From what I read, a lot of you are viewing this in a corporate context, which is fine since that's the article's approach.
I want to share a different experience - mine - of the nightmare in finding junior, entry level technicians to subcontract out work to.
To put this in context, I'm a 28 year old white male with a college degree and an upper-class upbringing (maids, drivers, and private school). So if anyone knows privlege, it's me. I own and operate an in-home/small business computer repair business (like Geek Squad, FireDog, or Geeks on Call). I've been in business for 5 years as a one-man operation and for all of 2007 I tried to subcontract 3-5 entry level technicians. I ended up with 0.
The problem? They want to make more money than I do. For example, I charge $x /hr and they want to make $x + $20 /hr with less than 1 year of experience, no certifications (not even A+), and rarely a college degree. They have no people skills, no business skills, and usually lie/inflate their technical skills. With some of them, their first question was "how much will I make per hour" before even knowing what the job entailed. They tried to negotiate their pay before giving me their name. Talk about "privileged." I started out making about 1/5th of what they want to make. And I had to get the customers too... remember, they're being handed a customer on a silver platter.
To better understand how upside-down the situation is, when I work with older, experienced technicians (ie people who understand how the world works) the accepted subcontracting split in this area (Northern VA) is 60/40 or 70/30 with the higher amount going to the technician doing the work. So these young guys basically ignore this system and propose their own rate which is usually more than I charge my customers.
In 2007, I met/talked with 50+ 20-something technicians, all with 1 year of experience or less, who all wanted to make $70 - $150 /hr.
Unreasonable demands indeed.
