The 2020 Meltdown of the Truth
The 2020 Meltdown of the Truth
Date: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 4:51 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1808 -- 1/15/2008 >>>>>
If there is one book I won't waste my time reading any time soon it will be
the one titled: "2020 Meltdown: Solving the Impending Jobs Crisis", by Ed
Gordon. I do however recommend reading the review of the book because it's so
idiotic it's entertaining. As you might have guessed, the book makes the case
for a shortage of high tech workers by the year 2020.
Marilyn Nagel at Cisco Systems is interviewed and talks about how desperate
her company is to keep women from leaving the workforce. The inference given
is that there must be a shortage of high-tech workers if Cisco is willing to
take desperate measures to hold onto their workforce. You gotta love some of
the ideas Nagel is coming up with to keep female programmers from leaving
Cisco -- like cutting back on their 80 hour work weeks!
"We're looking at bringing in a couple of high-level IT women who
want to work but are not willing to commit to the 80-hour type
weeks that we tend to have in IT," Nagel said
Just a thought: If the women at Cisco now get to slack off their 80 hour work
weeks, will the men have to work extra hours to make up the difference? If so,
will Cisco provide beds in each cubicle?
The elitist view of offshoring is particularly insulting, especially for
Americans that might want those $20 an hour call center jobs, or perhaps to
those that wanted to hold onto their high-tech or manufacturing jobs. If this
is to be believed, only lousy jobs are offshored:
Imported models. American companies used globalization to get rid
of low-pay, low-skill jobs that could be done elsewhere, especially
India.
The Meltdown book goes much further than declaring shortages of Americans
-- it also warns that we are going to have shortages of H-1Bs. Supposedly that
will happen as foreign engineers realize they can get paid just as much in
India as the U.S. Of course this "shortage" of H-1Bs wouldn't happen if US
employers weren't so anxious to exploit foreign workers as cheap labor.
In addition, U.S. companies have hired high-wage, high skill
people they have not found in the United States, and they have
imported foreign workers with H-1B visas to fill positions in
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) careers. The
challenge will be that the countries America is importing from
are becoming richer as their own economies develop. These
imported workers are being called home, especially as wages rise,
where they can earn more money and be with their families.
This statement is so ridiculous I need no further comment:
Still more labor competition will come, Gordon said, when
Europeans move production facilities to the United States
because they can't find enough workers.
The book discusses the aging of the workforce. That may be the dumbest part of
the book, at least judging by the review of it!
I almost jumped off my chair in laughter when I read that baby boomers are
workaholics. Gee, that's funny because I'm a boomer and when I was a kid we
were constantly told that my generation was nothing but a bunch of self-
centered brats that had no work ethic because all we wanted to do is to watch
sitcoms on our black-and-white TVs. Now we have a new generation to put the
blame on, and this article certainly does that. Apparently there is a shortage
of GenXers who are willing to put in 80 hour work weeks like the boomers.
The challenge is the generational disconnect between the older
Baby Boomers and the younger generations X and Y. Boomers, who
are more likely to be workaholics, have a very different outlook
on the quality of work life. The younger generations are more
family oriented and crave more work-life balance.
So, according to this article, Americans are getting too old to work and
therefore need to be replaced by younger (i.e. cheaper) workers. To make
things almost a comedy of the absurd, check out this very obvious logical
error -- companies are supposedly worried about worker shortages and yet they
show little concern for the workers they already have, especially older
workers.
An alarming 78 percent of employers that Manpower talks to are not
worried about the impact of aging workforce on their place of
business. In addition, only 18 percent of employers that Manpower
talks to have a strategy to recruit older workers, and only 28
percent have a strategy to retain them.
Not mentioned here is that only 28% have a strategy to retain older workers
because the other 72% intend on firing them!
The book claims that employers are very worried about transferring the
experience and knowledge of their older workers to their younger workers.
That's because once the forced retirements begin the experienced workers are
escorted out the front door. Of course what the author fails to recognize is
that companies could solve the problem by retaining older workers, and then
there wouldn't be a shortage.
Holmes said employers should pay attention to the demographics of
their workforce so they have a sense of how many workers will be
eligible for retirement and when, and plan to transfer the lifetime
of knowledge that otherwise would walk out the door to younger
generations of workers. This can be done through formal training
programs, job shadowing, mentoring, or other programs where mature
workers are charged with imparting what they know to younger
generations.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://wistechnology.com/article.php?id=4433
Workforce shortage is real, but solutions must be creative By Joe Vanden Plas
01/14/08 ) WTN Media. For personal use only. No mass duplication or
distribution.
Madison, Wis. - Ed Gordon believes the labor pool is out of whack with the
labor marketplace, and he has written what he hopes will become a wake up call
for American employers and workers.
In the view of Gordon, author of The 2020 Meltdown: Solving the Impending Jobs
Crisis, the forthcoming IT workforce shortage is a legitimate worry.
