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Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

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Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#181

Post by eloisant »

taneq wrote: post #146
tropdrop wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From article - > low and middle income jobs, such as teachers and firefighters or nannies and cooks, are key to the local economy. Someone else commented in this thread how all these jobs (meaning every non-tech, middle-class job) will begin to pay more once they're more in demand. The assumption is that programming/tech is highly paid because it's so in demand, and every other job isn't because vice versa. Let's jus…

> However, San Francisco is currently experiencing a teacher shortage of several years [1], so that vice versa I mentioned above is simply not true. SF only has a shortage of teachers at the currently offered pay levels . If tech jobs paid the same as teaching, there'd be a "shortage" of tech workers too.

But for some reason the pay doesn't increase. So apparently the "offer/demand" law doesn't work for salaries.

So why do we see only people complaining about the shortage of teachers, and not an increase in offered salary? Maybe cutting taxes to tech companies so they come to SF instead of the Peninsula wasn't such a good idea?

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#182

Post by nradov »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #135
tropdrop wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From article - > low and middle income jobs, such as teachers and firefighters or nannies and cooks, are key to the local economy. Someone else commented in this thread how all these jobs (meaning every non-tech, middle-class job) will begin to pay more once they're more in demand. The assumption is that programming/tech is highly paid because it's so in demand, and every other job isn't because vice versa. Let's jus…

Yeah, the issue with the idea of the market sorting out public servants is that schools, police departments, fire departments and other public agencies can not simply charge what the market will bear to raise revenue for higher salaries. They don't have control over their revenue stream and that is by design, because their incentives can be quite difficult to manage.

Teachers at least can control the revenue stream fairly effectively by going out on strike next time their contract is up for renegotiation. If the schools shut down then local governments will find a way to raise the funds. Unfortunately that hurts the students but the only way to effect real change is to force the issue.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#183

Post by stale2002 »

eloisant wrote: post #181
taneq wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, San Francisco is currently experiencing a teacher shortage of several years [1], so that vice versa I mentioned above is simply not true. SF only has a shortage of teachers at the currently offered pay levels . If tech jobs paid the same as teaching, there'd be a "shortage" of tech workers too.

But for some reason the pay doesn't increase. So apparently the "offer/demand" law doesn't work for salaries. So why do we see only people complaining about the shortage of teachers, and not an increase in offered salary? Maybe cutting taxes to tech companies so they come to SF instead of the Peninsula wasn't such a good idea?

Well perhaps they don't care that much about the teacher shortage.

That's still supply and demand. A perfectly reasonable response to a shortage is to simple live with the consequences of the shortage.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#184

Post by eloisant »

jldugger wrote: post #139
kokokokoko wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a study which I cannot locate right now which discussed that one of the substantial impacts of a Walmart moving into a town was that all the "community leadership" type jobs left. Things like accountants and office admins and other business professionals. This was because the small businesses Walmart replaced were the ones that used these services locally. Walmart did these things at it's corporate office f…

It's not wrong, a LOT of tech companies have opened up support offices in Texas. The inexplicable thing is why engineering stays in SV.

Because that's where the money is.

VC are in SV and they want founders/CEOs close by. And founders/CEO want their engineers close by.

But honestly even if you really need your headquarters in SV (for VC money, network, saying you're a "Silicon Valley company", etc) your best bet is to open offices in other locations to hire engineers. Not only they can have a better standard of living even if you pay them less, but you will have less competition to hire and retain engineers.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#185

Post by masonic »

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #164
masonic wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bone-headed housing polices happily voted in by existing residents "Residents" have no such authority. Cities and counties don't even have an initiative or referendum power open to residents, generally.

They do in San Francisco. There's the power of the referendum (for instance, Prop C 2016), but more importantly, there's the power of the "community review" [1], with which a dedicated neighbor can stall construction for years by forcing reviews and appeals. The rules in other Bay Area cities are slightly different in construction, but not in result. [1] https://hoodline.com/2015/11/sf-planning-101-how-community-i...

  They do in San Francisco.
Hence the "generally". Those particular 47 square miles excluded.

  There's the power of the refererendum (for instance, Prop C)
Prop C was a charter amendment, not a referendum.

