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Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

bloomberg.com

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Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#51

Post by agumonkey »

charlesdm wrote: post #32
vemv wrote: post #29

Spanish dev here, 3 years in the business, been twice a freelancer and twice an employee. My main complaints: - The maximum salary a developer can earn at any given company is almost written in stone - around 36000 euros. Every public job posting will have that figure as the max. When it's higher, they'll water it down in the interview. Why? Probably because they don't have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. We a…

Have you considered working remotely for a US company? I know a guy making €7 or 8,000 per month, after tax, living in Paris. Best of both worlds: amazing quality of living, cheap cost of living + healthcare, lots of spending (or investing) money! Seems to be working well for him.

Is he a very special kind of dev ? Why would an US company go to that length to hire someone.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#52

Post by kartan »

Spanish here. I moved to Sweden, I prefer the business culture here. Less non paid extra hours. More respect from managers. Better pay. Etc.

They rant about not being able to use more people as part time slaves. It's a problem of using industrial business mentality in the high tech industry. They care only for reducing salaries and getting long hours with no respect for the developers that are expected to be code monkeys.

So yes, they don't find as a big supply as they want.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#53

Post by tremon »

konschubert wrote: post #34

> It takes at least eight months for an experienced software developer to earn an Agile qualification and they also need the ability to deal with senior executives, I am a bit confused by this sentence. How does one "ear an Agile qualification"? Why does it take eight months? What is "the ability to deal with senior executives"?

What is "the ability to deal with senior executives"?

Patience and prudence.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#54

Post by hellogoodbyeeee »

winestock wrote: post #20

From the article: "Pimentel’s client asked him for list of candidates trained in “Agile” project management techniques for helping companies boost their productivity by using more I.T. systems. The client was offering as much as 200,000 euros ($220,000) a year -- almost 10 times the average salary in Spain." So they're willing to pay ten times the going rate, but they're not willing to take the time to train anyone?…

20k isn't the going rate of an agile software developer, it is the average salary in the country. So the average of all the janitors, and chefs and construction workers and agile software developers combined.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#55

Post by ldng »

dmix wrote: post #27
ldng wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wages were too low. The skilled spaniard fled the country. Combined that cuting spendings in education. And now act surprised at the result.

> Combined that cuting spendings in education. I highly doubt they were cutting spending to CS courses and medical programs. More education doesn't solve the '5 million people unemployed' problem. Having the right education is what matters. That often doesn't require throwing more money at the problem. Especially when the vast majority of education financing goes down administrative black holes. Just saying 'cutting…

> Just saying 'cutting spending = bad' is about as baseless as this article

I'll grant you that. But Spain is the country who was in the top 5 countries in solar RD in the 200x, a lot of education program in that sector for instance.

The cutback were mishandled/misplaced. The Spanish government purposefully pushed to have low skilled labor as they intended to compete with Turkey on manufacturing. The thing is, that not what the market wants so it unbalanced it further.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#56

Post by vemv »

Jare wrote: post #41
vemv wrote: post #29

Spanish dev here, 3 years in the business, been twice a freelancer and twice an employee. My main complaints: - The maximum salary a developer can earn at any given company is almost written in stone - around 36000 euros. Every public job posting will have that figure as the max. When it's higher, they'll water it down in the interview. Why? Probably because they don't have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. We a…

Leaving aside the validity of the 10x programmer concept, the company still needs to be able to extract that extra performance in actual value. Most software jobs in Spain don't have productivity of that kind. Almost no companies here develop software products or services whose effectiveness translates directly into revenue. Very few of those who have tried have had any sort of long-term success.

I agree that measuring productivity is a hard, universal problem.

While I don't claim to commit 10x more LOCs, I do write exceptional abstractions that allow me to get things done in a quick, robust way.

I've met far too many 'senior' developers blatantly breaking DRY because they don't really know/use all features $language or $framework has to offer.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#57

Post by muse900 »

Greek here, living and working abroad.

Spain is doing a bit better than Greece but its on the same boat.

When I speak with friends back home, I do get a feeling that they don't want to work. Is it because they are lazy? part of me wants to say yes. I can't ignore the fact that the working conditions are awful. Salaries are quite low compared to the rest of Europe, an employer has full control over you, and can fire you any time. An employer won't ever promote you. They will just hold you as long as they can and then they will just hire someone else for less money. Also when you have internet and so much information avaialble to you, and you can see what are the working conditions in other Countries it kinda makes you sad.

I live in London, and tbh there have been many times that I've been thinking what am I doing here. London is quite expensive and the salaries are not as high compared to rent, food etc (at least for developers).

Now I just made this comment in order to give an overview of whats going on to a country that is on the same boat as Spain.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#58

Post by kartan »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #30

The gap isn't the pay or the training per se. A growing issue I see frequently is that companies need more highly experienced (read: senior) people, and are willing to pay for it, but there is no fast pipeline from "no experience" to "highly skilled" even if companies did invest in training. Meanwhile, the existing pool is much too small to meet demand; redistributing the talent won't address the underlying issue. Co…

King hired in Barcelona a lot of highly senior developers, people that were leading protects, being architects, etc in other companies. How? Better pay, better conditions and it gives more autonomy to the developers.

A fraction of them are talent brough from abroad because they wanted to live in Barcelona. So it is less hard to find talent when you are willing to be competitive.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#59

Post by pvaldes »

The "you need more skills" issue is a false problem. Is just that the bad guys have kidnapped, blocked for years, or freeze, most of the good jobs.

This is a mediocrazy and they need to raise a lot of walls for keeping off the brigther people who give them a bad image by comparison. And all is carefully planned to keep this people unemployed also for the next four years.

Requisites to be a minister in Spain?. Speaking english? not necessary. Holding any sort of degree of PhD? Not necessary. Years of experience working for private companies?. Not necessary, but it helps. If you helped a big company to contaminate a bay for example, you could be even be promoted as the next environment minister.

Requisites for the rest of guys for a normal job?. A hamster wheel. Well, first of all you need to be fluent in three or four languages, just because maybe one time a year, or once in ten years, you could need to speak with a foreigner; and for some reason you can't just raise a phone and hire a professional translator for this special day. You will burn in hell if you dare to suggest your boss this logic and simple solution. Then you need to have a degree, a PhD, and also a few masters, and being able to hypnotize a goat in less than five minutes, and work for free for some years, and ...

Job market in Spain is a question of kinship and means being promoted directly in lots of cases... or never.

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