IP: Re: Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>X-Sender: larry@pop.walltech.com (Unverified)
>Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 01:42:18 -0700
>To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
>From: Larry Tesler <larry@nomodes.com>
>Subject: Re: IP: Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage
>
>Dave,
>
>Matloff's paper is so full of holes and non sequiturs, it is not funny.
>
>For starters, let's look at his primary gripe: age discrimination.
>
>Suppose Mary and John both apply for a job. Mary has experience doing the 
>job and is very knowledgeable and fast. John has never done the job 
>before, lacks necessary skills, and demands 50% more pay besides. Both 
>John and Mary are citizens, and neither is a felon. But their ages differ. 
>Which would be discrimination: hiring John or hiring Mary?
>
>It is obvious to me that if the employer hires Mary--the more qualified 
>candidate who asks less in salary--there has been no discrimination of any 
>kind. It can only be discrimination if the less qualified candidate gets 
>the job, or, in the case of equal qualifications, if the candidate that 
>demands to be paid more gets the job.
>
>Then the question is, what kind of discrimination? If less qualified John 
>was hired over more qualified Mary at higher pay because of his gender, it 
>would be sex discrimination. If he was hired over Mary because of his 
>race, it would be racial discrimination. If he was hired over Mary because 
>of his age, it would be age discrimination.
>
>In Matloff's example, Mary (not the candidate's name) is hired. But 
>Matloff claims it is age discrimination, even though Mary is the more 
>qualified candidate. The reason? She is younger than John! The employer, 
>in his view, should give age preference to the older candidate, despite 
>his higher cost and inferior skills.
>
>To add paranoia to illogic, Matloff insinuates that employers try to infer 
>age from resume and purposely screen out the older candidates. That would 
>certainly be age discrimination. But to claim it is a rampant practice 
>without evidence is unsound scholarship.
>
>Matloff tries to apply his topsy-turvy age discrimination logic to H1-B 
>visas, which entail entirely different issues. By law, employers not only 
>can, but must, discriminate against aliens without papers.
>
>Matloff then cites the fact that some top employers hire only a few 
>percent of applicants. He says this statistic proves that there cannot be 
>a shortage of software engineers. But the fact that a woman gets 100 
>marriage proposals--many from strange drunks on the street--and only 
>accepts one does not prove that there is a surplus of eligible husbands.
>
>These are some of the flaws in the logic...
>
>First, software engineers jump from company to company. When there is a 
>shortage of a skill, those who have it move from job to job to take 
>advantage of the situation and win positions, perks and pay. A lot of 
>resumes is as consistent with a shortage of engineers as it is with a 
>shortage of positions.
>
>Second, many engineers covet jobs with top tier firms because (a) despite 
>Matloff's insinuations that they are out to underpay, they actually pay 
>more from a total compensation standpoint than most places those 
>applicants are working now; (b) it is a great career step, a well-regarded 
>employer to list on a resume; (c) as with top tier universities, the 
>harder it is to get in, the more people want to get in.
>
>Third, many applicants send resumes to 50 or 100 companies in hopes of 
>improving their situation or just getting a change of pace. If every 
>employer hired 50% of the applicants, every applicant would start work at 
>25 new jobs. The math does not work.
>
>Employers do indeed see a lot of resumes. But who has time to interview 
>hundreds of candidates for one job? Employers trim the list to manageable 
>size by reading the resumes. The poor fits to the job come in every age 
>group--as do the good fits and the highly skilled candidates.
>
>Some applicants have no programming skills at all. They hope to move to a 
>higher-paying career path.
>
>Some applicants blast their resume to an automated distribution list. 
>That's spam telemarketing, not discriminate selection of a potential employer.
>
>Fourth, he does not cite statistics on accepted applicants, only hired 
>applicants. Accepted applicants often get many offers, accept the best, 
>and turn down the rest. The rejected employer hires someone else instead. 
>This counts as one hire in the statistics, even though the employer made 
>two offers. And sometimes an employer has to make five or ten offers 
>before a candidate accepts.
>
>I could go on. But this email would be longer than the paper itself.
>
>Larry Tesler
>President, Stagecast Software, Inc.
>Average software engineer age: 41.2
>Average other employee age:    41.5
>H1-B visas: 1 out of 14 employees, and not the lowest paid SW engineer
>Job openings today: None
>
>
>>X\Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 20:01:56 -0600
>>To: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>>From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
>>
>>
>>Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage
>>
>>by Dr. Norman Matloff
>>
>>Due to an extensive public relations campaign orchestrated by an industry 
>>trade organization, the Information Technology Association of America 
>>(ITAA), a rash of newspaper articles have been appearing since early 
>>1997, claiming desperate labor shortages in the information-technology 
>>field. Frantic employers complain that they cannot fill many open 
>>positions for computer programmers. (Footnote: Our focus on computer 
>>programmers here is explained in the section "Reason for the Focus on 
>>Software.")
>>
>>Yet readers of the articles proclaiming a shortage would be perplexed if 
>>they also knew that Microsoft only hires 2% of its applicants for 
>>software positions, and that this rate is typical in the industry. 
>>Software employers, large or small, across the nation, concede that they 
>>receive huge numbers of resumes but reject most of them without even an 
>>interview. One does not have to be a "techie" to see the contradiction 
>>here. If employers were that desperate, they would certainly not be 
>>hiring just a minuscule fraction of their job applicants.
>>
>>The hidden agenda of the ITAA public relations campaign which began in 
>>1997 turned out to be to leverage Congress to increase the yearly quota 
>>of H-1B work visas, under which employers were importing tens of 
>>thousands of programmers to the U.S....
>>
>>http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html
>