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Buzz words like "entitled" in 3...2...1... Anyway. >Average wages are no longer trailing inflation. And wages as a whole have diverged from productivity sinc

Buzz words like "entitled" in 3...2...1... Anyway. >Average wages are no longer trailing inflation. And wages as a whole have diverged from productivity since the 70s. That we're happy that wages are once again keeping pace with inflation --another way of saying "well, at least we're no longer losing money"-- is depressing in this context. >What might help? Easing the parts of the regulatory thicket without societal benefits. Providing public financing for the sorts of early-stage scientific research and physical infrastructure that the private sector often finds unprofitable. Long term, nothing is likely to matter more than improving educational attainment, from preschool through college (which may have started already). So... we socialize the substantial costs of doing business (infrastructure and research), cut back on "the parts of the regulatory thicket without societal benefits," --whatever that means-- and just keep pumping people through college. Has Leonhardt being paying attention at all? We already subsidize infrastructure and research costs. Hell, it's become standard policy that no corporation shall break ground anywhere unless the host promises it special favors and decreased (or absolutely no) taxes. Regulations are more industry specific. The big ticket ones however typically revolve around finance and environment. Perhaps we should ask --well, damn near anyone-- how the year 2009 was for them financially. Perhaps we should ask the Chinese just how "without societal benefits" all of those environmental regulations are. And college? We're putting more students through than ever before. And they are predictably finding that, as the number of people with degrees rises, the value placed on their own degree decreases. And what does the hiring company look for? Experience. >Many business executives and economists also point to immigration policy. Done right, an overhaul could make a difference, many say, by allowing more highly skilled immigrants to enter the country and by making life easier for those immigrants already here. Historically, immigrants have started more than their share of new companies. AND we need more H-1B's? This guy's a real piece of work. We already have the ability to bring in extraordinary talent. We don't need 50,000 more outsource firm slots. ========== Here's the thing: businesses will hire exactly as many employees as they need. No more. Perhaps less, if they can get away with it. And if they run the remaining folks at break-neck pace long enough, that level will become the new "need" level. No amount of policy or regulatory finagling is going to make a lick of difference. By bending over for Corporate America, all you're doing is throwing taxpayer money at them with the vague and unsubstantiated hope that they'll take on a few more employees. This is beyond stupid. As business becomes more automated --not mechanized, automated, as in no human required-- you can expect fewer jobs to remain and for the employment rates to level off or decline.

com2kid 13y ago
> AND we need more H-1B's? This guy's a real piece of work. We already have the ability to bring in extraordinary talent. We don't need 50,000 more outsource firm slots. Being on the hiring side of things, America needs all the talent it can get. Hiring good software engineers is seriously hard. Maybe the problem is just connecting people with jobs, but given the low unemployment rate in the tech sector, I really doubt it. Having to interview 5 candidates before finding one who just knows how malloc works isn't fun. Indeed, one of our high quality engineers had to be sent back to his home country after his work visa expired, we are hoping to get him in on H-1B, and I believe he got approved, but now we have to sit and wait for government wheels to churn. America should make it as easy as possible for highly motivated and talented individuals to come here. Jobs, heck, entire new industries will be created. Isn't that the entire lesson from start-up culture? Get talented highly motivated people together, let them achieve their dreams (with someone who knows business and finances overseeing things!), and the economy will grow.
- aspensmonster 13y ago
  Hiring top talent is certainly expensive. And if you're searching for the best of the best, it will always be hard by virtue of the fact that you're looking for people at the extreme of a bell curve, no matter how large the sample set is. As for knowing how malloc works: fewer and fewer universities are even touching C. It's all C++ or, better yet, Java (no need to understand memory management _at all_ in that case). The only guys left that are into reimplementing malloc are the minority of Computer Science or Computer Engineering graduates that are into embedded work or HA scenarios. And just to quench my own personal curiosity, since you're on the hiring side and I'm not: why is it that every company absolutely must find someone who fits the bill exactly? What is with this aversion to spending any amount of time training people?
  - com2kid 13y ago
    > And just to quench my own personal curiosity, since you're on the hiring side and I'm not: why is it that every company absolutely must find someone who fits the bill exactly? What is with this aversion to spending any amount of time training people? We don't have an aversion to training, but when someone has supposedly 8+ years of development experience and cannot answer simple questions, well, on to the next candidate. I personally do always look for potential, I believe it is the most important aspect when hiring. But potential means having a drive to learn independently. I really do understand why a lot of employers are just saying "screw it" and not hiring anyone who isn't on Stack Overflow, or has a tech blog, or some sort of presence that said "I am passionate about this field." (I'd be doomed by that metric, I don't have a github or Stack Overflow account! I'm on this site and /r/programming, however I do have a somewhat maintained tech blog.) > As for knowing how malloc works: fewer and fewer universities are even touching C. It's all C++ or, better yet, Java (no need to understand memory management _at all_ in that case). The only guys left that are into reimplementing malloc are the minority of Computer Science or Computer Engineering graduates that are into embedded work or HA scenarios. Ugh I know. My college still teaches native, and in fact the majority of the curriculum (last time I checked, its been a few years) was native, but they are unfortunately the exception to a general trend. The thing is, managed languages are pretty damn nice for teaching software engineering principles in, but bad for hands on "this is how it works" explaining. Covering how the JVM or CLR does stuff on a PowerPoint slide isn't the same thing as having students write an allocator. Which sort of sucks when they go on the job and have to write an allocator!

