
The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage - chflamplighter
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2013/07/the-bogus-high-tech-worker-sho.html
======
pg
It's not bogus. Many if not most of the big high tech companies have open
positions they can't find people for.

If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article's reasoning, it's in
the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all you
have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you want.

Whereas the reason there are open positions for programmers at high tech
companies is that these companies want star programmers, and you can't train
people to be stars. Someone asking why we need to hire programmers from other
countries might just as well ask why Real Madrid has to hire so many non-
Spanish players. Can't they just train more Spanish players to play at the
level they need?

Incidentally, when I first started to see these articles a few weeks ago (I
don't know if it was this one or another one like it), I was curious why
anyone would put so much effort into saying something false. It turns out the
authors work for something called the Economic Policy Institute, which is
funded by a consortium of labor unions. I was a little puzzled that unions
would care about this, since none of these programmers are unionized. I
suppose they must see it as the thin end of the wedge.

~~~
achompas
_If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article 's reasoning, it's
in the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all
you have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you
want._

What about the assertion that companies are struggling to fill these roles
because (a) they demand more from potential candidates while (b) offering no
more in wages than what we saw 10 years ago (edit: _15 years ago_ , according
to Salzman et al. [1])? For example,

"Or is the hidden truth quite simply that large supplies of guest workers
allow many firms to swap out higher-paid, high-skill domestic workers for
lower-paid, high-skill guest workers?"

The article spends very little time arguing for the training of Xes and much
more time arguing for higher wages for potential Xes. This gets rehashed on HN
all the time: offer Xes more, and maybe they won't roll over to finance
instead of accepting your offer.

\---

RESPONSE TO PG'S EDIT: discrediting the source is kind of misguided for two
reasons: (1) their wage data comes from the Census Bureau (see pg. 19 of [1])
and (2) the Brookings Institution essentially agrees with the EPI [2]:

"[I]t is likely that the extra supply of foreign-born workers does bring
downward pressure on the wages of incumbent workers, as research suggests."

I don't think you could accuse Brookings or the Census Bureau of having a
similar agenda.

\---

FINAL EDIT: PBS quoted Brookings out of context, and I took it at face value.
The paper doesn't support the EPI's findings, and the full Brookings quote is
below:

 _From a theoretical standpoint, it is likely that the extra supply of
foreign-born workers does bring downward pressure on the wages of incumbent
workers, as research suggests.20 Yet, it appears that demand is so strong
relative to supply that even the inflow of H-1B workers is not enough to meet
the demand of U.S. companies and push wage growth down to normal levels._

Ugh. Apologies to PG and HN for citing this blindly.

[1] [http://www.epi.org/publication/bp359-guestworkers-high-
skill...](http://www.epi.org/publication/bp359-guestworkers-high-skill-labor-
market-analysis/)

[2]
[http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/05/10-h1b-visa...](http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/05/10-h1b-visas-
stem-rothwell-ruiz)

~~~
pg
The finance companies competing for programmers are also American. So even
assuming that SV companies could draw star programmers away from Goldman Sachs
by paying them more, there would still be exactly the same net shortage of
them in the US.

~~~
don_draper
The finance companies pay considerably more than Silicon Valley companies thus
don't have the same problem with filling positions as SV does. Do you disagree
with that?

Search 'finance companies lobby h1b visa'. Nothing Then search 'bay area
companies lobby h1b visa'. Tons of results.

~~~
pg
I don't know whether finance companies pay or whether they have less problem
hiring people. But what difference would it make it that were the case? We're
talking about the same pool of people. The specific companies where the
shortfall appears doesn't make any difference to the argument for immigration.

~~~
muzz
If price is allowed to rise, demand drops.

~~~
danmaz74
Price is already allowed to rise. Any company can offer a higher salary to its
engineering candidates.

~~~
muzz
Great, so the market-clearing level should be reached and there is neither
shortage nor surplus.

------
tseabrooks
I've said it before, I'll say it again. Every coding job I've ever been in has
ben "Always hiring". We just can't find enough people worth hiring.

We have been small groups, not pursuing H1-B visas or anything and it's
possible H1B's are being given grunt work... However, the graph in this
article, and really the central tenent that "we have so many tech workers not
being hired, hire them first" is complete malarkey. I've gone to Undergrad and
grad school. I've TA'd... The fact that even two thirds of those students find
jobs (As the article claims) astounds me. Thats a higher number than I'd
imagine. In two years TAing at a large research university I think I saw maybe
4 students I'd hire go through the program.

------
nazgulnarsil
What if employers aren't being "picky". What if deterioration in academic
standards means most graduates are not competent? A CS graduate being unable
to do fizzbuzz is a travesty, and should be grounds for a school losing their
accreditation if widely seen.

~~~
dvt
Academia has (literally) nothing to do with real-life software engineering. I
hope I'm not bursting your bubble, but if you think otherwise you're severely
mistaken.

~~~
jmduke
Academia has an awful lot to do with real-life software engineering. It might
not be as good of a preparation as spending those four years in internships or
as a junior developer, but saying that there's (literally) no difference
between the software engineering capabilities of a CS grad and an English grad
is hyperbole.

