Sure, we’re all plugged in and online 24/7. But fewer American kids are growing up to be bona fide computer geeks. And that poses a serious security risk for the country, according to the Defense Department.
The Pentagon’s far-out research arm Darpa is soliciting proposals for initiatives that would attract teens to careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), with an emphasis on computing. According to the Computer Research Association, computer science enrollment dropped 43 percent between 2003 and 2006.
Darpa’s worried that America’s “ability to compete in the increasingly internationalized stage will be hindered without college graduates with the ability to understand and innovate cutting edge technologies in the decades to come…. Finding the right people with increasingly specialized talent is becoming more difficult and will continue to add risk to a wide range of DoD [Department of Defense] systems that include software development.”
If you have a job that you could do from home, it can be done from India. There are a multitude of reasons why companies are moving operations offshore but until hiring Americans is cost effective its going to keep happening.
I don’t understand why the DOD is attacking this from the education end. Manufacturing didn’t get shipped overseas due to a lack of qualified machinists. Most people seek education for jobs they think are going pay well and be widely available.
That isn’t to say that our education system isn’t in tip top shape. Too many college programs only teach how to complete tasks and not how to problem solve or think outside of the box.
Globalization is great if you live in India or China where job growth is going gangbusters, but for the rest of us here in the west we’re feeling the heat. And as a libertarian it really pains me to say this but big corporations really are to blame for a lot of the mess. They’re running the show and only care about their bottom line. They should not get a seat at the table in Washington and they should not get VIP access to the welfare line. America should not care about the wants and needs of corporations. America should care about the wants and needs of its citizens.
Oh this pisses me off. The IT industry is laying off like crazy. Salaries are way down. I’m seeing pay scales back to 1989 level. Seriously.
I also see some outsourcing scams that our worthless Congress is allowing. A company outsources their IT department to a company in India. The Indian company then sends their engineers to the US to service their contract, for 6 month stints. They put 8 single Indian programmers into one tiny apartment in the US.
After 6 months, they go home and another batch replaces them.
They don’t even have to bother with H1B visas or anything.
Swear to god, I saw an ad for a highly specialized programming contact for HP. The wanted to pay $45k year, for a 3 month contract with no benefits, in San Mateo (hint… high cost of living). I see ads like that all time.
The “agency” that places these ad don’t want to hire an American do to do job. They want to be able to complain to ICE that they can’t find anyone so they need more H1B’s.
No shit they can’t find anyone with 20 years of experience who can live on $45k or less a year without benefits near San Mateo. Also, since it is only 3 months, there is no job security either.
Now about those DoD staff they need. Since we are at war, you have to have top secret security clearance for most of their work. Oh! You smoked pot once in your life? No clearance for you! Oh, you lived and worked overseas for a while? No clearance for you? Oh? You have a ding on your credit report? No clearance for you.
And they wonder why they can’t find anyone.
The only way to stop the outsourcing is to compete with China, India, etc. But that won’t happen as long as there are so many health, environmental, insurance, safety, workplace, wage, and possibly health mandates being handed down from every level of government.
The world’s business playing field isn’t level. Either places like China and India impose expensive American-style mandates on their businesses, or we cut our wages and benefits and all the other costs to match theirs.
We all know that this ain’t gonna happen. So the US loses jobs until there’s nothing left but nail salons, dance studios, landscapers and pizza shops on every streetcorner in America.
[/America]
My sibling manages mainframes for a huge company. They keep closing down departments and transferring the workload to her dept. Then people quit because of the workload. The company is begging for more H1Bs.
I think there are two things to make tech a sought after career:
1) Respect – treat techies like human beings with decent working conditions, the salary they deserve, and job security
2) Broads – recruit more chicks into hi tech fields even if (expecially if) they aren’t too bright. A happy geek is one who got laid last night. Seriously! How many tech depts are all male or have one or two dumpy old gals?
It would be nice if tuition costs didn’t increase by 10% each semester. Couple that with the still outrageous costs associated with books for higher education and it’s not too hard to see why people are less interested, and have moved to just being technical consumers.
33% increase in the University Of California system. That is why my kids no longer attend school in California. And neither is looking at IT, thank god. One majoring in infomatics-biomed the other is molecular biology.
IT is a thank less job with little recognition.
Depends on the geeks that you want. It’s getting tougher for the infrastructure guys (networks, servers, desktop, etc) – they’re becoming commoditized with companies like Rackspace and Amazon on the market.
