In the United States, most people have to go to work and pay their bills on time to be a good citizen, to not get in trouble, to stay out of jail, to not have to bother with paying tickets and fines and to have their own place, live with room mates they know and like and hopefully have enough money to do something fun on the weekend.
Most people don't really care about what they do for a living as long as their bills are paid and they're not getting jail tickets (like the recent push to felonize abortions and driving with no car insurance, what's next making a late utility payment a crime?)
Some jobs pay better than others. But higher paying jobs often lead to price gouging, frequent requests for "donations", occasional property damage, and schedules so busy a person never has time to spend their own money. Oh, and the stock market crashes; good bye savings account.
The US Dept. of Education often publishes notifications that there are millions of IT jobs going unfilled. This is considered to be very unlikely due to heavy automation in technology. The other issue is that most tech workers have a full schedule and there is no time for tutoring, mentoring, or workplace training.
With technology job roles, a bachelor degree is considered a certification for basic terminology, industry jargon and a few simulated workpace projects. An actual IT job can go at a much faster pace, and may require learning the contents of a class in weeks or a few hours.
Tech workers tend to get paid based on performance, entry level means having a minimum pace of performance for that type of job role and the amount of money. An IT pace that is slow is unlikely to get paid much because heavy automation and task based planning improve the performance of a small team.
That does not mean slow paced workers get paid less 100% of the time but making 100 commits a day to change a letter and a few colors back and forth will not be looked at similarly as making 3-5 commits a day to document several color profiles and writing a performance algorithm at least once per quarter. Fast vs smart. Bulk data points vs goal oriented task completion.
When college graduates finally get to work many have student debt ratings at $50k to $80k which is higher than national averages. A very busy tech worker will still need to teach them how to get around a project, what the quarterly or yearly work expectations are, what tools will be used, which the new worker will be expected to learn quickly. Work place comments are mostly based on tool preference and solution approach and while work is not dissertational research project on rocket fuel combustion, the proposed solutions are expected to follow scientific principles and best practices of engineering.
Financial literacy and credit scores are also important for technology workers. A salary of $80k a year, requires a $16.8k tax payment, that means take home pay $5.2K per month on average and a payment of $1k per month on student loans will be deemed affordable without income based payments that are considered financial assistance.
In contrast, at $18/hr; the loan payments would be around $194 with financial assistance and may still require a request for the loan servicer to forgive the balance on the loan. $100k to $160k over 10 years, because of the interest requires a pyament of $833 to $1,333 a month payment. This is not feasible with take home incomes below $10,412 to $16,662. For an IT job, financial assistance on loan repayment and loan forgiveness is seen as financial irresponsibility.
Many jobs in the USA pay over $20 per hour with just a high school diploma. Workers who were accepted into a college program but didn't attend often get additional pay that includes enough for apt, car, fuel, doctor visits, clothes, and a little bit of savings. Plus money to go out on the weekends.
Its important to consider that a lot of technology programs at university are "IT security related". For many full civilian students, this can feel like a military bootcamp with an electronic warfare occupation. This is usually non viable living conditions in civilian quarters and there is a trend to bring back IT programs that skip the security requirement. A recent comment has been that IT Security programs appear to be for police, security guards, and infantry units searching for hostiles 24/7. Systems safety programs are more like locking doors and windows and seen as most appropriate for civilians. Many people would not expect to get a job as a civilian infantry officer to ensure home break ins are at a minimal while they're at work? Hence, IT Security jobs are seen as inappropriate for the most tech workers.
An analogy for IT Security Workers is working for an alarm and lock company as a home security researcher who spends the day discovering how to pick locks and break windows? While researching locks and security signals/alerts maybe necessary, would it require 3 million researchers? Most people would first wonder how much does the job pay and how much does the school cost? Will the educational costs be paid in full fairly quickly or at least on time? And, will the worker have at least the same standard of living as someone making around $20 per hour or better? Considering a different job might only require a high school diploma? Will the lock and alarm company require continuing education, not on the clock work related conferences, mentoring and tutoring for new home security research workers (without extra pay), and being on call 24/7 in case someones home got broken into and no one can figure out what the problem was with the security system and response protocols?
