Study: There may not be a shortage of American STEM graduates after all(washingtonpost.com)
washingtonpost.com
Study: There may not be a shortage of American STEM graduates after all
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/study-there-may-not-be-a-shortage-of-american-stem-graduates-after-all/2013/04/24/66099962-acea-11e2-a8b9-2a63d75b5459_story.html?hpid=z3
13 comments
because software is booming
Do you have statistics for this? While the need for STEM is obviously rising, I feel like a lot of this conversation devolves into an echo chamber: I'd love to see hard statistics about STEM career demand.
Do you have statistics for this? While the need for STEM is obviously rising, I feel like a lot of this conversation devolves into an echo chamber: I'd love to see hard statistics about STEM career demand.
I know that when I sent an email to the YC founders list cause I needed a job (2 years ago, but that's recent), I got 100 replies. I also know I find it hard to find really good devs for CircleCI. But those are just anecdotes...
Anecdotal evidence in the opposite direction: only half of my computer engineering peers in my graduating class of 2011 had jobs in the industry within 3 months of graduating.
While I think some devs are in high demand, I think many have little horizontal or upward mobility if they can get a job at all. I don't have a lot of evidence to back this up, and that WP study seems to talk a lot more about IT than software development, but I think it's probably something to think about. I think there's a crisis in training and mentorship in our industry, rather than one of willing bodies.
While I think some devs are in high demand, I think many have little horizontal or upward mobility if they can get a job at all. I don't have a lot of evidence to back this up, and that WP study seems to talk a lot more about IT than software development, but I think it's probably something to think about. I think there's a crisis in training and mentorship in our industry, rather than one of willing bodies.
Anecdotally, Computer Engineering degrees have a bad rep with HR and hiring managers. The degrees seem to cover too little EE to do hardware work and too little CS to do software work.
I agree about the crisis in training and mentorship. A lot of people who seem like weak candidates are really just lacking in experience and direction.
I agree about the crisis in training and mentorship. A lot of people who seem like weak candidates are really just lacking in experience and direction.
It's hard enough to find qualified devs out of the pool of folks with CS degrees, which often fail to prepare students for the workplace. CE is possibly at a disadvantage because in covering two disciplines, it doesn't serve either particularly well; there aren't as many jobs where that kind of mixed software/hardware expertise is crucial. It's kind of a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none problem, at least in terms of perception.
I totally agree, and I don't think that's actually an argument in the opposite direction, but rather an affirmation: good people have great opportunity, bad people do not. Half of my classmates in college were poor programmers, so I don't doubt that yours were too.
Which is my point above: we're starved of great devs because of stats about shit devs.
Which is my point above: we're starved of great devs because of stats about shit devs.
But I think that misses my point... I don't think we get to complain about a lack of good developers without trying to do something to make the bottom 50% of developers better. Taken in the context of the general population, that bottom 50% is still highly intelligent and generally very capable group of individuals.
IMO we're starved of great devs because we don't make bad devs better.
IMO we're starved of great devs because we don't make bad devs better.
It used to be that employers trained less skilled individuals and there was more incentive to stay with employers for a long time. Now there is very little loyalty between employees or employers. I think this is a significant part of the problem.
> It used to be that employers trained less skilled individuals and there was more incentive to stay with employers for a long time. Now there is very little loyalty between employees or employers. I think this is a significant part of the problem.
Uh, I dono about the whole staying long time thing, but employers do train, or at least hire unqualified people they expect to grow into the position.
Especially low-budget web startups... yeah, they talk about "rockstar ninja" this and that, but who do you think they actually get, when they are paying below market rates?
I mean, I'm not criticizing; some people really respond to "non-monetary compensation" - and that's what the rockstar ninja bullshit is.
I hire from the same pool, really; but I'm all apologetic about paying you shit. Who would you rather work for? me, saying "Hey, sorry I'm paying you shit. but hey, the last guy who had the job got a really good job with $realcompany after two years." - or some startup, that says you are an awesome best in the world rockstar ninja, and you aren't getting much money, but you have equity in this startup that will change the world!"
I mean, it's really the same thing, just framed in different ways. And most people? they like the rockstar ninja framing.
Uh, I dono about the whole staying long time thing, but employers do train, or at least hire unqualified people they expect to grow into the position.
Especially low-budget web startups... yeah, they talk about "rockstar ninja" this and that, but who do you think they actually get, when they are paying below market rates?
I mean, I'm not criticizing; some people really respond to "non-monetary compensation" - and that's what the rockstar ninja bullshit is.
I hire from the same pool, really; but I'm all apologetic about paying you shit. Who would you rather work for? me, saying "Hey, sorry I'm paying you shit. but hey, the last guy who had the job got a really good job with $realcompany after two years." - or some startup, that says you are an awesome best in the world rockstar ninja, and you aren't getting much money, but you have equity in this startup that will change the world!"
I mean, it's really the same thing, just framed in different ways. And most people? they like the rockstar ninja framing.
You.
really? well, I'm actually looking for people right now. I mean, this month I need a bunch of rack and stack help (but I'm willing to take you through setting up several brands of switches, if you sign on before I set 'em up myself) I can pay $15/hr on a 1099, (remember, that means you pay both the employer and employee payroll taxes, so at minimum, that means you are paying 7.5% more of that as taxes than you would as a w2. Plus tax calculation effort and stuff.) but I've got a kinda informal headhunting deal with a buddy who needs similar skills. He pays a little more (full time, though, and w/ health benefits, on a w2, and I think he would pay like $15-$18/hr, but between the w2 and the benefits, that's significantly better than the $15 on a 1099.) I point him at good folks who work for cheap, and instead of giving me a recruiting bonus, he lets me rent you back at a discounted rate. So yeah, if you are in silicon valley, drop me an email (in my profile) and call your first few days 'paid interview' and maybe you get a full time gig with that other guy?
(I hire people full-time with benefits, too- but right now, I don't have enough revenue to hire another full-time. I do need some help moving, though, which is why that shady deal with my buddy is so good for me; I get some per-day work, but can attract someone that wants to be full time, and thus end up paying closer to full-time rates.)
I am okay with a full-day minimum; I'm not expecting you to show up for an hour for $15, and I usually get lunch or dinner or something.
But yeah; I don't know. “Napoleon's hat on the battlefield is worth 50,000 men”. - most people expect /leadership/ - and most people think leadership involves motivating people through personal charisma and confidence.
Personally? I understand how bad leadership can destroy value, but I don't really see how good leadership (in the personal charisma sense) can help anything. I think good leaders pick good people, (or, at least, the best people available considering the compensation the company can afford.) then mostly get out of the way. I mean, i do a lot of "no, don't spend time on that, this other thing is more important" - like today, I redirected an employee away from working on new images and towards improving our per-port BCP38. And I do training, too, but that's really more experienced individual contributor type work.
(And as for Napoleon, after the french revolution? the french soldiers were treated better than any of their contemporaries, and I think that had a lot to do with their success. I mean, I'm not entirely discounting Napoleon, but "Liberté, égalité, fraternité," I think, really had a lot to do with his success. It's not a unique strategy; every Caesar since, well, Caesar has used populist rhetoric and policies to gain and keep power, but at that time? the rest of the world really treated their soldiers poorly, and France was, at least in Europe, uniquely populist.)
(I hire people full-time with benefits, too- but right now, I don't have enough revenue to hire another full-time. I do need some help moving, though, which is why that shady deal with my buddy is so good for me; I get some per-day work, but can attract someone that wants to be full time, and thus end up paying closer to full-time rates.)
I am okay with a full-day minimum; I'm not expecting you to show up for an hour for $15, and I usually get lunch or dinner or something.
But yeah; I don't know. “Napoleon's hat on the battlefield is worth 50,000 men”. - most people expect /leadership/ - and most people think leadership involves motivating people through personal charisma and confidence.
Personally? I understand how bad leadership can destroy value, but I don't really see how good leadership (in the personal charisma sense) can help anything. I think good leaders pick good people, (or, at least, the best people available considering the compensation the company can afford.) then mostly get out of the way. I mean, i do a lot of "no, don't spend time on that, this other thing is more important" - like today, I redirected an employee away from working on new images and towards improving our per-port BCP38. And I do training, too, but that's really more experienced individual contributor type work.
(And as for Napoleon, after the french revolution? the french soldiers were treated better than any of their contemporaries, and I think that had a lot to do with their success. I mean, I'm not entirely discounting Napoleon, but "Liberté, égalité, fraternité," I think, really had a lot to do with his success. It's not a unique strategy; every Caesar since, well, Caesar has used populist rhetoric and policies to gain and keep power, but at that time? the rest of the world really treated their soldiers poorly, and France was, at least in Europe, uniquely populist.)
I'm not really looking for work right now (nor am I in SV), but thanks.
As for how leadership can affect employees, I'm inclined to believe that leadership will always have a substantive effect on productivity and skill. Obviously, most employees do not work on projects entirely of their choosing; they are given tasks or projects to do, often decided by the team or by management. Certainly, the employee can have input, but ultimately employees exist to serve a role determined by higher-ups. Higher-ups, then, have the responsibility of appropriating their tallent in ways that are effective. Good people aren't good when they aren't given meaningful work.
As for how leadership can affect employees, I'm inclined to believe that leadership will always have a substantive effect on productivity and skill. Obviously, most employees do not work on projects entirely of their choosing; they are given tasks or projects to do, often decided by the team or by management. Certainly, the employee can have input, but ultimately employees exist to serve a role determined by higher-ups. Higher-ups, then, have the responsibility of appropriating their tallent in ways that are effective. Good people aren't good when they aren't given meaningful work.
>Higher-ups, then, have the responsibility of appropriating their tallent in ways that are effective. Good people aren't good when they aren't given meaningful work.
Sure, but that's in the "make the right decisions" category. Logistics, really. We're talking Marshal Berthier here, not Napoleon. Part of that is assigning the right people to the right tasks. That doesn't take personal charisma or being tall or anything, that's just being technically right.
