Posted on 08/28/2008 7:20:13 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Should education and experience always command a high salary? It seems reasonable to think so — yet older employees with advanced degrees may lack the specialized skills needed to satisfy rapidly changing market demand. In perhaps no field is this more true than the tech industry.
I recently conducted an e-mail interview with Norm Matloff, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who believes there is widespread age discrimination in the tech industry. (His busy schedule made it impossible to get Matloff on the phone.)
In particular, Matloff contends that the tech industry has manufactured a false talent shortage in order to push for more H-1B visas, which allow them to employ younger — and far less expensive — workers.
So I was interested to see Matloff’s name mentioned in a BusinessWeek piece written by Vivek Wadhwa, who also has conducted some interesting research on outsourcing, immigration and related issues, some of which I’ve cited in prior blogs. In the article, Wadhwa voices an issue that receives little play in the tech industry (perhaps because of fear of litigation). He writes:
"Tech companies prefer to hire young engineers. Engineering has become an “up or out” profession — you either move up the ladder or you face unemployment. In other words, even though globalization has compounded the difficulties for aging engineers, it’s not the culprit."
Wadhwa notes that tech start-ups simply cannot afford to hire experienced workers. To save money, they employ recent graduates or others willing to work for relatively low pay and then provide on-the-job training to expand their skills.
Even tech companies that can afford experience may find that younger workers better suit their needs, writes Wadhwa. He cites software patent firm Neopatents, whose CEO says younger workers tend to be more creative, flexible and schooled in the latest technologies. In contrast, the CEO says some older workers expect to be paid for their experience — whether or not it is relevant to the job.
Interestingly, Google faces an age-discrimination suit brought against it by Brian Reid, its 54-year-old former director of engineering. Reid says older workers routinely get less favorable performance evaluations and lower bonuses at Google. While Google hasn’t publicly offered a reason for Reid’s dismissal, Reid also says he was told he was “a poor cultural fit” at the search giant.
Google does appear to place a high value on youth, as evidenced by its unconventional professional development program for associate project managers and its college campus-like work environment.
Wadhwa writes:
"The harsh reality is that as engineers progress in their careers, they need to stay current in new technologies and become project managers, designers, or architects. To keep their jobs, engineers need to build skills that are more valuable to companies and take positions that can’t be filled by entry-level workers."
Yet Matloff calls the skills issue “a red herring.” He says:
"Just look at the major tech firms that have admitted to replacing Americans by H-1Bs and L-1s, and then forced the Americans to train their foreign replacements. Clearly, it’s the Americans who have the skills, not their foreign replacements. I’ve seen numerous cases of American programmers and engineers who have the skills being advertised but who never even get called for a phone interview."
Meanwhile, the tech industry is working to keep the H-1B visa and related immigration issues on the front burner. Ken Wasch, president of the Software & Information Industry Association, tells Infoworld that unless the U.S. loosens immigration restrictions, it will provide “an incentive for the industry to create knowledge centers outside the United States.” The SIIA is asking Congress to raise the cap on H-1B visas and to make it easier for foreign nationals graduating from U.S. colleges to obtain permanent residency.
In a word, yes!
Current justifications (excuses) include “We’re a global corp
oration” and “We have to remain at market”.
And in so doing, the tech industry creates the labor shortage it has been howling about. We have been hearing this for a decade now and it has become firmly embedded in the popular culture. Don’t go into the tech field young man, you’ll only be replaced by Apu from Bangalore. What enterprising youngster would study engineering, having grown up hearing that he’ll be tossed on the dungheap around the same time that he starts marrying and raising a family?
I’m with the Freeper who proposed a Solomonic solution: remove all caps on the H-1B program, allow Bill Gates and Larry Ellison to sponsor as many as they want. Just make sure that the visa-holders have NO restrictions on who they can actually go to work for, during the three years they are here.
Methinks the number of such visas issued would shrink dramatically and native-born engineers of all ages would find it far easier to find work.
Generally I’ll hire anyone with the skills I’m looking for.
I would prefer someone younger than older simply because I want them to be around for a while. But I don’t want to have to train them before they become productive and that points to older more experienced people. That “training” costs time and money and has lots of risk as you don’t know that they will be good at what you are trying to teach them to do if they don’t already have experience in that area.
And last but not least, younger people tend to be more flexible.
I’m 46... Where’s that on the scale young to old in tech???
Actually, my proposal for the H1B program was to keep some sort of numeric limit, but take the 65,000 or whatever with the highest salaries, rather than the first 65,000 who apply....AND let them change jobs after three months, if they can get a better offer from another US employer.
All corporations, industries and companies are GUILTY of this. I know quite a few over 50 folks that dye their hair ONLY because they know they can’t get a job with gray hair.
It’s very hard to prove.
Outsourcing also causes loss of control. I wouldn't want to have a bunch of foreigners with the keys to my business.
If you have some mad skills that’s not old at all. :) I am somewhat familiar with the tech consulting industry and I will say that anyone over 40 is usually upper level management whose sole purpose is to build the business...like winning new clients and contracts. If you look at any tech consulting firm, I wouldn’t be surprised if the average age was 28. It’s just a young, up and coming area that demands flexibility, brains, ability to learn quickly, and innovation...generally speaking people in their 20s.
I will only start my job experience midway. You don’t have to put dates - you can just show years worked. For example, you can write down, XYZ Company - 5 years, etc.
The real problem is nowadays anyone can just look you up in Peoplesearch and there is your name, your sibs and, aacch, your age!
I hope you're consulting for my competition, as yours is a mighty stupid assumption.
-Yossarian
>20 year old Silicon Valley Stalwart
Industry is complaining about the caps on H-1B visas (so that engineers residing in the U.S who are foreign citizens must return to their countries of origin). Therefore, they say, unless the caps are raised by congress there will be “an incentive for the industry to create knowledge centers outside the United States.” (US company product development and training facilities are relocating overseas). Meanwhile our U.S. native “older engineers” are struggling to hang onto their jobs? What gives?
The implication is that U.S. our schools are not creating the necessary new engineering talent from the pool of U.S. citizens. Does this mean that we no longer have the skills to support a high tech Information Technology economy?
Hey, I am willing to admit I’m wrong! :) I am just stating what I have observed.
Why was the word “agism” ever invented? I* can’t think of anything wrong with it. If there is any basis for rational discrimination, age is the thing.
I suppose the only possible argument against agism is that, while statistically valid, discriminating on the basis of age has a detrimental effect on abberantly quick-witted oldies and mature youngsters. But that argument seems to attack reduction as such, and I say without reduction, we are afloat in a raging sea of chaos. We need to have some way to seperate people. If aging computer programmers don’t like it, let’s see how they like higher car insurance premiums when we can’t charge junior for his recklessness.
True. When the ex-Mr. OTTB took early retirement ten years ago he started shipping his resume around. He had personnel departments and headhunters crazed, jumping up and down with the desire to capture and place him. He does have the most astonishing resume. Then they found out how old he was—over fifty. They immediately said, “Sorry, no one wants you.”
So, fine. He started his own business instead of getting a job.
There are plenty of Tech workers in the US. Don’t let anybody fool you otherwise. More have been pushed out of the Tech industry due to outsourcing then that are graduating from college.
I recruit for a large tech firm and they won’t even read your resume if the you are over say 55 and that is pushing it.
Notwithstanding that, hot money is notoriously obsessed with youth and credentials. It's a fashion industry for the mechanically inclined.
The problem is that the H-1B peonage system exists. If we shut it down completely, employers wouldn’t be able to do “domestic outsourcing.”
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