IT Worker Shortage Evaluation
There are several things to consider when evaluating if there is a shortage of workers:
- What happens if there is a shortage of accountants, doctors, lawyers or even cashiers and retail workers?
- There were 275k people layed off from tech jobs in 2022. What if this trend continues for 10 years?
- If an honor roll student STEM grad enters an IT job in 2024, will they stay until 65?
- What about Y2K and other crashes like 2009 Financial Crises or Covid-19? Do they keep their jobs during those periods?
- Is there an abuse of workers such as their ability to save, purchase a home, pay off debt, start a retirement account and take worth while vacations. Are they prevented from taking a vacation at all. Are they penalized when they are not on call in the evening after work hours.
- Not all job listings are for an actual job and some job listings are multiple listings for the same job posted in different formats, with different titles and with different job descriptions or work requirements to see what kind of applicants the employer gets based on the job ad. i.e. 1 job may have 15 to 25 different job ads to see which job ad gets the best candidate for the desired job role.
One thing to consider is a comparison to other jobs. A cashier for example, may rings up 200 to 240 customers a day and only take a 30 minute lunch, they may have a performance pay on their wages. If the average cashier rings up 80 to 140 customers a day, takes 3-5 minutes per transaction, has a 30 minute lunch, and two 10 minute breaks, plus occasional register malfunctions; a logical observation would assume there is a difference in pay. This doesn't mean there's a shortage of cashiers, it just means that the business that hires the particularly fast cashier is going to have nearly double to about triple the throughput on that one register. It's unlikely the cashier will receive triple the pay of other cashiers performing at an average level, but it is likely they might provide their workplace with a competitive advantage.
Depending on the average per item or per transaction cost the specific cashier can make a small to significant difference to a business. E.g. for a $25 average transaction and $2 items, it can make a difference of $2,500 to $4,000 per day every day they are at the register. If the average cashier makes $115 per day full time and the high performer makes $225 per day that's an extra $2,200 in wages per month for an extra $50k+ from that particular register. At a $300 per transaction average, the increased throughput can mean more than 1/2 a million dollars. Per month. Its unlikely a cashier will be able to go 50/50 with a business owner or major corporation on their cashier skills. But the additional pay adds up to over $20k a year in performance wages.
Continuing with this hypotethical, assume that a business decides to make the high performer the head cashier and then they additionally develop an entry level training program to get other cashiers up to that level. For additional pay and benefits of course. If that business is able to develop a new business process, a training process and business specific cashier policies. A business with 100 cashiers, performing 180 transactions a day would have an increased throughput of $100k to $250k per day across all locations when compared to the industry standard.
From a competitive standpoint, other places would need to hire 2-3 cashiers for every 1 of their high performers. Especially if some of them exceeded the 180 transaction standard to make it to the founders performance of 200 to 240. This does not indicate a cashier shortage because a specific business performs better than the industry standard.
Returning to IT, observing IT workers performing at an extremely high capacity, doesn't indicate that there is a shortage of IT workers. There are other considerations such as training for new workers and the policy for not meeting desired performance requirements. For many workers, not meeting expectations is a conversation on payroll costs and the "value" they add to the business. At the end of the day most people need jobs and its up to the business owners to determine the minimum acceptable performance level to make it viable to hire IT workers or an IT team.
Things to consider. Read through the links and think about other things that might be important besides a high paying job or a cool tech workplace. For example, the amount of interest that will be owed on a $50k to $80k college credential.
References
This is additional reading. There are a total of 52 articles to read. One of the "articles" is actually a uniform and proportional income tax calculator which is currently uniform and proportional for federal taxes and uniform and proportional within a state e.g California, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon will each have different tax thresholds in addition to federal taxes. To note, is that some people consider the State income tax to be the desired tax allocation received from federal income taxes (e.g. Federal taxes is 22% for everyone based on employment rate and average wages and California desires 13% of those taxes to remain in the State to run the state government).
There's additional notes and comments throughout the links. Just copy and paste the links to make sure they are not obfuscated.
The "link juice" and "relevancy" is noted and documented away from the major search engines. They also track webs for their own purposes, some of which may not be legal but at this point are part of some of their search algorithms.
