Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Counter example to “tech staff shortage”

If there is a “tech staff shortage”, why aren’t laid-off Disney Epcot tech employees finding jobs?  See “Last Task After Layoff at Disney: Train Foreign Replacements”, New York Times, 2015-06-03, Julia Preston.

Disney has laid off 250 employees who keep the Epcot systems running, but in order to receive full termination benefits they have to train their H1-B replacements from companies in India.  Many of them with a wide range of skills cannot find new jobs.

On the other hand, many companies won’t hire employees who don’t have the “right skill set”, meaning a checklist of knowledge supposedly needed by the company.  Never mind any track record of knowing how to learn.

This article puts lie to the “tech staff shortage” as no more than a ploy to keep employee pay low and executive pay high.  Congress keeps buying into it and keeps the H1-B quotas high.

For more of this long-standing problem, see “Is There a Tech Staff Shortage?”.