"Referendum" has a specific legal meaning in CA and is almost never used because the signature threshold is the same as for Initiative statues that you can bend however you want. Referendum takes just as much work with far less utility.

  a dedicated neighbor can stall construction for years by forcing reviews
Again a random "dedicated neighbor" has no power to "force" anything... even in SF. In SF, especially, it's money that talks.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#186

Post by masonic »

Johnny555 wrote: post #161
masonic wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bone-headed housing polices happily voted in by existing residents "Residents" have no such authority. Cities and counties don't even have an initiative or referendum power open to residents, generally.

But most communities do have an elected city council that's supposed to represent the will of the voters. In my community any attempt to build new housing results in a lot of current reidents showing up at planning meetings and complaining about how the new development will ruin their quality of life, take away street parking, and cause gridlock. Oddly, I only know of two people in my condo associate that work in tec…

  a lot of current residents showing up at planning meetings
Do you go to such meetings? Do you watch them on cable access or view the tapes at City Hall? (Heck, into the 1990s, the only available video of San Jose city council or SCC Supervisors meetings were if we taped it ourselves.)

In reality, almost all such meetings are lightly attended at best unless a "progressive" interest group transports then in.

Almost all Bay Area city council try to portray themselves as "progressives". Even in stodgy San Jose, not one councilmember is a Republican.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#187

Post by chrisseaton »

tlow wrote: post #151
chrisseaton wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But gardening is a skilled job requiring a couple of years or more apprenticeship to learn - not much easier than going into tech. Hence being lucrative.

Generalize your argument and reply please. Many things require skill, maybe initial capital and upfront investment is the OPs point. OP claims to pay "2k/mo" to get people to quit their jobs and focus on learning X, where X is programming.

> Generalize your argument and reply please.

Generalise it? No, because it was specific.

The person said ‘why aren’t people immediately filling demand for gardeners it pays well’ and the answer is... they don’t know how to garden it’s a skill they don’t have that takes years to acquire.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#188

Post by Scriptor »

jimmy1 wrote: post #114
sk5t wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have expected "name your price" electrician work to be more in the $100-120/hr range in a high-CoL area.

You are right -- I live in a low CoL area. 55 dollars an hour is astronomical. I would expect it to be double as well.

Is it still high after factoring in paying for your own insurance and tax?

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#189

Post by dragonwriter »

thepp1983 wrote: post #174
dragonwriter wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Capitalism != Corporatism. True. > We have a problem with corporatism not capitalism. In the U.S., we have a problem with something much closer to capitalism. (People occasionally indicate that it is a problem with “crony capitalism”, but cronyism has always been a feature or capitalism, it is not an aberration or alien feature.) In China (and even maybe Mexico, though much moreso during the PRI one-party era) ther…

> Crony capitalism is an economy in which businesses thrive not as a result of risk, but rather as a return on money amassed through a nexus between a business class and the political class. No crony capitalism is not a feature of capitalism. Crony capitalism is a feature of corporatism. You clearly don't understand the terms you are using. China is a totalitarian state that as long as those businesses keep in line a…

> No crony capitalism is not a feature of capitalism.

Yes, it's a feature of the real world system for which the term capitalism was coined by it's 19th Century critics, and it's been a prominent feature of every real example (including, to a varying extent, the modern mixed economies that have completely replaced the original system named “capitalism”, but retain significant elements of its structure, and are often referred to as “capitalism”.)

It may not be a feature of the incoherent and unworkable “ideal” capitalism dreamed up as a defense after the criticism in which “capitalism” was named, but that fantasy has little relevance to anything.

> Crony capitalism is a feature of corporatism.

No, it's not. Capitalism, crony or otherwise, isn't an essential feature or corporatism, though some versions of corporatism have encompassed elements of capitalism though sometimes at a fairly superficial level.

It's true that corporatism provides strong opportunities for cronyism, though.

Re: Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs

#190

Post by czechdeveloper »

yjhoney wrote: post #34

I started a nonprofit 2 years ago (garagescript.org) that hires low income people in San Jose and their full time job is to learn how to code and teach new students. Our nonprofit started off with 20 students, most were making about 25k/year and had no coding experience. I paid each of them 2k / month to quit their jobs and focus on coding full time. From the original 20 students, 6 are left. The other 14 are all ful…

It's interesting. Where I live, I was thinking about vice versa situation. We have good developers who are paid quite bad salaries. I'd love to make company that can bring good projects and pay good salaries. But I'm not good entrepreneur, so it will likely remain a dream.
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