com2kid 13y ago

> AND we need more H-1B's? This guy's a real piece of work. We already have the ability to bring in extraordinary talent. We don't need 50,000 more outsource firm slots. Being on the hiring side of things, America needs all the talent it can get. Hiring good software engineers is seriously hard. Maybe the problem is just connecting people with jobs, but given the low unemployment rate in the tech sector, I really doubt it. Having to interview 5 candidates before finding one who just knows how malloc works isn't fun. Indeed, one of our high quality engineers had to be sent back to his home country after his work visa expired, we are hoping to get him in on H-1B, and I believe he got approved, but now we have to sit and wait for government wheels to churn. America should make it as easy as possible for highly motivated and talented individuals to come here. Jobs, heck, entire new industries will be created. Isn't that the entire lesson from start-up culture? Get talented highly motivated people together, let them achieve their dreams (with someone who knows business and finances overseeing things!), and the economy will grow.

aspensmonster 13y ago
Hiring top talent is certainly expensive. And if you're searching for the best of the best, it will always be hard by virtue of the fact that you're looking for people at the extreme of a bell curve, no matter how large the sample set is. As for knowing how malloc works: fewer and fewer universities are even touching C. It's all C++ or, better yet, Java (no need to understand memory management _at all_ in that case). The only guys left that are into reimplementing malloc are the minority of Computer Science or Computer Engineering graduates that are into embedded work or HA scenarios. And just to quench my own personal curiosity, since you're on the hiring side and I'm not: why is it that every company absolutely must find someone who fits the bill exactly? What is with this aversion to spending any amount of time training people?
- com2kid 13y ago
  > And just to quench my own personal curiosity, since you're on the hiring side and I'm not: why is it that every company absolutely must find someone who fits the bill exactly? What is with this aversion to spending any amount of time training people? We don't have an aversion to training, but when someone has supposedly 8+ years of development experience and cannot answer simple questions, well, on to the next candidate. I personally do always look for potential, I believe it is the most important aspect when hiring. But potential means having a drive to learn independently. I really do understand why a lot of employers are just saying "screw it" and not hiring anyone who isn't on Stack Overflow, or has a tech blog, or some sort of presence that said "I am passionate about this field." (I'd be doomed by that metric, I don't have a github or Stack Overflow account! I'm on this site and /r/programming, however I do have a somewhat maintained tech blog.) > As for knowing how malloc works: fewer and fewer universities are even touching C. It's all C++ or, better yet, Java (no need to understand memory management _at all_ in that case). The only guys left that are into reimplementing malloc are the minority of Computer Science or Computer Engineering graduates that are into embedded work or HA scenarios. Ugh I know. My college still teaches native, and in fact the majority of the curriculum (last time I checked, its been a few years) was native, but they are unfortunately the exception to a general trend. The thing is, managed languages are pretty damn nice for teaching software engineering principles in, but bad for hands on "this is how it works" explaining. Covering how the JVM or CLR does stuff on a PowerPoint slide isn't the same thing as having students write an allocator. Which sort of sucks when they go on the job and have to write an allocator!