8 ms·

European startups battle labor laws for best talent

35 points by robk 13y ago

zwieback 13y ago
This description of the European startup labor "shortage" sounds so similar to reports from the US that it makes me wonder how diametrically opposed political systems end up with the same set of problems. Of course, when it comes to immigration forces on both ends of the political spectrum aren't so different. The populism of the left and right wing differs in rhetoric but not is substance.
- kaybe 13y ago
  >diametrically opposed political systems Hey, the world is so much wider than this. How do you see them diametrically oppsed? (Which makes me think about how to sort political systems anyway.. even if you give me a manifold to work with, so diametrically opposed makes sense in a geometrical sense.. high-dimensional delirium)
  - zwieback 13y ago
    Maybe not the best choice of words on my part but within the context of liberal democracies I'd say the US system as opposed to the aggregate of the European systems is vastly different, different enough for me to look at them as opposed systems. Maybe it's also a result of my living in the western US after having grown up in Germany. Vastly oversimplifying I would say that here we start with the question "What is good for the individual and for business?" whereas in Germany it seemed more like "What's good for society and country as a whole?" Either way you end up with a lot of compromises but I think the basic starting point is really quite different.
    - kaybe 13y ago
      > within the context of liberal democracies Ok, now it makes sense.. from the generous phrasing of your parent comment, I thought of all the other systems out there and how they are that much farther from both the US and Europe. (I'm german, btw. I have never been to the US (apart from NY which apparently doesn't count); and it's hard to judge differences from just media.)
- toyg 13y ago
  The problem is the same because the basic institution involved is the same: for-profit companies, aka businesses. If bossmen don't pay enough, skilled workers won't sell their labour.
- onemorepassword 13y ago
  You would be surprised to learn that immigration for qualified tech and science people is a lot easier in many European countries than it is in the US. An American with a job offer can easily get a work permit in the Netherlands, no quota and nice tax rebate to boot. The shortage is the same for the same simple reason: qualified people simply aren't there. We can hire from the US, Canada and all of the EU, that still doesn't solve our problem.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    Actually, I think qualified people are there. But the job market for programmers right now is a bit like the dating market: the really good prospects, at any given time, will most likely already be involved with someone. So the reserve army of unemployed programmers is really tiny.
- Ovid 13y ago
  The labor shortages are on both sides. However, the visa system in the US is horribly broken (http://www.overseas-exile.com/2013/04/whos-hiring-h1b-visa-workers-in-usa.html http://www.overseas-exile.com/2013/04/whos-hiring-h1b-visa-w...). Further, with the introduction of the European Blue Card (http://www.overseas-exile.com/2011/02/european-blue-card.html http://www.overseas-exile.com/2011/02/european-blue-card.htm...), entry to Europe is getting easier and easier for skilled workers. Both sides have a labor shortage, but the US has traditionally had an advantage with one language and immigration law for 50 states. Now this is changing since Europe is starting to address the issue.
BSousa 13y ago
This last couple of weeks I've been contacting some companies (start ups and established ones). It seems London is really up there with a talent shortage, but except for one or two established companies, none of them pay any decent money for senior developers to actually live in London. I live in freaking Portugal with low wages and high taxes. Taking most of the offers that were presented would mean losing a lot of purchasing power at the end of the month. How can you expect to bring people to one of the most expensive places in the world, and try to pay them just a bit above average the UK salary? So as in the US, there is only a shortage because employers don't want to pay what the market is expecting. (note about the article, the fact companies are paying individuals off the books, actually means the companies are actually saving between 20 to 50% (depending on jurisdiction) over the gross salary, again, more related to money than 'visa' issues)
- jandrewrogers 13y ago
  I do not buy the argument that employers simply do not want to pay. That might be true in Europe but not in the US. If that was true then it would not be the case that everyone is having difficulty finding employees; many companies pay very well and are still in that position. Here are average US regional tech wages in 2012 according to the TechAmerica Foundation: California: $123,900 Massachusetts: $116,000 Washington: $110,200 And I know at many companies the average is more like $150,000 and still have a very difficult time hiring software engineers. I doubt most of the public will be sympathetic to claims that the only reason these positions go unfilled is that companies are unwilling to pay an appropriate wage.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    And again: these are all places with such a vastly over-inflated cost of living that six figure salaries are what you have to pay to put people into a middle-class lifestyle. My guess? Expensive real-estate all over the world just makes it harder and harder to pay for anything, especially employees you have to relocate. And severe socioeconomic and infrastructural inequality makes it a lot tougher to get out of the "center and periphery" problem.
