March 16, 2013 at 01:58What is happening on the IT labor market in the USA?
In a post on the new immigration rules in the United States, a rather interesting topic was mentioned - the lack of qualified IT specialists in America. This problem has always existed, but why now it has attracted the attention of industry giants?
I have my own opinion on this matter, which I want to share. These are not statistics, just observations and conclusions. The action takes place in the Seattle area, 20 minutes from Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Expedia, etc.
The roots of the problem go back to the events of more than 10 years ago, when the collapse of dot-coms was raging in the USA, IT companies were falling like dominoes, people were fired by teams, salaries were falling rapidly, and hundreds of resumes were sent to one open position in the first hour after publication .
My colleague said that he himself sent the recruiter a decorated basket with cookies, where he put the resume - just so that they would pay attention to him.
Many of those laid off quickly figured out the direction of the trend and went to get licenses of real estate agents and loan brokers, the need for which grew along with real estate prices at an alarming rate.
It’s also obvious that every year millions of school graduates decide who to be. And if the finished computer “geeks” chose a profession in 10 years, then the vast majority considers subsequent employment and salary as decisive factors. Of course, in that situation on the market, the thought was spinning in the young brain, “Do you need to FIG!” And crowds of graduates joined the ranks of future financiers, doctors, lawyers, etc. instead of learning programming.
Then, over the next 5-7 years, the industry was at rest - qualified specialists found a stable job for themselves, moved away from the shock, made a career and gained benefits. Most of them were reluctant to enter the labor market for long. They were appreciated, raised their salaries and provided a relatively quiet life in the comfort zone.
In the same period, the market exploded with new gadgets - the iPhone came out, followed by Android - new, interesting, mobile, unknown! Estimate yourself how many people decided to try writing on them. In two words - there were tasks that previously simply did not exist or were negligible.
ABOUT! So you can still make money on this ?! The employer was sent to the forest, the young talent lives in cheap housing, and even with mom and dad, the Red Bull blows and pedals so that the keyboard smokes! Many of them themselves became employers, who, of course, were looking for programmers to hire.
A completely identical story happened with social networks - Zuckerberg’s billions haunted Microsoft’s potential interns and another major part of the market was bitten off by social media applications, or even new social networks.
Here you can add the rapid development of Cloud Computing, which required more resources that were previously available on the market.
So what do we have after all this? So to speak, news from the fields.
Our company is going to rewrite the product from scratch. Migrating from .NET to Java / PHP / MySQL. Do not ask me why, in a nutshell - a whim of top managers. For this, it is planned to hire twenty developers. After three months of searching, hired their own recruiter and promised referral bonuses, two developers were hired. Two people in three months of active searches - think about these numbers. Moreover, the vacancies of managers were filled in a few days.
Just talked to one of the programmers on this topic. He knows about 10 suitable candidates, but three of them flew away to wander around all sorts of kilimanjars / Antarctica, five replied that they were not interested in HR / Payroll programming in FIGs, and two were very expensive. And as far as I know, they are hiring for a salary> $ 120K per year.
These are the thoughts that are confirmed by conversations with people from other companies, in particular Microsoft, Amazon, Expedia.
The situation for employers is very sad. However, it is exacerbated by public pressure on the government to return work back to America.
For programmers, on the contrary, everything looks in a rainbow light.
UPD: I asked the recruiter - the company has not yet made H1B visas and transfers.
UPD2: The poll great reflected the Pareto law!
I have my own opinion on this matter, which I want to share. These are not statistics, just observations and conclusions. The action takes place in the Seattle area, 20 minutes from Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Expedia, etc.
The roots of the problem go back to the events of more than 10 years ago, when the collapse of dot-coms was raging in the USA, IT companies were falling like dominoes, people were fired by teams, salaries were falling rapidly, and hundreds of resumes were sent to one open position in the first hour after publication .
My colleague said that he himself sent the recruiter a decorated basket with cookies, where he put the resume - just so that they would pay attention to him.
Many of those laid off quickly figured out the direction of the trend and went to get licenses of real estate agents and loan brokers, the need for which grew along with real estate prices at an alarming rate.
It’s also obvious that every year millions of school graduates decide who to be. And if the finished computer “geeks” chose a profession in 10 years, then the vast majority considers subsequent employment and salary as decisive factors. Of course, in that situation on the market, the thought was spinning in the young brain, “Do you need to FIG!” And crowds of graduates joined the ranks of future financiers, doctors, lawyers, etc. instead of learning programming.
Then, over the next 5-7 years, the industry was at rest - qualified specialists found a stable job for themselves, moved away from the shock, made a career and gained benefits. Most of them were reluctant to enter the labor market for long. They were appreciated, raised their salaries and provided a relatively quiet life in the comfort zone.
In the same period, the market exploded with new gadgets - the iPhone came out, followed by Android - new, interesting, mobile, unknown! Estimate yourself how many people decided to try writing on them. In two words - there were tasks that previously simply did not exist or were negligible.
ABOUT! So you can still make money on this ?! The employer was sent to the forest, the young talent lives in cheap housing, and even with mom and dad, the Red Bull blows and pedals so that the keyboard smokes! Many of them themselves became employers, who, of course, were looking for programmers to hire.
A completely identical story happened with social networks - Zuckerberg’s billions haunted Microsoft’s potential interns and another major part of the market was bitten off by social media applications, or even new social networks.
Here you can add the rapid development of Cloud Computing, which required more resources that were previously available on the market.
So what do we have after all this? So to speak, news from the fields.
Our company is going to rewrite the product from scratch. Migrating from .NET to Java / PHP / MySQL. Do not ask me why, in a nutshell - a whim of top managers. For this, it is planned to hire twenty developers. After three months of searching, hired their own recruiter and promised referral bonuses, two developers were hired. Two people in three months of active searches - think about these numbers. Moreover, the vacancies of managers were filled in a few days.
Just talked to one of the programmers on this topic. He knows about 10 suitable candidates, but three of them flew away to wander around all sorts of kilimanjars / Antarctica, five replied that they were not interested in HR / Payroll programming in FIGs, and two were very expensive. And as far as I know, they are hiring for a salary> $ 120K per year.
These are the thoughts that are confirmed by conversations with people from other companies, in particular Microsoft, Amazon, Expedia.
The situation for employers is very sad. However, it is exacerbated by public pressure on the government to return work back to America.
For programmers, on the contrary, everything looks in a rainbow light.
UPD: I asked the recruiter - the company has not yet made H1B visas and transfers.
UPD2: The poll great reflected the Pareto law!
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In the same post, in the comments there were graphs of the rate of immigration of Russians to the United States, in connection with which it is interesting to carry out the following survey
- 77.2% Take advantage of the situation and leave Russia 2935
- 22.7% Staying in Russia 864