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dcblogs writes:
Until Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc., ended remote work this week, the automaker advertised about 100 remote jobs on its career site. But by the end of Wednesday, a search for remote jobs turned up none. Some of the remote job openings now list Austin as the location. By Thursday morning, Tesla continued to offer remote work options for jobs in Canada and Europe. Musk ordered an end to remote work in a memo with the subject head, "Remote work is no longer acceptable." His disdain for remote work runs deep. In a tweet, he said that remote workers "should pretend to work somewhere else." Experts say that Musk's decision will cost the firm retention and recruiting. Gartner, an analyst group, says only 19% of firms now require employees to work entirely from the office.
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If the Supreme Court rolls back abortion rights, this may influence where tech firms locate operations. California is already considering incentives for businesses to relocate from states "with anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ laws," and Salesforce's CEO Marc Benioff, in response to the new abortion law in Texas, offered to help its workers move out of that state. Overturning Roe v. Wade may make states like Nevada more appealing to tech firms. The state doesn't have personal or corporate income taxes and protects abortion by law. "Companies that show they care more about their bottom line than a woman's right to an abortion will find it increasingly harder to attract good talent," said Roberta Guise, founder, and president of FemResources Inc., a San Francisco-based nonprofit that works on improving gender equality in the tech workforce.Link to Original Source
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In Ukraine, software engineers earn between $35,000 and $40,000. Software engineers in the U.S. make four to five times that amount, said Anish Agarwal, a senior analyst at outsourcing consultancy Everest Group. One firm, MobiDev, gets 70% of its business from U.S. customers. About 300,000 people work in Ukraine’s tech sector.
MobiDev has made plans in the event of a Russian attack. It has an office in Poland and procedures, if needed, to transfer workers and their families out of Ukraine. But that’s considered a worst-case scenario for this firm. The firm is hopeful that the crisis will end without conflict.
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dcblogs writes:
Criminal background checks that incorrectly identify an applicant as a thief or sex offender happen more often than many expect. This story reviewed more than 75 lawsuits against background checks firms, spoke with plaintiff attorneys and industry experts to paint a picture of an industry that can ruin lives in minutes. Job applicants are labeled thieves and sex offenders by incorrect reports, and job candidates may protest, but it may not do them any good. Employers may drop them as damaged goods before the correction.
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A 'right to disconnect' is getting adopted in Europe, but not in the U.S. The law protects workers from retaliation if they choose not to respond to electronic communications sent after work. Lawmakers, except in NYC, have shown little interest in this protection. Rafael Espinal, a former New York City councilman, who attempted to get such a law passed, says the idea hasn't gone mainstream yet in the U.S. "Our capitalist system feeds off of workers being available around the clock," said Espinal. "It's a top-down culture that's deep-rooted in the idea of maximizing productivity for profits."
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For many years, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) attempted to organize workers at IBM. But the union could never get enough interest to form an official collective bargaining unit. The IBM organizing effort was "suspended" in 2016. At that point, it seemed like the idea of tech unions was all but dead. But at about the same time Trump was elected, employee activism took off. Employees at tech firms organized protests, petition drives, and walkouts on sexual harassment, military contracting, and climate change. With this rise in activism, so did union organizing. Last year, two tech firms, Glitch, and Kickstarter formed unions, and Google employees launched a union effort affiliated with the CWA. These efforts remain, overall, tiny, but it is a change for this industry.
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dcblogs writes:
A group of 50 Washington State technology firms and colleges signed a pact to increase their workforce diversity. It was in response to the killing of George Floyd. The tech industry has been broadly criticized for its lack of diversity. But some are blaming the tech industry’s reliance on referrals to fill vacant positions. Referrals were called the “number one” source for employers, but tech workers who are making the referrals tend to refer people like them, which includes race. Employers like referrals because it cost less to hire that person “and you typically don't refer somebody that you think is going to make you look bad," said one participant in the pact.
