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?”.
Showing posts with label training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label training. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 03, 2015
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Military training from outside
Why is an outside military needed to train a country's military on fighting rebels? If the rebels are so effective against government troops, could it be that the government troops are either unmotivated or corrupt? In the case of Afghanistan, why has it taken 12 years to train Afghan troops in counterinsurgency. Shouldn't those who were trained 12 years ago have enough expertise to train others? Consider that many of the outside trainers had no military experience at the outset of the war in Afghanistan.
From what I've read, the Afghani soldiers are in it for the money, honest or otherwise, or because they were drafted. Too many of them have no loyalty to the government.
I think U.S. policy long ago should have been: Karzai! Shape up or we ship out!
See also “Insurgencies, outside forces, and good government”.
From what I've read, the Afghani soldiers are in it for the money, honest or otherwise, or because they were drafted. Too many of them have no loyalty to the government.
I think U.S. policy long ago should have been: Karzai! Shape up or we ship out!
See also “Insurgencies, outside forces, and good government”.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Have good-paying jobs really been exported?
The mantra of "good-paying manufacturing jobs going overseas" never seems to be questioned. But I wonder if this "common wisdom" is really true.
There's no question that many hire-and-train jobs are now done in other countries. Simple assembly, clothes manufacture, operation of simple automatic machines, and on and on. But have all the jobs of skilled machinists gone overseas, have all the jobs of process designers gone overseas.
I think not. What has happened is that the skills required for these jobs have become more demanding and the productivity of people performing these jobs has skyrocketed. Higher productivity leads to a lot fewer people needed to produce the same number of goods.
My father's grandfather was a machinist and my mother's uncle was a machinist. I doubt that either could get a machinist job now with the skills they had then. It takes a good eye and a steady hand to produce parts exact to the thousandths of an inch. But now manufacturers have numerically-controlled tools that can do the same thing time after time. The operator sets the job up and may be free to work on something else.
Once upon a time a teen-ager with a tool box could be an auto mechanic. Now auto mechanics use a wide array of electronic gadgets to check and adjust many systems in a car.
My father was a dental prosthetic technician with his own business specializing in crowns. He could afford a lot of big boy toys, bowling, golfing, and betting on the ponies. I have a folder full of testimonials from dentists praising the skill and timeliness of his work. Now dentists design a crown while you watch, push a button, chat with you for a few minutes, go downstairs to pick up the crown, and put it in your mouth with a nearly perfect fit.
And even if these old style jobs were still available, would anybody hire a kid off the street, train him in the basics, give him some simple jobs, and guide him in the development of a higher skill level. I doubt it. Many companies want new employees with experience. And often quite specific experience. If you know all about the model 21 machine, but a company has model 22 machines, fuhgedaboudit!
If any state or national government wants to solve the "jobs" problem, they should stop trying to create the unneeded jobs and start training people for the needed jobs. And even if they do that, will the needed jobs of today become the unneeded jobs of tomorrow?
There's no question that many hire-and-train jobs are now done in other countries. Simple assembly, clothes manufacture, operation of simple automatic machines, and on and on. But have all the jobs of skilled machinists gone overseas, have all the jobs of process designers gone overseas.
I think not. What has happened is that the skills required for these jobs have become more demanding and the productivity of people performing these jobs has skyrocketed. Higher productivity leads to a lot fewer people needed to produce the same number of goods.
My father's grandfather was a machinist and my mother's uncle was a machinist. I doubt that either could get a machinist job now with the skills they had then. It takes a good eye and a steady hand to produce parts exact to the thousandths of an inch. But now manufacturers have numerically-controlled tools that can do the same thing time after time. The operator sets the job up and may be free to work on something else.
Once upon a time a teen-ager with a tool box could be an auto mechanic. Now auto mechanics use a wide array of electronic gadgets to check and adjust many systems in a car.
