
choice of vocation. In the
42 years doing what I do now,
to what was then, is a dramatic
shift from paying someone a
decent living wage to
those that are willing to
do the same job for far less
than I was earning way back when.
Trades were handed down from
father to son. That trend was
lost when cheap “illegal”
labor broke that tradition.
I wish I were 35 years younger.
I’d be more than willing to
work at being one of your
best. I really miss those days.
(posted on Cel phone,
I apologise for the
format)
I have consulted to over 35 large shops; never a small shop. In the large shops there is a big variance in skills of both citizen and non-citizen staff; and of both employees and consultants.
In some shops the consultants are the experts and the IT employees in technical positions are not expected to have any skills. Other shops are the exact opposite, the employees are expected to have the expertise and the consultants are not expected to think; but to just do the grunt work that will soon be automated.
Even in the same shop different departments and different teams in the same department vary greatly.
In general Federal government techies, both consultant and employee, have the lowest expectations and are the least competent. State and local government are next. State of Illinois is by far the most incompetent shop of the 35+ I’ve been in.
In general utilities (gas, electric, communications) rank second in least competent. The ones I’ve seen are by far the most inefficient with no regard for whether an effort has any value. Budgets and spending are independent of reality.
In general IT shops of retail business are in the middle in both business and technical skills. In general IT shops in insurance and banking are far above those named above. Manufacturing IT shops seem to be all over the map from my experience. Cant make generalizations about them.
Interestingly, there is no correlation between the skill expectations of an IT shop and the salary or rate expectations. Consultants to government are often the best paid of any consultants even though the expectations of skill level are very low.
In general, expectations of consultant rates in insurance and banking are in the middle. This is where the geeks go who love what they do so much they would do it for free ... and some of them almost do.
Expectations of rates in retail firms vary greatly, not just by the firm, but by the silo and team within the enterprise.
Technology category has little to do with rates. In DB2, Oracle, MS some DBAs are overpaid, some underpaid. Same with coding. Some COBOL, some Java, some C++ are overpaid, some underpaid for the same skill level.
So when we see a big variance in non-citizen rates and skills, and a big variance in citizen rates and skills we need to understand that big variance is the nature of the entire industry.
Note that most IT shop employees and consultants are not in silicon valley type IT firms. Most of them are in non-IT industries and it is of them I comment.
Yes, a flagperson job would be good for a college graduate with a degree in art history or womens studies. But finding someone who can finish concrete or do job layout or any number of other skills needed is tough to find.
These college kids are “educated” but they don’t know much and they are not willing to work.
For $49.00 bucks an hour? Come on what planet are you living on? People will move and relocate for that kind of money.
How much does Burger King pay you these days?
The poster from Austin TX said college educated software engineers make $49.00/hr. You are so FOS I can’t stand it.
Here it is. Look for yourself. Have your mom help with the big words.
http://workplace.doli.state.mn.us/prevwage/commercial_data.php?county=27
I am not questioning the dumb spec for labor rates. What I am questioning is your inability to find flag men for $49.00/hr.
Flagmen are easy to find. I just go to the Burger King where you work and hire some of your fellow employees. People with skills and a work ethic are much harder to find.
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