I mean, it's obvious that the people making technical decisions need to do so competently. It's not always easy to do correctly, but I can understand the process... I understand what needs to be done.
I'm talking about, you know, leadership. When a teacher says someone has "leadership skills" they don't mean that the kid understands how to manage logistics; they mean the kid has a bunch of personal/emotional qualities that allow him or her to emotionally manipulate others to get what he or she wants. (Or, if you want to phrase it in positive terms, "they mean the kid has a bunch of personal/emotional qualities that inspire others to do what they want." )
That's the part I wonder if I need to spend time on. (I mean, logistics is huge, and I /know/ I need to spend more time on it, but that's just a matter of execution, really. I know what I want.)
I mean, do I take time out from the logistics (which I know I need) to learn how to become slick? Certainly, on a personal level, nearly everyone prefers the up-beat, happy person who phrases everything positively, and acts as if they know what they are doing; someone who shows they are marching to certain victory, over to someone who says and does the same things, but who phrases it negatively and states up front that realistically, failure is the likely outcome, that if they do succeed, the reward will be middling, and acknowledges that they are just figuring it out/making it up as they go along.
My problem is that I tend to phrase things negatively, in part because all of my grave financial errors have been due to a terribly unrealistic level of optimism, and in part because I fucking hate guys like that.
Now, I always thought of myself as being more honest and direct... and in some ways, I certainly am, but I have been finding, lately that quite often my false humility comes off as being non-confrontational. Sometimes, I fear that it is. Sometimes, I find myself rephrasing my thoughts directly to be less confrontational, which really puts some people off. I mean, if I'm leaving in the negative phrasing, why go through the effort to also be non-confrontational? well, in part because humility is non-confrontational, and I'm attempting, however clumsily, to emulate humility; but should I? I mean, sure, it turns me in to a person I would like more, but most people are exactly the opposite.
I mean, my feeling on the matter is that I can fake what other people call 'confidence' fairly easily by simply letting my scorn for the fact that you value confidence show. Most people seem to think that's close enough to "confidence" to get me the job or the date or whatever. It doesn't really work long-term, but in a job, at least, by the time they figure it out, I've proven myself useful, so it's fine.
My current feeling? emotional bullshit is bullshit; so long as my logistics are good enough, it doesn't really matter all that much, so long as I avoid high-touch sales situations. It's probably fucking my personal life, but that can be dealt with later.
Sure, but that's in the "make the right decisions" category. Logistics, really. We're talking Marshal Berthier here, not Napoleon. Part of that is assigning the right people to the right tasks. That doesn't take personal charisma or being tall or anything, that's just being technically right.
I mean, it's obvious that the people making technical decisions need to do so competently. It's not always easy to do correctly, but I can understand the process... I understand what needs to be done.
I'm talking about, you know, leadership. When a teacher says someone has "leadership skills" they don't mean that the kid understands how to manage logistics; they mean the kid has a bunch of personal/emotional qualities that allow him or her to emotionally manipulate others to get what he or she wants. (Or, if you want to phrase it in positive terms, "they mean the kid has a bunch of personal/emotional qualities that inspire others to do what they want." )
That's the part I wonder if I need to spend time on. (I mean, logistics is huge, and I /know/ I need to spend more time on it, but that's just a matter of execution, really. I know what I want.)
I mean, do I take time out from the logistics (which I know I need) to learn how to become slick? Certainly, on a personal level, nearly everyone prefers the up-beat, happy person who phrases everything positively, and acts as if they know what they are doing; someone who shows they are marching to certain victory, over to someone who says and does the same things, but who phrases it negatively and states up front that realistically, failure is the likely outcome, that if they do succeed, the reward will be middling, and acknowledges that they are just figuring it out/making it up as they go along.
My problem is that I tend to phrase things negatively, in part because all of my grave financial errors have been due to a terribly unrealistic level of optimism, and in part because I fucking hate guys like that.
Now, I always thought of myself as being more honest and direct... and in some ways, I certainly am, but I have been finding, lately that quite often my false humility comes off as being non-confrontational. Sometimes, I fear that it is. Sometimes, I find myself rephrasing my thoughts directly to be less confrontational, which really puts some people off. I mean, if I'm leaving in the negative phrasing, why go through the effort to also be non-confrontational? well, in part because humility is non-confrontational, and I'm attempting, however clumsily, to emulate humility; but should I? I mean, sure, it turns me in to a person I would like more, but most people are exactly the opposite.
I mean, my feeling on the matter is that I can fake what other people call 'confidence' fairly easily by simply letting my scorn for the fact that you value confidence show. Most people seem to think that's close enough to "confidence" to get me the job or the date or whatever. It doesn't really work long-term, but in a job, at least, by the time they figure it out, I've proven myself useful, so it's fine.
My current feeling? emotional bullshit is bullshit; so long as my logistics are good enough, it doesn't really matter all that much, so long as I avoid high-touch sales situations. It's probably fucking my personal life, but that can be dealt with later.
It's not. You couldn't beat programming ability into the vast majority of incompetards.
How would you differentiate a "great" dev, a "good" dev, and a shit one? Not being snarky, genuinely curious.
A shit dev can't reverse a list. A good dev can code arbitrary problems you give him, and can actually ship working code. A great dev can discuss ins-and-outs of an arbitrary system you give him to design, moving up and down the stack with ease.
That's a rough guide, with many edge cases, but that's how we go about it.
That's a rough guide, with many edge cases, but that's how we go about it.
Did they end up in finance/management consulting?
One statistic I remember is from Brad Smith's talk at Brookings (http://www.brookings.edu/events/2012/09/27-stem-education#re...). He says (around the 6:30 mark) that Microsoft has over 3400 open jobs for engineers and software developers in this US and this number is a 34% increase from last year.
Is that because the job market is so tight, or because they're not paying enough for the level of talent they want, relative to alternatives like Wall Street and other major tech companies?
Microsoft used to be able to pay market (for tech) but get all-stars because of their name and the perceived quality of their stock. Now that they don't have that kind of brand, those same people are going to places like Google, Apple, Facebook or [insert hot startup] instead.
Microsoft used to be able to pay market (for tech) but get all-stars because of their name and the perceived quality of their stock. Now that they don't have that kind of brand, those same people are going to places like Google, Apple, Facebook or [insert hot startup] instead.
"There's no shortage of smart, hardworking engineers. There's a shortage of smart, hardworking engineers willing to work for very little money." ~ David "Pardo" Keppel
Exactly. Reminds me of a startup that complained to me they couldn't find any good engineers in Silicon Valley - when they were offering 25% below market comp.
"Google and Facebook (etc) are paying them great salaries, equal to what they pay US employees (even though the expenses are higher with visa and relocation costs)."
Is there a possibility, though, that what they pay US employees is influenced by the ability to grant visas to non-citizen workers? In that sense, the program could still suppress wages.
Is there a possibility, though, that what they pay US employees is influenced by the ability to grant visas to non-citizen workers? In that sense, the program could still suppress wages.
Undoubtably. If you run out of good talent, then the price of talent goes up. If you increase the pool of good talent, then it stabilizes.
However, I believe (and the point of the H1B program is) that being able to hire great people is a competitive advantage of US companies, and is more important than increasing salaries of existing employees (to the economy).
However, I believe (and the point of the H1B program is) that being able to hire great people is a competitive advantage of US companies, and is more important than increasing salaries of existing employees (to the economy).
This raises another question, though - why is it more important to do this in high tech than other fields?
Nobel economist Milton Friedman scoffs at the idea of the government stocking a farm system for the likes of Microsoft and Intel. "There is no doubt," he says, "that the [H-1B] program is a benefit to their employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage, and to that extent, it is a subsidy."
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/72848/H_1B_Is_Just_An...
So why subsidize Microsoft and Intel rather than other sectors of the economy? Why specifically attach green cards to graduate STEM degrees? Much of the objection here isn't to liberalized immigration or bringing great people in general, it's about tailoring our immigration system to increase the size of the STEM workforce, when the evidence does not support the notion that there is any shortage.
Also, keep in mind, there are long term dangers to restricting the domestic pipeline of talent into these fields. A sudden and massive increase in the size of a specific sector of the workforce through immigration will increase the pool of good talent in the short term, as the existing domestic workforce will not have had time to adjust to the new and reduced cost/benefit of a graduate degree in engineering. But in the long run, it may simply deter young people from entering the field and displace the existing workforce - not because it's a bad deal, but because talent can find a better deal in an area that is not targeted for increase through visa allocation.
This could leave the US heavily dependent on foreign students. Some people will say "so what? we'll have good engineers, for cheap, and if later we can't recruit as easily, domestic interest will increase." I'm not nearly so optimistic. I think that a healthy pipeline isn't something you can kill off and revive on a dime. When you lose it, it is very difficult to revive.
I want to be clear - I think it would be terribly foolish for the US to close the door to top talent from overseas. A healthy domestic pipeline requires a healthy infusion of talent from overseas as well. However, I think it needs to be carefully balanced As it stands, I don't think that people creating these policies are aware of the potential risks and damage they may be doing to the domestic pipeline, nor do they seem to understand the long term implications of narrowing the domestic pipeline.
Nobel economist Milton Friedman scoffs at the idea of the government stocking a farm system for the likes of Microsoft and Intel. "There is no doubt," he says, "that the [H-1B] program is a benefit to their employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage, and to that extent, it is a subsidy."
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/72848/H_1B_Is_Just_An...
So why subsidize Microsoft and Intel rather than other sectors of the economy? Why specifically attach green cards to graduate STEM degrees? Much of the objection here isn't to liberalized immigration or bringing great people in general, it's about tailoring our immigration system to increase the size of the STEM workforce, when the evidence does not support the notion that there is any shortage.
Also, keep in mind, there are long term dangers to restricting the domestic pipeline of talent into these fields. A sudden and massive increase in the size of a specific sector of the workforce through immigration will increase the pool of good talent in the short term, as the existing domestic workforce will not have had time to adjust to the new and reduced cost/benefit of a graduate degree in engineering. But in the long run, it may simply deter young people from entering the field and displace the existing workforce - not because it's a bad deal, but because talent can find a better deal in an area that is not targeted for increase through visa allocation.
