Intel exec fears for U.S. competitiveness
Future US role in technology in doubt?
Thursday, March 3, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
SAN FRANCISCO--Echoing concerns voiced by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, a top Intel executive warned on Thursday that the United States risks becoming a second-tier technology player because of a declining educational system.
"We have a lousy education system," Intel Senior Vice President Pat Gelsinger said, speaking on a panel of technology leaders at the Intel Developer Forum here. "We have a weak infrastructure that is decaying."
Gelsinger noted that companies like Intel can adjust by hiring workers in other places but said the consequences for the United States could be devastating. He has noted in the past that the decline in the number of doctorates being awarded is particularly troubling.
I think it goes well beyond this. American culture is also becoming less competitive in the global market place in my opinion. The American need for instant gratification is really problematic. Stardock, an American company, is really half European, half American. That's because many American workers want to make money really fast and in the technology indstury, particularly when dealing in emerging markets, it takes considerable up-front investment in time and energy. Many young Americans don't have the patience or willingness to make short-term sacrifices in order for long-term success.
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Reply #22 Saturday, March 5, 2005 2:05 PM
| Umm, its not that they "Expect" 40-50K a year starting out, its pretty much a requirement. I mean thats about the least amount someone can make around here and "Survive". I'm still quite shocked that people think 40-50k a year is "Great Money". |
I rest my case. In a subsequent post, you even go so far as to say that $50k in California is "poverty level".
And hence many Americans price themselves out of the market.
As someone who hires people of all kinds of levels, it depends largely on their skill set which is usually part experience. I've hired plenty of people from other companies who were making far less than $40k per year. And I've hired people who make more.
There are a lot of variables involved. Our company, for instance, focuses on emerging technologies. I.e. we are developing things that didn't previously exist (games, desktop enhancements). So on average, it's a bit more enjoyable than the guy working for some mega insurance company.
But that also means that our customers (you guys) determine how much something can be sold for. And that in turn determines how much we can spend on it. Which in turn affects how much we can pay people to work on it.
If I make a product that will make $1 million during its effective lifetime, I obviously can't spend more than that if I want to stay in business. Since Americans don't really care that much about WHERE something is made, my products and services have to compete with products made by people all over the world (as well as with "freeware"). Look at all the people who bellyache'd last month about RightClick costing $14.95!
So how much we can pay someone is dependent on how much they produce. Typically, it takes quite awhile for someone to be able to produce high quality results in high enough quantity. Many (most) Americans aren't willing to go without. Like you said, they expect to come out of college and make $40k to $50k per year. Fine, they can expect whatever they want. But they don't have the skills necessary right out of college to justify that either because they weren't willing to learn on their own or their education was lacking.
The Americans we hire in the technology area typically start at far less. One, because we're a fun place to work at for most people and two, because we have a consistent record of rewarding those who increase their skills and output with significant increases in salary.
But where we can't find someone to do the job, we don't discriminate, we'll look to anyone we can and that increasingly means Europeans who are willing to sacrifice short-term for long term gain.
If Americans want to make the big bucks right out of college without fear of being outsourced then they need to dramatically increase their skills. And the first step would be to get our education system improved so that college graduates don't require a few years of training before they can produce anything of real value.
Reply #23 Saturday, March 5, 2005 5:44 PM
Again, 40K-50K is a pretty low income around here based on the cost of living and labor markets. I think the tech fields as a rule, pretty much suck right now. If I was to go get a degree, i'd get one in the heathcare field. A RN walks out of college and gets 50 job offers, most with hiring bonuses, and a BASE salary of 60-70K a year (as a new graduate). A RT can easily walk into a 55K a year BASE position with only a 2 year degree requirement. Keeping in mind these positions are all 30-36 hour work weeks. What do tech positions have to offer to compete with that? 50-60+ hour work weeks, crunch-times, high stress, and mediocre salaries with low job security? No thanks.
Don't blame American workers for having realistic salary requirements just because you can't afford them. Plenty of companies can afford them, and they reap the benefits of top-kit talent, high productivity of on-site programmers (overseas outsourced programming causes a huge loss in efficiency), and supporting the American economy and labor markets with reasonably well paid professionals.
In close, I think our educational system is fine, our workforce is fine, and our talent pool is quite good. Hiring our talent comes with a price, but most of that price is a requirement, because we don't live in shanty towns and drink out of the creek in this country.