  - 13y ago
ardit33 13y ago
There are two macro trends here: 1. More software is needed in almost every part of life (i.e. think of cars, now over 20% of a car's R&D goes to software for its systems, compare it to the same type of car 10 years ago), and so on. 2. Due to the low central bank's rates there has been a divulge of money, a lot of which has ended up on startups/seed investing. Most will go no where, but they need engineers, yet they can't afford them as they are not profitable, or really just speculations. So, more engineers are needed, yet a lot of these companies can't afford to go to bidding wars for them as they don't have solid financial footing, hence you see so many of these "there are not enough engineers" articles, yet salaries are only increasing few percent a year at best. So, this extra engineering demand is created by companies (i.e. startups) that have a great chance of failure, and will just go away as soon as money starts becoming tight again. Which means, one the longer term the larger companies (the ones that actually make money) will dictate the salaries of engineers. Since they tend to move slowly, compensation of engineers will do so, only few percentage a year, probably a bit over the inflation, reflecting the long term Macro trends on more software being used everywhere. I haven't heard any of the crazy 1999-2001 stories yet, so I'd say this feels a lot like 2006-2007 (the Web 2.0 boom), which ended up with a soft 2008-2009 period.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Due to the low central bank's rates there has been a divulge of money I don't mean to nit-pick, but did you mean "deluge"?
- nolite 13y ago
  I think you really nailed it with this analysis
carlob 13y ago
Terrible title. It seems to me it's more about immigration laws rather than labor. The only paragraph where labor laws are mentioned is where the French vc talks about 9 companies evading social charges because they are too expensive. If you don't want to hire talent you can get them to consult with you, but that will shift the social charges on them and will make them less secure, so they'll ask for more by the hour.
seivan 13y ago
Allow remote, problem solved. "Talent shortage..... within 60 miles"
- zwieback 13y ago
  Just trading off one problem for another but remote work is definitely part of the solution.
onemorepassword 13y ago
Romanians are an issue, but for completely other reasons. Quite frustrating, but nothing to do with labor laws or visa in general. But other than that I've never had or heard of any such issues here in Amsterdam. Locals are getting outnumbered in the tech-scene. The majority of my team is now non-Dutch, and not because it's cheap, because we pay well.
- ovidiu 13y ago
  Can you please elaborate on why Romanians are an issue? I'm curios because I am one and I'd like to know more about your perception.
  - onemorepassword 13y ago
    It's not "perception". Recent studies have shown that about half the Romanians in the Netherlands are here illegally, and most of those are criminals. And those that are here legally don't always work under legal conditions. This royally sucks for Romanian developers that want to work here, because despite being EU members they still need a work permit. The government basically assumes that the odds of Romanians coming here with good intentions are pretty low.
rmoriz 13y ago
Developer shortage is a lie (in Germany). If there would be a real shortage, the amount companies pay to contractors and salaried employees would rise. Instead it's decreasing! e.g. some companies in Berlin are trying to find developers that work for below 50€/hr (you have to pay ~600€/month for mandatory health insurance, 600€+ for a room, 100€ for public transporn, 100€ mobile phone, retirement provision / buffer for bad times — and ~35-40% taxes before that). Usually there is no participation in the company (stock options) because there are no going public-exits. It's mainly a bubble to attract cheap developers from other parts of Europe, female developers and junior developers willing and eager to get work even if payment is bad. This is great but it's still a lie to tell everyone that there is a shortage. If you pay low, it's hard to find people. Simple as that.
- onemorepassword 13y ago
  Bull. Startups can't pay more because there's no investment capital. Established and successful companies that pay well still can't get people. The shortage is real.
  - rmoriz 13y ago
    Nope. Even companies with a large sum of VC, let's say >5m€ don't pay fair salaries. Siemens, Allianz, younameit pay way more + have a lot of benfits, less stress more (real) job security and a development perspective (career path). Same for freelancers. Sometimes I see very large teams of mediocre developers. Why didn't they hire 2-3 (more expensive) experts instead of 10 juniors? Maybe because they doing this because of an aqui-hire exits or some ridiculous "hire 10 people" todo that their VC dictate.
    - seivan 13y ago
      I see that too.
    - ccdan 13y ago
      >>Why didn't they hire 2-3 (more expensive) experts instead of 10 juniors? << For the same reason they don't hire 2-3 architects instead of one architect and 10 workers to build a small house. Actually hiring solely "experts" the productivity may be lower because they're used to doing only certain kinds of things.
Glyptodon 13y ago