This could leave the US heavily dependent on foreign students. Some people will say "so what? we'll have good engineers, for cheap, and if later we can't recruit as easily, domestic interest will increase." I'm not nearly so optimistic. I think that a healthy pipeline isn't something you can kill off and revive on a dime. When you lose it, it is very difficult to revive.
I want to be clear - I think it would be terribly foolish for the US to close the door to top talent from overseas. A healthy domestic pipeline requires a healthy infusion of talent from overseas as well. However, I think it needs to be carefully balanced As it stands, I don't think that people creating these policies are aware of the potential risks and damage they may be doing to the domestic pipeline, nor do they seem to understand the long term implications of narrowing the domestic pipeline.
Natural gas is booming too. I think that employs a fair number of geologists and various types of engineers.
It's important to note that even if this is true (and I suspect that the statistics lead more towards the statement that, "there is not a shortage of low-level IT trained workers" rather than "there is not a shortage of very talented developers") it doesn't mean that the right thing is to limit immigration.
Protectionism is almost always a negative for economic growth of a country. Even if wages in the US are depressed, that just means that wages were artificially high and that the US would soon become increasingly noncompetitive.
The biggest problem with H-1B visas seem to be the restrictions on working for a single established employer rather than having too many of them.
Protectionism is almost always a negative for economic growth of a country. Even if wages in the US are depressed, that just means that wages were artificially high and that the US would soon become increasingly noncompetitive.
The biggest problem with H-1B visas seem to be the restrictions on working for a single established employer rather than having too many of them.
There can be a problem, though, with very uneven types of protectionism. For instance, suppose both apples and oranges are both subjected to very high tariffs. Then, you remove all tariffs from oranges, but leave them high on apples. you should expect domestic production to shift to apples and foreign production to shift to oranges, to the extent possible.
I can see how you would feel that creating more work visas would lead to a freer market. However, if these visas are heavily concentrated in STEM fields, this may end up producing a very distorted market that deters US citizens from pursuing degrees in this field.
One of the provisions of the immigration bill is to grant green cards to graduates of US-based STEM programs at the MS or PhD leve. Rather than a more general liberalization of immigration, that's just the sort of highly specific, targeted program that can produce severe market distortions.
Many of the people who object to these visas actually support more general liberalization of immigration - they just object to visa programs that are based on the notion that we need to use immigration specifically to increase the size of the STEM workforce. This is because they believe, as this article suggests, there is no shortage of STEM workers.
I can see how you would feel that creating more work visas would lead to a freer market. However, if these visas are heavily concentrated in STEM fields, this may end up producing a very distorted market that deters US citizens from pursuing degrees in this field.
One of the provisions of the immigration bill is to grant green cards to graduates of US-based STEM programs at the MS or PhD leve. Rather than a more general liberalization of immigration, that's just the sort of highly specific, targeted program that can produce severe market distortions.
Many of the people who object to these visas actually support more general liberalization of immigration - they just object to visa programs that are based on the notion that we need to use immigration specifically to increase the size of the STEM workforce. This is because they believe, as this article suggests, there is no shortage of STEM workers.
The problem is that you can't get very talented developers unless you're willing to let them enter into IT as low-level IT trained workers. That first job is often difficult. (The problem of course, is complex. An entry level worker may be worth x, whereas someone of 2 years is worth 4x. However, corporate incentives rarely work like that, leaving trained workers to leave in order to get raises.)
If we're really honest, starting salaries should be low, with a near doubling of salary within 6 months, if we were looking at real productivity.
If we're really honest, starting salaries should be low, with a near doubling of salary within 6 months, if we were looking at real productivity.
It's misleading to paint it as a simple "free market" issue when STEM education in the U.S. is massively subsidized by the public.
Quick correction @Lock1689: It is possible for someone with an H-1B to transfer from one employer to another.
And you can actually work for 2 of them by holding 2 H1Bs at the same time (which is what happens naturally when you transfer to a new company).
The I-94 (or I-797C) indicates which employer you can work for on an H1. When you transfer you don't get a new visa and the new I-94 invalidates the previous I-94. So you never hold two visas or two valid I-94s and are not authorized to work for two employers.
Hmmm. I agree I was not as technically accurate as I should have been, but I am 90% certain you can work for 2 H1B employers at the same time.
You can work for multiple employers on an H-1B if you have multiple approved I-129 petitions. Your original comment was in regards to a transfer which falls under AC-21.
edit: Technicalities in immigration law can have large consequences, working outside of one's status, or for an unapproved employer can result in being removed from the US and being banned from return for a number of years depending on the circumstances.
edit: Technicalities in immigration law can have large consequences, working outside of one's status, or for an unapproved employer can result in being removed from the US and being banned from return for a number of years depending on the circumstances.
Cool! Didn't know that.
My BS detector went off when I read:
Basic dynamics of supply and demand would dictate that if there were a domestic labor shortage, wages should have risen. Instead, researchers found, they’ve been flat, with many Americans holding STEM degrees unable to enter the field and a sharply higher share of foreign workers taking jobs in the information technology industry.
In other words, wages haven't risen because the reduction in the number of domestic STEM workers has been offset by the increase in the number of foreign STEM workers; the total supply of STEM workers has remained the same, but more of them are foreign.
Note that if you remove the word "domestic" in front of "labor shortage", the above quote would be correct; but it includes that word, which makes it worse than wrong.
Basic dynamics of supply and demand would dictate that if there were a domestic labor shortage, wages should have risen. Instead, researchers found, they’ve been flat, with many Americans holding STEM degrees unable to enter the field and a sharply higher share of foreign workers taking jobs in the information technology industry.
In other words, wages haven't risen because the reduction in the number of domestic STEM workers has been offset by the increase in the number of foreign STEM workers; the total supply of STEM workers has remained the same, but more of them are foreign.
Note that if you remove the word "domestic" in front of "labor shortage", the above quote would be correct; but it includes that word, which makes it worse than wrong.
My anecdotal experience says there's a ton of demand for skilled programmers. If we're graduating CS students that don't have the skills that tech companies need, that's a problem with quality rather than volume.
And my anecdotal experience says there is not a ton of demand for skilled programmers. Guess we're back where we started now.
Your "anecdotal" experience is rubbish.
I'm getting unsolicited requests for interviews from software companies by the bucket.
There are 180 open positions at Google in Mountain View alone (https://www.google.com/about/jobs/search/#t=sq&q=j&j...).
Multiply that by all Google's locations, add job listings from hundreds of other tech companies in SV.
Every time I hear this topic discussed by people who actually know what they are talking about (i.e. those running companies that try to hire competent programmers or those that are involved in the process, like VCs), it's always the same: finding good programmers is brutal.
Now, I'm sure that what you said is true in Alaska and many other parts of US that are not one of the tech centers, but when it comes to SV/Seattle/NY etc., it's clear that there is more demand than supply for skilled developers.
I'm getting unsolicited requests for interviews from software companies by the bucket.
There are 180 open positions at Google in Mountain View alone (https://www.google.com/about/jobs/search/#t=sq&q=j&j...).
Multiply that by all Google's locations, add job listings from hundreds of other tech companies in SV.
Every time I hear this topic discussed by people who actually know what they are talking about (i.e. those running companies that try to hire competent programmers or those that are involved in the process, like VCs), it's always the same: finding good programmers is brutal.
Now, I'm sure that what you said is true in Alaska and many other parts of US that are not one of the tech centers, but when it comes to SV/Seattle/NY etc., it's clear that there is more demand than supply for skilled developers.
There are 180 open positions in Mountain View and 100,000 applications to Google every year. If you're telling me that out of 100,000 applications, there aren't 180 who could do a competent job, you have a problem totally unrelated to workforce supply.
Really? Are there really 180 open positions at Google in the sense that they are desperate for hires? If they wanted to hire people by the droves they could simply make it a little easier to get a job there. It's misleading that they even list positions.
Given the choice between hiring less skilled workers or workers somewhere else, which would you choose?
Amazon has over 2800 open jobs in Seattle:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/jobs/ref=j_sq_btn?jobSearchKeywords...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/jobs/ref=j_sq_btn?jobSearchKeywords...
All anecdotal evidence is rubbish. :)
Are you just playing devils advocate or do you actually believe this? As a recruiter who gets recruiting emails to come recruit engineers at other companies quite often, I have a hard time believing this.
Not the OP, but demand for software engineers in my third-world home is quite abysmal.
i'm interested to hear you experiences. Most companies I know (circleci included) are dying for skilled devs, though there's no shortage of not-great devs.
The demand for skilled programmers is unevenly distributed. There's huge demand in the Bay Area and then a much smaller smattering of demand elsewhere. If you are a skilled dev who doesn't live in the Bay Area, it can very much feel like you aren't in demand. I don't know if that is what he meant, or if he was just being contrarian.
Exactly. It's been my experience that programming job offers in certain areas are plentiful, but the vast majority require relocation if you aren't local.
A very small percentage might be open to remote workers, but unless you live in or around these "hot spots" you're going to have a more difficult time finding work, not to mention a comparatively lower compensation.
A very small percentage might be open to remote workers, but unless you live in or around these "hot spots" you're going to have a more difficult time finding work, not to mention a comparatively lower compensation.
If you're a skilled dev not in the Bay Area, but can work well remotely, there are plenty of companies hiring. For example: https://circleci.com.
If you are hiring, your website does not make that particularly obvious.
(Interested applicants will read your blog to learn about you, but surely more prominent placement would generate more flow. Especially since your potential customers are your most likely employees.)
(Interested applicants will read your blog to learn about you, but surely more prominent placement would generate more flow. Especially since your potential customers are your most likely employees.)
Touche. Our jobs page needs another draft (though check it out and give me feedback: https://circleci.com/jobs).
Similar experience in UK (Edinburgh, at least). Startup companies are dying to hire great devs, but the vast amount of people applying for tech jobs lack the necessary skills.
