🚀 go-pugleaf

Fred Elbel wrote:
> 
> Wed, 25 Sep 2002
> From: Prof. Norm Matloff
>          UC Davis
> Subject: The future
> 
> To: age discrimination/H-1B e-newsletter
> 
> This will be one of my longer postings, but I think it is one of the
> most important.  I ask for your patience.
> 
> I'm enclosing below an editorial in last week's Computerworld.  The
> editor had surveyed some executives who had won awards from
> Computerworld -- not a very scientific sample, but with results worth
> looking at.  The most relevant passage is the following:
> 
> Is  the  IT  labor  market  shrinking?  Most  said  yes...One  IT
> executive said it's too expensive to develop software in the U.S.
> "Techno nerd" jobs will outright disappear, particularly ones in
> programming and application development.  But database, network and
> systems administrators are safe.
> 
> Sadly, this is basically the same advice I have been giving students
> who ask me.  I would differ somewhat from the executives surveyed in
> certain aspects.  Programming and application development jobs will
> NOT "outright disappear [to overseas]," but I do believe that the
> lion's share of them will be done by H-1Bs.
> 
> As John Miano puts it:
> 
> ...there were 202,000 [H-1B visas granted] last year and if 53% were
> programmers (the last number I saw from the INS) that means there were
> 106,000 H-1B programmers for [a net new] 85,000 jobs.
> 
> How can that be?  Well, some of those visas were renewals, some of the
> existing jobs were cases of Americans being replaced by H-1Bs (see
> below), and so on.  Due to differing fiscal-year definitions, the two
> numbers above aren't quite for the same time periods, and then there
> are issues of job titles and definitions.
> 
> Nevertheless, it should be clear that the percentage of new hires in
> programming jobs filled by H-1Bs is much, much higher than the 28%
> figure found by the Dept. of Commerce a few years ago.  (That figure
> itself was already startlingly high to a lot of people who aren't
> immersed in the situation.
> 
> And even though I too have been telling students that "database,
> network and systems administrators are safe" for them (on the grounds
> that facility with English and American culture is important for these
> jobs), I'm not so sure of that either.  For example, according to the
> complaint filed by Guy Santiglia against Sun Microsytems (one of the
> most aggressive lobbyists to get Congress to set high H-1B quotas),
> Sun laid off large numbers of American SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS and
> replaced them by H-1Bs.  So that job category doesn't sound so safe
> after all.
> 
> That isn't even counting what I call the "blue collar-ization" of the
> whole systems administrator business.  Consider the two main worlds
> here, Microsoft and UNIX.  After Microsoft started the MCSE
> "certificate" concept a few years ago, large numbers of nontechnical
> people took MCSE courses, got certificates, and became technicians.  A
> lot of them didn't have college degrees, coming for example from jobs
> at Home Depot.  But in the UNIX world, people doing mostly the same
> kind of work (granted, sometimes doing a bit of programming) have
> generally had college degrees in CS or other technical fields.  Yet
> the MCSE people are basically system administrators.  There is already
> a trend for MCSE types to start doing UNIX too, and I believe that
> that will accelerate.
> 
> Now all of this is in direct contrast to the screaming articles in the
> press just four years ago, telling our young university students to
> study computer science.  This was supposed to be the most lucrative,
> growth-destined profession in America's future.  Even those of us who
> were raising dissenting voices at the time will be surprised by the
> degree of implosion of this profession in the next few years, I fear.
> 
> I've always noted that I am one of the few people on either side of
> the H-1B debate who are not affected by the issue personally.  I've
> got this nice job with tenure, but I do feel for those who are
> affected, and most of all what it is doing to morale of our young
> people.  There are only so many times that young people will allow the
> major institutions of society -- the press, Congress, Big Business,
> and yes, academia -- to lie to them.  In that regard, I am also
> enclosing, following the Computerworld editorial,  a letter from a
> member of this e-mail list, which expresses these concerns quite
> eloquently.