Millions of Americans who are unemployed do not have the right talent for the
jobs that need to be filled, with many people earning college degrees that are
not translating into decent employment. There now are four million jobs empty,
Gordon said, and half of them are highly skilled positions that require
specialized technology training and education.
"The issue is that the labor market is out of sync with the realities of the
global marketplace with the jobs we are creating and the jobs that are
disappearing," Gordon said. "This is a problem all over the U.S. and most of
the developed world."
Gordon is not the only one sounding the alarm. Melanie Holmes, vice president
of World of Work Solutions for Manpower, said in early 2007, 41 percent of the
American companies Manpower surveyed said they were having trouble filling
positions - not just in science and technology, but also across the board
"That is a historically large number," she said.
Convergence of forces
Gordon said the situation is being exacerbated by specific social and economic
forces converging at the same time. The most prominent is that technology is
becoming more pervasive in every facet of life, and since technology is
complex, people use it in ways that support or create new products and
services.
If there is one mitigating circumstance regarding the IT worker shortage, it's
that companies are loading up on technology and they want fewer workers to do
more. The trend is offset somewhat by the increased efficiency enabled by
technology, but that requires talented people. They must be highly literate,
and they need specialized technology training.
"Only 25 percent of the workforce comfortably fits into that category, but
75 percent of the jobs we're creating demand it," Gordon said.
Those other 75 percent, many of whom are high school dropouts, don't have the
right talent mix. Some were trained in old technologies that now are obsolete
and have gone away. Some have college degrees, but they are degrees in
communication, finance, and marketing, where there already are far too many
people for the number of available jobs.
At the same time, we have too many "techno peasants," who Gordon characterized
as people with low levels of literacy, plus no specialized career preparation,
who are confined to low-wage jobs for the rest of their lives. Until last 20
years, there were fairly good-paying jobs, mostly in industrial settings, that
did not require high levels of literacy. Those jobs since have gone by the
wayside, and new technology requires higher levels of literacy, specialized
skills, and career preparation.
With that in mind, Gordon believes society is divided into three groups.
Smart people with right talent who keep their skills up to date through
networking, seminars, and simply reading books. These workers keep shifting.
Most mature workers are not doing the exact same things they did when they
were young, and so they had to update their knowledge and apply it in new
ways. Given the increasing complexity of technology, this trend will continue
to accelerate because people will need more education, not less.
Younger people who have been steered away from technology fields. In 2010, a
tsunami of 79 million Baby Boomers will start to leave the workforce, and
about 60 percent of the jobs that must be filled now are occupied by Baby
Boomers that will need to be replaced. Many Boomers have the technical skills
to keep the economy running, and they represent a larger cadre of people with
more technical skills than the generations behind them, who were told that
tech jobs weren't cool and don't pay enough. "They love technology - they eat
it and breath it," Gordon said, "but they don't want to design it, make it,
repair it, or manage it. The sad part is we need a certain proportionality of
these generations to become involved.
Imported models. American companies used globalization to get rid of low-
pay, low-skill jobs that could be done elsewhere, especially India. In
addition, U.S. companies have hired high-wage, high skill people they have not
found in the United States, and they have imported foreign workers with H-1B
visas to fill positions in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Math) careers. The challenge will be that the countries America is importing
from are becoming richer as their own economies develop. These imported
workers are being called home, especially as wages rise, where they can earn
more money and be with their families.
Still more labor competition will come, Gordon said, when Europeans move
production facilities to the United States because they can't find enough
workers.
Maturation process
Communities will need to retain older workers in the STEM areas and rebuild
the pipeline of young people, Gordon said. The challenge is the generational
disconnect between the older Baby Boomers and the younger generations X and Y.
Boomers, who are more likely to be workaholics, have a very different outlook
on the quality of work life. The younger generations are more family oriented
and crave more work-life balance.
Manpower's Melanie Holmes said businesses should focus on the aging worker as
part of the problem and the solution.
An alarming 78 percent of employers that Manpower talks to are not worried
about the impact of aging workforce on their place of business. In addition,
only 18 percent of employers that Manpower talks to have a strategy to recruit
older workers, and only 28 percent have a strategy to retain them.
"They are not going to start worrying about it until they start feeling the
pain, but by then it will be a little late," Holmes said.
Companies should have strategies in place to recruit and retain mature
workers, especially given that life expectancy will encroach well into 80s,
and the average retirement age now is 62.
"What will they do for the next 30 years?" Holmes asked. "The AARP (American
Association of Retired Persons) research says people plan to work past
retirement age, so companies should have strategies in place to recruit and
retain their mature workers."
Specifically, they should recruit mature or retired workers from the outside,
and make sure their employment practices are age-friendly or age-neutral to
help retain older workers. For first time in history, four generations are
working together, so all companies need to be careful about age bias and make
sure all generations get along in the workplace.
Diversity programs should include generational diversity issues so people
learn how to work with different generations.
