> All tech companies in Finland are like "We can't find enough competent coders!" and newspapers are publishing that as is.
To me, if a tech company claims in a newspaper that it cannot find competent coders, to me it says that they are uncapable of detecting talent. Which means "we have a really incompetent human ressource team". This is clearly not something that I would like journalists to print if I were a company owner. :-)
On the other hand, journalists should change their headlines towards "We can't find enough competent coders for xxx €/$!". Giving this information would be a strong service to the reader.
>To me, if a tech company claims in a newspaper that it cannot find competent coders, to me it says that they are uncapable of detecting talent.
Nah, you see the pattern in pretty much every first world country.
1. Government makes law protecting citizens saying companies must hire local unless as a last resort
2. Big tech companies post job listings with unreasonable qualification requirements, while offering wages so low that few people would accept
3. Nobody applies/accepts offers from those companies
4. Companies start whining to the government about how they can't find workers (at these wages) and that we need to increase the amount of visas from India/Bangladesh/wherever.
5. Government falls for it hook, line, and sinker. More cheap foreign labor is approved.
6. The market value for all programmers in the region drops.
Repeat steps 1 through 6 until the average programmer salary hits minimum wage. If local citizens resist at any point, just accuse them of being racist.
> Repeat steps 1 through 6 until the average programmer salary hits minimum wage
Did it ever happen? I mean, some active high-tech markets that have a lot of hiring going on and have been around enough to run these cycles if it's indeed what is happening. I don't know about other first world countries, but I am seeing in the US software developer's salary is nowhere even near the minimum wage. In fact, they are substantially higher than average wage for all the other comparable occupations (i.e. not bank CEOs and board members for Fortune-500 companies). I also am not seeing them precipitously dropping. So I am not seeing it happening as your model describes. Why do you think it is so?
Met a Indian in Sweden who was exploited in exactly that way. He made 27k while the market rate for a native with his skills would have been 40k at least. He got fed up with the bullshit and is now working on his PhD at a top university.
Is it really worth to invest so much money into "marketing" and "lobbying" the skill shortage instead of simply increasing the salaries to make the job more attractive? Just wondering...
Yes, lobbying has an incredibly high return on investment.
>After examining million records, including data on campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, federal budget allocations and spending, we found that, on average, for every dollar spent on influencing politics, the nation’s most politically active corporations received $760 from the government.
>In a recent study, researchers Raquel Alexander and Susan Scholz calculated the total amount the corporations saved from the lower tax rate. They compared the taxes saved to the amount the firms spent lobbying for the law. Their research showed the return on lobbying for those multinational corporations was 22,000 percent. That means for every dollar spent on lobbying, the companies got $220 in tax benefits.
True enough, but most of this is corporate welfare lobbying (e.g. getting favorable legislation or direct subsidy or tariffs or taxes or something like that) not specifically about employment and immigration.
Is it really worth to invest so much money into "marketing" and "lobbying" the skill shortage instead of simply increasing the salaries to make the job more attractive?
Well it keeps the money in the Management caste rather than any of it going to the Worker caste.
A certain huge multinational once tried to hire me, and disappeared when they were supposed to send me a test.
Cue some months later I see in a magazine a interview with them, and complaining they can't find someone for that job.
So I applied again, they apologized profusely, blamed old HR company. Sent me to talk to new one.
New HR company approves me, then multinational refuse me explicitly because corporate policy is that this particular job must be done by someone experienced.
Thing is: they wanted a local, and they were the first company here offering that job... So good luck finding a experienced person when you are the first one offering that job in first place.
To me, if a tech company claims in a newspaper that it cannot find competent coders, to me it says that they are uncapable of detecting talent. Which means "we have a really incompetent human ressource team". This is clearly not something that I would like journalists to print if I were a company owner. :-)
On the other hand, journalists should change their headlines towards "We can't find enough competent coders for xxx €/$!". Giving this information would be a strong service to the reader.