> 
> Norm
> 
> http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/management/story/0,10801,74184,00.html
> 
> Mapping IT's Future By PATRICIA KEEFE SEPTEMBER 16, 2002
> 
> We  received a letter last week from a dispirited worker with 15 years
> of  IT experience. He's been laid off, can't find a job and expects to
> leave the profession. He says the influx of cheap labor that cost him
> his job is "the beginning of the dismantling of the American
> technology worker."
> 
> Coincidently, some industry pundits are strongly predicting the demise
> of  corporate IT departments. That will happen by 2006 or thereabouts,
> according   to   David  Foote,  president  of  Foote  Partners  and  a
> Computerworld  columnist.  He  and many others predict that IT will be
> dispersed  throughout  the  enterprise  as  part  of the fabric of the
> company.  Business  users  will  be  capable  of taking on lower-level
> technical  tasks,  freeing  a  smaller core of IT staffers to focus on
> analytical and strategic issues.
> 
> Will  CIOs  and IT departments become obsolete? Are they morphing into
> new  roles?  What  impact  will  a computer-literate workforce have on
> changing those roles?
> 
> I  threw  those  questions  out  to  Computerworld's Premier 100 award
> winners  and  Executive Suite community members, and an impressive 160
> of  them took the time to send me some thought-provoking feedback. The
> economy  aside, most IT leaders remain optimistic that there will be a
> role for IT. Reading over their comments, I gleaned this consensus:
> 
> Is  the  IT  labor  market  shrinking?  Most  said  yes, thanks to the
> evolution  of  the  technology itself. As technology becomes easier to
> user,  more efficient, self-healing and ubiquitous, a lot of the heavy
> lifting can be left to business units and users, or become outsourced.
> One  IT  executive  said it's too expensive to develop software in the
> U.S.  "Techno nerd" jobs will outright disappear, particularly ones in
> programming  and  application  development.  But database, network and
> systems  administrators  are safe. "They are the unsung heroes of IT,"
> another exec said.
> 
> Most  said  IT  departments are permanent, but shrinking. Forget about
> the nuts and bolts. Ideally, said one IT vice president, "the emphasis
> in  technology  will  move  away  from  managing  projects to applying
> information  systems  effectively." Others said to prepare for a heavy
> emphasis   on   standards-setting,   infrastructure-tending,   process
> re-engineering  and  strategizing.  Understanding the business side of
> the  equation  will become absolutely critical, especially as business
> units   take   over   some   IT  functions  and  development  efforts.
> Adaptability  and  a  lifelong  commitment  to  learning  will  become
> essential.
> 
> What  about  the  impact  of  a more computer-savvy workforce? Most of
> those  who  replied  carefully  distinguished  between what one reader
> called  experienced users of technology and experienced technologists.
> "They  are magnificent users of what others have already created, sort
> of the race car drivers of the techno world," said one veteran IT pro.
> To  be  sure,  the  younger  generations will enter the workforce with
> higher expectations for performance and service, which in turn will be
> provided  by new waves of IT workers. "As technology becomes easier to
> use,  IT  becomes  more  complex  to manage," said one college dean of
> computing.
> 
> Although  the future of IT seems safe, don't get too comfortable. "The
> genie  is out of the bottle," warns one of your peers. "Stop believing
> and  behaving  [like]  you are the only resource who can do IT-related
> tasks!"   Another  algorithm  for  success  is  to  "keep  reinventing
> yourself" because traditional IT is about to go by the boards.
> 
> As  our  kids  become  more technically astute and the technology gets
> better,  it  will put pressure on traditional IT workers to stay ahead
> of the needs of end users in order to stay employed. But staying ahead
> is what you've always done.
> 
> Patricia Keefe is editorial director at Computerworld. You can contact
> her at patricia_keefe@computerworld.com.
