Is there a single occupation in the United States where there is a REAL shortage of workers?

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Quality companies don't treat anyone badly, including contractors. You do make more money, but in my case the situation is a little different. I retired early almost 15 years ago, and if you don't listen to Flagpole and invest for higher returns so you can retire in your 40's, then you face the question of "what do I do now?" So I went into coaching not because I needed the money, but because I needed something to do, and because coaching leaves my summers mostly open, I can work IT contracts in the summer and mostly only the summer.

A lot has been said by the IEEE and others about a manufactured STEM shortage so companies like Google, Facebook, Adobe (to name some that have been nailed by the FEDs) can try to pay their engineers Walmart wages. I worked on two teams for two major companies in the last two years, and I was the only one there not doing QA that was not from India.

But I think I see in my inbox that there really is a shortage of people with high-level skills.

And the new thing I've seen this year, is outsourcing not to India vie eLance, etc., but remote outsourcing to developers in the USA. I did one of these last spring that was Ruby On Rails for a company in Omaha. You can do this kind of thing in the evening if you have Eclipse and your own server. There are plenty of places in the US that need skills you can't necessarily get in India that easily, and developers don't want to live there (also applies to Seattle that can only get people from San Diego if they pay a loy more).

coach d wrote:

But I think I see in my inbox that there really is a shortage of people with high-level skills.

Well, duh.

You mentioned Ruby on Rails. Initial release: 13 December 2005 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_on_Rails). Why would anyone expect that there would be a plethora of Senior-Level Ruby (10+ years experience) developers?

I think the problem is two-fold. From what I see in interviews, there really are not enough qualified people. But I think that card is highly overplayed as an excuse to bring in H1-Bs who will work under worse conditions. And then as an American citizen who does have those skills, you really get screwed over.

And I mean most of my team at work is here on H1-Bs and I love them to death, so I would never blame them for that, but the government is being pretty sketchy about it, instead of focusing on the actual problem.

Meanwhile there is a huge opportunity gap in the US, and many students are not even introduced to computer science at the high-school level. By the time you get to college, if you haven't already either taken CS in high-school or worked with it on your own (which is really only likely if you had someone in your family who encouraged you to play around with computers), you're screwed. It's really, really hard to learn in a class full of people who already know what they're doing. That's exactly what my situation was freshman year, and it sucked. I caught up sophomore year, but most people in my situation didn't. Instead they dropped the major.

H1-Bs are workarounds. They don't address the root cause.

Concerned Citizen wrote:

Demand is still the same. Supply has decreased, and the relationship between supply and demand has changed, but not demand.

200 million people seeking a dermatologist is higher demand than 100 million. Don't let your blind faith that supply and demand are independent of each other make you look stupid.

jamin wrote: Let's suppose for the sake of argument that those H1B visas were issued in response to a real shortage of Americans able to do those jobs. Does our nation have any plan for reducing its dependence on those imported workers? Any plan for training the current generation of overeducated burger flippers? I always thought these H1B visas were sold to the public as being temporary measures.

Last week at a conference in San Francisco, I gave a presentation on opportunities in high tech in the US.

Thirty or forty people came. All were Asian. In my companies, I find that all the relevant technology skills (as opposed to financial, marketing, legal and business leadership skills) are provided by Asians and other immigrants.

High-Tech startups by definition require long hours and complete commitment. These companies have to compete globally. IPOs are no longer feasible for most in the US. The upside remains tremendous but there is no interest in people who think they are entitled to big salaries for generic work or who believe that talent is fungible rather than specific.

I see a lot of sprinters and shot putters complaining that they are not being considered for high paying jobs in cross country and pole vaulting.

jamin wrote:

Doctors like to say, "We don't have enough doctors because too few people are willing to do what it takes to become one" or, if they're more arrogant, "too few people are smart enough to become one."