If there really were a problem wages would be increasing drastically, my Alma Mater's CS department would be spamming its graduates with employment opportunities, and there'd be loads of non-Java, non-.Net job ads in places besides the SF Bay Area, New York, and other 'startup hubs,' but there aren't. Your stats are a farce. I've never met a programmer/software developer in my life who makes more than 100k if they aren't essentially management. Median US salary for a software developer is $69,564. The 90% percentile is 100k. Please come back to planet Earth. Likewise, in places where wages are higher it appears to be mostly about cost of living. The last time I calculated it out making 50k in the armpit of nowhere USA turned out pretty close overall to making 75 or 80k in SF or NY with taxes, commute time, and cost of living factored in. update: I'd meant to reply to a specific comment. Oops. I'll also caveat that different sources seem to use software developer to mean different things. I'd consider a web developer a software developer, but they supposedly get paid on average significantly less, probably because it draws in a lot of self-described people who do websites but don't really program.
- Ovid 13y ago
  Recently, my wife and I started a company and she's handling the international IT recruiting side (I do consulting/training) and for years I've written a blog about how to be an expat. I'm actually a freelance software engineer with a background in economics. This leads to me to having an extreme amount of knowledge about this topic and while the article had a few issues, it's mostly spot on. There is a significant shortage of developers and ardit23 explained, with rapid growth of young companies fighting to hire developers but not able to pay Google-sized salaries, the vast majority of the job salaries are constrained by limited budgets of entrepreneurs. Until this industry stabilizes, it's going to be hard to get accurate price signals. And despite your contention, I know of plenty of devs who make >100K. I speak at conferences all over Europe and the US and I meet these people face-to-face all the time. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist. That being said, part of the reason I know roughly what they make is because they work for big names like Google, or they are in-demand freelancers (we can charge buckets of money in the right situation). Hell, I know one guy who made €30K for a week of training! (search for top-notch training, note the cost per student, multiply that by a decent class size and five days. You don't turn that trick very often, but when you do, it's a lot of money). And $75 to $80k in New York? No way in hell I'd take pay that low to work there.
Ovid 13y ago
The article was good, but there are a few issues. My background: I went to uni to be an economist, but I'm now a freelance software consultant/trainer. Also, for years I've written a blog about how to be an expat and on top of that, my wife and I run a company and she handles international IT recruiting. In short: I know a ridiculously large amount about this topic (except for the black-market work). > Schools and universities are failing to equip young people with the skills that twenty-first century digital businesses need, these people say. That's not true at the university level. At least here in Europe, increasing amounts of people aren't taking degrees in STEM technologies. If people won't seek the degrees, there's not much the universities can do. At a younger age, public education could be doing more to help here, but aside from interesting ideas like Estonia teaching children to program (http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/09/06/why-estonia-has-started-teaching-its-first-graders-to-code/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/09/06/why-estoni...), you're going to have to have government support around a wide-spread approach of schools trying to interest students in IT. > The time and expense that Navarro says is necessary to import a European national to work in the U.K. is not insignificant. The paperwork alone costs $1,000. That's misleading. It's sort of true if you're a medium or large employer hiring tier 2 workers (http://www.overseas-exile.com/2012/08/we-dont-sponsor-work-permits.html http://www.overseas-exile.com/2012/08/we-dont-sponsor-work-p...), but ... that's a one-shot cost for becoming a licensed sponsor. After that it's making a job offer and issuing candidates a sponsorship number (which costs £184 for a tier 2 or £14 for a tier 5). Yes, there are still costs in bringing them over, but not No, the real issue with the UK is that they currently limit non-EU skilled workers to 20,700 per year (unless you earn over 150K). As a result, you want to import your workers early in the year. Need a specialist in October? Ha! Good 'un, guvnah! Of course, like the US, UK university graduation rates are dropping as tuitions rise, causing them long-term issues that they can't offset with importing enough skilled labor because both countries are limited said import! Also, it's disappointing to see the article failing to mention the European Blue Card. That's one of the most exciting opportunities that Europe now has. Designed to fight against the US Green Card, it's a way to allow European countries (minus the UK, Ireland and Denmark) to import skilled workers with very little paperwork or hassle. Stay in your first country for a few years and you have the entire EEA labor market (minus caveats above) open to you! In Germany, for example, it's almost as simple as getting a job offer and moving. It's paying off well for Germany and it's going to be a long-term game changer for the EU if they can overcome their Euro troubles.
CmonNoReg 13y ago
There is no IT workforce shortage in UK. Last time I checked average salaries were around 35-45 band. This is a strong indicator that demand is satisfied. At least for now.

