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> There is no tech labor shortage. "Tech labor shortage" is not a clear-cut black-and-white issue. The market is not fully elastic to easily use terms such as
by shas3 11y ago
> There is no tech labor shortage.
"Tech labor shortage" is not a clear-cut black-and-white issue. The market is not fully elastic to easily use terms such as 'shortage', etc.
Say, you need to build a team of 5 machine learning scientist with specific experience in image recognition, there may be 100 people in the country specializing in this field, and perhaps 10 of them are the job market, and 7 are international citizens. Then you have a serious case of shortage, and face the possibility of losing the project/business/market to a company in Israel, India, or China that has the requisite staff or to a company in Canada or Australia, where immigration laws are more sensible.
At the same time, there may be no shortage for generally skilled engineers fresh out of college.
- tosseraccount 11y agoAre you saying high tech is not really affected by supply and demand like other industries? Many industries claim they need special laws. How is Silicon Valley different than any other business?
- tosseraccount 11y agoHa ha. The Ycombo super moderator came by and "voted" down every anti special guest worker subsidy post on this page. Two to three down hits every post. Thanks for the thoughtful contribution to the debate !
- djb_hackernews 11y agowhy would only 10% of qualified individuals be on the market? Wouldn't all of them be? Unless you are counting retired, infirmed, and imprisoned? Generally skilled engineers are great for training programs.
- shas3 11y agoI think it is reasonable to assume that only a percentage of the experts will be willing to quit their job and move to a new one. People have all sorts of reasons to stick to current jobs!
- djb_hackernews 11y agoEveryone has a price... If there are experts out there that fit your need but you can't attract them because you aren't paying enough then you should increase your offer. Supply will meet demand.
- dangrossman 11y agoBusinesses don't have infinite resources to hire workers, and most workers old enough to truly be experts are not going to relocate easily. 1x, 2x, even 3x market wages won't be enough to move someone that's already earning a comfortable wage, likes their job, and has roots (a home, a spouse that likes their job, children in school, family nearby) in their current community. No single digit multiple of market wages would get me to move to Silicon Valley, let alone the middle of West Virginia.
- finance-geek 11y agoLuckily, you are just one person. Here, we're speaking about an entire market. And yes, 2x and 3x market wages would absolutely cause major shifts in labor. Even < 2x market wages would accomplish this. It already happens the other way, 1.5x and 2x market wage multiples drive flow of skilled engineers from California to Wall Street.
- tosseraccount 11y agoRaise labor prices and you'll get qualified candidates.
- finance-geek 11y agoFor one thing...the pay is often too low. Qualified individuals may be on the market, but not on the tech market. Same reason why so many Physics PhDs who can program C++ in their sleep choose to go to Wall St instead of Silicon Valley. Labor sits on the periphery but wont dive in unless they get market pay.
- s73v3r 11y ago"For one thing...the pay is often too low." Sounds like something pretty easy to fix.
- finance-geek 11y agoThat is the central debate isnt it? The market fix is to increase wages until "shortages" disappear. The disingenuous fix is to claim there is a "shortage" and import workers to broaden the supply. That is great for hard-working foreign workers, but sucks for the domestic graduate pool that has a higher standard of living -- most Americans simply will not raise a family in a shared 2br apartment -- while that is common for immigrants. So they will instead seek better pay in other industries. This is all fine, but it is disingenuous to claim shortages when the real problem is a refusal to pay market wages.
- falsedan 11y agoFun fact: the US has sensible immigration laws for AU citizens (getting an E-3 takes about 3 weeks, ~$400 from employee, job offer letter, degree). Also if you think AU immigration is sensible then, boy howdy! Do I have news for you!