7 ms·

We need to fill 'new collar' jobs that employers demand: IBM's Rometty

32 points by Deinos 9y ago

wyldfire 9y ago
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.
Spooky23 9y ago
"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.
- Retric 9y ago
  This IMO is the major problem with funding job training. You shift the market to subsidize companies who don't do on the job training at the cost of those who do. Give it a few decades and all these companies just want a handout.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      I did it for eight months and I would never do it again barring destitution. That wasn't really the problem.
      - umanwizard 9y ago
        So, out of curiosity, what was?
        emodendroket 9y ago
        Your time is so regimented and strictly tracked that you'll get scolded for trying to use the bathroom outside your scheduled break and you have to take scores of calls a day, many of which from people who are abusive (and to whom you can't respond in kind or even terminate the call). Also pay is heavily incentive based and the metrics are always changing out from under you. E: here's a longer article for reference. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201103/the-last-bullying-frontier%3Famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/th...
        enraged_camel 9y ago
        It's a very thankless job. You get to deal with angry and frustrated people all day, every day. Their stress becomes your stress. You also have very little agency and authority because what you can and cannot do are strictly enforced by organization policy and closely tracked in a variety of ways. So unless the customer's issue fits neatly into one of several pre-defined categories and has a well-documented solution, you have to either route them to another department, or stall them long enough that they give up. Call center work is one, maybe two notches above manual labor. You are (often) sitting at a desk in an (often) air-conditioned office, and your pay is only slightly below median. But it is soul-crushing in ways that manual labor isn't, which can quickly turn into depression.
    - Spooky23 9y ago
      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.
  - Tannic 9y ago
    Depression formed on the surface of the earth?
douche 9y ago
Hmm, IBM was just laying off huge swathes of it's US workforce... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/31/ibm_bloodbath_continues/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/31/ibm_bloodbath_conti...
- dreamcompiler 9y ago
  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.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    New-collar indeed.
  - mtberatwork 9y ago
    > 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.
  - dreamcompiler 9y ago
    Corollary: And use the cost savings to line the pockets of upper-level executives and -- if absolutely necessary -- shareholders. But never customers.
jamesmp98 9y ago
What jobs exactly are they talking about?
mavelikara 9y ago
This seems to be the original source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2016/12/13/we-need-fill-new-collar-jobs-employers-demand-ibms-rometty/95382248/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2016/12/13/we-...
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Is that different than the link?
  - mavelikara 9y ago
    It was, until the mods changed it.
- sctb 9y ago
  Thanks, we updated the link from http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/04/28/ibm-ceo-rometty-tackling-5-million-u-s-job-openings-that-cant-be-filled.html http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/04/28/ibm-ceo-romet....
nnfy 9y ago
The article wasn't very specific, I wonder what kind these so called new collar jobs are?
rhema 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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.
    - wcummings 9y ago
      Why would they when they can partner with unis like Marist?
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Why should they? Getting it for free is a pretty sweet deal.
      - creaghpatr 9y ago
        Colleges make a lot of money (the good ones, anyway). And provide a unique source of brand equity.
        9y ago
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    "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 9y ago
      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 9y ago
        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.
rb808 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
  - jamesmp98 9y ago
    Same. I've been programming 6 years now as a hobby, but the only "professional" experience I have is about 2 years of freelancing. On top of that, here in South Carolina, the market is trash and economic problems prevent me from moving to N.C. or G.A.
  - ef88 9y ago
    I haven't been able to obtain a job since graduating in May 2015 with a BS degree in CS. I can do lots of things. I'm even an official contributor for a large, industry project. The market is really brutal. It's geared toward the elite, the few who were privileged enough to be there at the right time.
  - lolsal 9y ago
    > 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?
moomin 9y ago
TL;DR; Big business wants a big fat government handout.
xemdetia 9y ago
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.
spcelzrd 9y ago
I'm not sure IBM is the corporation best able to tell us what the future will need.
- abakker 9y ago
  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.
nathanvanfleet 9y ago
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 9y ago
  > 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.
jsonne 9y ago
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.
MS_Buys_Upvotes 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
rdiddly 9y ago
Far as I can tell, the main new idea here is that new rhymes with blue?
rch 9y ago
What would the update to the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act entail?
davidf18 9y ago
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.
pgodzin 9y ago
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"

32 points by Deinos 9y ago

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.

