# The skills gap- Fact or fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 30, 2016, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450 "2016-11-30T13:29:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/21 "2016-11-30T19:25:42Z")
Welcome to “Race to the Bottom” We need skills but will not pay more than minimum wage. Must be an MD with admitting privileges at 37 hospitals. Yes, this ad is being placed so we can check off the “Tried to find local” on the H1B (“Green Card” in earlier times). I was working for a contract house, and happened to see its “Standing Recruitment Advertisement” - it was on the back of the break room door - a door that was always propped open against the wall. This was 1981 - when they were importing Brits and South Africans (we got one real winner - Apartheid explained and defended in a room with blacks and Asians\*). Now that India has upped their educational system (both programming languages AND English!), they can get even cheaper labor. Throw in instant communications to simply any backwater locations, and there is no reason to pay $80K to get an app written. - - he was gone in approx. 10 minutes and was never seen again. This was SF, of all places to spout off that crap. ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/22 "2016-11-30T19:32:39Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I still see cheaper, crappier products as promoting jobs and manufacturing rather than the other way around. I disagree with this. Cheaper products are mass manufactured on automated assembly lines. When a factory is automated, you only have one worker for every five (or however many) machines that each pumps out 100 units/minute. So the workers you have need to be more highly educated or at least trained to support/maintain/clean the machines, but you don’t need very many of them. Automation has also (by the way) eliminated many ITS jobs. There are giant data warehouses now, running thousands of servers, all in “lights out” operation. A very few sysadmins can log in remotely to manage a thousand servers each. I happen to live in an area that’s rapidly becoming the New Silicon Valley with enormous[data warehouse facilities being built everywhere you look.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/data-centers-boom-in-loudoun-county-but-jobs-arent-following/2014/01/17/b4a704c8-7f0e-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html?utm_term=.2fea1e775414) If you look at all the huge buildings and get excited about all the new jobs they’ll bring, you need to think again. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/23 "2016-11-30T19:33:49Z")
> [@moldmonkey](#): > > I’ve been a machinist for 20 years and yes it’s hard to find someone skilled, willing to show up, and pass a drug test. > > The reason we don’t have skilled people is that no one wants to train people anymore. Even if they come out of a vo tech or community college program, they need more training and it doesn’t happen or its hit and miss. Theres lots of one shop wonders out there who can do the work they had been doing but don’t have the broad skills and background to jump to another job. Also with modern tech, there will be one skilled guy and a bunch of button pushers. Those button pushers don’t have the opportunity to learn > from experience. > > I also see a real lack of training with engineers. Companies will take a fresh grad and tell him to design stuff but college teaches theory not practical design and industry specific institutional type of knowledge. This. I’ve applied to a few jobs because they sounded interesting. I would have been happy to be trained, but almost nobody is willing to do that. When companies complain about not being able to find “qualified” workers, what they really mean is “We’re too lazy and stupid to train workers ourselves.” ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/24 "2016-11-30T19:35:47Z")
Another bit of hand-wringing is sometimes heard - the USA no longer knows how to… At one time, it was “Make Li-ion batteries”. Whatever else Musk and Tesla do or do not do, the Gigafactory now has (Panasonic) robots to make Li-ion batteries for the Tesla battery packs. The upside of robotics: any place with enough electricity and money can buy just about any technology. Except: Back when “Everybody! Move all your manufacturing work to China - the cost of the factory will be recouped in the first year from labor savings!” was current, Cummins Engine proudly stated that all the work was in China, except for drilling the injectors - those pricks at State won’t let us ship that technology to China, just because they’re Commies. I noticed they are now bragging about all the jobs they provide for _ **Good Americans!** _. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/25 "2016-11-30T19:46:31Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Coming to work high or drunk is a _really_ bad idea in many industries. > And an insurance/liability nightmare with on-the-job injuries. That has nothing to do with drug testing employees and you know it. Drug tests don’t find out whether you are high. They find out whether you have _ever been_ high. At least in the past month or two. It’s the equivalent of being fired (or not getting hired) in November because you drank a beer once over the summer, and everyone saying “could you _imagine_ if they let drunk people work there!?” It’s a complete non-sequitur. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/26 "2016-11-30T20:29:50Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Coming to work high or drunk is a _really_ bad idea in many industries. Do you really need to know if a guy smoked weed a couple of weekends ago, though? Surely anyone who ISN’T high can tell if Ted shows up baked? Canada doesn’t have widespread drug testing and we don’t have an epidemic of druggies causing workplace accidents. But yes, the skill gap is there. You can advertise welding jobs in some places for $50,000 a year to start, and get no, or very few, qualified applicants. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/27 "2016-11-30T21:09:16Z")