There is no such a thing shortage of IT workers. These companies (google, facebook…)claim shortage of talents because they always want top ones (at least with the standard they think). As far as there are better quality foreigner workers they always claim shortage.
So there's a shortage of good IT workers. Your point?
Theres a shortage of good everything. If there wasn't a shortage it would not be good.
No shortage of good IT workers as well. My point is it doesn't matter how good local workers are. As far as there are better (their standard) foreign workers they claim there is a shortage because they want top ones.
So suppose, purely hypothetically I assure you, that I'm an engineer that does technical interviews.
What is going on, is HR filtering out all the good domestic talent and making me waste my time interviewing crappy candidates that they know won't make the cut just so that they can hire abroad?
If there is an abundance of qualified unemployed domestic talent then why can't I, the employed engineer, find some of that talent to recommend so that I can collect some of those juicy bonuses?
Or am I hypothetically in on this conspiracy to discriminate against domestic talent as well?
Maybe there is something simpler going on. Maybe most candidates really do suck.
What is going on, is HR filtering out all the good domestic talent and making me waste my time interviewing crappy candidates that they know won't make the cut just so that they can hire abroad?
If there is an abundance of qualified unemployed domestic talent then why can't I, the employed engineer, find some of that talent to recommend so that I can collect some of those juicy bonuses?
Or am I hypothetically in on this conspiracy to discriminate against domestic talent as well?
Maybe there is something simpler going on. Maybe most candidates really do suck.
Pretty much by definition, though. They don't have an objective quality standard, but a relative one.
Be careful trusting data from the EPI, a left/labor/economic-protectionist think tank. It will be selectively chosen and spun to advance their core idea that domestic/union laborers need constant government rescue, via things like immigration restrictions. (Of course data selected by think tanks with other ideologies deserves skeptical reading, as well.)
As was pointed out last time the EPI scored a press hit with their claim of stagnant IT wages (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4880332), they appear to be leaving out the very real possibility a younger/earlier-career mix of workers -- a demographic bulge -- makes their broad wage averages look worse, even while each individual cohort is better off.
And, when in this latest study they highlight how many college graduates who fill IT positions have non-IT degrees (Figure F: 38%+), or of all IT workers have no degree at all (36%, p. 8), they should realize that one way to deal with a skills shortage is to make-do with less-skilled/less-trained people, but then pay them less while they learn or simply play-out-of-position. (This making-do also creates the early-in-career demographic bulge mentioned above.)
On the other hand, when the EPI looks at the fact many STEM majors don't wind up working in STEM jobs (Figure D), it is spun as: "For every two students that U.S. colleges graduate with STEM degrees, only one is hired into a STEM job." From that wording you'd think the streets are filled with woeful idle STEM graduates! But maybe, given the still very low unemployment among all with college degrees (and especially technical degrees), these graduates found something else they preferred? Or maybe they really weren't very good at or happy with their exact STEM degree area?
It requires the EPI's factory-floor mindset, where STEM degree recipients are cogs that could (or should) be dropped into closely-matching STEM jobs, to make this natural dynamism sound like we might have way more idle STEM graduates than we can use.
As was pointed out last time the EPI scored a press hit with their claim of stagnant IT wages (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4880332), they appear to be leaving out the very real possibility a younger/earlier-career mix of workers -- a demographic bulge -- makes their broad wage averages look worse, even while each individual cohort is better off.
And, when in this latest study they highlight how many college graduates who fill IT positions have non-IT degrees (Figure F: 38%+), or of all IT workers have no degree at all (36%, p. 8), they should realize that one way to deal with a skills shortage is to make-do with less-skilled/less-trained people, but then pay them less while they learn or simply play-out-of-position. (This making-do also creates the early-in-career demographic bulge mentioned above.)
On the other hand, when the EPI looks at the fact many STEM majors don't wind up working in STEM jobs (Figure D), it is spun as: "For every two students that U.S. colleges graduate with STEM degrees, only one is hired into a STEM job." From that wording you'd think the streets are filled with woeful idle STEM graduates! But maybe, given the still very low unemployment among all with college degrees (and especially technical degrees), these graduates found something else they preferred? Or maybe they really weren't very good at or happy with their exact STEM degree area?
It requires the EPI's factory-floor mindset, where STEM degree recipients are cogs that could (or should) be dropped into closely-matching STEM jobs, to make this natural dynamism sound like we might have way more idle STEM graduates than we can use.
I won't go into EPI numbers, any study -- left, right, or center -- there is always a bias. There is a simple fact in the STEM debate, however, there was a period in time where companies invested in people, trained them, and established a relationship with the employee based on mutually beneficial growth.
Today, that is long gone. There are many STEM individuals that did not adapt with the times that are considered no longer employable. Rather than reaching out to and training these individuals, companies want the quick fix -- thus the H1B path. There are amazing individuals that want to establish or work for businesses in the US that may be victims of the process, at the same time, there are average individuals getting work visas that could just as well be handled by a local (possibly skilled, possibly w/ a bit of training).
Companies no longer invest in the average individual, after a certain point it is all about the dollar. I think any immigration policy around STEM in this country needs to include some incentives for training and investment in current citizens.
Today, that is long gone. There are many STEM individuals that did not adapt with the times that are considered no longer employable. Rather than reaching out to and training these individuals, companies want the quick fix -- thus the H1B path. There are amazing individuals that want to establish or work for businesses in the US that may be victims of the process, at the same time, there are average individuals getting work visas that could just as well be handled by a local (possibly skilled, possibly w/ a bit of training).
Companies no longer invest in the average individual, after a certain point it is all about the dollar. I think any immigration policy around STEM in this country needs to include some incentives for training and investment in current citizens.
The mix of interests of governments, companies and individuals are never going to be perfectly aligned. Indeed greater transparency on the motives of companies can only be a good thing - then nobody is disillusioned when they act in ways which are apparently at odds with other groups in society. The problem is how do individuals create institutions which are supportive and sustaining. The two options so far have either been government or unions, both of which, given their track record, are discredited to different degrees. For STEMs some form of professional society (non-political union) along the lines of the American Medical Association would seem to be a good approach. However this carries significant risk of degenerating back into the morass of competing factions and once more the interests of individuals lose out. Perhaps a step up from the current levels of organization, based on technical interests, e.g. The Professional Society of Python Developers or Amalgamated Interests Of Developers in the Finance Industry, similar to the original Friendly Societies, might provide a more robust model that meets the long-term interests of its members.
> "There are many STEM individuals that did not adapt with the times that are considered no longer employable. Rather than reaching out to and training these individuals, companies want the quick fix -- thus the H1B path."
I think it is very easy for companies to lose their patience with people who have not kept up with technology and need to be retrained when, on the other hand, a large portion of the people that they are hiring are kids with no experience who trained themselves with current technologies and require less handholding with those current technologies.
So basically let's say 25% of your new-hires are out of school and ramp up in a few weeks. What do you do with the other 75%? Hire people who have more industry than the young 25% but require more training with recent tech, or look potentially outside the country for some more of those 25% types?
I think it is very easy for companies to lose their patience with people who have not kept up with technology and need to be retrained when, on the other hand, a large portion of the people that they are hiring are kids with no experience who trained themselves with current technologies and require less handholding with those current technologies.
So basically let's say 25% of your new-hires are out of school and ramp up in a few weeks. What do you do with the other 75%? Hire people who have more industry than the young 25% but require more training with recent tech, or look potentially outside the country for some more of those 25% types?
Companies used to hire and invest in training, many don't do that now.
On the other end, there are a lot of tech workers that don't try and keep abreast of new technologies and build their skill set. Often life/work may not allow for it, but one should be able to find a few hours a week to explore something new.
Unfortunately, the middle of those two circles are the ones hardest hit re: STEM at the moment.
I, personally, believe that if we are going to incentivize STEM work visas, there should be a cost associated with the visas that goes into a pool/fund that pays for training for STEM candidates that are out of work. If you are importing labor, despite an existing pool, there should be a cost associated with it.
On the other end, there are a lot of tech workers that don't try and keep abreast of new technologies and build their skill set. Often life/work may not allow for it, but one should be able to find a few hours a week to explore something new.
Unfortunately, the middle of those two circles are the ones hardest hit re: STEM at the moment.
I, personally, believe that if we are going to incentivize STEM work visas, there should be a cost associated with the visas that goes into a pool/fund that pays for training for STEM candidates that are out of work. If you are importing labor, despite an existing pool, there should be a cost associated with it.
I think what I am suggesting is that if the younger in-experienced STEM job candidates were not so experienced with modern tech, then companies would be more willing to invest in teaching older experienced STEM job candidates new technology.
As one of those young people I can tell you that we lack the domain knowledge that the old dinosaurs who produce crap code have. Who is easier to bring up to speed is hard to say but I'd bet against us.
> Hire people who have more industry than the young 25% but require more training with recent tech
What evidence do you have that kids just out of college do require less training than people with work experience?
What kind of "new tech" are kids using these days, that experienced employees can't handle?
In any kind of STEM field (other than the most basic IT tech support) college kids definitely aren't going to be able to "ramp up" to the level of someone with 10 years experience in a few weeks.
What evidence do you have that kids just out of college do require less training than people with work experience?
What kind of "new tech" are kids using these days, that experienced employees can't handle?
In any kind of STEM field (other than the most basic IT tech support) college kids definitely aren't going to be able to "ramp up" to the level of someone with 10 years experience in a few weeks.
Responding here since I can't respond to the grandchild comment of yours.
You're right as far as experience of new graduates vs. those with 10 years experience (that basically, all either knows is Java), at least as far I experienced when I hired people when I worked for a university. However, the key difference between the younger set and the older set was that the fresh grads were open to and eager to learn new technologies whereas the older set basically gave me responses of: "Drupal, why would you use that?" "PHP, that's horrible." "That's not JSR-168 compliant"
And on... Now, you might say they were right to be skeptical. However, experience showed they were not. We did such a good job of replacing the old Java/Websphere/Oracle based systems for various university functions that we put a number of the Java engineers out of jobs without need to replace them (don't worry they were union so they just got transferred).