35 points by robk 13y ago

This description of the European startup labor "shortage" sounds so similar to reports from the US that it makes me wonder how diametrically opposed political systems end up with the same set of problems. Of course, when it comes to immigration forces on both ends of the political spectrum aren't so different. The populism of the left and right wing differs in rhetoric but not is substance.

kaybe 13y ago
>diametrically opposed political systems Hey, the world is so much wider than this. How do you see them diametrically oppsed? (Which makes me think about how to sort political systems anyway.. even if you give me a manifold to work with, so diametrically opposed makes sense in a geometrical sense.. high-dimensional delirium)
- zwieback 13y ago
  Maybe not the best choice of words on my part but within the context of liberal democracies I'd say the US system as opposed to the aggregate of the European systems is vastly different, different enough for me to look at them as opposed systems. Maybe it's also a result of my living in the western US after having grown up in Germany. Vastly oversimplifying I would say that here we start with the question "What is good for the individual and for business?" whereas in Germany it seemed more like "What's good for society and country as a whole?" Either way you end up with a lot of compromises but I think the basic starting point is really quite different.
  - kaybe 13y ago
    > within the context of liberal democracies Ok, now it makes sense.. from the generous phrasing of your parent comment, I thought of all the other systems out there and how they are that much farther from both the US and Europe. (I'm german, btw. I have never been to the US (apart from NY which apparently doesn't count); and it's hard to judge differences from just media.)
toyg 13y ago
The problem is the same because the basic institution involved is the same: for-profit companies, aka businesses. If bossmen don't pay enough, skilled workers won't sell their labour.
onemorepassword 13y ago
You would be surprised to learn that immigration for qualified tech and science people is a lot easier in many European countries than it is in the US. An American with a job offer can easily get a work permit in the Netherlands, no quota and nice tax rebate to boot. The shortage is the same for the same simple reason: qualified people simply aren't there. We can hire from the US, Canada and all of the EU, that still doesn't solve our problem.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  Actually, I think qualified people are there. But the job market for programmers right now is a bit like the dating market: the really good prospects, at any given time, will most likely already be involved with someone. So the reserve army of unemployed programmers is really tiny.
Ovid 13y ago
The labor shortages are on both sides. However, the visa system in the US is horribly broken (http://www.overseas-exile.com/2013/04/whos-hiring-h1b-visa-workers-in-usa.html http://www.overseas-exile.com/2013/04/whos-hiring-h1b-visa-w...). Further, with the introduction of the European Blue Card (http://www.overseas-exile.com/2011/02/european-blue-card.html http://www.overseas-exile.com/2011/02/european-blue-card.htm...), entry to Europe is getting easier and easier for skilled workers. Both sides have a labor shortage, but the US has traditionally had an advantage with one language and immigration law for 50 states. Now this is changing since Europe is starting to address the issue.