So fucking depressing. I should have stayed in dentistry school. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/28 "2016-11-30T22:50:34Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > That has nothing to do with drug testing employees and you know it. Drug tests don’t find out whether you are high. They find out whether you have _ever been_ high. At least in the past month or two. It’s the equivalent of being fired (or not getting hired) in November because you drank a beer once over the summer, and everyone saying “could you _imagine_ if they let drunk people work there!?” It’s a complete non-sequitur. How often are these drug tests done? Shouldn’t you have some reason to suspect someone is high before you test them? I don’t think cops pull over random motorists and make them breathe into a tube, I think they pull over people who are driving badly and who they suspect were impaired by something. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/29 "2016-11-30T23:08:18Z")
At _my_ employer they’ll only drug test you if you have an accident, or are demonstrating extremely obvious intoxication. _Other_ companies will drug test the lower ranks on a regular schedule regardless of behavior. This is perfectly legal in the US, and failure to comply with such testing means you will be shown the door. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/30 "2016-11-30T23:09:24Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > When I was a software engineer and last on the job market this was my experience. But the employers often made things worse for everybody (candidates and themselves) by listing extremely specific requirements like X years of experience with a specific VERSION of some software or toolset. That’s extremely frustrating because it’s common knowledge among IT professionals that after you learn 2 or 3 different languages or tools, you become adept at simply learning. You can pick up working level of understanding of new languages and tools in a matter of weeks, for a very short ramp up time. But employers seemed not to have the patience even for that. I also noticed that the software development jobs in my expertise area were all changed to 3-month contracts with permanent full time jobs very few and far between. Essentially they treated the workforce like 1099 contractors - mercenaries for hire. Which is not a bad gig unless you have a family and roots and can’t simply migrate to a new job location every 3 months. > > I got fed up and re-branded myself as an IT business analyst. I have a much longer “shelf life” and hireability now. Tell me about it. They have a long list of skills and won’t touch you if you don’t fit it but, as you say, they are things that an experienced developer can pick up quickly. Decades of experience with a wide range of languages and tools should win out over someone with a few years of a relatively narrow skill set, even if that skill set is a closer match to their current needs; but that usually isn’t the case. And yes, everyone is looking for contractors or contract to hire. I’ve been surviving on the odd contract here and there, but they’re hard to come by. Someone who’s looking to hire for only 3 months understandably wants little or no learning curve. Of course the truth is that any new job will have a learning curve because every company and every project is different. Learning a new MVC framework is simple compared to learning that particular company’s code base and way of doing things. I recently had an interview where I felt confident that I’d probably get the contract. My most recent experience matched exactly what they wanted and the interview seemed to go very well, but they ended up telling the recruiter that they decided to go with an intern! How can you compete with free labor? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/31 "2016-11-30T23:18:45Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > If you look at all the huge buildings and get excited about all the new jobs they’ll bring, you need to think again. A lack of windows and parking is a major tell. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/32 "2016-12-01T01:07:29Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I still see cheaper, crappier products as promoting jobs and manufacturing rather than the other way around. > [@JcWoman](#): > > I disagree with this. Cheaper products are mass manufactured on automated assembly lines. Well, some points got skipped over in the simplification. In the end, lower-grade products are easier to make in automated facilities, and that’s just what happened. I was talking more about the first step down, from high quality to a lowering of quality that permits faster, simpler production from the same facilities, at the cost of product durability and lifespan. It’s all downhill from there on both fronts. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/33 "2016-12-01T03:50:12Z")
I’d like to see some hard numbers for wages. If an employer is complaining about a shortage, but only pays median wages for a given education and experience level, I call bullshit. A real skill shortage should cause some serious wage hikes. I recall hearing about freshly minted geologists getting competing six figure offers at the beginning of the last oil boom. > [@RickJay](#): > > But yes, the skill gap is there. You can advertise welding jobs in some places for $50,000 a year to start, and get no, or very few, qualified applicants. What level of experience are people looking for with $50,000 welders? That seems like a pretty high entry level wage for a job with little formal education. But it doesn’t seem anywhere near as impressive for someone with, say, 20 years of experience. ---
**Author:** ![moldmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ee59a6/32.png) [@moldmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moldmonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/34 "2016-12-01T14:15:29Z")
Quoting earnings for the trades can be tricky. In the manufacturing trades, quoting a yearly sum they may be using overtime in the figures. I made a little over $60k one year at a $16/hr job. Sixty hour weeks on third shift wasn’t fun. In the construction trades, one often hears of princely hourly rates for union electricians, pipeline welders, etc. but they are often idle and won’t make that much in a year. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/35 "2016-12-01T14:19:34Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > What level of experience are people looking for with $50,000 welders? That seems like a pretty high entry level wage for a job with little formal education. But it doesn’t seem anywhere near as impressive for someone with, say, 20 years of experience. Three to five years of experience would get you a great salary, but even someone who just has a legit qualification but is relatively new is going to do a hell of a lot better than minimum wage. There simply aren’t enough welders to go around. It’s a very common refrain, and is true of many trades. ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/36 "2016-12-01T19:28:14Z")
