
We need to fill 'new collar' jobs that employers demand: IBM's Rometty - Deinos
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2016/12/13/we-need-fill-new-collar-jobs-employers-demand-ibms-rometty/95382248/
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AndrewKemendo
Maybe I missed it but there was no discussion of what skills go into a "new
collar job."

Maybe it's called that because your job skills will change so frequently, and
your job security is so low that your collar is always "new."

The whole discussion was basically water vapor - 11x increase in [metric]
compared to low income schools. Wow great! What time period, what jobs, what
skill sets etc...?

Sorry for being negative but this is an empty carb article when we need high
protein.

~~~
cwperkins
I think that's exactly it. People need to be adaptable and it's not about
teaching any one particular skillset, but moreso how to become a lifelong
learner. The era of doing a couple of repeated tasks over and over again is
gone, it is a new day where people do not need to perform menial jobs and can
be _freed_ for more creative/mindful pursuits. In the short-term this is going
to have negative effects of people being displaced, discouraged and lacking
purpose. As with a lot of complex problems I think this may be a generational
shift in thinking.

~~~
philipov
"Man, I can't wait for all those useless old day people to die so we can have
our utopia."

PM me, I have a modest proposal you might be interested in.

~~~
ivl
There have been a multitude of generational shifts over the years. If you
think that thinking it is happening (again) and that being hopeful that people
move on is a bad thing, I'm sure you think of the shift away from subsistence
farming was just as awful.

~~~
philipov
I think the thing that is awful is the inhuman speed at which those shifts are
taking place, and the callousness by those pronouncing the change to the fates
of those left behind, because they are sure they won't be. If we are about to
put a whole bunch of people out of work for the rest of their lives, we better
be damn sure we have a safety net for them. Hope is the greatest of all the
evils that escaped from Pandora's box, because it soothes a guilty conscience
but does not effect _action_.

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rhema
It's not "skills". It's "skills at the cost we want". Market forces will
generally bring people with skills when the pay rate is high enough. If skills
are so important, why not have a company train a person for the job?

~~~
emodendroket
Haven't you heard? Now universities are supposed to be glorified vocational
schools where you pay for the privilege of company training that will be
obsolete sometime in the decade after you graduate (but hopefully not
before!).

~~~
creaghpatr
I wonder why big companies like IBM don't just acquire large private
universities and offer a traditional 4 year co-op experience.

They could subsidize education and 'guarantee' a job at IBM upon graduation.
And shift the curriculum as needed for the company, provided they give a
typical core education that you would find at any typical 4 yr college.

Heck if they get a D1 football school they can pump a bunch of money into it
and leverage the exposure for advertising.

~~~
emodendroket
Why should they? Getting it for free is a pretty sweet deal.

~~~
creaghpatr
Colleges make a lot of money (the good ones, anyway). And provide a unique
source of brand equity.

~~~
emodendroket
There are lots of markets that IBM could presumably get into and make money
but it's not clear they're all good ideas.

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Spooky23
"New collar" is marginally skilled people who can fulfill a set of tasks
without a lot of upward mobility. Support techs, call centers, etc. Employees
get a job that pays better than fast food, employers get disposable employees
who don't voluntarily churn.

Basically the next generation of mainframe operators, except with public
funding of their vocational training.

~~~
emodendroket
Call centers have really high churn because, while the pay is somewhat good
for a job requiring no skills, it's a miserable job associated with exogenic
depression.

~~~
yorwba
My mother works at a call center, and according to her, the churn is caused by
misplaced expectations.

Basically, fresh hires have to take calls without appropriate training. Then
they make lots of mistakes, or redirect most cases to more experienced
colleagues. Because of this, the service level isn't met, and everyone is let
off again. Then the cycle starts with new hires, who - _surprise_ \- aren't
any better.

~~~
Spooky23
Call centers are weird. They treat people like cattle, and expect good
outcomes.

I worked for a company that was apparently some sort of progressive beacon
about 20 years ago. They treated people well, trained them for a month before
they took a live call, and even promoted people out.

There was an annual cycle (this business peaked from March-September), but
many employees would return and re-qualify. We used to hire 3-4 a quarter as
IT techs (out of about 300 agents), and probably about half developed into
either IT professionals or went back as call center managers / escalation
agents.

~~~
emodendroket
I read that a lot of call center luminaries were former Taylorist factory
managers, which would make a lot of sense if accurate.

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nathanvanfleet
The funny reality is that every mid-sized company has openings for tech
related roles. It's just that none of them are willing to pay for any level or
skill or expertise unless it's geographically close enough to the bay area.
I'm sure that there are a lot of ways to make companies more efficient with
technology but at the same time they look at technology as a cost-center and
not something that is generating money.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _unless it 's geographically close enough to the bay area_

I encourage this. Two observations. One, most companies hiring for these roles
( _i.e._ growing fast) are in the Bay Area. Two, I've seen a material
difference in performance between support that meets, in person, with the main
office ( _e.g._ management, engineering and sales) once a month or quarter
versus those who just join on calls. The number of times a support person's
recounting of some random interaction is overheard by someone who makes a
decision based on that story is huge.

The big issue is the Bay Area's old timers are attempting to control the gains
from this economic activity through their control of its real estate. This, in
my opinion, is a national structural problem more than a local one.

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jsonne
I think they hit on a real tension, but their interpretation of what is needed
is wrong. The shift I think we need to see is management as "doers" rather
than everyone being able to do everything. That is middle management needs to
have at least enough skills to identify problems and act as a project manager
rather than management for the sake of management. With that you'll have teams
that look like proficient generalists at the middle/top level and then deep
dive specialists underneath them. It's kind of a failure of the modern big co.
that the only way to advance is through management rather than some sort of
journeyman expert track which is what is really needed.

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MS_Buys_Upvotes
IBM will offshore 8 out of 10 positions by 2017
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/07/ibm_offshoring/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/07/ibm_offshoring/)

Have fun with your "new collar" \- don't let it choke you too much.

