4 ms·

So you think there is a market failure in pricing these workers? What do you think is causing it?

rayiner 9y ago
Prejudice is stronger than the market. We had a market economy in the US for two centuries before social change forced businesses to stop categorically excluding more than half the potential workforce (women and black people). Prejudice caused businesses and schools to exclude people like Jews in the grounds that they were too successful. In this case, the bias against people returning to work is based more on prjokections about what will happen than anything concrete. Those projections, in turn, are based on traditional notions that once a woman has kids and has become a mother, she can never again be relied on to prioritize work. That ignores the basic fact that parenting is only really time-intensive for the first couple of years.
- anothercomment 9y ago
  I don't think that is the same thing - preventing Jews from visiting business schools is not amenable to market forces, if there is a law against Jews visiting schools. Women had other things to do - Black people were working, too, but I suppose they were also banned from getting a proper education and from doing certain jobs. People returning from paternity leave are not banned from any jobs. The question is still: why can businesses get away with paying less? It would seem that their demand for these workers is not high enough, or they can enough workers without the missing experience. Otherwise, they would be competing for these workers and wages would go up.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    > I don't think that is the same thing - preventing Jews from visiting business schools is not amenable to market forces, if there is a law against Jews visiting schools. Women had other things to do - Black people were working, too, but I suppose they were also banned from getting a proper education and from doing certain jobs. There were no laws against hiring women/jews/black people into professional positions in the 20th century. The market chose to categorically exclude them until the government made it illegal to do so. > The question is still: why can businesses get away with paying less? Because businesses can engage in irrational hiring behaviors so long as the irrationality is widely shared.
    - anothercomment 9y ago
      At least the Jews seemed to have found a way around it, though - why were they successful? Did they build their own schools, or how did they do it? Afaik at least for some time they were banned from certain professions, which is why many become money lenders and became rich - might have been before the 20th century, though. I don't know that much about the history of the US, but it seems Jim Crow laws were in effect till 1965? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws Women, as I said, had other things to do, before the invention of the washing machines. The question remains, why not found a company hiring those supposedly cheaper workers, and blow the competition out of the water? I suppose a company hiring only blacks in the early 20th century would have been unable to sell it's wares because of racism? Are software developers on a "market for lemons"? Because employers presumably can't know how good a developer is, they bid too low, which in turn makes good developers avoid the market altogether? (ref https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons )
tptacek 9y ago
Why would this surprise you? In almost any conversation I've ever had with software developers about hiring, the person I'm talking to invariably says something that acknowledges tremendous mispricing of software developers based on how they're recruited and qualified.
- anothercomment 9y ago
  There is a frustration among developers, I guess. But are there really a significant number of overqualified developers stuck in underpaid jobs? If so, is it because they undervalue themselves, or because there are too few employers willing to pay a lot of money? It seems if there were many employers willing to pay a lot for great developers, at least some of them would be able to recognize a given candidate? (Meaning, suppose there was an undervalued developer and he/she would apply to 100 companies, would none of the 100 recognize the greatness of the developer?)
  - tptacek 9y ago
    Yes: there are a huge number of developers stuck in crappy jobs.
    - anothercomment 9y ago
      So why don't they apply for other jobs? Also, there seems to be a market rate for developers, which is usually not a bad salary. What is the reasoning for assuming most of them are underpaid? Because a lot are 10 times developers? Is it about information asymmetry, or worse, complete unknowns because even the developers themselves don't know how good they are? Would helping developers discover how good they are help their cause? Do sites like HackerRank help, or are the problem sets not relevant enough to the real world?

Prejudice is stronger than the market. We had a market economy in the US for two centuries before social change forced businesses to stop categorically excluding more than half the potential workforce (women and black people). Prejudice caused businesses and schools to exclude people like Jews in the grounds that they were too successful. In this case, the bias against people returning to work is based more on prjokections about what will happen than anything concrete. Those projections, in turn, are based on traditional notions that once a woman has kids and has become a mother, she can never again be relied on to prioritize work. That ignores the basic fact that parenting is only really time-intensive for the first couple of years.

anothercomment 9y ago
I don't think that is the same thing - preventing Jews from visiting business schools is not amenable to market forces, if there is a law against Jews visiting schools. Women had other things to do - Black people were working, too, but I suppose they were also banned from getting a proper education and from doing certain jobs. People returning from paternity leave are not banned from any jobs. The question is still: why can businesses get away with paying less? It would seem that their demand for these workers is not high enough, or they can enough workers without the missing experience. Otherwise, they would be competing for these workers and wages would go up.
- rayiner 9y ago
  > I don't think that is the same thing - preventing Jews from visiting business schools is not amenable to market forces, if there is a law against Jews visiting schools. Women had other things to do - Black people were working, too, but I suppose they were also banned from getting a proper education and from doing certain jobs. There were no laws against hiring women/jews/black people into professional positions in the 20th century. The market chose to categorically exclude them until the government made it illegal to do so. > The question is still: why can businesses get away with paying less? Because businesses can engage in irrational hiring behaviors so long as the irrationality is widely shared.
  - anothercomment 9y ago
    At least the Jews seemed to have found a way around it, though - why were they successful? Did they build their own schools, or how did they do it? Afaik at least for some time they were banned from certain professions, which is why many become money lenders and became rich - might have been before the 20th century, though. I don't know that much about the history of the US, but it seems Jim Crow laws were in effect till 1965? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws Women, as I said, had other things to do, before the invention of the washing machines. The question remains, why not found a company hiring those supposedly cheaper workers, and blow the competition out of the water? I suppose a company hiring only blacks in the early 20th century would have been unable to sell it's wares because of racism? Are software developers on a "market for lemons"? Because employers presumably can't know how good a developer is, they bid too low, which in turn makes good developers avoid the market altogether? (ref https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons )

tptacek 9y ago

Why would this surprise you? In almost any conversation I've ever had with software developers about hiring, the person I'm talking to invariably says something that acknowledges tremendous mispricing of software developers based on how they're recruited and qualified.

anothercomment 9y ago
There is a frustration among developers, I guess. But are there really a significant number of overqualified developers stuck in underpaid jobs? If so, is it because they undervalue themselves, or because there are too few employers willing to pay a lot of money? It seems if there were many employers willing to pay a lot for great developers, at least some of them would be able to recognize a given candidate? (Meaning, suppose there was an undervalued developer and he/she would apply to 100 companies, would none of the 100 recognize the greatness of the developer?)
- tptacek 9y ago
  Yes: there are a huge number of developers stuck in crappy jobs.
  - anothercomment 9y ago
    So why don't they apply for other jobs? Also, there seems to be a market rate for developers, which is usually not a bad salary. What is the reasoning for assuming most of them are underpaid? Because a lot are 10 times developers? Is it about information asymmetry, or worse, complete unknowns because even the developers themselves don't know how good they are? Would helping developers discover how good they are help their cause? Do sites like HackerRank help, or are the problem sets not relevant enough to the real world?