Another thing I’ve noticed is that in the last few years most USA companies have gone a little too crazy in trying to recruit “only the best and brightest”. I’ve heard of companies that let job openings hang unfilled after not finding the best and brightest candidate. My husband even admitted that his company did that once not long ago. It seems that they feel it’s better to let that job go unfilled than to hire someone “average”. Looking at the scale of the entire business community in the country, it’s a pretty ridiculous expectation. Not ever job requires the smartest/best worker, and not every company requires the smartest/best. But they do this and then go wailing to the media about a “skills gap”. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/37 "2016-12-01T19:59:06Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > Another thing I’ve noticed is that in the last few years most USA companies have gone a little too crazy in trying to recruit “only the best and brightest”. More than that, companies have gone to hiring for narrower and narrower slots. Someone who has two or three broader, integrated skills is going to get passed over for someone who has a goofy number of years in one niche. As I’ve discovered, larger employers are completely unimpressed that I’ve been researching, writing, editing, moderating, designing, coding, implementing and maintaining sophisticated websites since the earliest days. I’ve been designing software, equipment and web user interfaces for much longer. That represents one small subset of my overall capabilities. (I sell my services based on the fact that clients need only one person or hire to reach their goal, not four or five who may or may not represent a complete skill set and may not work well together.) Every employer I’ve had was delighted to find out how much I could do for them, even if hired for something as narrow as “technical writer” or “graphics specialist.” But the big employers here in the northeast want someone who has three years of experience on a fucking wireframe tool that was in beta four years ago, and nothing else. A slot six feet tall and two millimeters square, to fit with 800 other such. I’ve been told my wide skill set is a detriment to these companies’ employment scheme. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/38 "2016-12-01T20:50:27Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > But the big employers here in the northeast want someone who has three years of experience on a fucking wireframe tool that was in beta four years ago, and nothing else. I’m not in software, but can’t you lie about this? Clearly you’re smart enough to come up to speed on this wireframe tool in about a day or two, so why can’t you just cram before the job interview? I guess you’d have to have references who will cover for you, unless you claim all your experience was personal, or gained while you were self-employed. And sometimes those tools are proprietary and obscenely expensive for an unemployed person. I get that. But a lot of it isn’t. If some ignorant hiring manager wants six years’ experience with Clojurescript or another trendy language, but doesn’t realize any programmer worth anything could learn that in a week or two, you don’t have to tell them you’ve only been using it for a week or two, right? “Oh yeah, Clojurescript. I remember all those late nights I spent helping so-and-so when he was creating it.” 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/39 "2016-12-01T21:06:19Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > I’m not in software, but can’t you lie about this? Clearly you’re smart enough to come up to speed on this wireframe tool in about a day or two, so why can’t you just cram before the job interview? It is relatively easy for an experienced programmer to learn the basics of a new language, but that’s not the same thing as being proficient. Every language will have it’s tricks and pitfalls. It’s the years of experience with a language that makes the difference between someone who can write simple programs to do a trivial task and someone who can write customer-ready programs which can tackle complex tasks in a reliable and robust manner. An example might be someone who is good with spoken languages learning a new one. They may be able to get quickly up to speed in the basic structure and vocabulary of the language, but it will take a while before they can have complex, nuanced conversations with native speakers. An experienced programmer will be able to quickly get to the point of fluency in the new programming language, but most employers want them to be product-level proficient in the language on the first day. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450/40 "2016-12-01T21:15:10Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > I got fed up and re-branded myself as an IT business analyst. I have a much longer “shelf life” and hireability now. So did I. I actually saw the writing on the wall with regard to this kind of thing when I was just out of college in 1997, and I saw a job advertisement requesting experience in a language that was longer than the language had actually been available! (it was Java, FTR- they wanted 3 years of experience in Java in early 1998, and it didn’t get released until mid-1995) Since then, job ads for technical positions are a laundry list of very specific technologies and very specific timeframes which a prospective employee may have one or two of, but not all 5. Or they may have all 5 technologies, but 2-3 years in each, not 5+ I agree with Amateur Barbarian; hiring has become extremely narrowly focused. I attribute it to companies preferring to treat employees as interchangeable parts instead of as assets to be cultivated and nurtured. After all, why hire someone without the exact experience you want, if you’re not planning on teaching him anything or providing him with a career path in your organization? So you get companies wailing that they can’t find developers with deep experience in very specific technologies, and then instead of hiring somewhat qualified locals for normal stateside IT pay, they hire barely qualified foreigners for much less money. Because again, if you’re not going to train them or cultivate them, and you can’t find the exact guy you want, you may as well hire the cheapest barely qualified person at that point. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-skills-gap-fact-or-fiction/773450.md?page=3)