Specialized knowledge of particular packages (e.g. SAP or Oracle financials) have dropped some but are still doing OK. It’ll hold as long as the package you know it still being used and upgraded.
Custom software development is still in high demand if your skills are good, can work in several environments (e.g. .NET, Java, Python, and Javascript), and have good practices (test driven development, build skills, etc). You should also understand integration.
Yes, lots of jobs have gone overseas but demand is still very high in certain areas.
That is just a piece of the whole picture. Everything in the world has been dumbed down dramatically in the last 10 or 15 years. Compare the technical, social, political, technological and artistic mindset and production of the 80s with what’s going on now. The world is a much dumber and more decadent place now. I’d venture say that it’s been more pronounced or visible in America, but I’m not really sure of that. It’s probably worldwide.
#22 nailed it. H1Bs are getting all the good paying tech jobs because they work cheaper. That has led to people no longer wanting to work in computers.
ROFL…now it’s all too clear..
In the pic of bill gates above, if you follow the Illuminati/FreeMason numerology and “hide it plain site traditions, -he was a marked man.
add’em up and reduce’em to a single digit. 105 519 = 66 -and the date alone is significant: 12-13-77
these are all “big deal” numbers for the “illuminated ones” on their own..
when you reduce them:
1+2=3
1+3=4
7+7=14 1+4=5
you get 345 3+4+5 = 12 1+2=3
so the interum numbers [reduced] on tag around his neck reads:
66
3
reduce the 66, 6+6=3. so we have 33 (33rd degree mason tag) -reduce the 33, and end up finally with 6, another iluminati favorite.
-the dude had no choice but to become a control freak and stooge for the NWO.. lol
(Letters have numerical equivalents as well, but i’m too lazy to check them out atm. numbers are easy)
fwiw: if you see 3,6,9,11,22,33 in “public” someone is sending a clue in context. 12 is usually a tip for the council of twelve crew.. which could be good or bad, depends on *which* council of twelve you refer too.
Its pretty amusing stuff that the megalomaniacs running *everything* use to communicate and/or taunt with. Once you learn it, it’s easy to spot. -esp in government.
(that Bloomberg, JP Morgan/Foodstamp news article is *littered* with illuminati “tells” -esp the youtube vid.)
As for the DOD/DARPA..they sold us out decades ago. plus, they “erase” you if you become a problem. knowing your in the “collateral damage” pool from the start is um, not incentive. -nuff said.
Geeks? -you cant “make” or educate a Geek. Real Geeks are born Geeks. -it’s a soul thing.
Cant expect .edu or .mil to understand that.
-s
[sarcasm on]
Look what happened to the Spartans when they outsourced their security to the Persians. Oh wait …
[sarcasm off]
NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS NO JOBS!
Get it?
#6 has it right.
They can always import nerds from India.
I work in custom software development and our US office just had it’s best year ever. It’s $150 billion/year market in the US and lots of companies are making money. Trying to compete on pure cost is stupid, and you really don’t want that work anyways. Competing on quality, talent, and results still wins.
If you’re not making money in IT, you only have yourself to blame.
47 years worth of practice, and very soon we won’t even be able to put a human in low Earth orbit without help from the Russians. It’s over America, it’s over.
The M$ Monopoly on PC Software keeps Venture (Vulture) Capital out of the Software Industry !!! No one will bet against M$, and the Industry suffers !!! Open Source is the Revenge of the Nerds, but makes only small advances against the EVIL EMPIRE !!! Too bad Bush and the Repukes killed the M$ anti-trust action !!!
We reap as we sow !!!
# 23 OvenMaster:
“The only way to stop the outsourcing is to compete with China, India, etc. But that won’t happen as long as there are so many health, environmental, insurance, safety, workplace, wage, and possibly health mandates being handed down from every level of government.”
Aha! So that’s the culprit? Health, environment, insurance, workplace safety and wages? Well, then, all we have to do is get rid of all of those and America will be strong again!!! (If you count millions of sick, cancerous, injured workers who can’t afford to buy medicine, see a doctor or nurse, or to buy food or pay rent strong. Then _we_ might as well all move to China or India; after all, it’s where our jobs went…
– - – - -
# 11 AreYouKidding?:
“… Make the pay and job security in engineering like it is for Wall Street bankers and notice how the trends change! …”
Wait until the banking and finance jobs start getting outsourced to India — can’t be long now…