Re: IT Labor Shortage Is Just a Myth

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: lynn [lynn () ecgincc com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 11:33 AM
To: David Farber
Subject: Re: [IP] IT Labor Shortage Is Just a Myth

I totally agree the shortage is bogus. The entire concept of a shortage
makes me angry.

Since companies created the illusion of a shortage, I know too many
unemployed IT workers.

When I first began in this industry, all an employer wanted to know is if
you could do the job. If you knew 60% of the requirements it was fine.
Employers have become crazy. They want you to know everything - including
the business and things not even needed for the job. There are so many
barriers to even apply for anything also. For some companies one has to go
through two or three layers of recruiter, then HR, then an assistant to
the hiring manager, then perhaps the hiring manager will look at your
resume/cv to decide *if* you are worthy of even a phone call. Of course
many of the foreign workers and off shore workers do not go thru this
process. The company is hired and that company supplies x number of
workers.

I have seen employers want 5 years experience in a product released only 2
or 3 years. Don't they know what they are doing? Or does HR just
automatically add this? Or is it done to say there are no US workers
qualified for the position?

Of course they don't want to pay decently anymore either. There are times
I see what employers want to pay and I think - gee, I could make that
babysitting.

Many employers invest off shore due to the tax benefits. Others change
head count to move more off shore to save costs.

A very real a potential effect is there will no longer be any qualified IT
workers in this country. What then? One question in my mind is: how do we
keep any application secure? How do we know any work done off shore is
secure? no backdoors? no holes?

No one should forget India made a huge effort to take over IT. China is
doing the same. I've heard Mexico wants to enter this area also.

Another huge issue with off shoring and foreign workers is language.
Although language has improved, there is so much time wasted in asking the
other person to repeat everything, or to spell it. Years of this has
caused more of a backlash. Many people, tech and non-tech, when talking to
a foreign worker cringe at the thought.

A tech support manager I spoke with at length with this issue a few years
ago (from a very major company) told me he was trying to bring tech
support back to the US. He could monitor everything (can't now), know who
needs training, who is good  with customers, and more.

I spoke to someone in  India yesterday on a simple question from another
very major company. I just needed to know where to find one thing online.
In the past, when support was in the US, those people had been at their
jobs for a long time and knew where or how to find info. Yesterday, all I
heard was the item was out of warranty and no info available.

Some countries where work is off shored do not have the privacy laws as in
the US and EU. If data entry is off shored to one of those countries do
you want to see it online?

Many use services off shored, such as legal research. The client pays the
same hourly rate as if it was done in the US, and the attorney pockets a
huge profit. At least pass along the cost savings.

In this economic time, it would make sense to bring jobs back to the US nd
EU rather than to off shore or use foreign workers. This would help the
economy tremendously.

Lynn

We are all frustrated with the garbage going on.

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
> Date: March 10, 2008 8:03:03 PM EDT
> To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] IT Labor Shortage Is Just a Myth
>
> [Note:  This item comes from friend Mike Cheponis.  DLH]
>
> From: Mike Cheponis <mac () wireless com>
> Date: March 10, 2008 1:38:39 PM PDT
> Subject: IT Labor Shortage Is Just a Myth
>
> "For the past few years, we've heard a number of analysts and high-
> profile IT industry executives, Bill Gates and Craig Barrett among
> them, promoting the idea that there's an ever-present shortage of
> skilled IT workers to fill the industry's demand. But now there's
> growing evidence suggesting the "shortage" is simply a self-serving
> myth.
>
> "It seems like every three years you've got one group or another
> saying, the world is going to come to an end there is going to be a
> shortage and so on," says Vivek Wadhwa, a professor for Duke
> University's Master of Engineering Management Program and a former
> technology CEO himself. "This whole concept of shortages is bogus, it
> shows a lack of understanding of the labor pool in the USA.""
>
>
> <http://www.baselinemag.com/index2.php?option=content&task=view&id=4536&pop=1&hide_ads=1&page=0&hide_js=1
>  >
>
>
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