PS: I'd like to remind you in your "I need a new car" blog, that you stressed that you wanted an "American Made Car".Link. I'd like to point out that this is entirely hypocritical, considering in this thread you are giving American workers the big middle finger essentually. When you outsource thousands a month in salaries overseas, and make a "Trivial" gesture by buying an American car, you can't expect people to be too thrilled with your core values and strong principles. You can't have it both ways i'm afraid.Link
Reply #24 Saturday, March 5, 2005 6:01 PM
Starting base for an RN= $39,000
One of the reasons for the shortage is the high turnover rate, caused in part by burnout. A significent percentage LEAVE the field after a few years.
Reply #25 Saturday, March 5, 2005 6:37 PM
From what I've seen of the people that graduate from HS or college, most are not very smart.
Oh well, I hate to type.
Reply #26 Saturday, March 5, 2005 7:09 PM
If we look at data for Brad's area, and specify our rough sector (White collar, Professional specialty and technical, Private), then I figure it comes out to $61631.86. Which sounds a lot better . . . until you consider the fact that this is the mean salary. This implies that the average worker in Michigan is getting about that - and that's the average professional, which includes occupations with even higher salaries (for example, doctors).
This is the thing. New hires out of college are not the average worker. They have not worked for 2 years as a productive member of your company - or probably at any company. They do not have all the skills required to do their job (I'm thinking both social skills and skills with the software/libraries/etc a company uses, familiarity with their products, etc). They are new, and therefore they get a salary to match. If they want the money, they should prove that they can handle the responsibilities it provides, and it is not really possible to do that without having worked there.
I think "pretty low income" is lower than you think.
Reply #27 Saturday, March 5, 2005 8:29 PM
Reply #28 Saturday, March 5, 2005 10:55 PM
| Starting base for an RN= $39,000 One of the reasons for the shortage is the high turnover rate, caused in part by burnout. A significent percentage LEAVE the field after a few years. |
You disappoint me Larry. Quoting 2 year old data from an website so inaccurate its comical to try and prove something. There are far more accurate sites out there. Try HotJobs, which has data thats updated Monthly, for example:
http://salary.hotjobs.com/ (updated monthly and factoring geographical location)
The median expected salary for a typical Staff Nurse - RN in Royal Oak, MI 48067, is $61,853.
Staff Nurse - RN 25th%ile Median 75th%ile
Royal Oak, MI 48067 $56,523 $61,853 $66,520
Then we have Nurse Practioners, a couple years more of school.
The median expected salary for a typical Nurse Practitioner - Specialty Care in Royal Oak, MI 48067, is $82,262.
Nurse Practitioner - Specialty Care 25th%ile Median 75th%ile
Royal Oak, MI 48067 $75,400 $82,262 $90,563
Now it is IMPORTANT to consider that these don't factor in things like specific employers, shift differentials, contingency mode, bonuses and perks. Which can easily add another $15,000-25,000 per year onto these salaries for Nurses. Beaumont for example pays about 15% higher than any other Hospital around, so go ahead and add that to those figures. Once again, my facts are completely accurate. With 4 nurses and 2 doctors in my family, my understanding of payscales in the healthcare industry is quite personal.
Now if we look up "Software Programmers or Software Engineers" for this area. We once again see that I am quite accurate in my statements.
The median expected salary for a typical Software Engineer I in Royal Oak, MI 48067, is $56,022.
Software Engineer I 25th%ile Median 75th%ile
Royal Oak, MI 48067 $50,104 $56,022 $62,569
The median expected salary for a typical Programmer I in Royal Oak, MI 48067, is $54,924.
Programmer I 25th%ile Median 75th%ile
Royal Oak, MI 48067 $49,353 $54,924 $62,574
Reply #29 Sunday, March 6, 2005 12:47 AM
Well Kobrano, you should open up your own software company. Me, I've been running a successful one for the past decade. I actually hire people as you know.
As Green Reaper pointed out, we are talking about new hires right out of college.
The median salary of a Stardock developer, 5 years out of college, is pretty similar to the norm, btw.
But some fresh out of college CS student looking for a job isn't just competing against fellow graduates for the position. They're competing against developers from around the world. And the rank and file American developer out of college is not any better than the available developers we can find in Europe.
And simply put, American CS graduates are not able to produce enough "stuff" right away to justify $40k to $50k salaries. Kobrano, I don't know where you get this arrogance from. You're not hiring software developers. I do. If you want to stamp your feet and say really loudy with as much arrogance as you can pile on that American CS graduates should get $50k per year (or heck, why stop there? Why not say $100k per year?) you're free to do that. Just don't complain when employers choose to "outsource" jobs.
BTW, using a job finding site to determine salaries is silly. Look at this one. According to "Hot Jobs" the median salary of a web master is $71k. Anyone in the industry knows that's pretty absurd.
Market forces are pretty unforgiving.
