Another Corporate Lie: Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

[boutons_deux]

A compelling body of research is now available, from many leading (http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/index.cfm/chapter-3/c3h.htm)academic (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674052420)researchers (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674049710) and from respected research organizations such as theNational Bureau (http://www.nber.org/papers/w11457)of Economic Research (http://www.nber.org/papers/w11623), the RAND Corporation (http://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF194.html), and the Urban Institute (http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=411562).

No one has been able to find any evidence indicating current widespread labor market shortages or hiring difficulties in science and engineering occupations that require bachelors degrees or higher, although some are forecasting high growth in occupations (http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2013/06/10-stem-economy-rothwell) that require post-high school training but not a bachelors degree. All have concluded that U.S. higher education produces far more science and engineering graduates annually than there are S&E job openings—the only disagreement is whether it is 100 percent or 200 percent more.

Most studies report that real wages in many—but not all—science and engineering occupations have been flat or slow-growing,

and unemployment as high or higher than in many comparably-skilled occupations.

It is true that high-skilled professional occupations almost always experience unemployment rates far lower than those for the rest of the U.S. workforce,

but unemployment among scientists and engineers is higher than in other professions (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43061.pdf) such as physicians, dentists, lawyers, and registered nurses, and surprisingly high unemployment rates (https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/og6p8y9x1yeacejk1ci0)prevail for recent graduates even in fields with alleged serious “shortages” such as engineering (7.0 percent), computer science (7.8 percent) and information systems (11.7 percent).

visa policies that enabled U.S. employers and universities to recruit large numbers of temporary workers and graduate students from countries (especially China and India) that had rapid growth in science and engineering graduates but much lower income levels.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-the-science-and-engineering-shortage/284359/

another battle front in the corporate War on Employees

[Wild Cobra]

It isn't a shortage of educated scientists. It's a shortage of educated scientists that have intelligence to apply what they learned.

Our schools these days just pump the bodies through for income.

As for income, these people if they are actually paid less, are still well rewarded by their standards.

[pgardn]

It isn't a shortage of educated scientists. It's a shortage of educated scientists that have intelligence to apply what they learned.

Our schools these days just pump the bodies through for income.

As for income, these people if they are actually paid less, are still well rewarded by their standards.

What?

[boutons_deux]

It isn't a shortage of educated scientists. It's a shortage of educated scientists that have intelligence to apply what they learned.

Our schools these days just pump the bodies through for income.

As for income, these people if they are actually paid less, are still well rewarded by their standards.

you're totally full of bullshit

[DarrinS]

visa policies that enabled U.S. employers and universities to recruit large numbers of temporary workers and graduate students from countries (especially China and India) that had rapid growth in science and engineering graduates but much lower income levels.




The Indians and Chinese willingness to work for less is screwing things up for American technical workers.

[boutons_deux]

The Indians and Chinese willingness to work for less is screwing things up for American technical workers.

as the corps know so well, it's why they push so hard to increase greatly the visa quotas

[Wild Cobra]

you're totally full of bullshit
Are you in an industry that uses engineers?

I am.

Most of the idiots coming out of college just don't cut it in most cases.

[TDMVPDPOY]

oversupply of applicants but not enough jobs to meet the supply

most of these jobs are either importing wankers into the country to do it for a fraction of what u would pay for a local,

fck them

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Are you in an industry that uses engineers?

I am.

Most of the idiots coming out of college just don't cut it in most cases.

Everyone who reads this needs to keep in mind what it is that WC does. He is a line technician at an assembly plant. He changes the parts when the engineer in charge tells him to do it. WC is not qualified to make those decisions on his own.

His type is a dime a dozen from various trade schools but him being middle aged, he doesn't like it when a young college graduate is telling him what to do. He has complained about the kids coming out of school being placed above him for years now and as we have all read him write: he doesn't need school.

[pgardn]

Are you in an industry that uses engineers?

I am.

Most of the idiots coming out of college just don't cut it in most cases.

I work with a few kids that are relatively new to the workforce. They are sharp as tacks.
A little geeky but very bright. But this is in my anecdotal experience. And yes they are engineers.

[pgardn]

Everyone who reads this needs to keep in mind what it is that WC does. He is a line technician at an assembly plant. He changes the parts when the engineer in charge tells him to do it. WC is not qualified to make those decisions on his own.

His type is a dime a dozen from various trade schools but him being middle aged, he doesn't like it when a young college graduate is telling him what to do. He has complained about the kids coming out of school being placed above him for years now and as we have all read him write: he doesn't need school.

Oops.

Should have read first.

[boutons_deux]

Google, Apple, and Other Tech Titans’ Wage-Suppression Conspiracy Estimated to Cover One Million Workers (http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NakedCapitalism/~3/oGVLzfESug0/google-apple-tech-titans-wage-suppression-conspiracy-estimated-cover-one-million-workers.html)

You have to give credit where credit is due. Technology leaders like acting on a grand scale, and that apparently includes when they engage in criminal conspiracies. As a price-fixing case against the some of the America’s most celebrated companies moves forward, the estimate of the number of employees victimized has grown ten-fold, to nearly one million.