~~~
Deinos
Exactly this. Mixed with all of the RA's going on at IBM, IMHO, this appears
to be a smoke screen to justify their search for a cheaper workforce. The
talent is there (or was there, in the expensive, experience employees). They
just do not want to pay for it.

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spcelzrd
I'm not sure IBM is the corporation best able to tell us what the future will
need.

~~~
abakker
IBM does do some high quality development and research. However, many of their
historical cash-cow businesses are in secular decline. Most likely, IBM will
remain important, but smaller.

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wyldfire
A non-bachelor's education program seems like a great way to help. Many people
attend university without a specific goal because they believe it's required
in order to get a decent job. They believe that because for the most part,
it's true. But perhaps employers just use it as a simple signal/shibboleth. If
so, maybe "tech trade school graduate" would be just as good and hopefully
more cost effective.

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davidf18
I live in NYC and note that Google owns the 3rd largest office building in the
city which is located in Manhattan and uses it for engineering. Many of the
top technical people in the country want to live and work in Manhattan.

IBM HQ is located in NY State and headed by an engineer (Rometty), but I'd
argue the difference in thinking between Google and their engineering
leadership and IBM and their leadership is night and day. IBM has a lot of
engineers and researchers in Westchester and other parts of the state, but not
in the place that people want to live.

Notably, of the large tech firms of Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple,
Oracle, IBM, only Google has the right idea of having any meaningful presence
in NYC.

If the firms other than Google are truly serious about hiring top tech talent,
they like Google, would have a major presence in NYC.

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douche
Hmm, IBM was just laying off huge swathes of it's US workforce...

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/31/ibm_bloodbath_conti...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/31/ibm_bloodbath_continues/)

~~~
dreamcompiler
Exactly. IBM's business model these days is like that of a lot of other
companies': Lay off your seasoned employees and replace them with lower-
skilled low-benefits fungible contractors who cost half as much.

~~~
mtberatwork
> IBM's business model these days

That's been their model for a long time. They aren't known as "India Business
Machines" for nothing.

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moomin
TL;DR; Big business wants a big fat government handout.

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rb808
I don't understand why this is a problem. There have always been skilled
technicians in the mechanical world. Welders, mechanics, lathe operators,
craftsmen.

There are a huge number of jobs that you need to know how to use computers but
dont need to know how to balance a binary tree. I'd think most of the new
millennial generation would be perfect match already, and lots of other
generations would be keen to do some night courses and/or on the job training
to specialize in whatever is needed.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
An enormous problem is this:

"We want someone with years of experience, but we want to only pay an entry-
level wage." \- If most companies were honest

A friend of mine is still struggling with this. Nobody wants to hire him,
because he doesn't have years of _professional_ experience and didn't have
access to a good four-year college where he lives (Nowhere Wisconsin), and
there are medical complications preventing him from moving away.

I personally taught him a great deal about programming and security. He's
studied computers and networks for years before we met. He's talented,
coachable, and willing to learn more.

The market fails people like him.

~~~
lolsal
> The market fails people like him.

How? Doesn't this just imply that there is enough supply for those companies
that want to pay a lower wage?

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
> How?

Preventing someone from entering the industry fails the person.

> Doesn't this just imply that there is enough supply for those companies that
> want to pay a lower wage?

If you ignore the human aspects entirely, sure.

There's no telling what heights he could climb to if given the chance, but
nobody wants to do that.

They want years of professional experience before they hire someone. But they
only want to pay entry level wages. This creates a catch-22:

If you have the professional experience required, you can find a better paying
job elsewhere.

If you have no professional experience, you can't get an entry-level position.

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jamesmp98
What jobs exactly are they talking about?

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pgodzin
I think the main thing here is an acknowledgment that automation will greatly
disrupt the workforce. Simple, automatable work will be, and greater effort
will be necessary to prepare displaced workers for the remaining
opportunities. Not sure what skills this would require and whether this should
be the responsibility of the government/universities or the corporations in
charge of the hiring and retraining, but I think that's more the point than
"IBM wants cheaper labor"

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xemdetia
There are similar programs that are used in the UK where kids do a ride-along
at a tech firm and then after a year they disappear forever. It's frustrating
because it is unwise not to shop around and all you get is a warm body for a
year or so.

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nnfy
The article wasn't very specific, I wonder what kind these so called new
collar jobs are?

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rch
What would the update to the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act
entail?

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rdiddly
Far as I can tell, the main new idea here is that new rhymes with blue?

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mavelikara
This seems to be the original source:
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2016/12/13/we-...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2016/12/13/we-
need-fill-new-collar-jobs-employers-demand-ibms-rometty/95382248/)

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emodendroket
Is that different than the link?

~~~
mavelikara
It was, until the mods changed it.