My father was a dental prosthetic technician with his own business specializing in crowns. He could afford a lot of big boy toys, bowling, golfing, and betting on the ponies. I have a folder full of testimonials from dentists praising the skill and timeliness of his work. Now dentists design a crown while you watch, push a button, chat with you for a few minutes, go downstairs to pick up the crown, and put it in your mouth with a nearly perfect fit.
And even if these old style jobs were still available, would anybody hire a kid off the street, train him in the basics, give him some simple jobs, and guide him in the development of a higher skill level. I doubt it. Many companies want new employees with experience. And often quite specific experience. If you know all about the model 21 machine, but a company has model 22 machines, fuhgedaboudit!
If any state or national government wants to solve the "jobs" problem, they should stop trying to create the unneeded jobs and start training people for the needed jobs. And even if they do that, will the needed jobs of today become the unneeded jobs of tomorrow?
Monday, November 16, 2009
Dentistry and the economy
Today I got a new crown in my mouth, learned something about modern dentistry, and had a reinforcement of an idea on the economy.
I went to Lake Dental in Duluth today to have a bad tooth replaced. Instead of putting dental putty over the area, holding it until it set, sending the impression out to a lab, and having me come back another day, the dentist made the crown while I waited.
He wheeled a cart smaller than an airline beverage cart next to the chair, waved a "magic" wand over my teeth to take a three-dimensional picture of my teeth, manipulated the image as I looked, highlighted and improved the bad tooth, and clicked somewhere to start the making of the crown.
While the automatic process was going on, he prepared the site of the bad tooth for the crown.
He later brought out the crown, put it in temporarily to check fit, took it out to buff it, and put it back in. He ground off any sharp edges I described and made the bite better.
When he held up a mirror for me to see the result, I could see almost no difference. The real teeth are a bit more translucent at the edge.
The total time was less than two hours.
What does this have to do with the economy?
My father, a high-school dropout, became a dental prosthetic technician, probably with on-the-job training. He later started his own company out of his basement, Crown Postal Lab. He received impressions in the mail, made the crowns, and mailed them back to the dentists who ordered them. This means the orders took a minimum of four days, especially since my dad had to go into town to mail the packages. He did excellent work; I have a pile of letters of appreciation from dentists when he retired.
Now a computerized machine can do the job in less than two hours.
How many other jobs have become outmoded because of better techniques or machines. Does anybody earn a living ditch digging? No, contractors want people trained to operate back hoes. Even mental jobs have changed drastically. When I started programming, a mathematics degree was not even required. The level of skills now wanted even exceed what was expected when I gave up on programming.
The basic problem of the economy is not so much that it is "bad" or "slow" but that it is changing faster than people can adapt. There are too many people who can do the jobs that are no longer needed and too few people to do the jobs that are needed. It was not helped by the brain drain towards the financial industry to create "products" out of thin air. Now too much money has gone to rescue these "wizards" and not enough is available to train people for the goods and services needed for a solid economy.
I went to Lake Dental in Duluth today to have a bad tooth replaced. Instead of putting dental putty over the area, holding it until it set, sending the impression out to a lab, and having me come back another day, the dentist made the crown while I waited.
He wheeled a cart smaller than an airline beverage cart next to the chair, waved a "magic" wand over my teeth to take a three-dimensional picture of my teeth, manipulated the image as I looked, highlighted and improved the bad tooth, and clicked somewhere to start the making of the crown.
While the automatic process was going on, he prepared the site of the bad tooth for the crown.
He later brought out the crown, put it in temporarily to check fit, took it out to buff it, and put it back in. He ground off any sharp edges I described and made the bite better.
When he held up a mirror for me to see the result, I could see almost no difference. The real teeth are a bit more translucent at the edge.
The total time was less than two hours.
What does this have to do with the economy?
My father, a high-school dropout, became a dental prosthetic technician, probably with on-the-job training. He later started his own company out of his basement, Crown Postal Lab. He received impressions in the mail, made the crowns, and mailed them back to the dentists who ordered them. This means the orders took a minimum of four days, especially since my dad had to go into town to mail the packages. He did excellent work; I have a pile of letters of appreciation from dentists when he retired.