BSousa 13y ago

This last couple of weeks I've been contacting some companies (start ups and established ones). It seems London is really up there with a talent shortage, but except for one or two established companies, none of them pay any decent money for senior developers to actually live in London. I live in freaking Portugal with low wages and high taxes. Taking most of the offers that were presented would mean losing a lot of purchasing power at the end of the month. How can you expect to bring people to one of the most expensive places in the world, and try to pay them just a bit above average the UK salary? So as in the US, there is only a shortage because employers don't want to pay what the market is expecting. (note about the article, the fact companies are paying individuals off the books, actually means the companies are actually saving between 20 to 50% (depending on jurisdiction) over the gross salary, again, more related to money than 'visa' issues)

jandrewrogers 13y ago
I do not buy the argument that employers simply do not want to pay. That might be true in Europe but not in the US. If that was true then it would not be the case that everyone is having difficulty finding employees; many companies pay very well and are still in that position. Here are average US regional tech wages in 2012 according to the TechAmerica Foundation: California: $123,900 Massachusetts: $116,000 Washington: $110,200 And I know at many companies the average is more like $150,000 and still have a very difficult time hiring software engineers. I doubt most of the public will be sympathetic to claims that the only reason these positions go unfilled is that companies are unwilling to pay an appropriate wage.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  And again: these are all places with such a vastly over-inflated cost of living that six figure salaries are what you have to pay to put people into a middle-class lifestyle. My guess? Expensive real-estate all over the world just makes it harder and harder to pay for anything, especially employees you have to relocate. And severe socioeconomic and infrastructural inequality makes it a lot tougher to get out of the "center and periphery" problem.
- 13y ago

ardit33 13y ago

There are two macro trends here: 1. More software is needed in almost every part of life (i.e. think of cars, now over 20% of a car's R&D goes to software for its systems, compare it to the same type of car 10 years ago), and so on. 2. Due to the low central bank's rates there has been a divulge of money, a lot of which has ended up on startups/seed investing. Most will go no where, but they need engineers, yet they can't afford them as they are not profitable, or really just speculations. So, more engineers are needed, yet a lot of these companies can't afford to go to bidding wars for them as they don't have solid financial footing, hence you see so many of these "there are not enough engineers" articles, yet salaries are only increasing few percent a year at best. So, this extra engineering demand is created by companies (i.e. startups) that have a great chance of failure, and will just go away as soon as money starts becoming tight again. Which means, one the longer term the larger companies (the ones that actually make money) will dictate the salaries of engineers. Since they tend to move slowly, compensation of engineers will do so, only few percentage a year, probably a bit over the inflation, reflecting the long term Macro trends on more software being used everywhere. I haven't heard any of the crazy 1999-2001 stories yet, so I'd say this feels a lot like 2006-2007 (the Web 2.0 boom), which ended up with a soft 2008-2009 period.