To encourage workers not to go "cold turkey" at 65, flexible work options can
give them the incentive to continue working by either telecommuting, working
part-time, or job sharing. Another carrot is to leverage their expertise nine
months out of the year, and allow them to take summers off.
Holmes said employers should pay attention to the demographics of their
workforce so they have a sense of how many workers will be eligible for
retirement and when, and plan to transfer the lifetime of knowledge that
otherwise would walk out the door to younger generations of workers. This can
be done through formal training programs, job shadowing, mentoring, or other
programs where mature workers are charged with imparting what they know to
younger generations.
Employers also should be using their "alumni," but that requires keeping in
touch with them after they leave. Like those who retire directly from the
company, alumni can be used for training and mentoring, project work, and
consulting engagements.
Passing the torch isn't the only business consideration, Holmes noted.
"Many IT organizations, especially those with lots of legacy applications,
really are going to be in trouble when mature workers leave," Holmes sated.
"None of the young employees will want to learn old systems, and they will
have to replace them."
Diversity rules
Marilyn Nagel, director of diversity and inclusion for Cisco Systems, said
getting more women into the STEM disciplines is a matter of providing job
flexibility options. She said Cisco has been interviewing women, finding a
number of reasons why they leave the workforce, and learning what would lure
them back. Some of the lures would be flexible work options, so the ability to
flex their hours, work from home, or work part time is paramount.
"We're looking at bringing in a couple of high-level IT women who want to work
but are not willing to commit to the 80-hour type weeks that we tend to have
in IT," Nagel said. "So we're giving them options to say, 'You want to work 30
hours, you want to work 20 hours, balancing some work-life issues, what could
we do to make it more palatable to you?'"
Nagel, who spoke before the December 2007 meeting of Accelerate Madison, said
Cisco also is looking to let women "off ramp" for two years, and come back
after their children have grown so they don't have to start over. "We know
when women off ramp and they come back into the work force, they often can't
get jobs near the level or pay where they were," she said.
"I think it absolutely takes creativity [to lure them back]."
That creativity has removed the nation's overall lack of broadband deployment
as a barrier to work flexibility. At Cisco, everyone is given company-financed
broadband access in the home. An employee with a scheduled call in India at 9
p.m. is not expected to remain in the office, and the same goes for a 6 a.m.
call with Europe or a 7 p.m. call with Asia.
"We need to make sure you have high-speed broadband access at home, so we do
provide it to every employee," Nagel said.
Given the relatively low numbers of young women pursuing careers in the STEM
disciplines - even with historically high numbers of women in the collegiate
ranks - recruiting from colleges is still a challenge for Cisco and other
technology companies. Cisco, which has established a women's action network to
support women as they enter the workforce, may have a special advantage in
recruiting women to IT because it has a female CIO, Rebecca Jacoby, which in
itself conveys sensitivity to the issue of diversity. It also lends
credibility to Cisco's Networking Academy and mentoring and intern programs.
"She [Jacoby] is extremely sensitive to the issue and she's a great
spokesperson," Nagel said. "When you see that the CIO, which is the top
technology person, is a woman, you know that there are growth opportunities
for you."
Cisco believes that diversifying its workforce in terms of gender, race, and
other factors contribute to its business goals. "We believe that employees
from different backgrounds bring different thinking and innovation with them
to Cisco," she said.
Youth is served
Guri Sohi, chairman of the Computer Science Department at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, has talked candidly about the declining numbers of his
department since the height of the dotcom era in 2000. At that point, the UW
Computer Science Department granted about 170 bachelor's degrees annually, and
now is down below 80 per year. It also once granted 100 master's degrees
annually, but that has declined to about 50 per year.
Meanwhile, PhDs have remained stable at roughly 20 per year, but there are
some ominous national trends. Roughly 75 percent of all doctorate degrees
granted nationally in electrical engineering are going to non-U.S.
citizens.
UW-Madison's experience mirrors the national trends, and several efforts are
underway to reverse it. One Wisconsin effort is Powered Up, a consortium of
businesses and schools in Dane County working to increase awareness in
information technology careers. The group was formed in 1999, and is now
engaged in talks with the Information Technology Association of Wisconsin to
expand statewide.
Internships, job shadowing, and links to organizations participating in
programs like UW-Madison's Information Technology Academy are among the ways
Powered Up is trying to reach its target audience. The message is
simple: don't buy into the geeky image that has been hung on young techies.
That starts with pointing out that, according to the state Department of
Workforce Development, that Wisconsin IT-related jobs with the most job
openings between 2004 and 2014 are not programming occupations, but jobs like
computer application software engineers, computer systems analysts, and
network and computer support administrators.
Teresa Drabenstadt, senior manager of internal audit and IT for CUNA Mutual
Group and a spokesperson for Powered Up, said students often have a misguided
perception of IT and are unaware of the amount of variety involved in the
technology industry.
"Everybody thinks of the geek in the corner, programming and not talking to
anybody, and being very introverted, uncool and all that," Drabenstadt said.
"We're trying to change that perception."
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