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International Business Machines Corp. this week quietly laid off employees, continuing a wave of job cuts the company announced in April.
IBM declined to say how many jobs would be cut overall. The total layoffs could affect more than 14,000 jobs, according to an estimate by Stanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi.
... IBM has said it would restructure its workforce to retool for cloud services and data analysis, and could hire an equal number of new employees by the end of the year.
Sounds similar to what many business are going through.
Then there's this...
IBM Corporation has filed 27398 labor condition applications for H1B visa and 651 labor certifications for green card from fiscal year 2013 to 2015. IBM was ranked 3 among all visa sponsors.
So they are basically replacing Americans with foreigners. I think my OP is on target.
International Business Machines Corp. this week quietly laid off employees, continuing a wave of job cuts the company announced in April.
IBM declined to say how many jobs would be cut overall. The total layoffs could affect more than 14,000 jobs, according to an estimate by Stanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi.
... IBM has said it would restructure its workforce to retool for cloud services and data analysis, and could hire an equal number of new employees by the end of the year.
Sounds similar to what many business are going through.
Then there's this...
IBM Corporation has filed 27398 labor condition applications for H1B visa and 651 labor certifications for green card from fiscal year 2013 to 2015. IBM was ranked 3 among all visa sponsors.
So they are basically replacing Americans with foreigners. I think my OP is on target.
Yup, if you want to restructure your workforce to concentrate on cloud and big data that's what you have to do. Its very hard to find American citizens with that sort of expertise. I mean, we have them, but not in big enough numbers to fulfill the demand.
As it happens I am new to this thread right from another where a C-D conservative thinks the homeless should be used as a $3/hr. labor force to shore up the low wage sector. I may read the several pages of push-back to your o.p. but not now. I find it very interesting that your conclusion is that the American worker is the one that has to make themselves less expensive to employ. Who has the money? Do you know the percent of middle class Americans that did not see a dentist last year? More Americans than ever have health coverage but you know what? If your teeth are rotten you are going to want to die even if the rest of you has excellent insurance.
If you were right, that its on the American worker to do more with less then Donald Trump wouldn't have the ear of a big swath of America promising the return of steel and other manufacturing and the repeal of NAFTA and the TPP. If you were serious you would have used the time you spent coming up with ridiculous bullet points to show how it might be possible to pay American food prices, rents, beater car repair costs, urgent care costs and other 2016 level components of the Cost of Living. But you did not and cannot so I'm not sure why you even bothered to spend as much time as you did crafting a FAIL post.
At $3/hr. the homeless would still be homeless. The ideal reality for people who would come up with that is that anyone beneath them would be forced to work for pennies while they get to kick them in the streets. Even slaves had a roof over their heads.
Yup, if you want to restructure your workforce to concentrate on cloud and big data that's what you have to do. Its very hard to find American citizens with that sort of expertise. I mean, we have them, but not in big enough numbers to fulfill the demand.
Yeah, my company would love to hire more locals. But there just aren't enough people here interested in computer science related careers.
Which is baffling to me. Pay can quickly gets into 6 figures. Many have work from home capability now. Good benefits.
But there's just not enough domestic supply so we have to import(unless just outright offshoring but that doesn't work as well). It's not like they get paid any less either. Still pay the prevailing wages for the position. It's a pain in the butt to work through a Visa sponsorship. Companies would much rather not do that.
Many jobs will be replaced by automation in the coming decade. I would look up your career here, and if there's a high chance of automation I would start learning something new asap. Will Your Job Be Done By A Machine? : Planet Money : NPR
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
11,334 posts, read 26,092,084 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by notnamed
Yeah, my company would love to hire more locals. But there just aren't enough people here interested in computer science related careers.
Which is baffling to me. Pay can quickly gets into 6 figures. Many have work from home capability now. Good benefits.
But there's just not enough domestic supply so we have to import(unless just outright offshoring but that doesn't work as well). It's not like they get paid any less either. Still pay the prevailing wages for the position. It's a pain in the butt to work through a Visa sponsorship. Companies would much rather not do that.
Interesting. I've been working in IT and software development for 25+ years, and I've seen what companies claim they are looking for.
Are you located in an area with a shortage of workers? Or are you being overly picky about the required toolset skills, technical experience, and Line of Business experience in your job requirements?
Serious question. I've seen companies even here in Atlanta seeking impossible combinations of the above, and it doesn't surprise me at all that "they can't find anyone to fill their position". No kidding...
International Business Machines Corp. this week quietly laid off employees, continuing a wave of job cuts the company announced in April.
IBM declined to say how many jobs would be cut overall. The total layoffs could affect more than 14,000 jobs, according to an estimate by Stanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi.
... IBM has said it would restructure its workforce to retool for cloud services and data analysis, and could hire an equal number of new employees by the end of the year.
Sounds similar to what many business are going through.
Then there's this...
IBM Corporation has filed 27398 labor condition applications for H1B visa and 651 labor certifications for green card from fiscal year 2013 to 2015. IBM was ranked 3 among all visa sponsors.
So they are basically replacing Americans with foreigners. I think my OP is on target.