You're right as far as experience of new graduates vs. those with 10 years experience (that basically, all either knows is Java), at least as far I experienced when I hired people when I worked for a university. However, the key difference between the younger set and the older set was that the fresh grads were open to and eager to learn new technologies whereas the older set basically gave me responses of: "Drupal, why would you use that?" "PHP, that's horrible." "That's not JSR-168 compliant"
And on... Now, you might say they were right to be skeptical. However, experience showed they were not. We did such a good job of replacing the old Java/Websphere/Oracle based systems for various university functions that we put a number of the Java engineers out of jobs without need to replace them (don't worry they were union so they just got transferred).
>However, the key difference between the younger set and the older set was that the fresh grads were open to and eager to learn new technologies whereas the older set basically gave me responses of: "Drupal, why would you use that?" "PHP, that's horrible." "That's not JSR-168 compliant"
That's partially because the younger kids didn't know enough to know what's wrong with PHP, but mostly because fresh college grads are so happy to actually have a job that they'll do anything to please.
This isn't a case of the old guys not wanting to learn something new (PHP and java are almost exactly the same age). It's a case of old guys knowing enough about PHP to know that it has problems.
Put it this way, if you want to hire someone to hit himself with a whip all day long, you find someone who doesn't know enough to know it hurts (or is a masochist).
That's partially because the younger kids didn't know enough to know what's wrong with PHP, but mostly because fresh college grads are so happy to actually have a job that they'll do anything to please.
This isn't a case of the old guys not wanting to learn something new (PHP and java are almost exactly the same age). It's a case of old guys knowing enough about PHP to know that it has problems.
Put it this way, if you want to hire someone to hit himself with a whip all day long, you find someone who doesn't know enough to know it hurts (or is a masochist).
My hypothesis is that all tech people teach themselves whatever is trendy at the time when they are still in school (college, or if they decide not to go that route, highschool). Older more experienced candidates of course did the same, but the trendy tech they taught themselves in school is now out of date.
There will of course be those golden candidates that have extensive industry experience but also know the modern newfangled hipster shit that any junior in college is hacking away with at the time. I don't see these candidates having trouble finding work.
You're a startup. You're trendy; your office is littered with nerf-guns and shit, or whatever trendy startups are doing these days. Your systems are all Node/Go/Ruby/Whatever. ...Do you hire the guy out of college, for an "out-of-college" salary, that has all of this stuff on his resume? Or do you hire the guy with 15 years of experience on his resume who only has "C/C++/Perl" on his resume for a "15 years of experience" salary?
Even if you'd go with the 15+ years guy, can you see why companies might become frustrated?
There will of course be those golden candidates that have extensive industry experience but also know the modern newfangled hipster shit that any junior in college is hacking away with at the time. I don't see these candidates having trouble finding work.
You're a startup. You're trendy; your office is littered with nerf-guns and shit, or whatever trendy startups are doing these days. Your systems are all Node/Go/Ruby/Whatever. ...Do you hire the guy out of college, for an "out-of-college" salary, that has all of this stuff on his resume? Or do you hire the guy with 15 years of experience on his resume who only has "C/C++/Perl" on his resume for a "15 years of experience" salary?
Even if you'd go with the 15+ years guy, can you see why companies might become frustrated?
> Your systems are all Node/Go/Ruby/Whatever ... Or do you hire the guy with 15 years of experience on his resume who only has "C/C++/Perl" on his resume
I tend to prefer the guy with 15 years of experience with "C/C++/Perl" on his resume.
Our software is a mix of Python, Scala, Java, CoffeeScript and Obj-C (different components). Scala is the driving force right now for the backend and the code that we've built in it is heavy on concurrency and functional programming. We've also standardized our workstations on Ubuntu (not Windows, not OS X).
From my experience, the language or the technologies themselves are NOT THE PROBLEM. The problem is finding people that are able to build software, people that when faced with a problem, they solve it, even if the problem is new to them.
Our backends also need to handle massive traffic and we don't have the resources to throw hundreds of servers in the mix for scale. To build efficient backends you need an incredibly difficult to achieve mix of knowledge that I won't even bother to enumerate.
We also have to analyse terabytes of logs daily. So besides setting up clusters for map/reduce, those scripts have to infer knowledge from those logs, going into the territory of statistics / machine learning and natural language processing.
So you're a hipster that knows Go/Node/Ruby/Whatever. Great, but what can I use you for?
I tend to prefer the guy with 15 years of experience with "C/C++/Perl" on his resume.
Our software is a mix of Python, Scala, Java, CoffeeScript and Obj-C (different components). Scala is the driving force right now for the backend and the code that we've built in it is heavy on concurrency and functional programming. We've also standardized our workstations on Ubuntu (not Windows, not OS X).
From my experience, the language or the technologies themselves are NOT THE PROBLEM. The problem is finding people that are able to build software, people that when faced with a problem, they solve it, even if the problem is new to them.
Our backends also need to handle massive traffic and we don't have the resources to throw hundreds of servers in the mix for scale. To build efficient backends you need an incredibly difficult to achieve mix of knowledge that I won't even bother to enumerate.
We also have to analyse terabytes of logs daily. So besides setting up clusters for map/reduce, those scripts have to infer knowledge from those logs, going into the territory of statistics / machine learning and natural language processing.
So you're a hipster that knows Go/Node/Ruby/Whatever. Great, but what can I use you for?
There are absolutely roles where the developer with more industry experience is unambiguously the correct choice.
But if this is widely the case, then is there a labour problem at all? If we are all trying to hire the guys with lots of industry experience and are all willing to let them ramp up on new tech while earning their industry experience salaries, then what is the problem? Everything is great if that is what is going on.
However the horror story that I seem to be hearing from other people is that the big names in tech right now are only interested in hiring people straight out of college, hence the "college style" non-monetary perks and whatnot.
But if this is widely the case, then is there a labour problem at all? If we are all trying to hire the guys with lots of industry experience and are all willing to let them ramp up on new tech while earning their industry experience salaries, then what is the problem? Everything is great if that is what is going on.
However the horror story that I seem to be hearing from other people is that the big names in tech right now are only interested in hiring people straight out of college, hence the "college style" non-monetary perks and whatnot.
Sorry that doesn't make sense.
In my experience there are few college kids with Node/Go/Haskell/Clojure on their resume, and those same kids will have whatever is new and exciting in 10 years on their resume then too.
Your average brand new college CS graduate knows Java.
The average foreign programmer also knows Java.
The average programmer with 10 years experience knows Java and probably C++.
The average programmer doesn't work with "modern newfangled hipster ship", and the average employer isn't looking for employees who do.
And if you are a startup, you definitely aren't going to find people skilled in Node/Go/Whatever by hiring cheap H1-B workers.
In general Colleges are about 10-15 years behind what's considered the new hip thing in programming. Since most new grads only know what they learned in college most new college grads are 10-15 years behind the new hip thing in programming.
Startups don't hire new grads because they can ramp up faster, they hire them because they don't have families to take up their time, so they don't mind working 80 hours a week for peanuts.
In my experience there are few college kids with Node/Go/Haskell/Clojure on their resume, and those same kids will have whatever is new and exciting in 10 years on their resume then too.
Your average brand new college CS graduate knows Java.
The average foreign programmer also knows Java.
The average programmer with 10 years experience knows Java and probably C++.
The average programmer doesn't work with "modern newfangled hipster ship", and the average employer isn't looking for employees who do.
And if you are a startup, you definitely aren't going to find people skilled in Node/Go/Whatever by hiring cheap H1-B workers.
In general Colleges are about 10-15 years behind what's considered the new hip thing in programming. Since most new grads only know what they learned in college most new college grads are 10-15 years behind the new hip thing in programming.
Startups don't hire new grads because they can ramp up faster, they hire them because they don't have families to take up their time, so they don't mind working 80 hours a week for peanuts.
> In my experience there are few college kids with Node/Go/Haskell/Clojure on their resume
> Your average brand new college CS graduate knows Java.
Maybe we are reaching different conclusions because we are looking at different anecdotal evidence. What you are saying in these two lines does not jive with what I have observed at all.
Colleges are not teaching that trendy stuff, but CS programs in American universities don't teach any technology anyway (aside perhaps from an OS course or two that focuses on the Linux kernel a bit too much, and the obligatory first freshman quarter with Java/C++). The tech college students come out of school with, from what I have seen, is the stuff they taught themselves outside of their coursework. That stuff is almost invariably the trendy shit. At the very least, the trendier parts of Java.
> they don't mind working 80 hours a week for peanuts.
Either way, it is either about the ability to do the work for those salaries, or the willingness to to do the work for those salaries. Even if I'm off-base and it is entirely the second, it makes sense that companies are going to start looking for some more of the same sort of cheap but effective talent.
> Your average brand new college CS graduate knows Java.
Maybe we are reaching different conclusions because we are looking at different anecdotal evidence. What you are saying in these two lines does not jive with what I have observed at all.
Colleges are not teaching that trendy stuff, but CS programs in American universities don't teach any technology anyway (aside perhaps from an OS course or two that focuses on the Linux kernel a bit too much, and the obligatory first freshman quarter with Java/C++). The tech college students come out of school with, from what I have seen, is the stuff they taught themselves outside of their coursework. That stuff is almost invariably the trendy shit. At the very least, the trendier parts of Java.
> they don't mind working 80 hours a week for peanuts.
Either way, it is either about the ability to do the work for those salaries, or the willingness to to do the work for those salaries. Even if I'm off-base and it is entirely the second, it makes sense that companies are going to start looking for some more of the same sort of cheap but effective talent.
>The tech college students come out of school with, from what I have seen, is the stuff they taught themselves outside of their coursework.
That's the thing, the majority of students don't teach themselves anything outside their coursework. The ones that do are the top x% that everyone wants to hire, and they are still teaching themselves new stuff when they have 10 years experience. Being passionate about programming has nothing to do with age.