By way of background: the Obama Administration looked to have gotten a spine infusion in pursuing an anti-trust case against Silicon Valley’s elite for conspiring to lower wages of tech rank and file workers. The Department of Justice’s charges hold up pointed to slam-dunk criminal violations. Recall that an early 1990s price rigging investigation involving lysine and citric acid at ADM led to $100 million in fines and jail time for top executives, including the vice chairman, who was also the heir apparent, and criminal fines from other corporate co-conspirators. But this being Team Obama, the tech big boys are getting off on the cheap, with the DoJ content to have them swear that they won’t engage in this sort of bad behavior again.

And don’t labor under any illusions about who was responsible for the pay-suppression deals. Just like the ADM case, this scheme was conducted at the highest level of the participating firms. As we wrote in January (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/01/george-lucas-eric-schmidt-steve-jobs-go-jail.html):

The government’s case, as summarized by Mark Ames at Pando (http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/), is chock full of damning e-mails among top executives, which reveal Steve Jobs to have been the lead actor and main enforcer of the pay-containment pact, which dates to 2005. But its real mastermind was George Lucas, who had a similar scheme in place in the 1980s and enlisted Jobs when he sold the computer animation division of Lucasfilm to Pixar.

Ames highlighted this section from the filing:


George Lucas believed that companies should not compete against each other for employees, because ‘[i]t’s not normal industrial competitive situation.’ As George Lucas explained, ‘I always — the rule we had, or the rule that I put down for everybody,’ was that ‘we cannot get into a bidding war with other companies because we don’t have the margins for that sort of thing.’

Translated, Lucas’ wage-reduction agreement meant that Lucasfilm and Pixar agreed to a) never cold call each other’s employees; b) notify each other if making an offer to an employee of the other company, even if that employee applied for the job on his or her own without being recruited; c) any offer made would be “final” so as to avoid a costly bidding war that would drive up not just the employee’s salary, but also drive up the pay scale of every other employee in the firm.
Jobs held to this agreement, and used it as the basis two decades later to suppress employee costs just as fierce competition was driving up tech engineers’ wages.


This is the guts of the government’s allegations:


Between approximately 2005 and 2009, Defendants Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar allegedly engaged in an “overarching conspiracy” to eliminate competition among Defendants for skilled labor. The conspiracy consisted of an interconnected web of express bilateral agreements….Defendants memorialized these nearly identical agreements in CEO-to-CEO emails and other documents, including “Do Not Call” lists, thereby putting each Defendant’s employees off-limits to other Defendants. Each bilateral agreement applied to all employees of a given pair of Defendants. These agreements were not limited by geography, job function, product group, or time period. Nor were they related to any specific business or other collaboration between Defendants.


Consider what this means. Here we see the companies that are touted as the epitome of American entrepreneurship, who supposedly fetishize finding and nurturing the best “talent,” instead focusing on containing worker wages as they way to bolster their profit. That’s apparently easier than making superior products.

...

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/03/google-apple-tech-titans-wage-suppression-conspiracy-estimated-cover-one-million-workers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capi talism%29

[Wild Cobra]

I work with a few kids that are relatively new to the workforce. They are sharp as tacks.
A little geeky but very bright. But this is in my anecdotal experience. And yes they are engineers.
But how many of them are creative and smart? That combination is rare. I have done engineering myself. Worked directly with more than a couple dozen engineers.

[Wild Cobra]

Oops.

Should have read first.
He's making shit up again. I have had several types of past jobs. I don't really tell people exactly what I do. I'll take the job title he game me however as "parts changer."

[pgardn]

But how many of them are creative and smart? That combination is rare. I have done engineering myself. Worked directly with more than a couple dozen engineers.

They are working on new types of flow machines. I have stated this before. Flow machines are essential in the proper diagnosis of types of cancers. They are creative and bright and young. Now as for being patient in trying to understand what their cohorts who are more bioengineers, not so good. Communication, not so good.

But this goes on in any endeavor where very bright people (sometimes big egos) are trying to solve a piece of a big project. They don't necessarily care about the big picture. And maybe that's a good thing because they are very good at their evolving craft. They learn as they go as well and will be even better at what they do.

I have a great deal of faith in the intellect of young people in this country based on my experience.

[MannyIsGod]

Not all STEM fields are created equal and yet you always here the magic word STEM STEM STEM STEM. People should just research their job outlook and plan accordingly.

[boutons_deux]

Newly unsealed documents show Steve Jobs’ brutal response after getting a Google employee fired (http://pando.com/2014/03/25/newly-unsealed-documents-show-steve-jobs-brutally-callous-response-after-getting-a-google-employee-fired/)

In early March, 2007, as Google was expanding fast and furiously, one of its recruiters from the “Google.com Engineering” group made a career-ending mistake: She cold-contacted an Apple engineer by email, violating the secret and illegal non-solicitation compact (http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/) that her boss, Eric Schmidt, had agreed with Apple’s Steve Jobs.