> 
> From: ***********
> Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002
> Subject: Re: Peoria Journal Star article  - Letters to Editor
> 
> Dr. Matloff:
> 
> Yes, you can post the following article in your newsletter:
> 
> The public and the media must realize and come to terms with the
> negative effects engineers' and programmers' job insecurities are
> having on our teenagers and youngsters.  The upcoming American
> generation is crucial to the United States' technological survival.
> 
> My two sons are aged fifteen and ten.  My high school son is a Science
> Honors student while my ten year old has been accepted in accelerated
> math.  Due to my previous layoffs along with those of fellow engineers
> and programmers, my wife is discouraging our sons from majoring in
> engineering and\or computer science.
> 
> I'm certain that this same scenario is being played out in thousands
> of American homes.  Why should our children "rack their brains out" in
> Science, Math and Engineering in good American colleges for four years
> only to face stagnant wages and layoffs upon graduation?
> 
> The H-1B and other engineering wage busting issues are symptomatic of
> something much more sinister and dangerous for America in the long
> term and this is government's, academia's and corporation's abandoning
> and forsaking their homegrown technological base.  Concurrent with
> this ominous trend is the draining of our technical prowess to third
> world and potentially dangerous nations.
> 
> I'm certain that Iraq's Sadam Hussein and Al Qaeda's Osama Bin Laden
> would love to have access to our communications' cryptographic
> secrets.
> 
> If these trends continue, America will become a second-rate
> technological nation in ten-to-twenty years. This is the fate that
> awaits a nation that takes its engineering and scientific talent for
> granted.
> 
> My formative youthful years were in the sixties right after the launch
> of Soviet Sputnik.  In those days American culture promoted and
> nurtured its scientific and engineering career paths for its youth.
> Companies held on to their engineers and scientists.
> 
> I know quite a few retirees in their seventies and eighties who
> retired after 30-to-40 years with one company.  It's important to note
> that their salaries were not that high at their retirement.
> 
> These retired engineers and scientists were not greedy individuals.
> All they wanted was a livable wage, good benefits, innovative work
> environment and job security. Corporations and government being only
> too happy to give them these small benefits realized the even bigger
> return they received with long term in-house technical know-how that
> these individuals provided.
> 
> Forty years ago companies valued their human technical resources.
> Companies had long range visions.  For example, RCA's David Sarnoff as
> ruthless as he may have been (I believe that he stole Philo
> Farnsworth's TV ideas) never believed in laying off his treasured
> engineers and scientists.  (This was relayed to me by a retired former
> RCA engineer.
> 
> Sarnoff was bent upon making RCA a world-class electronics power, and
> he had a long term view of where he wanted his company to be in a
> ten-to-twenty year time period and beyond.  Consequently, RCA
> programmers, engineers and scientist had long term job security.
> 
> Unfortunately, Sarnoff died years before RCA's 1986 takeover by GE and
> "Neutron Jack" Welch, and those once valued RCA engineers and
> scientists found themselves on the street jobless.  GE's long term
> view of the future ended with the next quarter's earnings and profits.
> 
> When GE laid off 800 engineers and scientists at its Astrospace
> Division in East Windsor, NJ, (formerly RCA Astroelectronics) and
> Valley Forge, PA, locations in 1991-1992, men and women with
> doctorates and patents in high technology space, communications and
> electronics specialties were included. To me, this proved that GE had
> no vision of the future other than to placate the corporate board
> room's lust and greed for quarterly profit.
> 
> Incidentally, this layoff resulted in the loss of GE's one billion
> dollar Mars Observer probe as well as the multimillion dollar failures
> of GE's Landsat and Telstar satellites in 1993 and 1994.
> 
> Unfortunately, neither corporate nor public (i.e., government and
> media) America has learned its lessons from these past fiascoes and
> mistakes.
> 
> **************
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----

Excellent post!  I spoke with the head of Human Resources at a Fortune
500 technology company in the Boulder-Broomfield technology corridor
today and she said that in Boulder County the technology companies have
imploded.  Her recommendation to laid-off technology workers was to look
for a new career in a non-technology industry.