sliverstorm 13y ago
Due to the low central bank's rates there has been a divulge of money I don't mean to nit-pick, but did you mean "deluge"?
nolite 13y ago
I think you really nailed it with this analysis

carlob 13y ago

Terrible title. It seems to me it's more about immigration laws rather than labor. The only paragraph where labor laws are mentioned is where the French vc talks about 9 companies evading social charges because they are too expensive. If you don't want to hire talent you can get them to consult with you, but that will shift the social charges on them and will make them less secure, so they'll ask for more by the hour.

seivan 13y ago

Allow remote, problem solved. "Talent shortage..... within 60 miles"

zwieback 13y ago
Just trading off one problem for another but remote work is definitely part of the solution.

onemorepassword 13y ago

Romanians are an issue, but for completely other reasons. Quite frustrating, but nothing to do with labor laws or visa in general. But other than that I've never had or heard of any such issues here in Amsterdam. Locals are getting outnumbered in the tech-scene. The majority of my team is now non-Dutch, and not because it's cheap, because we pay well.

ovidiu 13y ago
Can you please elaborate on why Romanians are an issue? I'm curios because I am one and I'd like to know more about your perception.
- onemorepassword 13y ago
  It's not "perception". Recent studies have shown that about half the Romanians in the Netherlands are here illegally, and most of those are criminals. And those that are here legally don't always work under legal conditions. This royally sucks for Romanian developers that want to work here, because despite being EU members they still need a work permit. The government basically assumes that the odds of Romanians coming here with good intentions are pretty low.

rmoriz 13y ago

Developer shortage is a lie (in Germany). If there would be a real shortage, the amount companies pay to contractors and salaried employees would rise. Instead it's decreasing! e.g. some companies in Berlin are trying to find developers that work for below 50€/hr (you have to pay ~600€/month for mandatory health insurance, 600€+ for a room, 100€ for public transporn, 100€ mobile phone, retirement provision / buffer for bad times — and ~35-40% taxes before that). Usually there is no participation in the company (stock options) because there are no going public-exits. It's mainly a bubble to attract cheap developers from other parts of Europe, female developers and junior developers willing and eager to get work even if payment is bad. This is great but it's still a lie to tell everyone that there is a shortage. If you pay low, it's hard to find people. Simple as that.

onemorepassword 13y ago
Bull. Startups can't pay more because there's no investment capital. Established and successful companies that pay well still can't get people. The shortage is real.
- rmoriz 13y ago
  Nope. Even companies with a large sum of VC, let's say >5m€ don't pay fair salaries. Siemens, Allianz, younameit pay way more + have a lot of benfits, less stress more (real) job security and a development perspective (career path). Same for freelancers. Sometimes I see very large teams of mediocre developers. Why didn't they hire 2-3 (more expensive) experts instead of 10 juniors? Maybe because they doing this because of an aqui-hire exits or some ridiculous "hire 10 people" todo that their VC dictate.
  - seivan 13y ago
    I see that too.
  - ccdan 13y ago
    >>Why didn't they hire 2-3 (more expensive) experts instead of 10 juniors? << For the same reason they don't hire 2-3 architects instead of one architect and 10 workers to build a small house. Actually hiring solely "experts" the productivity may be lower because they're used to doing only certain kinds of things.

Glyptodon 13y ago

If there really were a problem wages would be increasing drastically, my Alma Mater's CS department would be spamming its graduates with employment opportunities, and there'd be loads of non-Java, non-.Net job ads in places besides the SF Bay Area, New York, and other 'startup hubs,' but there aren't. Your stats are a farce. I've never met a programmer/software developer in my life who makes more than 100k if they aren't essentially management. Median US salary for a software developer is $69,564. The 90% percentile is 100k. Please come back to planet Earth. Likewise, in places where wages are higher it appears to be mostly about cost of living. The last time I calculated it out making 50k in the armpit of nowhere USA turned out pretty close overall to making 75 or 80k in SF or NY with taxes, commute time, and cost of living factored in. update: I'd meant to reply to a specific comment. Oops. I'll also caveat that different sources seem to use software developer to mean different things. I'd consider a web developer a software developer, but they supposedly get paid on average significantly less, probably because it draws in a lot of self-described people who do websites but don't really program.