Your biggest mistake is that you fail to realize that the cost of living in the US is so much higher than in countries like India where most of these H1B visa holders for IT jobs will be coming from.
It's one thing when you go to the US for 3-5 years, share a cheap Moderator cut: language apartment with 3 other guys, work for 60% of an American's salary, then go back to your country and live like a king off the money earned, enjoying the low cost of living there.
It's different for the Americans who have to pay American rents and mortgages, American taxes, American medical costs, American educational costs, and save enough money for American retirement where they will be still paying American prices for everything.
In other words, it costs significantly more for an American worker to maintain the same lifestyle in the US as it costs for an Indian worker to maintain the same exact lifestyle in India.
The only way for an American worker to become competitive then is to drop his quality of life below that of an Indian worker's quality of life in his country.
In other words, the outsourcing promotes poverty driven competition - the poorest worker with similar skill set (not matching, just close enough) wins.
And if the Indian worker's quality of life improves, there's always a poorer country somewhere else.
The only way to stay competitive in a lassie-faire globalized market is by being poorer than your competing worker on the other side. The outsourcing is the race to the bottom for the workers. And this goes for all levels of organizational structure, except the very top.
The major shareholders force companies to maximize profits at any cost, and the best way to do this is by utilizing the workforce in poorer countries and selling in richer countries. Since this means the population of the richer countries will inevitably become poorer via job loss and exchange of earned wealth for goods and services, this is a temporary get rich scheme. The "giant sucking sound" that Ross Perot warned about has been heard for long time now.
So either we agree to this kind of future for our kids, or we elect barriers where outsourcing is no longer profitable, before our earned wealth goes away and we as a society lose our leverage.
When the British Empire conquered India, there was a thriving, expansive, low-cost Indian textile industry. Instead of allowing British merchants to import these textiles from India, the government set up a system of tariffs and taxes protecting British textiles, and forced Indians to buy British goods even though their had their own. In another 50 or so years, the British textile industry exploded into an enormously profitable sector of economy, spurring technological innovation, providing employment to a large part of British population, and helping to make the Britain ever stronger and richer. Yes they were evil colonial masters, but they understood macroeconomics very well, and the government took the steps that benefited their country even if this meant some of the merchants didn't make super profits selling cheap Indian textiles in the aisles. In the end, everyone won (except the exploited Indians).
Now, our government is doing exactly the opposite.
Quote:
Originally Posted by notnamed
Many jobs will be replaced by automation in the coming decade. I would look up your career here, and if there's a high chance of automation I would start learning something new asap. Will Your Job Be Done By A Machine? : Planet Money : NPR
I hope they are correct Both my wife and I came up at just over 1% chance.
Last edited by Jeo123; 06-21-2016 at 06:54 PM..
Reason: Merged
The American employee is becoming too expensive. We cost too much.
When products cost too much, what happens? You look for alternatives... cheaper products... more efficient methods... maybe you just go without the products.
More and more business owners are looking for alternatives to the American employee. What are the alternatives?
paying illegal immigrants under the table
operating in countries where the labor and tax rates are cheaper
more automation to perform job tasks
they shove more work on less employees
they use temp agencies for their labor pool
simply reduce the workforce
How have we overpriced ourselves?
increasing the minimum wages
attaching a full suite of benefits for full time employment
401K plans help manage our savings (instead of doing it ourselves)
having the employer share the tax burden of the employees
I think we need to change the requirements on employment if we want more people working. We are too expensive. We have to bring the cost of employment down, otherwise it will continue to get worse.
I might point out that other alternatives to 401K plans are for more economical for the employer. The real issue is Government mandated compliance. When I had captive employees I had no issues with assisting them with retirement, but the Government's constant meddling makes it very unattractive.
By the way, I went to a 100% contractor model. All my employees earned > 100k, but now they are all indies, the reason: the cost in terms of time and money due to Government compliance.
If you want to keep your domestic economy healthy, you need to make sure the domestic consumption stays on par.
Everybody who works should be able to afford housing, food and educational costs. And be able to save a little.
Today, this is not the case. We have working poor. That is unacceptable.
How to solve this?
- Stop buying Chinese crap
- Stop inflating the cost of education
- Stop paying peanuts. That's how you get monkeys.
The most profitable period in our history was when one adult could earn enough money to support an entire family. We must get back to that point.
Companies move out of the country because they want to increase profits for their shareholders. They couldn't care [i]less[i]about the people who need to work in this country, they are out of touch with those who live and work below the ivory tower. People are numbers and the fewer people you have the greater the profit margin.
I would venture to guess the OP makes 6 figures a year and votes conservative... etc, etc, etc
Moderator cut: Referenced text deleted
That said, the first paragraph has merits.
The answer, to me, goes both ways. Both employers and employees have less alliance towards each other. They see each other simply as a means to an end as neither wants to really "invest" in each other. Maybe I'm just getting old and crusty, but when I was a young man workers took more pride in their jobs and employers sought out life long employees. There are a lot of reasons for this, and they can be different in different situations.
As to a solution, employers have to honestly value employees and be more transparent and employees have to be more dedicated.
Last edited by Jeo123; 06-22-2016 at 08:57 AM..
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Both my wife and I came up at just over 1% chance.
