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After Layoffs, Why Do Tech Firms Still Claim Talent Shortages?
- cranberryturkey 2y agoIt’s only so they can justify hiring cheap labor over seas. That’s it.
- sylware 2y agoH1B visas?
- heywire 2y agoIn many cases the company might have a subsidiary in a lower cost of living location (India, Eastern Europe, etc). The company I work for has slowly been laying off software engineers, project managers, and technical support folks in the US, while simultaneously hiring their replacements in those LCOL areas. I get to see the cost rates for these folks, and it is pennies on the dollar :(
- franktankbank 2y agoThere's always a tradeoff, sometimes you win sometimes you lose in these gambits.
- mrayycombi 2y agoIt's a temporary strategy. Chinese factory workers and Indian workers know they're being underpaid and gradually get paid more and more. This offsets the cost savings and makes logistics and managerial barriers more glaring. If you're a hotshot Serbian developer making a two thirds of an American, you're going to look for ways to reduce that delta. But that's years away.
- laughingcurve 2y agoThis is just a garbage "Subscribe to keep reading" blogspam on a story everyone here can answer without even clicking. Spoiler alert -- the reason is H1B visas
- gigatexal 2y agoIt really makes no sense. Unless the employee is negatively productive why take a risk and the fixed cost of onboarding a new employee if the current one is marginally profitable or productive? It might a few months for a new engineer to get truly productive. And then all the existing engineers have to take time out of their day to do interviews. And then those same engineers spend time and energy onboarding the new hire. That’s all costs and lost productivity. All opportunity costs associated with hiring. And yet the company had — ostensibly — many employees of varying levels of productivity … it doesn’t seem to make sense that firing 10% or 50% meant that each of those was not justifying their salaries … especially if the next round of hires are juniors or even onshore’d seniors they still will need months of training on the current stack.
- wahnfrieden 2y agoWage suppression
- tharmas 2y agoAlso, compliance. They are practically slaves because if they don't do what their bosses want they will be kicked out of the country.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 2y agoShip in H1Bs that will work long hours
- ipaddr 2y agoThey will say skillset mismatch. Training is never an option.
- franktankbank 2y agoLol. Last time a big corp asked me to put in my skillset into an excel document I said: 1) Problem solving skills 2) Unrelenting pursuit of truth in root cause analysis Everyone else listed the tech stack of the project + others. What the fuck is with all the "tech" == skillset?
- RajT88 2y agoRecruiters match keywords. Not in pursuit of a good, or the best candidate, just the best candidate who is superficially good enough to stick around 90 days or whatever the contract states.
- ChumpGPT 2y ago[flagged]
- mrayycombi 2y agoThe legislators who allow h1b are "destroying" it. Trump I was against h1b (remember?). Trump II w Elon DLC is OK with it. And if by "destroying" you mean creating super profits for a few already rich companies, you are right.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bediger4000 2y agoGetting government education and training subsidies may also be a cause. Getting universities and community colleges to emphasize Comp sci classes and certifications probably provides a bigger, cheaper IT labor force. The corporations don't have to train or pay to train. Win win!
- mrayycombi 2y agoEven if h1bs aren't a practical substitute for tech talent, they can act as a threat to reduce wages for regular workers. They can also act as an impromptu talent pool of workers for work that might otherwise need to be sent to expensive consultants. And they are a soothing balm for the burnt fingers of talentless middle managers who find no push back, non-confrontational employees assuring to their egos.