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 jobslike 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 ...
You kidding, I would of taken it, and I’m experienced and have no qualms with knowing you have to start some where.
Unfortunately I’m in Mass, the state that historically lags all others in job creation, not to mention the fact that when the dotcom bubble burst it left 1000’s of unemployed techs and only a few hundred jobs, supply was greater than demand.
Not all of us are fully qualified at kissing up while kicking down.
BUMP
I will steer my kids into medicine, thanks. Neither of them will ever darken the door of a CS department.
Yes, future doctors = civil servants.
Ooooh, these kid don't know how the game is played.
This time 6 weeks ago, I'd love to have talked to you, or anyone else that showed up on time and could speak to me without cursing:
Applicant-"Hi, I'm calling about the F'ing job interview?" Me: stunned silence
Keep it up - the skools are turning out kids with no idea how to conduct themselves in a professional setting, that think starting at the top is their God-given right, and that anything less than a VP-level salary is beneath them. There will be plenty of room for people that know how the system really works.
Ooooh, these kids don't know how the game is played.
"Would help" what? Drive the businesses they serve into bankruptcy? It may surprise you, especially if you've never spent a day on a mainframe, but the vast majority of code running banks, insurance companies, retailers, industry, and commerce is legacy mainframe code. It's stuff that was written 30 or 40 years ago, has undergone dozens of iterations, and has had virtually every bug exorcised over decades of use. Businesses have literally billions of dollars invested in their legacy systems. Mainframes are here to stay, Junior.
They still refuse to use technology.
If by that you mean they hesitate to jump on the most recent Golden Cure du jour, you're right. Adopting one unproven or trendy technology after another costs money -- huge money. When that technology fails, as it often does, businesses cannot service their clients any more. So they go broke. They lose their reputation in their industry. They are blackballed, excluded, and their contracts don't get renewed. Management knows that IT is not an end in itself, and that their IT staff are not hobbyists playing with the newest toy. If there's no business justification for adopting new technology, they rightly refuse to do so.
They use software from the 60s and 70s
Because it is bought and paid for. And it works.
and use every scare tactics in the book to keep their companies there and not getting any 21st century technology.
Tech gratia technis. Technology for technology's sake.
They dont want to do the work and then blame their fellow employees by saying they are too stupid to learn.
A statement too stupid to even comment on.
I’ve been a UNIX Admin. full time for about 8 years, w/no experience coming in and no college. I make a decent salary (65k) here in plano texas...I have noticed a boat load of H1B’s here in our company working application support, but nothing else...
The newer, trendy stuff is on the servers. Until it becomes a solid part of the company....after 10 years or so and all of the bugs are worked out of it.
I worked in textiles. The cutting machines were almost all on DOS-based PCs. One, because it was proven mature technology and Two, because it worked. Period.
You’re my new hero. ;-)
I’m a mainframe DB2 DBA just sitting here wasting oxygen I guess. lol
Edcoil has never used an ATM, I guess. The database engine behind them is...IMS (that old hierarchical dinosaur from IBM)...
“Because it is bought and paid for. And it works.”
So is windows so why then do they use 1960’s green screens. Every study done shows a GUI interface increases productivity by 25-27% so this guys cripple their own companies.
No one is talking about bleeding edge put into production but most technology 10-15 years old won’t get used while they won’t uses cars from that era.
I have been in too many meetings where they say the training costs far “out-weigh the cost benefits”
Get on IBM-Main you can read it there - they will tell you themselves. So, it is there stupid comment you are critical of.
“So is windows so why then do they use 1960s green screens. Every study done shows a GUI interface increases productivity by 25-27% so this guys cripple their own companies.”
I have to take exception with that statement. GUIs slow down data entry. Especially for heads-down data-entry applications and warehouse/distribution center automation applications.
For increased data-entry productivity and warehouse automation apps, I’ll take a green-screen 5250 application over a GUI windoze application any day.
And the comm protocol is probably LU6.2, another petrified technology from IBM.
I agree (as I sit here with my EMC CX300 fibre-san and my VMWare Lab Manager). Document management as well. We've (collectively) been storing documents on disks for years and years. And while disk storage space is relatively cheap now, managing all of the documents for a large corporation can be a nightmare!
Surely it is those damn unions and legacy costs or can we finally admit business is greedy.
Because those green screens contain all the data in a format the user finds acceptable. Not every user needs pretty pictures and bouncing balls to do his job. Some are capable of reading.
Every study done shows a GUI interface increases productivity by 25-27% so this guys cripple their own companies.
Maybe a 25 percent (imaginary) improvement in productivity doesn't offset the millions necessary to turn 3270 SNA datastreams into purty pitchurs for illiterates.
I have been in too many meetings where they say the training costs far out-weigh the cost benefits
Maybe that's because the training costs far outweigh the benefits.
Take a walk around Qualcomm's grounds some day and check out the engineers: a disproportionate amount of non-Americans. They have gone for the cheap imported engineering talent for years. Why pay an American engineer $100k/yr when you can get a green card Indian engineer for $60k?
I get contacted by recruiters as well, several times a week, most are not permanent gigs. Sure there are some out there, but anymore most of the market is contract work. I never said there were no permanent jobs, I said most of the jobs have shifted to contract gigs.
Big companies have by and large been buying into the contracting model, hiring very few perms, and contracting out for resources rather than hiring them directly. There has been a huge shift particularly in the last 5 or so years to this model.
read later
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.