What happened next is just one of many specific examples of how people’s lives were impacted by the Techtopus (http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/) wage-theft cartel that was taken down by the Department of Justice antitrust division, and is currently being litigated in a landmark class action lawsuit.

The Google recruiter’s email—in which she identified herself as “a Recruiter for the ‘Google.com Engineering’ team formerly known as the ‘Site Reliability Engineering’ team”—
was sent out on the morning of March 7, 2007.

That evening, Steve Jobs forwarded her email to Eric Schmidt with this note:


Eric,
I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this.
Thanks,
Steve


The next day, March 8, Schmidt sent a hurried email to Google’s top HR people:


I believe we have a policy of no recruiting from Apple and this is a direct inbound request. Can you get this stopped and let me know why this is happening? I will need to send a response back to Apple quickly so please let me know as soon as you can.
Thanks Eric


Google’s Senior Staffing Strategist Arnnon Geshuri (now at Tesla) replied almost immediately, assuring Schmidt that the recruiter would be fired, and that Google HR did all it could to make sure that its recruiters were aware of the illegal non-solicitation agreements. The language is brutal, and as you’ll see, there’s an almost sadistic, military glee on all sides with the way in which the Google recruiter is “terminated”:


Eric,

On this specific case, the sourcer who contacted this Apple employee should not have and will be terminated within the hour. We are scrubbing the sourcer’s records to ensure she did not contact anyone else.

In general, we have a very clear ‘do not call’ policy (attached) that is given to every staffing professional and I reiterate this message in ongoing communications and staffing meetings. Unfortunately, every six months or so someone makes an error in judgment, and for this type of violation we terminate their relationship with Google.
Please extend my apologies as appropriate to Steve Jobs. This was an isolated incident and we will be very careful to make sure this does not happen again.

Thanks,
Arnnon


Apologizing and groveling to Steve Jobs is a recurring theme throughout these court dockets… as is the total disregard for all of the not-Steve Jobs names whose lives and fates are so casually dispatched with, like henchmen in a Hollywood film.

http://pando.com/2014/03/25/newly-unsealed-documents-show-steve-jobs-brutally-callous-response-after-getting-a-google-employee-fired/

[boutons_deux]

US tech worker groups boycott IBM, Infosys, Manpower

Three U.S. tech worker groups have launched a labor boycott of IBM, Infosys and Manpower, saying the companies have engaged in a pattern that discourages U.S. workers from applying for U.S. IT jobs by tailoring employment ads toward overseas workers.

The companies should look first for U.S. workers to fill U.S. IT jobs, said representatives of Bright Future Jobs, the Programmers Guild and WashTech.

With the boycott (http://www.brightfuturejobs.com/professional_labor_boycott_against_manpower_ibm_an d_infosys), the three groups want to raise awareness of discriminatory hiring practices and put pressure on the three companies to consider U.S. IT workers for U.S. jobs, said Donna Conroy, director of Bright Future Jobs.

The main goals of the boycott are "attention getting" and putting pressure on the IT staffing firms to change their practices, Conroy said. With IT staffing agencies competing to fill U.S. positions, the companies contracting for their services may want to consider if the staffing firm "has a good reputation," she said.

The boycott should also raise concerns about staffing firms violating equal employment laws, said Les French, president of WashTech. "In addition to calling attention to an illegal practice, we want to show there are valid challenges to the 'labor shortage' of STEM workers," French said in an email.

An Infosys spokeswoman disputed the charges that it avoids recruiting U.S. IT workers.

"It is incorrect to allude that we exclude or discourage U.S. workers," she said by email. "Today, we are recruiting for over 440 active openings across 20 states in the U.S."

Many of the positions target people who have a U.S. master's degree in business administration for sales and management consultant jobs, she said. "The graduate hiring program is a key investment to strengthen our future leadership pool," she added. "Attracting the best and brightest talent is paramount to Infosys success."

The company's external job posts give "everyone an equal opportunity to apply," she added. The company supports several minority advocacy groups, she said.

Representatives from IBM and Manpower didn't respond to requests for comment on the boycott.

In some cases, a Manpower subsidiary has advertised for Indian IT workers to come to the U.S. for openings anticipated more than a year in advance, said Conroy, author of a white paper (http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/brightfuturejobs/pages/136/attachments/original/1401650232/Hidden_Abroad.pdf?1401650232), released last week, that is focused on Manpower's IT recruitment efforts in India.

The advertisements in India are being placed even though "most Americans believe the nature of the tech industry is so fast-paced that staffing projections cannot be adequately foreseen," she said.

http://www.itworld.com/software/421378/us-tech-worker-groups-boycott-ibm-infosys-manpower?source=ITWNLE_nlt_best_2014-06-05