~~~
megrimlock
Meta: One funny thing about online discussions is that the activation energy
required to make a post means they tend to be by people with extreme
positions. The same phenomenon that leads to bimodal amazon review
distributions of 1 star / 4.5 stars, or blog posts about how golang
sucks/rules, means that an open-minded reader needs to continuously apply this
huge smoothing windowed filter over the point-sampled views you read.

Some schools give good industrial training; some are still bemused that
machines _exist_ that perform the computations that are so fascinating to
study in the abstract. We need both. It's true that schools can't manufacture
stars, but they can help train those with latent ability, just as Real Madrid
players are certainly helped by coming up through smaller teams.

Likewise, some places (YC startups, or forward-looking splinter groups in
larger industry) need rock stars who can do a lot; but there's a huge swathe
of megacorps that just need warm bodies that can tab-complete API calls; the
problem with debates like this is that arguments are so rarely anchored by a
clear context. Are we doomed to always argue straight past one another?

~~~
vonmoltke
_Likewise, some places (YC startups, or forward-looking splinter groups in
larger industry) need rock stars who can do a lot; but there 's a huge swathe
of megacorps that just need warm bodies that can tab-complete API calls; the
problem with debates like this is that arguments are so rarely anchored by a
clear context. Are we doomed to always argue straight past one another?_

Speaking of context, in many discussions on this and related topics here I see
many contrasts like this raised. There is a vast gulf between startups that
(truly) need rock stars and corporations that need IDE monkeys. There is a
vast gulf between top programmers who read CS papers for fun and implement
problems in 8 different languages out of curiosity, and "programmers" who
can't even write FizzBuzz in pseudocode. In these discussions, I get the
impression that this segment is either nonexistent or is so small it doesn't
matter. As someone in that segment, it make me question if I should be in this
industry. If the industry truly has a programmer shortage, I would think that
is a poor impression to give.

------
tosseraccount
Good overview by Professor Norm Matloff :
[http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html](http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html)

Please note that his work is backed up research, please consult the links on
his site.

~~~
tosseraccount
To the person that modded down, do you have a specific objection to the
research presented by Professor Matloff?

------
asr2bd
Sure we may be graduating more STEM students, but I really hate when studies
like this assume all students of a given field are equally talented. I'd say
my university had a good CS program, but maybe 1/3 of our CS majors would get
hired at top tech companies (Amazon, Twitter, Microsoft, etc) and get those
really high salaries.

At the end of the day it's much easier to import top talent to fill the gap
than to cultivate more of it in the U.S. Some companies like HackerSchool are
popping up to address this need, but there's a long way to go.

~~~
stdgy
But the number of new jobs at Microsoft/Twitter/Amazon pale in comparison to
the number of new jobs in the domestic industry as a whole.

In fact, the vast majority of foreign worker visas aren't snatched up by the
tech goliaths. They're snapped up by low-tier consulting companies. [1]

Google may be forced to look abroad to find rock star programmers, but the
overwhelming majority of foreign workers brought in to the country are not
rock star programmers. They're rather low paid consultants.

1:
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/04/03/176134...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/04/03/176134694/Whos-
Hiring-H1-B-Visa-Workers-Its-Not-Who-You-Might-Think)

------
badman_ting
Good points here, but anyone trying to hire good tech talent knows how hard it
can be. "Has a degree" and "qualified" aren't even in the same ballpark, but
they seem to be conflated here.

I am interested in the salary thing, though. I think there is at least a
little bit of companies bemoaning the fact that they can't find a person to
fulfill rock-star expectations on a junior salary. It's macro 101, if there
isn't enough supply then increase the price.

------
lukeschlather
I don't have a problem with the guest worker programs, but I think the way
they are implemented is seriously screwed up for a number of reasons.

The laws are written so that guest workers are basically indentured servants
to the companies they work for. Furthermore, we basically give guest workers 6
years of well-compensated on the job training after which point we say "go
home and enrich your home economy." If I were to say the things that need to
be fixed:

1\. Once you've been working at a company for a year, you should be free to
remain in the country whether you have work or not. Companies shouldn't be
able to hold you hostage. Companies should probably even have to sponsor you
for some sort of H1B level 2 to keep you around past 1 year. (Bear in mind,
I'm not looking for the current bureaucratic nightmare, I'm looking for
companies to have to give guest workers their freedom well in advance of the
current six-year mark.)

2\. If you've been gainfully employed in the country for three years under an
H1B, you should get a green card automatically. No waiting around, no nothing.

If we do this, wages will rise naturally, and we'll see whether companies have
a legitimate shortage or they're just looking for cheap labor.

~~~
pbiggar
I call bullshit. I was a H1B worker, and "indentured servitude" has no basis
in reality. The job market is amazing. If I need a new job, I can literally
walk into one in 5 days (eg. the time I did exactly that).