Reply #30 Sunday, March 6, 2005 1:22 PM
| Just don't complain when employers choose to "outsource" jobs. |
Ok, so you don't throw up your arms in frustration, and outsource, everyone should sign on to making half the 25%tile for their area and shut up and accept it? I don't see what your point is really. But you helped me to illustrate a point i've made for years - corporations are greedy and outsourcing just lines their pockets at the expense of America. (and sometimes our national security)
Your attack on American workers is pretty unjustified. They NEED reasonable salaries because we don't live in shanty towns and wash in dirty canals. They invested substantially in their education and experiance(intern) and need a return on investment thats acceptable. Your idea of "Reasonable Salary" is well below what the market forces in the area dictate. Nothing substantial was added in your last post, so it looks like the discussion is winding down.
Reply #31 Sunday, March 6, 2005 3:24 PM
Corporations are quick to blame Americans for why they outsource. Then when things go bad with their outsourcing (such as when theres a security leak), they are quick to once again blame Americans for that too. Corporations are excellent at playing the blame game, and i've been around them enough to recognize the truth despite the wool they try to pull over peoples eyes.
For every single overseas person you hire, you are doing irrepairable harm to our national and local economy. Imagine the economic impact it would have in Livonia, if the 12+ overseas laborers Stardock has were working here instead? The impact would be substantial to say the least. Now magnify that by thousands of corporations across the country, and the impact is quite evident. Its all a matter of increasing profits for corporate officers at the expense of our national security, labor force, and economy.
When it all falls apart, make sure you know who to blame. The bathroom mirror might be a good place to start lookin'.
Reply #32 Sunday, March 6, 2005 11:42 PM
You'll have to excuse me if I have a hard time taking you that seriously on this particular issue.
In the past few years we've created American jobs. Those jobs wouldn't have been created if it weren't for the abilities of our European developers. This website wouldn't exist if it weren't for European developers.
I'm not *blaming* anyone. I am simply telling it like it is:
(1) Products and services compete for the buying dollars of consumers.
(2) Those consumers rarely, if ever, make an issue of where those products and servers were created.
(3) Price is a major factor in someone's buying decision.
Therefore:
I can either: (a) Just hire American developers off the college assembly line and pay them $40k to $50k right off the bat and be uncompetitive in th emarket thus eventually going out of business or (
Hire the best and brightest developers from around the entire world who may or may not cost as much as that American college grad.
I am just curious why people like you think it's okay that consumers can choose products and services from around the world but that companies should be limited to only choosing employees from their nationality -- i.e. discriminate against others simply because they didn't have the good grace to be born in the United States.
Feel free, however, to start your own software company and compete in the real world against other software companies using your hiring criteria. In the mean time, I'll go on with my "greedy" strategy of hiring people from around the world to create a successful company that has been steadily hiring Americans (and people from other countries) throughout the past few years.
Reply #33 Monday, March 7, 2005 10:35 PM
Reply #34 Tuesday, March 8, 2005 1:25 AM
If you're a believer in Adam Smith and free market economics, you'd actually be in favor of outsourcing as long as it lowers cost because that's what the market demands. I'm a college student and will be entering the workforce full time in the next couple of years, but I can't complain too much about outsourcing because I do believe in capitalism. If Stardock can look back and honestly say that outsourcing benefitted the company monetarily, then bravo. According to Mr. Smith, being greedy is your civic duty
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Reply #21 Saturday, March 5, 2005 12:26 PM
Around here (which happens to be close to Stardock) 50K is actually below average. Last I checked the average wage for this county is around 60K a year now. But considering the cost of living is 25-35%+ higher than many other places this isn't difficult to understand why. (Keeping in mind that average includes fast food workers and such). My personal experiance - and I don't have a 4 year degree, is i've never made less than 50K since I was 20 years old (and i'm 37 now). I must confess, I did accept a 50K job late last year(which was my counter offer to a 40K proposal) but only because of the promises of a great workplace and high commission potential - when I felt neither was true, my mind was pretty set on leaving quite early on due to the low salary. I worked for 7 years as a Radioshack Sales Manager and District Sales Manager Trainee, and never made less than 70K a year. Point is, making 40-50k a year starting out ain't unique, its commonplace, especially for graduates of a 4+ year university.
So is it really unreasonable to expect a 40-50K starting salary for a 4-7 year investment in a university + intern experiance? Certainly almost everyone does intern work during their summers to build experiance so they aren't THAT green, are they? Around here 40-50k is below average, but good enough for someone to start out and build up from there. Corporations try to get people for as cheap as possible, but when you can't pay the labor market in your area who is to blame for that? The workers? I don't think so.