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Japan's Fugaku ARM-based supercomputer is the world's most powerful in the latest Top500 list, setting a world record of 442 petaflops. But this was otherwise an unremarkable year for supercomputers, with a "flattening performance curve," said Jack Dongarra, one of the academics behind the twice-a-year ranking and director of the Innovative Computing Laboratory at the University of Tennessee. This is a result of Moore's Law slowing down as well as a slowdown in the replacement of older systems, he said. But the U.S. is set to deliver an exascale system — 1,000 petaflops — next year and China as well. Meanwhile, the EU has a 550 petaflop system in development in Finland
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dcblogs writes:
A significant number of employees are avoiding co-workers because of political views, says one research group. "Not only are employees avoiding one another, but they're also having a tougher time staying focused," said Brent Cassell, a Gartner analyst. They firm, which has surveyed workers, say the office tensions over politics are at their highest level. Firms are also on guard against the possibility of workplace disruptions and arguments. In Florida, a battleground state, there's a lot of concern about rising office tensions. "I think we're going to see an interesting atmosphere over the next couple of weeks," said Heather Deyrieux, president of the HR Florida State Council.
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President Trump has signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to adopt merit-based hiring. "An overreliance on college degrees excludes capable candidates," Trump's order stated. This means that a lack of degree will no longer lead to automatic rejection. It also means that federal agencies will have to rewrite job ads. The government employs 2.2 million civilians.
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dcblogs writes:
Citing unemployment levels not seen since the Great Depression, a group of U.S. Senate and House Republicans Thursday urged President Trump to "suspend" guest worker visa programs until the economy recovers or for at least one year — whichever comes first. "There is no reason why unemployed Americans and recent college graduates should have to compete in such a limited job market against an influx of additional H-1B workers, most of whom work in business, technology, or STEM fields," wrote Republican Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and Josh Hawley of Missouri, in their letter to Trump. Meanwhile, the Economic Policy Institute analyzed prevailing wage levels that employers filed with the U.S. Department of Labor for last year. The report's broad finding, released this week, is similar to one made in 2011 by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Nine years ago, the watchdog agency reported that more than 80% of H-1B jobs were certified at the lowest two wage levels — or below local U.S. median wages. The EPI study puts that number at 60% in 2019.
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dcblogs writes:
Employers will be able to require COVID-19 tests, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said last week. Some believe employees should be tested once a week. Academic researchers can imagine public health authorities issuing time-bound paper or electronic certificates indicating someone’s testing status. One vendor, Truework, is developing a dashboard for employers that will indicate testing status, including antibodies. Another, PwC, is set to release a contact tracing app for use in the workplace. It will use Bluetooth and corporate networks to record contacts. The contact tracing app will assign risk factors — high, medium and low — to those interactions. If an employee spends a lot of time sitting next to someone in a meeting room, it can mean high risk. But a quick chat in the hallway may be assigned a low probability. The tool gives firms the means to quickly rewind the infected employee's contacts and alert affected parties.
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dcblogs writes:
Food retailers and wholesalers have more than one million jobs to fill. The work isn't sexy, just essential. It includes delivering food, stocking shelves, sanitizing stores and workplaces, as well as staffing distribution centers and warehouses. How these workers are hired is changing. The service is being sponsored by an industry group whose members are hungry for employees, FMI (formerly the Food Marketing Institute). The trade group is based in Arlington, Va., and includes firms such as The Hershey Co., Walmart, The Kroger Co., Safeway Inc. and grocers of all sizes. Many of its member firms are hiring. FMI says the industry has north of million to jobs to fill. Last weekend, they soft launched a platform that allows employers that are cutting people to upload lists of employees needing work. The AI system matches those employees with jobs. It's an opt-in system for affected employees.
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dcblogs writes:
The U.S.'s new low-cost electronic H-1B work visa registration system led to record visa demand. The government received approximately 275,000 visa petitions — a 37% increase from last year. This volume significantly reduces the odds of winning a visa in the 85,000 visa lottery. The electronic registrations began March 1 and continued through March 20. The previous system required employers to submit completed H-1B work visa petitions, which included thousands of dollars in fees. By comparison, the electronic system was a snap, requiring minimal documentation and a registration cost of $10. The visa is valid for the 2021 FY which begins Oct. 1. Employers might still proceed with their applications, hedging on improving conditions by autumn.
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dcblogs writes:
In 2013, Yahoo announced that a phase out of telecommuting, and in response Trump tweeted: "It took great courage for [CEO Marissa Mayer] to take away the right of employees to work at home." He believes teleworkers can't be trusted. As president, he's been trying to reduce teleworking in federal agencies, recently ending a program for 12,000 Social Security workers. Unions charge he's trying to remove telework from contracts. But federal agencies, because of infected workers, are now shifting wholesale to telework. As many as 43% of its 2.3 million civilian workers might be eligible