Where are you getting this from? Every med student, resident, and doctor I've ever discussed the topic with is well aware that the number of physicians is limited by the number of residency spots available. We all know that the number of people who are smart and ambitious enough to become physicians far exceeds the number of seats available in med schools and the number of residency spots available.

Have you ever actually heard any doctor say the things you quote above, or are you just blatantly making things up?

CPA's & CFA's

Bad Wigins wrote:

basic econ wrote:

Restricting quantity supplied does not increase demand.

If there used to be 100 million people without a dermatologist, but now there are 200 million people without a dermatologist, there are now twice as many people seeking a dermatologist, which is increased demand.

So what you're saying is that you don't know what the word "demand" means.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Concerned Citizen wrote:

Demand is still the same. Supply has decreased, and the relationship between supply and demand has changed, but not demand.

200 million people seeking a dermatologist is higher demand than 100 million. Don't let your blind faith that supply and demand are independent of each other make you look stupid.

200 million is more demand than 100 million, fair enough, but that isn't what you were talking about. If you have 200 million people, whether there are 2 dermatologists or 200 doesn't affect demand.

basic econ wrote:

Daley Gravy wrote:

Dermatology is a completely manufactured shortage. Way more medical students want to be dermatologists than are given residency positions. The numbers are kept small to increase demand (and incomes) intentionally.

Restricting quantity supplied does not increase demand.

it does on a micro level, sally. a single derm. now has a greater demand (number of patients seeking their services) because the supply has been restricted. if that's even the case. macro, no, micro yes.

basic micro wrote:

basic econ wrote:

Restricting quantity supplied does not increase demand.

it does on a micro level, sally. a single derm. now has a greater demand (number of patients seeking their services) because the supply has been restricted. if that's even the case. macro, no, micro yes.

No, the demand curve is not shifting outward. The quantity demanded is still the same.

If 100 people want appointments at a given price, the quantity demanded is 100. Whether all of those people get appointments or half of them do, quantity demanded is 100.

Changing supply creates unmet demand, but it doesn't increase demand (i.e. shift the demand curve outward).

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4. Skilled Hispanic immigrants

Not completely sure how you define "real shortage," but given I know guys in computer science and engineering who had companies competing with each other to get these guys to work for them months before the guys even graduated college, I would say that's a shortage. I know a guy in computer science who was going to go with one company, so the other company matched their salary offer and threw in a $10,000 bonus for signing on for a year. He was 22 and making $90k/year at his first job out of college and got $10k just for signing.

coach d wrote:

Quality companies don't treat anyone badly, including contractors. You do make more money, but in my case the situation is a little different. I retired early almost 15 years ago, and if you don't listen to Flagpole and invest for higher returns so you can retire in your 40's, then you face the question of "what do I do now?" So I went into coaching not because I needed the money, but because I needed something to do, and because coaching leaves my summers mostly open, I can work IT contracts in the summer and mostly only the summer.

1) I never wanted to retire in my 40s, but if I did want to, all it would have taken with my SAME investing strategy would be either for us to not have children or for my wife to continue working full time instead of being a stay at home mom for 15+ years. Neither option was agreeable to us. Technically though, at 48, I COULD retire today if I REALLY wanted to. I COULD sell my house and buy one for half the proceeds in TX or Florida and live frugally on my invested pile, waiting for a little increase when I take SS at age 62, so I COULD do it now. Also, if my wife continued to work (she works half time now), I could easily retire...she then works until I'm 59.5, and we'd be golden. I'm not ready to retire just yet though. I may strongly consider it at age 55. We'll see.

2) When people tell me they retired x number of years ago but that they now "coach" and/or "work IT contract in the summer", then I don't consider that being retired...because it isn't. What it is is a change in how much you work and exactly WHAT you do for work, and a decision to make less money, but you are still working and thus not "retired". Now, tell me that you don't get paid a penny for either thing, THEN I will agree that you are retired. If you quit a full-time job but then supplement your income even with part-time work, you are not retired. Good for you for doing what you want to do, but it's not retirement.

Grease chemists! Not joking.