That said, points 1 and 2 are definitely worthwhile. But you're devaluing your
points when you compare a high paying job with some annoying visa clauses,
with indentured servitude. Indentured servitude is really serious: it's like
when people talk about "raping" the environment. Don't make the comparison, it
serves no-one.

------
nightski
The fact is that, as a computer programmer I don't even have to look for a job
currently. I am surrounded by job opportunities and freelance contracts. Very
high paying ones at that. So if there is indeed not a shortage, then I am
missing something. But life is good currently for developers.

More importantly, the answer to the shortage in the long term should not be to
try to get more of the same. Our real goal as computer scientists should be in
making our own jobs more efficient. We need to empower more users to have
control to manipulate the machine they are using instead of entrenching us
deeper into this never ending hole of proprietary software that continually
re-invents the wheel and never works precisely how the user would like.

More concretely, we need to automate programming by making it more accessible
to everyone and eliminate our own jobs.

------
meritt
The real problem is college degrees, especially ones from foreign countries
where cheating is not only commonplace but actively encouraged, provide little
to zero value in a tech sector that actually expects people to be useful. The
education system needs a dramatic revamping (in innumerable ways) if it wants
to churn out workers capable of these jobs. Trying to compare # of jobs to #
of useless degrees is, unsurprisingly, a useless exercise.

This is why there's such a staggeringly large number of tech-all-stars whose
education & experience comes from non-traditional places.

------
ArtDev
I feel sorry for my fellow H1B workers who can't leave for a higher salary
elsewhere. I fell more sorry for myself and American coworkers stuck in short-
term contracts with zero benefits.

------
tosseraccount
If I want a prime rib-eye steak for $5 and can find it, is there a beef
shortage?

~~~
tosseraccount
Okay, I"ll rephrase it.

Has any study not sponsored by the Industry shown that there is a "labor
shortage" in STEM fields?

------
cuillevel3
Is it true IT wages are stagnating?

~~~
achompas
This paper

[http://www.epi.org/publication/bp359-guestworkers-high-
skill...](http://www.epi.org/publication/bp359-guestworkers-high-skill-labor-
market-analysis/)

seems to say yes:

"Analyzing new data, drawing on a number of our prior analyses, and reviewing
other studies of wages and employment in the STEM and IT industries, we find
that industry trends are strikingly consistent: ... Wages have remained flat,
with real wages hovering around their late 1990s levels."

EDIT: if you're skeptical of EPI, Brookings also agrees:

[http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/05/10-h1b-visa...](http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/05/10-h1b-visas-
stem-rothwell-ruiz)

DOUBLE EDIT: to echo what I've said in other comments, Brookings disagrees
with EPI's findings. PBS selectively quoted them.

~~~
rogerchucker
Table 2 in the Brookings paper says the _opposite_.

" In recent years, from 2009 to 2011, nominal wage growth for U.S.-born
workers with at least a bachelor’s degree has been high for the most prominent
H-1B occupations. The average native-born worker experienced flat annual
growth in wages over that period (0.0 percent), but wage growth for those in
computer occupations—the largest H-1B category—grew by 1.3 percent each year
since 2009 and 2.7 percent each year since 2000 for those with a bachelor’s
degree. Wage growth was even higher for engineers, with 2.1 percent growth
since 2009 and 3 percent growth since 2000."

~~~
tosseraccount
what about real wages?

------
AsymetricCom
The real issue is obviously lack of control over labor markets. Sure,
dissolving support for unions helped, but we still live in a world where
people can decide where to work and how much they'd like to be paid, and this
has serious repercussions for the long term profitability of corporate
persons.

------
CleanedStar
During the twentieth century, US economists promoting the values of those
controlling production talked about how production was fundamentally
controlled by laws of supply and demand, and economic theories thinking
otherwise were silly.

Yet flying in the face of that is this idea of a "high tech worker shortage".
If there really could be a shortage of high tech workers for longer than a
short period, than the bedrock idea of supply and demand are bogus. Even
miniscule hurdles like visas would mean nothing - if there is a mass of talent
in India and a worldwide demand for that talent, then if visas were a problem,
multinationals and trans-continental consulting firms would just set up there.

There is no high-tech worker shortage. There's a bunch of "idea guys" sitting
around who think how much money they could make if they could hire a bunch of
rock-star programmers on the cheap.

------
rogerchucker
I can't shake the feeling that for this crowd (to which the
authors/researchers belong), the term guest worker has sort of become a code
for "those cheap Indians". I'm also guessing the authors (and most people in
this crowd) have never associated with a guest worker outside of their field
of work.

~~~
badman_ting
I don't necessarily disagree, but I don't see why that shouldn't be just as
true for people on the other side of the issue. As in, "We have a shortage,
let's get some cheap Indians in here."

~~~
rogerchucker
I think it's more of a confluence of "cheap", "perceived engineering smarts"
and "spoken english" for the managers.

------
dillonforrest
LOL, as if academics are more qualified to comment on the tech job market than
hirers.

~~~
tosseraccount
Yeah, but hirers always complain about having to pay for talent. Doesn't
matter what industry.

