Tech Czar Unimpressed With US IT Workforce 568
theodp writes, "'The IT work force is not skilled enough and almost never can be skilled enough,' said Robert Cresanti, Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology. So what does the Poli Sci grad and ex-General Counsel for the ITAA think is the answer? Open the gates to more foreign workers, urged Cresanti, including H-1B holders."
Long-term... (Score:3, Informative)
*sigh*
Re:Pay as always is the answer (Score:2, Informative)
Paying the existing too-small pool more money for their skills isn't going to help any when there aren't enough of them to fill all positions. If there were enough skilled workers in the US, companies would be hiring them, but there ARE NOT.
We need to import workers to fill the gaps, not because we're not paying IT workers enough, but because there simply AREN'T enough IT workers available in the first place.
Re:Green Card (Score:5, Informative)
I've seen H-1B abuse with my own eyes at a very large telecom. They want people they can manipulate, not full-blown citizens with real choices. There is no "shortage", just lobbyists looking for an angle. See about this Rand study:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB1505/i
Whore (Score:4, Informative)
Didn't anyone tell him we have the only shiny and clean political system and are the greatest most honest dudley do right nation in the world? Didn't he get the memo telling him that we don't brainwash our children with altered more patriotic versions of history to brainwash them? Or the part where in the land of the free our government doesn't perform thousands of warrant less wiretaps on the private domestic communication of citizens not even suspected of crimes. Certainly no corrupt politicians elected with rigged voting machines.
I just hope that this nation hasn't gone so far that people actually are lulled into a false sense of security because of a few wins for the other corrupt party in the two rigged party system. Those who rig elections in this country pay the ones with (D) in the title just as surely as the ones with (R).
Re:VISAs harm Americans (Score:3, Informative)
> out due to increased prices, you're not living in reality.
A bold statement, sir...let us hope I don't prove you wrong, because the stronger the words, the harder they are to swallow!
So, let me consider this with an example.
Say we have a food product, Wurbles. They currently sell for 10 dollars a piece.
There's a 10% wage increase for all the people making Wurbles. There are 1000 people involved in making Wurbles. To pay for this, Wurbles now have to cost 11 dollars a piece.
The 1000 people making Wurbles are now 10% better off. Huzzah, they shout!
Everyone else, however, now pays more for Wurbles - and the amount they pay more exactly matches the total wage increases for the 1000 people making Wurbles.
Except...
All those people who buy Wurbles now pay more for food than they used to. As a result, they will need to be paid more to keep their living standards stable - they're not just going to accept that some of their pay has now in effect been taken by the Wurble producers. Why should they? Consequently, *THEIR* employers, who now have to increases wages, have to increase *THEIR* prices. These increases fall upon all sorts of people, all over the economy, since people who buy Wurbles have all sorts of jobs - programmers, bell-hops, cab-drivers, doctors, etc.
These price increases in their turn drive up wages - and this time, as you can imagine, by now it's affecting everyone.
In fact, what happens in an ideal economy, is that the cascade of price and wage increases exactly balances out so that *the Wurble producers are now paying 10% more for the things they buy*.
Of course, no economy is so ideal and in this micro-micro case, things wouldn't be so smoothly evened out.
But in reality, even with our real, non-ideal economy, this basic principle holds true, when you take into the account the whole of the economy, over a reasonable period of time.
So I therefore argue that an increase in wages cancels itself out in increased prices.
> Obviously, there's a lot of people who earn income from sources other than wages.
Well, income comes from wages, rent or profit. I don't know the proportions of these three as they exist in the economy for individual sources of income.
> Increasing wages just redistributes money from those folks to wage earners.
If your income is in the form of rent, and your Wurbles cost more, you'll charge more rent.
If your income is in the form of profit, and your Wurbles cost more, you'll increase what you charge, to make more profit.
Engineering != Information Technology/Science (Score:1, Informative)
This is akin to bemoaning a coming shortage of pastry chefs based on the enrollment statistics of chemistry majors. (Not that I'm disparaging Information Sciences/Technology as a field of study or profession. The difference is between that which is defined in terms of something and that which is defined in terms of what it uses.)
Re:VISAs harm Americans (Score:3, Informative)
You're contradicting Ricardo, aren't you? You'll charge whatever people will pay to use your land.
If your income is in the form of profit, and your Wurbles cost more, you'll increase what you charge, to make more profit.
Your supply and demand curves will shift depending on what your product is. You may make more or less profit afterwards.
Your analysis is broken in countless ways, but here's a big one. We aren't just raising wages for Wurble-workers, we're reducing the number of Wurble-workers. (Or actually, failing to artificially increase the number). That makes each Wurble-workers more valuable to the economy. All the other workers and firms may raise their prices, but it's not necessarily rational for them to do so--in fact, a shortage or Wurble-producing workers could cause a surplus of Wurble-retail workers, Wurble-processing factories, and land on which we could build Wurble-processing factories.
Re:VISAs harm Americans (Score:3, Informative)
So I was pretty much done with the grandparent when he started talking "Wurbles". Increasing wages sometimes leads to inflation, and sometimes it doesn't.
Wurbles may help you get through econ 101, but they are dangerous tools to apply to "the real world" if your goal is understanding. Much too course of a model to apply cleanly to a discussion of an accused shortage of tech labor.
Re:No no no ... (Score:2, Informative)