> Even if I'm off-base and it is entirely the second, it makes sense that companies are going to start looking for some more of the same sort of cheap but effective talent.
Of course companies are going to look for cheaper talent, the people doing the hiring for the most part are looking to optimize for the short term.
The problem is that it's very hard to accurately and objectively measure programmer productivity, so companies use ineffective proxies.
Hiring an inexperienced programmer who works for $25 an hour vs an experienced one who works for $50 an hour may look like a good deal when it's likely that it actually isn't.
That's the thing, the majority of students don't teach themselves anything outside their coursework. The ones that do are the top x% that everyone wants to hire, and they are still teaching themselves new stuff when they have 10 years experience. Being passionate about programming has nothing to do with age.
> Even if I'm off-base and it is entirely the second, it makes sense that companies are going to start looking for some more of the same sort of cheap but effective talent.
Of course companies are going to look for cheaper talent, the people doing the hiring for the most part are looking to optimize for the short term.
The problem is that it's very hard to accurately and objectively measure programmer productivity, so companies use ineffective proxies.
Hiring an inexperienced programmer who works for $25 an hour vs an experienced one who works for $50 an hour may look like a good deal when it's likely that it actually isn't.
> That's the thing, the majority of students don't teach themselves anything outside their coursework.
Right. So I don't know how many recent graduates are like that, I think I am less pessimistic about that than you (I want to collect some of those juicy referral bonuses, but everybody that I know is either employed or plainly incompetent, including everyone I knew in school... By far most of them are employed), but basically I consider those people to be a part of the essentially unemployable pool. There are no doubt a lot of fundamentally unemployable people that want to be in tech (without being willing to crack a book outside of class), but as far as I can tell there is a clear shortage of competent employable people.
Right. So I don't know how many recent graduates are like that, I think I am less pessimistic about that than you (I want to collect some of those juicy referral bonuses, but everybody that I know is either employed or plainly incompetent, including everyone I knew in school... By far most of them are employed), but basically I consider those people to be a part of the essentially unemployable pool. There are no doubt a lot of fundamentally unemployable people that want to be in tech (without being willing to crack a book outside of class), but as far as I can tell there is a clear shortage of competent employable people.
If you're talking about top graduates from top schools, or recent graduates working for some hip startup in the valley, then you're probably right, they're aren't many who didn't do extra outside of class.
But the majority of programmers are those mediocre students who didn't do anything extra, and are now slaving away writing some internal purchase order management system for XYZ corp (in Java)--someone has to do that stuff.
But the majority of programmers are those mediocre students who didn't do anything extra, and are now slaving away writing some internal purchase order management system for XYZ corp (in Java)--someone has to do that stuff.
I suppose you are probably right. I guess where I am coming from is that I am not convinced that there isn't a labour shortage just because there are a ton of those mediocre Java-slaves bouncing around.
You know why schools teach kids Java/C (the lingua francas of computing) rather than the latest hot 5-min fad? Because it doesn't matter. The kids are taught those languages simply to enable the teaching of computer science theory and software engineering.
This is the way it should be. You will learn new tech as needed your entire career, if you have the right preparation it should be a no brainer. You need to learn the theory once. Outside of the west coast most companies realize this and invest in training as needed.
It is the hipster too cool for school startup kids that have things wrong. They never went to school, they don't realize that picking up their favorite $language is trivial for anyone with the proper background and just a means to an ends, writing useful software.
>>Startups don't hire new grads because they can ramp up faster, they hire them because they don't have families to take up their time, so they don't mind working 80 hours a week for peanuts.
This, although foreign workers can be appealing for some of the same reasons.
This is the way it should be. You will learn new tech as needed your entire career, if you have the right preparation it should be a no brainer. You need to learn the theory once. Outside of the west coast most companies realize this and invest in training as needed.
It is the hipster too cool for school startup kids that have things wrong. They never went to school, they don't realize that picking up their favorite $language is trivial for anyone with the proper background and just a means to an ends, writing useful software.
>>Startups don't hire new grads because they can ramp up faster, they hire them because they don't have families to take up their time, so they don't mind working 80 hours a week for peanuts.
This, although foreign workers can be appealing for some of the same reasons.
for those who need clarification of what counts as STEM for immigration purposes
http://www.ice.gov/sevis/stemlist.htm http://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/stem-list.pdf
http://www.ice.gov/sevis/stemlist.htm http://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/stem-list.pdf
Thank you for that list, Samirahmed. That was substantially more broad than I expected.
TIL - STEM as defined by the government apparently includes:
- Agricultural Animal Breeding
- Livestock Management
- Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering Technology/Technician
- Explosive Ordinance/Bomb Disposal
TIL - STEM as defined by the government apparently includes:
- Agricultural Animal Breeding
- Livestock Management
- Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering Technology/Technician
- Explosive Ordinance/Bomb Disposal
"Be careful trusting data from the EPI, a left/labor/economic-protectionist think tank."
Thankfully there are no thinktanks that are willing to fudge the existing data to "prove" the opposite to serve their interests.
Thankfully there are no thinktanks that are willing to fudge the existing data to "prove" the opposite to serve their interests.
A little of topic but...
Having read the comments here and many blog posts on HN on this subject it seems that many recent graduates are not up to scratch with what the industry expects.
Yet a degree is required to obtain a H1-B visa or 12 years (IIRC) work experience, could the removal of this requirement ever possibly be lobbied for with judgement left up to the potential employer?
I realise that a degree is used as a general quality standard in immigration processes but this seems like a situation in which it could actually be detrimental.
Note: I'm from the UK, I see the same problems here and I'm curious about the U.S situation.
Having read the comments here and many blog posts on HN on this subject it seems that many recent graduates are not up to scratch with what the industry expects.
Yet a degree is required to obtain a H1-B visa or 12 years (IIRC) work experience, could the removal of this requirement ever possibly be lobbied for with judgement left up to the potential employer?
I realise that a degree is used as a general quality standard in immigration processes but this seems like a situation in which it could actually be detrimental.
Note: I'm from the UK, I see the same problems here and I'm curious about the U.S situation.
From what I understand, companies are currently asking for the H1-B visa quotas to be increased. This suggests that they are finding plenty of people to hire who qualify for an H1-B visa but there are simply not enough visas to go around. With this in mind, dropping the degree requirement is probably not necessary yet.
This piece fails due to a logical fallacy: the fallacy of composition. What is good for each scientist or engineer is a higher salary, but this is not necessarily good for all of them, or the rest of a country.
Perhaps having more scientists and engineers would depress their salaries, (though this is not necessarily true,) while increasing the country's total productivity, and making the average citizen richer.
So this article proves nothing, and fails to clearly define what they mean by shortage.
Perhaps having more scientists and engineers would depress their salaries, (though this is not necessarily true,) while increasing the country's total productivity, and making the average citizen richer.
So this article proves nothing, and fails to clearly define what they mean by shortage.
The problem with this whole discussion is that it is lumping all STEM graduates together. There is really only high demand for CS and some engineering fields. There is a surplus of graduates in many of the other fields that are categorized under STEM. When someone says there is a shortage of STEM graduates, they are really only talking about the T & E, they aren't talking about the S & M.
There is a shortage of technical specialists in computer programming. It seems that companies are reluctant to train local workers. Startups like to show growth by listing jobs, but they only want "rock stars" so the positions sit unfilled. This saves on labor costs and signals a growing business. It gives an artificial view of the job market however.
What kind of training would a company offer? CS is one of those disciplines where wealth of materials, books, documentation, videos and working code examples are available online, for free or at pretty reasonable prices.
Why would you sign up to waste a day at New Horizons listening to some drone over-explaining stored procedures on a whiteboard?
Why would you sign up to waste a day at New Horizons listening to some drone over-explaining stored procedures on a whiteboard?
I'm confused by their conflation of STEM (in particular CS) grads and IT workers.
For example they say, “For computer science graduates employed one year after graduation . . . about half of those who took a job outside of IT say they did so because the career prospects were better elsewhere, and roughly a third because they couldn’t find a job in IT,”
None of the people who work in the IT department at my company have CS degrees. They have, however, held various sysadmin and programming positions, and do a bloody good job running our IT. I'm not sure we'd hire a fresh-out-of-school CS grad for our IT jobs if they didn't have any experience doing sysadmin or equipment / facility maintenance stuff.
None of the people who work in the IT department at my company have CS degrees. They have, however, held various sysadmin and programming positions, and do a bloody good job running our IT. I'm not sure we'd hire a fresh-out-of-school CS grad for our IT jobs if they didn't have any experience doing sysadmin or equipment / facility maintenance stuff.
Companies that aren't in the tech industry usually lump their programmers (for their web site, or internal process tools) into the IT dept. Still, the conflation of terms in this article makes it hard to understand what it's really saying; most interpretations I can make are just hard to believe.
Yep. My official title is IT Technical Specialist 2 - but I'm an iOS Developer if we're playing with words that actually mean something when said together. Funny enough though, I don't have a CS degree, I have an Art degree. Though everyone I work with is either CS or ECE.
I'd be really interested in finding out how that study defines "IT". And also how it defines "STEM job". Would being a quant on Wall Street be considered a "STEM job", for instance?
good question, its probably much broader than you would expect... I think quant would fall under
27.0305 financial math
see the official list here
http://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/stem-list.pdf
27.0305 financial math
see the official list here
http://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/stem-list.pdf
It's the same old, same old: It's an
old story that somehow too many powerful
people in the US Federal Government want
to do 'US national technical manpower
management'.
E.g., when Sputnik went up, the Feds via the NSF flooded US high school and college education with money, scholarships, summer programs, etc. to get more US citizens into STEM fields.
During the Cold War and the Space Race, STEM students were paid nearly well enough to buy a house; then the powers that be got really scared.
But, with the stimulus, soon the supply exceeded the demand; US citizens who walked into a college STEM course saw the TA and half of the students from Asia or India, turned, and walked out.
