What is your company doing locally right now? (job openings, college)

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by MtnSurfer

Hm, this is kinda confusing. Are you actually laying local ppl off or just not locally filling positions lost thru attrition? Basically not doing anything locally?

Maybe a fifth option I should have added would be remaining stagnant overall -> neither hiring nor laying off locally.

Derek

No layoffs, all attrition. What few backfills happen, happen out of CA.

[coo77]

We have 25 job posting at our location in Irvine. Mainly looking for software and electrical engineers, as well as program managers. We are in electronics/aviation (IFE). Not enough qualified engineers. They actually are struggling to find them.

[Bulldogdad]

All of our layoffs occured in 2009 and 2010. Stagnant since June 2010.

[BVitamin]

Mostly hiring.

[jade408]

I work for a consulting company, all employees are 80% remote. I joined about a year ago. At the beginning of 2010 it had around 20 people. I was about number 30. There were around 10 people in CA. Between 8/10 and 4/11 it added around 30-35 people. Since then we have changed focus a bit and eliminated about 5 positions. There are currently about 20 people in CA. We have hired in other departments -- but it isn't location specific since we are all remote. Our business is growing a lot, and there is a particular area where we are significantly understaffed, so we are looking for partners and contractors to outsource to at this point. (Niche skill set, there are not a lot of potential applicants).

[.highnlite]

We have three sub companies
The farm is watching the crops grow and irrigating heading for a November harvest, we will probably bring on a hundred temps for weeding in the next two weeks.
My excavation/backhoe service is doing fine, the phone hasn't rung so I can get chores done on the farm,
And my wife's health services business is hiring, doing pretty darned good.

Not so much work that we can't play, but enough that we don't feel the need to rob a bank, or god forbid, move out of state...

[MtnSurfer]

Originally Posted by coo77

We have 25 job posting at our location in Irvine. Mainly looking for software and electrical engineers, as well as program managers. We are in electronics/aviation (IFE). Not enough qualified engineers. They actually are struggling to find them.

Yeah, we have the same dilema for highly skilled engineers. And some we make offers to take other competing offers. Some of these jobs are:

* Systems Administrator
* Oracle DBA
* IT Manager
* System Architect
* Java Developer
* Security Specialist

Most of these are mid-senior level and require extensive experience. Those that have it have jobs.

Derek

[blauskies]

Originally Posted by coo77

Not enough qualified engineers. They actually are struggling to find them.

Must be all the bad press on California's economy which is scaring people from making the move? I had some interest from a few companies in CA and I wasn't even applying for anything, just because I have a Linkedin account.

With everyone telling me I would be nuts to move to the Bay Area right now I'm between a rock and a hard place since the job market where I'm at now sucks but I'm still employed and somewhat stable.

[MtnSurfer]

Originally Posted by blauskies

Must be all the bad press on California's economy which is scaring people from making the move? I had some interest from a few companies in CA and I wasn't even applying for anything, just because I have a Linkedin account.

With everyone telling me I would be nuts to move to the Bay Area right now I'm between a rock and a hard place since the job market where I'm at now sucks but I'm still employed and somewhat stable.

If you have in-demand skills you shouldn't have any real issues. We've been hiring throughout the recession. But at the same time I've seen quite a number of ppl struggling to find work, most of whom came out of the construction industry. Some are friends who don't necessarily have a college degree or a degree in a relevant area. Also business majors seem to be having a more difficult time, especially generalist recent grads.

Derek

[yeahthatguy]

A big observation I have and that for which is reflected in comments is that people are looking for rock stars/all stars instead of investing in someone and training them .. True enough, rock stars/all stars already have jobs .. Are quite comfortable in them, and tend not to throw away years of proof'd value at a particular company to start a new at another. Right now, I would think for a lot of people who are at mid/senior level .. they have families and bills to worry about. So, I would think they aren't going to jump ship to a smaller company, an industry that is in peril, or take unnecessary risk....

Can't find people w/ the skills .. I tend to feel this is a bunk statement. There are plent of people w/ skills floating around that need jobs. The problem is, everyone wants to hire an allstar who has everything they need and aren't looking at people who have a bit of what they need and the capacity/capability to easily develop the rest....

And so goes the 'outsourcing' excuse at this point... I don't know how prevalent this trend is, but if companies collectively want the economy to get better, everyone can't be looking for all stars who already have jobs and when its not possible throwing your hands in the air .. declaring 'workers don't have enough skills' and sending the work overseas....

Why aren't you developing and retaining all stars is always my question?
If you were, you'd be promoting more junior individuals at your company to senior positions and back-filling w/ more intro workers and training them up....

A big problem is that people want all star resources and want to pick them up and drop them as they see fit .. Well, the world is out, and thus you aren't going to attract such people from stable companies who don't do that...

Start investing in the people who already work at your company to become the senior all-stars you desire.. start retaining them.. start giving people w/ enough skill a chance to work at your company and develop the rest and maybe we might get somewhere as a country..

However, I don't expect many to do this .. So, by all means, collectively keep sinking the economy....
Hopefully enough of these skilled disenfranchised skilled workers get together and form a startup that will eventually displace such companies who ignore their value.