Posted on 10/11/2007 7:43:29 AM PDT by traumer
Is there really a labor shortage, or are tech companies lobbying Congress for more visas and green cards simply to avoid paying Americans better wages?
With a B.S. in computer science, an M.A. in information systems management, and 20 years of experience, Rennie Sawade would appear to be a strong candidate for a job as a software development engineer. But all the 44-year-old can find these days are short-term, temporary jobs—like the 15-month contract he's currently on at a Seattle-based medical device company. At Microsoft, the most prominent employer in town, he's had contract jobs and even interviews for permanent positions. But after several failed attempts, he's given up on trying to land a staff position at the software giant. "I feel like my time is being wasted," he says.
Just across town at Microsoft headquarters, in suburban Redmond, Wash., Kevin Schofield is grappling with what he calls a severe shortage of qualified workers. Schofield's job is to help develop recruiting strategies to stay ahead of rivals like Google (GOOG), IBM (IBM), Yahoo! (YHOO), and SAP (SAP). The 40-year-old says Microsoft is desperate to fill 3,000 core technology jobs in the U.S., and there are so few Americans with the specialized skills required that the company needs to bring in more workers from overseas on temporary visas and permanent green cards. "There just aren't enough people," says Schofield.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
I've been an engineer for over fourty years. My experience is that the jobs have pretty much dried up. Only five years ago "monster.com" would turn up something like 4000 jobs nationwide in my specialty. Now there are only 26. Those never respond to me because they advertise only out of legal necessity: they hire H1Bs.
While there are some things to do in your area, there no longer is much on a National basis. I wouldn't live in NY to save my soul.
I am not a web page builder or database guy. I'm a hard-core computer science and electronics engineer. I can write operating systems, data base engines, I/O subsystems, and so on. I can also design electronic instrumentation and then write the firmware for it. It seem that all of that is gone; and, only network administrators, web page authors, and SQL jobs remain. None of those are really engineering disciplines.
In 2003 congress reduced the H1B quota from an all time high of 194,000/year back down to the original of 65,000/year. Like you, my salary shot up in early 2004 and has been great ever since. Congress is now wanting to blow the lid of the H1B quota. I expect things to go back to pre year 2003.
At 194,000/year and with a 6 year servitude contract attached to each H1B visa, there can be at any one time (194,000 x 6) 1.2 million foreign tech workers in the USA. And none of them are allowed to switch jobs for a higher paying job even if offered that job unless the want to lose their H1B visa and possibly be fined by their host company. Not exactly the free market.
I don't mind competing against foreign tech workers or developers but allow them the same freedom to accept higher paying jobs if offered. Do this, and watch all these US companies all of a sudden NOT need these workers.
You're exactly right. No company wants a new 44-year-old employee because no company wants to pay that employee's health care bills, and at age 44, looking for a screams "loser". That doesn't mean there isn't a ton of work out there for 44-year-olds, however, you just have to find a way to get it without resorting to the "income with training wheels" mechanism of a job.
I remember when employers used to stand in line at the collage entrance waiting to snatch up graduates. I went to a Technical school which had 100% employment after graduation. Those days are history.
The IT market is a little tight here. But, we just spent 4 months trying to find an entry level worker that was marginally competent. Fortunately, we finally found a guy, but the parade of people that came through for interviews was pretty pathetic.
Trust me, I know first hand...
I was a network engineer at one time, and damn good, but unfortunately the paper tigers came and flooded the market.
I actually don’t have any certs, at the time didn’t need them since I knew more than most MCSE’s anyways from experience, but that didn’t matter and still doesn’t, HR hears a buzz word and they’re all over it as though it’s definitive proof you’re good.
I won’t lie though, I do miss the days when in IT you could write your own pay check, it was truly a great time ;)
Not sure where you live but your skills would do quite well in the energy industry. There is a lot of digital data (seismic) that has to be processed and interpreted and all of this requires complex algorithms and specialized software. And the energy companies do not share this with anyone nor do they outsource it. It's highly proprietary and guarded like Fort Knox. And the energy industry pays really really well!
Anyway, just thought I'd let you know. You seem very skilled.
Jeez, I'd think that I'd have an even tougher boss, if I worked for myself.
That's one reason why I've not gone independent, yet. I figure that I'd work much, much harder than if I just worked for a company.
I’ll agree, I talk to entry level guys every so often, and these kids believe they’re worth $80k+ a year right out of college.
Some one needs to inform them that it takes experience and hard work to get to that level.
I know its hard for someone in NYC to accept, but NYC is not indicative of the nation as a whole. Perm jobs have declined exponentially over the last 5 or so years.
I just wanted to add from my last post to you. All of the seismci processing is done on 100s of clusters with 1000s of nodes. This is hard core stuff. You’d probably be in heaven.
At 44, this guy should create his own consulting company like I did and find a few un-employed IT guys and send them out on contracting gigs. With 20+ years of experience, why is this guy NOT in management? Companies that hire H1B consultants can write off their pay as business expenses. Employee salaries and bennies are treated differently on the books.
SAN storage is the coming thing, and VMware is the buzzword right now. It's about as close as you can get to engineering, without designing the hardware/software. There's a *whole* bunch to the setup and design of it - it's not just a "plug and chug" job changing passwords and setting up user accounts.
As far as vitualization is concerned, I think that the industry has come full circle - servers have finally caught up to what was being done on Mainframes 20 years ago.
This week I've been doing an analysis on why an app that runs on our SAN is slow. Very geeky stuff....pretty interesting, as well.
I hear you. My company has started looking at kids that have no college or only 2 years and bringing them in for half what a college grad would pull. The problem is these moronic gamers who think they are the gifts of programing have no skills in debugging, OOP design, math, and basic logic design. There code is crap, they have no work ethic and whine constantly about being under paid but when told by elders to go to school they argue they no more than any professor.
My company irks me because the put these button designers ( or Dukes of the drag and drop as we call them ) in charge of theUI part of a project and they have no concept on how to do things other than comparing them to friggin’ games the stay up all night playing at home.
Lord I wished I had listened to my parents and become and orthodontist or MD.
Wonder who's feeding them those numbers. Collage recruiters perhaps? Regardless, I remember a day when you could get a nice car for $10K not $30K and a house for $60K not $200K. How times have changed.
what part of my comment is not true?
The real problem was a straight up lack of professionalism. This was a basic help desk job. All we were looking for was somebody who could show up on time, have decent phone/customer skills, and know a little about computers.
I found plenty of people who knew about computers. I also found plenty that showed up late to interviews, or blew them off completely (buzzzzz). I did a phone interview with one girl, where every third word out of her mouth started with 'F' (buzzzzz). The one that we're still talking about in the office was the college kid who told us - flat out TOLD us - that he didn't want an entry level help desk position. "Why are you here, then?" was my question...that pretty much ended the interview. Talk about delusions of grandeur....
I'm a little sympathetic when companies talk about a lack of qualified applicants. I've got some first hand knowledge of it.
More than likely the case, but the recruiter feeding them that is a piss poor recruiter.
Our job is to set realistic expectations to candidates and not tell them they’re worth $100K when their skills only get $70k on the open market with experience.
I love it when a guy demands an unusually high salary and won’t back down, and then calls me a month later asking if a job is still available and he’s willing to come down.
So I can agree with you, some one is setting their expectations way too high and they need to stop it because these kids are burning bridges with companies, because no company is going to be interested in talking to them when their salary demands come down because they believe the kid will run once some one offers more in a year.
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