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U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

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Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#31
post #3

In my mind this is screaming for apprenticeship programs like in Germany.[1][2] Companies need a more streamlined process to get employers early in their career so employees have the necessary training and then get promoted within. All the while employees get paid to learn and work. This one-size-fits-all 4-year college track that every U.S. citizen is being pushed through is failing miserably. [1] https://www.theatl…

I know of an employer that has an apprenticeship program. They hire probably 20 or 30 master graduates in to it every semester. It's used as a holding pen for foreign student graduates on OPT while the company gets them an H1B visa. The apprenticeships require a masters degree but the work doesn't. This essentially guarantees they don't get any applicants that are citizens and also helps avoid the h1b dependent designation.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#33
post #22

"They're just asking for the moon, and not expecting to pay very much for it," Cappelli says. "And as a result they [can't] find those people. Now that [doesn't] mean there was nobody to do the job; it just [means] that there was nobody at the price they were willing to pay." In my opinion, this is the key paragraph in the article. I see this all the time when recruiters send me job postings, and they want someone wi…

Indeed, I think something like it should have been the title.

I feel like that would've made the title too politicized, as it is it's quite neutral.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#34
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have source about post communist programmers being exploited by American companies and presumably unable to change job?

The other opportunities are not any better. Better opportunities are in more developed EU countries. It's a perfect environment for corporate America to thrive in. You will not find any exploited programmers there because the signs of underperformance are picked up early (mid level management is so efficient!), the employee labeled as "unhappy", and let go. There are only fulfilled and happy people working there.

You still didn't provide a source, so you may as well be pulling this out of your ass.

Honestly, these are quite extraordinary claims, subpar as Eastern EU social infrastructure might be, I cannot imagine large foreign companies cutting benefits and eschewing work practices that are required by local and EU law. If anything, in my experience multinationals tend to scrupulously follow regulations to the letter, sometimes paralyzingly so.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#35

There is flood of American outsourcing centers in post-Communist EU countries. Top salaries for software devs/eng, including seniors, are USD 40k gross annually. They can treat the employees in the worst "corporate America" ways - their offices, available hardware, policies, laughable benefits, annual leave, create a perfect package for miserable professional and private life.

> their offices, available hardware, policies, laughable benefits, annual leave, create a perfect package for miserable professional and private life I am from an Eastern European city with a major outsourced IT industry, and I often associate with these IT workers and I visit their offices for local programming language or Open Street Map meetups. I don’t agree with your comment. Available hardware is fine. Benefits…

Absolutely. I also live in an Eastern European country with a large (and growing) IT outsourcing industry, and from my experience here, that statement couldn't be farther from the truth. These companies are some of the best employers in the country, with far above-average benefits, salaries and work conditions. Of course, some are worse than others, but that's true for any industry.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#36
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thomson Reuters did this using Belarus. Any systems in "maintenance mode" get sent to code monkeys in former Eastern Bloc nations. The quality is fair, but a lot better than what happened with India (sorry, India, I still love some of you guys, but the frustrations have left deep scars, too). It's not like American developers are faring much better in those items you listed--offices have become crap, hardware middlin…

What quality are you expecting?! The salaries aside, the policies (VPN only with permission, only Windows allowed, problems with remote working, getting paid to sit on chair 9-5, some weird virtual machine setups motivated by "security") are killing creativeness in the most talented people.

The complaints being so specific, it feels like you're having some discontent with your workplace and feeling that you're trapped there because "there's nothing better out there anyway." Well, don't despair, look around more, you might find that there are places you could actually like.

In the conditions you described, it may be worth it to take a small pay cut to get away from a soulcrushing job that makes you question your existence. Money really isn't everything.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#37

There is flood of American outsourcing centers in post-Communist EU countries. Top salaries for software devs/eng, including seniors, are USD 40k gross annually. They can treat the employees in the worst "corporate America" ways - their offices, available hardware, policies, laughable benefits, annual leave, create a perfect package for miserable professional and private life.

? Total misinformation. As applicable to Ukraine salaries are US salary - US tax -(20-30)% take into account cost of living and special tax treatment (3-4%). Workday is normal workday and not some unknown number of hours offices are way nicer then in US minus the usual suspects (Google FB etc.). You get way more time off plus there are like 3X official holidays in Ukraine. Running recruiting biz. on the side we had real trouble finding people for senior java dev. remote product work 60K/year (tax rate 3%) + all the usual benefits good candidates wanted 70K.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#38
post #22

"They're just asking for the moon, and not expecting to pay very much for it," Cappelli says. "And as a result they [can't] find those people. Now that [doesn't] mean there was nobody to do the job; it just [means] that there was nobody at the price they were willing to pay." In my opinion, this is the key paragraph in the article. I see this all the time when recruiters send me job postings, and they want someone wi…

But maybe the job isn't economically worth it at the higher salary? You seem to be assuming it's worth doing at any price, as does the article, and that's untrue.

Besides, I don't know about others, but I've recently put out multiple job ads for one vacancy. Our app, Noctacam, uses computational photography to take great photos at night. I was looking for someone with computational photography knowledge and/or iOS. And/or Android, since we plan to make an Android app in the future. I found it convenient to post three job ads, so that I can clearly organise the dozens of applicants based on their skills. Two of them went unfulfilled. Which is exactly as was intended. Someone who doesn't understand the background may say, "Oh, no, tons of positions aren't being filled." In other ways, it may a counting problem, not a real problem.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#39
post #22

"They're just asking for the moon, and not expecting to pay very much for it," Cappelli says. "And as a result they [can't] find those people. Now that [doesn't] mean there was nobody to do the job; it just [means] that there was nobody at the price they were willing to pay." In my opinion, this is the key paragraph in the article. I see this all the time when recruiters send me job postings, and they want someone wi…

But maybe the job isn't economically worth it at the higher salary? You seem to be assuming it's worth doing at any price, as does the article, and that's untrue. Besides, I don't know about others, but I've recently put out multiple job ads for one vacancy. Our app, Noctacam, uses computational photography to take great photos at night. I was looking for someone with computational photography knowledge and/or iOS. A…

If they need to fill this job and it is not worth the higher salary and it cannot be filled at this salary or lower then this job should not exist as a job: the owner of the company, the manager of the company, the HR person of the company can either do that job themselves or that job should be eliminated.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#40
post #3

In my mind this is screaming for apprenticeship programs like in Germany.[1][2] Companies need a more streamlined process to get employers early in their career so employees have the necessary training and then get promoted within. All the while employees get paid to learn and work. This one-size-fits-all 4-year college track that every U.S. citizen is being pushed through is failing miserably. [1] https://www.theatl…

I suspect internships are filling that void. My company (and quite a few others) only offer internships to juniors to increase the new hire pipeline.
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