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The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

businessinsider.com

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Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#41

Post by khuey »

jellicle wrote: post #32

Except that this isn't the truth. H1B imported engineers aren't the best in their field, working for top wages. They're middling-low, working for below-average wages. They pull down wages for the entire software engineering field by about 6%, say the studies. If H1B's are really the best software engineers in the world, why are they being hired for less than the average wages in the U.S. for average engineers? I appr…

Truly world-class engineers can be brought to the US on O visas. H1Bs are trying to fill a need for good or even great, but not amazing, engineers. Which is why it's a tragedy that so many of the spots go to shitty outsourcing firms for mediocre wages.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#42

Post by raverbashing »

stcredzero wrote: post #16
latch wrote: post #5

My take on this is that anywhere you look, most developers are poor to mediocre. The problem isn't specific to America. What is [mostly] unique to America is that immigration restrictions is the only thing stopping them from swooping up above-average talent from other countries (in no small part thanks to good salaries and the near-mythical nature of the valley) In other words, Portugal (as a random example) has the…

One company I worked for didn't look for and hire rockstar talent. They had a shop in India with lots of diligent guys who followed instructions, a decidedly inelegant architecture with lots of "repeating yourself," and a good position in an industry where just getting data from one place to another and usefully aggregating it made you tons of money. Don't underestimate the value of being in the right market and simp…

That is probably one of the most difficult things for the 'average engineer' to understand.

Solve a person's problem and you'll profit, doesn't matter if it is the worse hack ever invented, if it's reasonably easy to use and/or fulfills a need it gets the money.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#43

Post by untog »

jellicle wrote: post #32

Except that this isn't the truth. H1B imported engineers aren't the best in their field, working for top wages. They're middling-low, working for below-average wages. They pull down wages for the entire software engineering field by about 6%, say the studies. If H1B's are really the best software engineers in the world, why are they being hired for less than the average wages in the U.S. for average engineers? I appr…

I take exception that argument because, well, I'd like to think of myself as an exception. I arrived in the US as an H1B and while it's difficult to talk about my skills objectively, I am certainly not paid below-average wages.

I don't doubt that the majority of H1B visa holders are as you say. But the system can work correctly- I and many others I know are hopefully proof of that. So, "totally" debunked? No.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#44

Post by avemuri »

jellicle wrote: post #32

Except that this isn't the truth. H1B imported engineers aren't the best in their field, working for top wages. They're middling-low, working for below-average wages. They pull down wages for the entire software engineering field by about 6%, say the studies. If H1B's are really the best software engineers in the world, why are they being hired for less than the average wages in the U.S. for average engineers? I appr…

Source?

I'm questioning it simply because I remember from browsing US News stats during my grad school applications that pretty much every graduate department in STEM fields was 20-50% foreign students. I only looked at the top 20-30 schools, but that's a pretty substantial cohort. Maybe there are sweatshops out there that hire middling-low candidates at below market wages, but it's hard to dismiss the presence of a large pool that certainly ARE the best in the field.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#45

Post by Retric »

untog wrote: post #43
jellicle wrote: post #32

Except that this isn't the truth. H1B imported engineers aren't the best in their field, working for top wages. They're middling-low, working for below-average wages. They pull down wages for the entire software engineering field by about 6%, say the studies. If H1B's are really the best software engineers in the world, why are they being hired for less than the average wages in the U.S. for average engineers? I appr…

I take exception that argument because, well, I'd like to think of myself as an exception. I arrived in the US as an H1B and while it's difficult to talk about my skills objectively, I am certainly not paid below-average wages. I don't doubt that the majority of H1B visa holders are as you say. But the system can work correctly- I and many others I know are hopefully proof of that. So, "totally" debunked? No.

There is a separate visa for top tallent. H1B's are randomly assigned because it's about body's not tallent. Which is not to say we don't get top tallent randomly, but if your paying 400k/year you don't need to risk the H1B lotto.

PS: you only need 3 on that list and 4, 6, and 8 are not that hard to meet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_visa

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#46

Post by eli_gottlieb »

jacques_chester wrote: post #3

Given that immigration laws are import quotas, that the free market will fix things is a confused argument. There's no such free market in software engineering labour.

In order to usefully define a market you must define it as a closed system. Otherwise, you can push the price of anything at all to whatever you like simply by "importing" asymptotic quantities from "outside".

By the same reasoning, the Second Law of Thermodynamics poses no problem for any creature living on Earth, because we can always import more energy from the Sun.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#47

Post by Glyptodon »

tokenadult wrote: post #4

From the article: "There is a different kind of shortage, but the American people won't like to admit it. "What there is is a shortage of ultra-elite American-born talent, and Silicon Valley wants to hire the very best in the world. The view from Silicon Valley is that a lot of the US talent, while bountiful in number, just doesn't stack up." That is the nub of the issue. Several of the leading companies in high-tech…

I already want to bash my head in every time an employers wants to make me waste a weekend writing basic algorithms.

Plus if that's really the problem than what's needed is a credentialing system. However, most people here will point out that "doing algorithms for a test has nothing to do with real world 'rock star' productivity," and then continue to use their own versions of competency tests.

I know lots of real engineers and they never seem to have multiple rounds of massive technical interviews filled with technical questions despite working on and designing large complex systems that can often kill people if things go wrong. Though job ads do seem to have the same issues with demanding lots of experience in pointless skills.

...

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#48

Post by crabasa »

tosseraccount wrote: post #26

There is no tech labor shortage. [ source : http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html ] If there was a labor shortage, wouldn't real U.S. wages have been going up? If I want a $5 Prime Rib Eye steak, and can't find it, is there a beef shortage? Raise wages, and the talent will come.

> Raise wages, and the talent will come.

I'm astonished by this attitude. I hate buzzwords like "human capital", but it should be obvious that it's incredibly time consuming and resource intensive to produce people who can program in mainstream languages and platforms. This is not simply an issue of mining more coal or growing more corn.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#49

Post by eli_gottlieb »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #23

I have a problem with "If supply of workers is short of demand, price should go up". In a very basic view this makes sense. But not in even slightly more sophisticated models. A company makes a certain "marginal" revenue off the employee. It's not always easy or even possible to compute the exact amount, but the salary is limited by this marginal revenue. The difference between marginal revenue and salary is the marg…

If labor is too scarce for capital to successfully exploit the hell out of it, that mostly means capital should just give up and shut down, handing control over the means of production to labor.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#50

Post by dyno12345 »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #23

I have a problem with "If supply of workers is short of demand, price should go up". In a very basic view this makes sense. But not in even slightly more sophisticated models. A company makes a certain "marginal" revenue off the employee. It's not always easy or even possible to compute the exact amount, but the salary is limited by this marginal revenue. The difference between marginal revenue and salary is the marg…

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=revenue+per+employee+ap...

Seems likely to be a pretty safe margin

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