Ovid 13y ago
Recently, my wife and I started a company and she's handling the international IT recruiting side (I do consulting/training) and for years I've written a blog about how to be an expat. I'm actually a freelance software engineer with a background in economics. This leads to me to having an extreme amount of knowledge about this topic and while the article had a few issues, it's mostly spot on. There is a significant shortage of developers and ardit23 explained, with rapid growth of young companies fighting to hire developers but not able to pay Google-sized salaries, the vast majority of the job salaries are constrained by limited budgets of entrepreneurs. Until this industry stabilizes, it's going to be hard to get accurate price signals. And despite your contention, I know of plenty of devs who make >100K. I speak at conferences all over Europe and the US and I meet these people face-to-face all the time. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist. That being said, part of the reason I know roughly what they make is because they work for big names like Google, or they are in-demand freelancers (we can charge buckets of money in the right situation). Hell, I know one guy who made €30K for a week of training! (search for top-notch training, note the cost per student, multiply that by a decent class size and five days. You don't turn that trick very often, but when you do, it's a lot of money). And $75 to $80k in New York? No way in hell I'd take pay that low to work there.

Ovid 13y ago

The article was good, but there are a few issues. My background: I went to uni to be an economist, but I'm now a freelance software consultant/trainer. Also, for years I've written a blog about how to be an expat and on top of that, my wife and I run a company and she handles international IT recruiting. In short: I know a ridiculously large amount about this topic (except for the black-market work). > Schools and universities are failing to equip young people with the skills that twenty-first century digital businesses need, these people say. That's not true at the university level. At least here in Europe, increasing amounts of people aren't taking degrees in STEM technologies. If people won't seek the degrees, there's not much the universities can do. At a younger age, public education could be doing more to help here, but aside from interesting ideas like Estonia teaching children to program (http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/09/06/why-estonia-has-started-teaching-its-first-graders-to-code/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/09/06/why-estoni...), you're going to have to have government support around a wide-spread approach of schools trying to interest students in IT. > The time and expense that Navarro says is necessary to import a European national to work in the U.K. is not insignificant. The paperwork alone costs $1,000. That's misleading. It's sort of true if you're a medium or large employer hiring tier 2 workers (http://www.overseas-exile.com/2012/08/we-dont-sponsor-work-permits.html http://www.overseas-exile.com/2012/08/we-dont-sponsor-work-p...), but ... that's a one-shot cost for becoming a licensed sponsor. After that it's making a job offer and issuing candidates a sponsorship number (which costs £184 for a tier 2 or £14 for a tier 5). Yes, there are still costs in bringing them over, but not No, the real issue with the UK is that they currently limit non-EU skilled workers to 20,700 per year (unless you earn over 150K). As a result, you want to import your workers early in the year. Need a specialist in October? Ha! Good 'un, guvnah! Of course, like the US, UK university graduation rates are dropping as tuitions rise, causing them long-term issues that they can't offset with importing enough skilled labor because both countries are limited said import! Also, it's disappointing to see the article failing to mention the European Blue Card. That's one of the most exciting opportunities that Europe now has. Designed to fight against the US Green Card, it's a way to allow European countries (minus the UK, Ireland and Denmark) to import skilled workers with very little paperwork or hassle. Stay in your first country for a few years and you have the entire EEA labor market (minus caveats above) open to you! In Germany, for example, it's almost as simple as getting a job offer and moving. It's paying off well for Germany and it's going to be a long-term game changer for the EU if they can overcome their Euro troubles.

CmonNoReg 13y ago

There is no IT workforce shortage in UK. Last time I checked average salaries were around 35-45 band. This is a strong indicator that demand is satisfied. At least for now.