

Battling Silicon Valley Wage Suppression - lumens
http://blog.mightyspring.com/post/74827679281/battling-outside-forces-in-employment#

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zcarter
If you suppress prices, you reduce supply. Demand remains high, supply is now
artificially low.

One unspoken benefit of this history of wage suppression is the dearth of
engineering talent today. Rather than high prices signaling an opportunity to
invest in an engineering education, labor market participants should have
rationally chosen different skills and disciplines given the relatively low
perceived market pay.

It stands to reason that engineers are getting paid more now than they
otherwise would be thanks to temporal lags and education costs. If an unrigged
market had been signaling prices that conformed to job market participant's
real demands, the students of yesterday could have recognized better job
opportunities today.

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a8da6b0c91d
The wage suppression and agitation for imported labor has cultural impacts
more serious than supply and demand. The message sinks in that the occupations
are low prestige, regardless of earnings. High prestige occupations don't get
kicked around like that.

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epicureanideal
Isn't the same thing happening with doctors? I see a lot of doctors from
outside the US. I'm not sure what would be a higher prestige profession. I
think the message is that just about everybody gets kicked around.

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DamnYuppie
Those Doctors are eager to come here as the wages for Doctors here is very
high. Also there is a much larger bar to entry for being a Doctor then an
Engineer so there has been a shortage in the US.

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ojbyrne
That started off as a moderately interesting blog post, and...

"Conclusion

Use Mighty Spring! ..."

ended as a thinly disguised advertisement. I think I would have preferred some
indication at the top of the page that the company was offering services
related to the blog post.

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sssantosha
Noted. I work for Mighty Spring and will be done in future.

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goggles99
How about in the present (A little thing called editing).

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sssantosha
Updated!

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gopher1
No more wage suppression cartel? No problem, on to the next schtick; cries for
more H1B's because of a "STEM worker shortage".

Don't fall for it folks, the STEM worker shortage is a myth.

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daniel-cussen
Absolutely. Basic economics: you suppress the price of a good, and there'll be
a shortage.

I could see STEM immigration issues being debated on different merits, but not
on the topic of a shortage. It really takes a lot of gall and dishonesty for
certain Silicon Valley CEO's to, on the one hand, suppress wages, and on the
other, _say that the resulting shortage is because of immigration problems,
when they themselves know the they 're to blame._

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texuf
So, what would have happened had Apple and Google ruthlessly poached from each
other and from every other smaller tech company like Adobe? A few engineers
would have been better for it, but would the companies have attained the
success that they did?

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epistasis
It depends on how you define success. If success is producing better products
that please more customers, I would hazard a guess that they actually
suppressed their success. If success means minimizing short-term labor costs,
then these companies were definitely successful. Minimizing short-term labor
costs is an obvious win for executives, it makes them look good. For
shareholders, its hard to say if they won or lost, due to longer term
potential for harm. For the consumer market, it's probably a loss, because
there could have been better products if companies were willing to poach the
right people to get better products. And for the labor itself, a definite
loss. It's also a loss for the startup community, because there's fewer people
with financial independence to start their own company. And since that's where
a good chunk of innovation happens, I think we all lose out quite a bit.

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tpmike2004
Very Enlightening post!

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tylerjmiller11
I must agree. Some definite things to consider in today's world! Great post -
keep them coming!