Now a computerized machine can do the job in less than two hours.
How many other jobs have become outmoded because of better techniques or machines. Does anybody earn a living ditch digging? No, contractors want people trained to operate back hoes. Even mental jobs have changed drastically. When I started programming, a mathematics degree was not even required. The level of skills now wanted even exceed what was expected when I gave up on programming.
The basic problem of the economy is not so much that it is "bad" or "slow" but that it is changing faster than people can adapt. There are too many people who can do the jobs that are no longer needed and too few people to do the jobs that are needed. It was not helped by the brain drain towards the financial industry to create "products" out of thin air. Now too much money has gone to rescue these "wizards" and not enough is available to train people for the goods and services needed for a solid economy.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Forget jobs, create opportunities
I've wanted to write an entry like this for many weeks. Today an article in Yahoo Finance gave me an added impetus. It was on Kodak stopping production of Kodachrome, one of its signature films for over seventy years. See "Sorry, Paul Simon, Kodak's Taking Kodachrome Away".
Quite some time ago I read about somebody complaining about the job situation in Rochester, New York. He said that one used to be able to go to the Kodak factory and get a job right out of high school. I believe he also blamed the lack of jobs on foreign competition.
It was not foreign competition that reduced the jobs for making film; it was technical competition. The rise of digital photography led to less and less use of film cameras and thus fewer and fewer sales of film. Film cameras that cost over two hundred dollars new now sell on eBay for prices that don't justify the shipping costs. I have two working Minolta SRTs with an extra 70-185 zoom lens and an extra 35 mm lens. I hope I shoot the last roll before the sole processor of Kodachrome stops doing so. But it is so much easier to use the little digital camera that I have on my belt that I doubt I'll finish the roll in time.
I fault Obama's stimulus package for focusing on creating jobs for existing skills, thus prolonging the need for those skills. For example, the stimulus package "creates" thousands of construction jobs. We will always need construction workers, but will we need so many? What happens when all these "shovel-ready" projects are completed?
Wouldn't it be better to plan an infra-structure that helps states and communities develop a flexible work force that creates its own opportunities. In other words, we need more entrepreneurs and fewer employees.
It will be a long, slow process to shift our focus. Too many people want the supposed security of benefits rather than the security of adaptability. As long as health insurance is tied to jobs, we will have too many people who want jobs instead of becoming, even on a small scale, an entrepreneur like Steve Jobs.
Quite some time ago I read about somebody complaining about the job situation in Rochester, New York. He said that one used to be able to go to the Kodak factory and get a job right out of high school. I believe he also blamed the lack of jobs on foreign competition.
It was not foreign competition that reduced the jobs for making film; it was technical competition. The rise of digital photography led to less and less use of film cameras and thus fewer and fewer sales of film. Film cameras that cost over two hundred dollars new now sell on eBay for prices that don't justify the shipping costs. I have two working Minolta SRTs with an extra 70-185 zoom lens and an extra 35 mm lens. I hope I shoot the last roll before the sole processor of Kodachrome stops doing so. But it is so much easier to use the little digital camera that I have on my belt that I doubt I'll finish the roll in time.
I fault Obama's stimulus package for focusing on creating jobs for existing skills, thus prolonging the need for those skills. For example, the stimulus package "creates" thousands of construction jobs. We will always need construction workers, but will we need so many? What happens when all these "shovel-ready" projects are completed?
Wouldn't it be better to plan an infra-structure that helps states and communities develop a flexible work force that creates its own opportunities. In other words, we need more entrepreneurs and fewer employees.
It will be a long, slow process to shift our focus. Too many people want the supposed security of benefits rather than the security of adaptability. As long as health insurance is tied to jobs, we will have too many people who want jobs instead of becoming, even on a small scale, an entrepreneur like Steve Jobs.
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