So, right: Joe and Mary paid taxes to support public education K-college and graduate school. For their children they struggled to meet college expenses. And when their children went to college, somehow they found lots of students there from India and Asia. How come? These students were from families with annual incomes less than $10,000 yet somehow got their children into the college supported by the taxes of Joe and Mary when Joe and Mary had to struggle to pay for their children in that college? Bummer. Sure: The students from India and China were there on various scholarships, indirectly paid for by Joe and Mary. Bummer. Ripoff.
During the Viet Nam war, the head of the Selective Service system was old General Louis B. Hershey with the remark that "The US Selective Service System has national manpower management responsibilities far exceeding staffing the armed forces." by which he meant that US young men had two, just two, options, (1) do well in college or graduate school in STEM fields or (2) go to Viet Nam. Of course, that 'responsibility' was only in his egotistical imagination; still he executed on his delusion.
Later much of the US 'military industrial complex' concluded that there was a US STEM shortage. So, the powers that be got the NSF to set up a team of economists to calculate, with essentially supply and demand curves, how much 'stimulus' would be needed to increase the labor supply.
The stimulus didn't work well for US citizens, so the plan was to write into research grants in US research universities that with the grant money so many students had to be supported and that, hint, hint, there were plenty of willing students from India and Asia, hint, hint.
Then there got to be the H1B scam, mostly just a new version of 'indentured servitude' or 'slave labor'.
Basically, anytime STEM worker bees get paid well enough to buy a house, big forces in the US move to flood the market with STEM graduates.
It's dirt simple: It's capital versus labor. Capital has power and wants cheap labor.
These US powers that be are just seeking more money and power and, net, are seriously hurting the basic strength of the US.
The solution is for US voters to become informed and come together and vote for the US for the US as a whole and not just for the 1% richest capitalists.
Of course there's more at Prof. Norm Matloff's
E.g., when Sputnik went up, the Feds via the NSF flooded US high school and college education with money, scholarships, summer programs, etc. to get more US citizens into STEM fields.
During the Cold War and the Space Race, STEM students were paid nearly well enough to buy a house; then the powers that be got really scared.
But, with the stimulus, soon the supply exceeded the demand; US citizens who walked into a college STEM course saw the TA and half of the students from Asia or India, turned, and walked out.
So, right: Joe and Mary paid taxes to support public education K-college and graduate school. For their children they struggled to meet college expenses. And when their children went to college, somehow they found lots of students there from India and Asia. How come? These students were from families with annual incomes less than $10,000 yet somehow got their children into the college supported by the taxes of Joe and Mary when Joe and Mary had to struggle to pay for their children in that college? Bummer. Sure: The students from India and China were there on various scholarships, indirectly paid for by Joe and Mary. Bummer. Ripoff.
During the Viet Nam war, the head of the Selective Service system was old General Louis B. Hershey with the remark that "The US Selective Service System has national manpower management responsibilities far exceeding staffing the armed forces." by which he meant that US young men had two, just two, options, (1) do well in college or graduate school in STEM fields or (2) go to Viet Nam. Of course, that 'responsibility' was only in his egotistical imagination; still he executed on his delusion.
Later much of the US 'military industrial complex' concluded that there was a US STEM shortage. So, the powers that be got the NSF to set up a team of economists to calculate, with essentially supply and demand curves, how much 'stimulus' would be needed to increase the labor supply.
The stimulus didn't work well for US citizens, so the plan was to write into research grants in US research universities that with the grant money so many students had to be supported and that, hint, hint, there were plenty of willing students from India and Asia, hint, hint.
Then there got to be the H1B scam, mostly just a new version of 'indentured servitude' or 'slave labor'.
Basically, anytime STEM worker bees get paid well enough to buy a house, big forces in the US move to flood the market with STEM graduates.
It's dirt simple: It's capital versus labor. Capital has power and wants cheap labor.
These US powers that be are just seeking more money and power and, net, are seriously hurting the basic strength of the US.
The solution is for US voters to become informed and come together and vote for the US for the US as a whole and not just for the 1% richest capitalists.
Of course there's more at Prof. Norm Matloff's
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.htmlSo crude as to be worthless. I'll pick one:
"The students from India and China were there on various scholarships, indirectly paid for by Joe and Mary. Bummer."
I went to Cornell. The undergrads from India and China were often from extremely wealthy families (far more so than the average undergrad). They were typically paying close to full boat to an Ivy League school, after all. Currently, here's the guidance on scholarships for international undergrads:
"Cornell has a limited amount of funding available for international undergraduates, only 30-40 scholarships are awarded to students in each entering class."
That's out of an entering class of 3300, 19% of which were international -- meaning maybe 1 in 20 had a scholarship. For calibration, the Indian undergrad I knew best was in the immediate family of the president of Tata group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Group -- $100B in revenue).
Now, at some level Cornell was eager to get people of that ilk, just as prospects for future giving. No telling how much special treatment they might get. But in no way was the typical Indian/Chinese undergrad on scholarship (as the figures above indicate).
*
The picture changes dramatically, of course, if you consider international grad students. These were typically supported by research assistantships or teaching assistantships. But in either case, they were being paid the same ~10K/year as "domestic help" (like me) to do work on government-sponsored research projects (advancing US government interests -- NSF, NIH, and DARPA aren't charities), or to grade papers and hold tutorial sessions.
But that's poorly paid, the same deal as offered anyone (US or international). In fact, while there, I held a US government fellowship (NSF) that was closed to foreign students. It was paid for by your hypothetical Joe and Mary.
*
I think you do have a point that the H1B program is, in many areas, employer-driven to depress wages. But your surrounding narrative is wrong.
"The students from India and China were there on various scholarships, indirectly paid for by Joe and Mary. Bummer."
I went to Cornell. The undergrads from India and China were often from extremely wealthy families (far more so than the average undergrad). They were typically paying close to full boat to an Ivy League school, after all. Currently, here's the guidance on scholarships for international undergrads:
"Cornell has a limited amount of funding available for international undergraduates, only 30-40 scholarships are awarded to students in each entering class."
That's out of an entering class of 3300, 19% of which were international -- meaning maybe 1 in 20 had a scholarship. For calibration, the Indian undergrad I knew best was in the immediate family of the president of Tata group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Group -- $100B in revenue).
Now, at some level Cornell was eager to get people of that ilk, just as prospects for future giving. No telling how much special treatment they might get. But in no way was the typical Indian/Chinese undergrad on scholarship (as the figures above indicate).
*
The picture changes dramatically, of course, if you consider international grad students. These were typically supported by research assistantships or teaching assistantships. But in either case, they were being paid the same ~10K/year as "domestic help" (like me) to do work on government-sponsored research projects (advancing US government interests -- NSF, NIH, and DARPA aren't charities), or to grade papers and hold tutorial sessions.
But that's poorly paid, the same deal as offered anyone (US or international). In fact, while there, I held a US government fellowship (NSF) that was closed to foreign students. It was paid for by your hypothetical Joe and Mary.
*
I think you do have a point that the H1B program is, in many areas, employer-driven to depress wages. But your surrounding narrative is wrong.
> The students from India and China were there on various scholarships, indirectly paid for by Joe and Mary. Bummer. Ripoff.
Wait, are you saying someone like me from the third world can get a scholarship in the US from the US government?
Wish I had known that a few years ago. The people I know who studied in the US either did so out of pocket or via scholarships granted here in my country by local bodies.
Wait, are you saying someone like me from the third world can get a scholarship in the US from the US government?
Wish I had known that a few years ago. The people I know who studied in the US either did so out of pocket or via scholarships granted here in my country by local bodies.
Look, in a US college or university, essentially
no student ever pays for the full cost. One-third
is about the most a student pays. Instead
the institution gets money from taxes, research
grants, gifts, the endowment, and a few others. Essentially
all the money coming in is from US citizens or
US taxes from US citizens. So, the US is paying for those institutions.
If a student from outside the US gets accepted, arrives, and does well, then typically they can get a scholarship. So, who's paying for their education? Not the student, or their family. Instead their education is being paid for by US citizens or US taxes. Even if the foreign student doesn't get a scholarship, likely two-thirds or more of their education is being paid for by US citizens, not the student.
When I was in one graduate school, a Midwest state university, somehow there were a lot of students from India there. That university was expensive for students from that state and much more expensive for any students from other states. A year there could cost as much as a new US car. Today that would be ballpark $40,000. How is a family in India going to come up with $40,000 to send their child to a US university for one year?
Given the currency exchange rates at the time between India and the US, tough for me to believe that people in India were paying for those students from India at out of state rates at that university. I believe I know where the money was coming from, some special program of the US State Department. So, it was US taxpayers, struggling to get their own children through college, paying for the college educations of students from India. Why? Because somehow some people at the US State Department believed that somehow it was good for their effort to 'organize the world' to take money from US citizens and use it to educate students in a distant, poor country.
At another university, I had a graduate scholarship for my Ph.D. The students were good but were nearly all US citizens and not very many of them. At one point a prof confided in me that the department had a lot of tuition scholarships going to waste: US citizens who were good students didn't want to come, and the department didn't like the quality of the applications from foreign students. But, whether the student was US or foreign, the cost, no doubt very expensive for the professors, buildings, supplies, overhead, was being paid for by US citizens.
Let me be even more clear: The list of the world's top few dozen research universities is dominated by the US, e.g., Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Brown, Yale, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, ..., University of Chicago, ..., Berkeley, Stanford, and Cal Tech. Now, they are 'research universities' which means that heavily what they do is research. The research is mostly paid for by research grants, and those are heavily from the US NSF and NIH. The grants are very competitive. It is standard for a university to take, as I recall, about 60% of the grant money for 'overhead'. Hint, hint, that's how the English department gets funded, along with the student center, the string quartet series, the limo for the president, the concert hall, the lawn care, the bronze statues of earlier presidents, the fountains, etc. And that 60% number tends to come up again -- about 60% of the budget of the university can come from such research grants. YMMV, but look up details in the annual reports of the top research universities. So, it's clear: Those research universities, right down to the grass mowing, are being paid for heavily by the US Federal Government from tax money from US citizens. Any student, US or foreign, however much they are paying, is getting most of their education paid for by US tax payers.