Spooky23 9y ago

"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.

Retric 9y ago
This IMO is the major problem with funding job training. You shift the market to subsidize companies who don't do on the job training at the cost of those who do. Give it a few decades and all these companies just want a handout.
emodendroket 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I did it for eight months and I would never do it again barring destitution. That wasn't really the problem.
    - umanwizard 9y ago
      So, out of curiosity, what was?
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        Your time is so regimented and strictly tracked that you'll get scolded for trying to use the bathroom outside your scheduled break and you have to take scores of calls a day, many of which from people who are abusive (and to whom you can't respond in kind or even terminate the call). Also pay is heavily incentive based and the metrics are always changing out from under you. E: here's a longer article for reference. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201103/the-last-bullying-frontier%3Famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/th...
      - enraged_camel 9y ago
        It's a very thankless job. You get to deal with angry and frustrated people all day, every day. Their stress becomes your stress. You also have very little agency and authority because what you can and cannot do are strictly enforced by organization policy and closely tracked in a variety of ways. So unless the customer's issue fits neatly into one of several pre-defined categories and has a well-documented solution, you have to either route them to another department, or stall them long enough that they give up. Call center work is one, maybe two notches above manual labor. You are (often) sitting at a desk in an (often) air-conditioned office, and your pay is only slightly below median. But it is soul-crushing in ways that manual labor isn't, which can quickly turn into depression.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    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.
- Tannic 9y ago
  Depression formed on the surface of the earth?

douche 9y ago

Hmm, IBM was just laying off huge swathes of it's US workforce... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/31/ibm_bloodbath_continues/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/31/ibm_bloodbath_conti...

dreamcompiler 9y ago
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.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  New-collar indeed.
- mtberatwork 9y ago
  > 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.
- dreamcompiler 9y ago
  Corollary: And use the cost savings to line the pockets of upper-level executives and -- if absolutely necessary -- shareholders. But never customers.

jamesmp98 9y ago

What jobs exactly are they talking about?

mavelikara 9y ago

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

emodendroket 9y ago
Is that different than the link?
- mavelikara 9y ago
  It was, until the mods changed it.
sctb 9y ago
Thanks, we updated the link from http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/04/28/ibm-ceo-rometty-tackling-5-million-u-s-job-openings-that-cant-be-filled.html http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/04/28/ibm-ceo-romet....

nnfy 9y ago

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

rhema 9y ago

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 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
  - wcummings 9y ago
    Why would they when they can partner with unis like Marist?
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Why should they? Getting it for free is a pretty sweet deal.
    - creaghpatr 9y ago
      Colleges make a lot of money (the good ones, anyway). And provide a unique source of brand equity.
      - 9y ago

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

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 9y ago
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 9y ago
  "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 9y ago
    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 9y ago
      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.

rb808 9y ago

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 9y ago
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.
- jamesmp98 9y ago
  Same. I've been programming 6 years now as a hobby, but the only "professional" experience I have is about 2 years of freelancing. On top of that, here in South Carolina, the market is trash and economic problems prevent me from moving to N.C. or G.A.
- ef88 9y ago
  I haven't been able to obtain a job since graduating in May 2015 with a BS degree in CS. I can do lots of things. I'm even an official contributor for a large, industry project. The market is really brutal. It's geared toward the elite, the few who were privileged enough to be there at the right time.
- lolsal 9y ago
  > 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?

moomin 9y ago

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

xemdetia 9y ago

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.

spcelzrd 9y ago

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

abakker 9y ago
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.

nathanvanfleet 9y ago

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 9y ago
> 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.

jsonne 9y ago

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.

MS_Buys_Upvotes 9y ago

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 9y ago
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.

rdiddly 9y ago

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

rch 9y ago

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

davidf18 9y ago

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.

pgodzin 9y ago

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"