Right.......

[patgund]

I am having a lot of trouble buying what he's saying

AT&T CEO says hard to find skilled U.S. workers

"The head of the top U.S. phone company AT&T Inc (T.N) said on Wednesday it was having trouble finding enough skilled workers to fill all the 5,000 customer service jobs it promised to return to the United States from India.

"We're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs," AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San Antonio, where the company's headquarters is located.

So far, only around 1,400 jobs have been returned to the United States of 5,000, a target it set in 2006, the company said, adding that it maintains the target."

Ignoring the minor detail that there's more than likely a pool of talent that was laid off when they originally outsourced the jobs in the first place, I wonder if two of the skillsets they're looking for is "must be non- or anti-union" and "must be willing to work cheaply"

Comments

[jeran.livejournal.com]

That last is pretty much it. The problem they have isn't so much finding skilled workers as it is finding highly-skilled workers with 5-10 years experience willing to accept the pay of an entry-level worker with no experience. Another problem is also the way HR writes up the job requirements. I don't know how often I've seen HR demanding 5 years experience in products that've only been on the market for 2 years, or rejecting someone with 5-10 years experience between Informix, DB2, PostgreSQL and MySQL because the job requires 2 years experience with Oracle.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Yep! It's a common problem anymore - companies need highly skilled IT people. But the bean-counters don't see IT contributing to the bottom-line like, oh, sales.

The outsourcing craze showed you get what you pay for. It's a false savings when you end up spending more to make the outsourced material actually work.

I deal with companies all the time that are penny-wise and pound-foolish.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

This is about customer support, not skilled IT workers. Likely phone support, since that's what gets outsourced to India. And while they may be unreasonable in their requirement, I can tell you good phone support people are very hard to find.

[aeddie.livejournal.com]

I wonder if two of the skillsets they're looking for is "must be non- or anti-union" and "must be willing to work cheaply"

Exactamundo my good man.

They're used to $10/day not more than that per hour.

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

Don't forget "considers a 60-hour workweek to be slacking". Not that I'm bitter. :-)

I was just reminded yesterday that the 40-hour workweek traditionally includes lunch. That's why it's 9-5 instead of 8-5. One is not actually expected to produce work for more than around 6.5-7 hours per day, once you add up in the 2 mandated 15-minute breaks. That entire idea is so removed from my experience of the American workplace that it's hard to reconcile the two.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Yeah, no kidding. You don't believe how happy I am to be "only" working 40 hours a week.

Curiously enough, one of the more sane work enviroments, in terms of time in office, was Doha. 7 hours a day + 1/2 lunch and two 15 minute breaks.

[electorprince.livejournal.com]

For what they're offering as pay, one would do better as an E-3 first-term 25U in garrison.

[beki.livejournal.com]

In my limited experience, the folks they have laid off in the past don't care to work for them again and have found other things to do with their time instead. There are folks who are more than qualified to work those jobs here in the states. But folks are going to want to be paid commensurate for the work they do. My job is really computer/switch programming with a dash of customer service thrown in. I work with the same systems that IT uses, but because I am "a service rep" (the company's verbiage, not mine) They can pay me roughly 30 grand a year (or more) less than what programmers I know get paid.

I've a friend that thinks I should go back to school to get the paper to say I know how to program so that I can get a job in dev somewhere. *shrug* The upper management in telecom (and probably elsewhere) have no concept of reality.

[henglaar.livejournal.com]

I suspect the full sentence should read "AT&T CEO says 'Hard to find skilled US workers----at the prices we're willing to pay.'"