Then a question for US taxpayers is, why should they, struggling to get their own children through college, be paying for the educations of students in distant countries?
If you went to a well known US college or university, no matter how much you paid (maybe there are some exceptions for students from some Mideast oil kingdoms), most of your education was paid for by US citizens, via gifts or taxes.
If a student from outside the US gets accepted, arrives, and does well, then typically they can get a scholarship. So, who's paying for their education? Not the student, or their family. Instead their education is being paid for by US citizens or US taxes. Even if the foreign student doesn't get a scholarship, likely two-thirds or more of their education is being paid for by US citizens, not the student.
When I was in one graduate school, a Midwest state university, somehow there were a lot of students from India there. That university was expensive for students from that state and much more expensive for any students from other states. A year there could cost as much as a new US car. Today that would be ballpark $40,000. How is a family in India going to come up with $40,000 to send their child to a US university for one year?
Given the currency exchange rates at the time between India and the US, tough for me to believe that people in India were paying for those students from India at out of state rates at that university. I believe I know where the money was coming from, some special program of the US State Department. So, it was US taxpayers, struggling to get their own children through college, paying for the college educations of students from India. Why? Because somehow some people at the US State Department believed that somehow it was good for their effort to 'organize the world' to take money from US citizens and use it to educate students in a distant, poor country.
At another university, I had a graduate scholarship for my Ph.D. The students were good but were nearly all US citizens and not very many of them. At one point a prof confided in me that the department had a lot of tuition scholarships going to waste: US citizens who were good students didn't want to come, and the department didn't like the quality of the applications from foreign students. But, whether the student was US or foreign, the cost, no doubt very expensive for the professors, buildings, supplies, overhead, was being paid for by US citizens.
Let me be even more clear: The list of the world's top few dozen research universities is dominated by the US, e.g., Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Brown, Yale, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, ..., University of Chicago, ..., Berkeley, Stanford, and Cal Tech. Now, they are 'research universities' which means that heavily what they do is research. The research is mostly paid for by research grants, and those are heavily from the US NSF and NIH. The grants are very competitive. It is standard for a university to take, as I recall, about 60% of the grant money for 'overhead'. Hint, hint, that's how the English department gets funded, along with the student center, the string quartet series, the limo for the president, the concert hall, the lawn care, the bronze statues of earlier presidents, the fountains, etc. And that 60% number tends to come up again -- about 60% of the budget of the university can come from such research grants. YMMV, but look up details in the annual reports of the top research universities. So, it's clear: Those research universities, right down to the grass mowing, are being paid for heavily by the US Federal Government from tax money from US citizens. Any student, US or foreign, however much they are paying, is getting most of their education paid for by US tax payers.
Then a question for US taxpayers is, why should they, struggling to get their own children through college, be paying for the educations of students in distant countries?
If you went to a well known US college or university, no matter how much you paid (maybe there are some exceptions for students from some Mideast oil kingdoms), most of your education was paid for by US citizens, via gifts or taxes.
You're guessing that these students are somehow federally subsidized, but if you're going to make that assumption, you need to actually substantiate it before composing an elaborate fiction of government malfeasance to explain it.
For many US colleges, foreign students are a profit center, because they pay "full fare." Which is why a lot of schools purposely recruit overseas students to help subsidize US students:
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/16/134585499/U-S-Schools-Hire-Com... http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-11-...
There are over a billion people in India. The fact that some tiny percentage of them can afford to go to school in the US should be entirely unsurprising, regardless of how low their median income is. Don't just assume that "Indians must be poor, because their country is poor."
For many US colleges, foreign students are a profit center, because they pay "full fare." Which is why a lot of schools purposely recruit overseas students to help subsidize US students:
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/16/134585499/U-S-Schools-Hire-Com... http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-11-...
There are over a billion people in India. The fact that some tiny percentage of them can afford to go to school in the US should be entirely unsurprising, regardless of how low their median income is. Don't just assume that "Indians must be poor, because their country is poor."
> How is a family in India going to come up with $40,000 to send their child to a US university for one year?
You're kidding right? There are tens of thousands of millionaires (in US$ terms) in India. You only ever see the cream of the crop from India in your US universities... rich kids from wealthy families.
You're kidding right? There are tens of thousands of millionaires (in US$ terms) in India. You only ever see the cream of the crop from India in your US universities... rich kids from wealthy families.
The world has changed. There are a ton of well-off families in China and India, and most foreign students pay much higher tuition than Americans at this point (out-of-state tuition). This makes for a non-trivial contribution to most university budgets. The higher cost of tuition for these students is another reason for the bias towards STEM majors.
This comment seems slightly overwrought and racist to me, specially this part, "US citizens who walked into a college STEM course saw the TA and half of the students from Asia or India, turned, and walked out." -- Really?
I don't see an option to downvote here, but if I could, I would definitely do that for this.
I don't see an option to downvote here, but if I could, I would definitely do that for this.
You need more karma to downvote.
Otherwise, it seems to me more like graycat is describing racism, but you can't tell greycat would support it based on that comment.
Otherwise, it seems to me more like graycat is describing racism, but you can't tell greycat would support it based on that comment.
I'll put it to you this way: I'm of Western European descent, England and Germany. Still, no way do I want
the US Federal Government to flood US STEM classes with
students from England and Germany. This view is not racism.
Here is one thing it really is: The US is getting badly hurt in the world economy. The real unemployment rate is ballpark 20%. The US is creating boom times in several other countries.
Well, one way for the US to help itself is for the US to continue to have a great college and university system and, then, keep those educations for US citizens. That is, US citizens are paying for those institutions and, thus, should be able to 'keep' the 'intellectual property' and other advantages inside the US. So, it is now strongly in the interest of US citizens to move not to let any foreign students in US colleges or universities.
It is in the interest of US tax payers to pay to educate the US but not the world that wants to compete with the US economy.
Here is one thing it really is: The US is getting badly hurt in the world economy. The real unemployment rate is ballpark 20%. The US is creating boom times in several other countries.
Well, one way for the US to help itself is for the US to continue to have a great college and university system and, then, keep those educations for US citizens. That is, US citizens are paying for those institutions and, thus, should be able to 'keep' the 'intellectual property' and other advantages inside the US. So, it is now strongly in the interest of US citizens to move not to let any foreign students in US colleges or universities.
It is in the interest of US tax payers to pay to educate the US but not the world that wants to compete with the US economy.
In contrast, British universities are actually financed by the oversees students.
By keeping good education for a select few only, you do not actually help the US absolutely, you just make the other people less well off. (And even the US, but perhaps less so.)
By keeping good education for a select few only, you do not actually help the US absolutely, you just make the other people less well off. (And even the US, but perhaps less so.)
It's not "racist". It's just that
the US citizens quickly saw that they
didn't 'fit in'. So, they became afraid,
rightly so, that somehow it was a game
that promised not to be good for US
citizens. And that fear was correct.
The US citizens just saw that they didn't fit in and turned, which is just what they should have done. There are lots of situations where a person might not fit in, and racism need have nothing to do with it.
Or, where were all the other US citizens that one would expect would be the TA and the students? Were they all racists? Or did they just see or sense something wrong?
There was something wrong, very wrong: The labor supply was being manipulated in DC. It was a rigged game and not what it looked like superficially. When see such a situation, don't ignore the obvious and wait 20 years to discover the details of how DC rigged the game and, instead, just sense that something's wrong and leave.
I saw situations where the division was really clear: Essentially all the worker bees were from India or Asia, and essentially all the managers were US citizens, white of Western European descent. In that situation, got to be from Asia or India to apply for a slot even as a worker bee -- US citizens of Western European descent need not apply. Period.
Look, set aside your PC sensitivities for a second and look at some simple reality: A big theme in the US from Alexis de Tocqueville on is for the US to create an identifiable, exploited underclass. That's what's going on here. Given that such an exploited underclass has been created, then other people don't 'fit in' and will not be welcome, especially by the higher ups. Again, it's not racism, especially on the part of the guy who sees that he doesn't fit in, turns, and walks; instead, it's reality.
The US citizens just saw that they didn't fit in and turned, which is just what they should have done. There are lots of situations where a person might not fit in, and racism need have nothing to do with it.
Or, where were all the other US citizens that one would expect would be the TA and the students? Were they all racists? Or did they just see or sense something wrong?
There was something wrong, very wrong: The labor supply was being manipulated in DC. It was a rigged game and not what it looked like superficially. When see such a situation, don't ignore the obvious and wait 20 years to discover the details of how DC rigged the game and, instead, just sense that something's wrong and leave.
I saw situations where the division was really clear: Essentially all the worker bees were from India or Asia, and essentially all the managers were US citizens, white of Western European descent. In that situation, got to be from Asia or India to apply for a slot even as a worker bee -- US citizens of Western European descent need not apply. Period.
Look, set aside your PC sensitivities for a second and look at some simple reality: A big theme in the US from Alexis de Tocqueville on is for the US to create an identifiable, exploited underclass. That's what's going on here. Given that such an exploited underclass has been created, then other people don't 'fit in' and will not be welcome, especially by the higher ups. Again, it's not racism, especially on the part of the guy who sees that he doesn't fit in, turns, and walks; instead, it's reality.
How could someone "see" the citizenships of the non-white students? And that's not racist?
[deleted]
- Talking about all STEM graduates as equal is pointless, because some people are useless and some are amazing.
- Talking about STEM in general is useless, because software is booming, and nothing else really is.
- Talking about all H1B jobs as the same is also bollox: half are employed by infosys (etc) as low cost (and low quality) contractors to avoid paying a fair wage (against the rules of the H1B program as I understand it). However, Google and Facebook (etc) are paying them great salaries, equal to what they pay US employees (even though the expenses are higher with visa and relocation costs).
So startups and high growth companies are being starved of great talent, because chemists can't find jobs and Infosys is trying to depress wages of low-quality IT workers? Makes no sense.