Adding 2 links to this post.
https://www.talent.com/tax-calculator (formerly Neuvoo Tax Calc)
https://www.talent.com/convert (wage by time frame analyzer)
The Narrative/Synopsis/Media Hype/
- The 2008 IT Worker Shortage
https://www.cioinsight.com/news-trends/the-new-it-worker-shortage/
- The Shortage of Tech Workers is even bigger now in 2022
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-shortage-of-tech-workers-is-about-to-become-an-even-bigger-problem-for-everyone/
- Developer Programmers might have a shortage of IT Workers as well
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/06/08/is-there-a-developer-shortage-yes-but-the-problem-is-more-complicated-than-it-looks/?sh=794eaa063b8e
- Cyber Security is too big for business and too big for government. They must combine together.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/05/cybersecurity-governments-business/
- Office of Profit/Corporate Officer
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S3-C7-2/ALDE_00000701/
- Misdemeanors and Civil Officers
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S4-4-1/ALDE_00000690/
- Due Process - Deprived of Property, Taking Private Property for Public Use
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt5-5-1/ALDE_00013721/
- Public Trial, Confront Witnesses, Obtain Witnesses
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-6/
- Suits at Common Law, Right to a Jury Trial
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-7/
- Due Process - Just Compensation
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt5-5-1/ALDE_00013721/
- We'll pay you whatever you want if you help with our tech job. Anything, please.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/28/tech/cybersecurity-labor-shortage/index.html
- The IT drought is bad and its getting worse, we want it stretched out to the maximum limit.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilsayegh/2020/09/22/as-the-end-of-2020-approaches-the-cybersecurity-talent-drought-gets-worse/
- There is a demand for IT workers, but the supply is low
https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/cybersecurity-talent-gap-worker-shortage/639724/
- Companies in Netherland charge 30% of an IT workers income taxes to other tax payers
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2019/03/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa
- The most prestigious IT Security Cert in the World is now Free.
For a limited time only.
https://www.isc2.org/1mcc
- ISC2 does a Work Study
https://www.isc2.org/Research/Workforce-Study
- ISC2 requires 120 credits or 1,600 hours of college work every 3 years to remain in good standing.
https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/certification/renewal-requirements-for-the-cissp/
Unless someone is advanced placement, they will be required to do the full credit requirement in the full allotted time. And, advanced placement shouldn't be taking non AP courses for college credit. Professional credit is often when a bachelor program is compared to professional work, often the professional can complete those requirements and test out for most of the classes in way less time than it takes a college student to complete the course. This is not compliant for degree granting unless those courses are the highest ranked courses in an area and the job seekers needs a degree to pursue their economic freedom and favorable work conditions.
- Everyone's a software developer now. Probably because they get paid pretty good.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/software-developers-was-the-largest-computer-and-mathematical-occupation-in-may-2022.htm
Career transition, job switching and promotions are all fine and dandy but automation has reduced the need for IT personnel rather than increased it. There is no need to reautomate things daily which is why a lot of IT people are independent contractors and charge by the project rather than by the hour except for small tasks. Industry wide skills assesment will be needed from 2024 to 2026. Before 2015, there were about 1,500 competent developers in the USA everyone else was system integrator, system administrator, system or network technician or help desk support (i.e. customer service). Project managers and consultants are more of a business major who have an interest/focus on technology. Big data in business is mostly used for marketing (privacy rights/regulation), inventory and logistics. There are various uses in government that require extensive legal knowledge or assistance of counsel. The industry is projected to remain like this between 2025 and 2050. AI and Machine Learning are novelty concepts curated by sci-fi afficiandos with their own personal money and expense. It may have industrial application in the future when robots are prevalent as a consumer product (i.e. Rosie, Johnnie-5, C-3PO, R2-D2. The closest concept is currently Asimo of Japan or Lego Mindstorm (depending on developer skill).
Ability for Time Off
- China and Nigeria provide more paid time off than what's provided for US workers
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/04/the-10-countries-with-the-least-paid-vacationthe-us-is-no-2.html
- If the use of your time is restricted due to work requirements, you are on the clock.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/pc02sc/being_oncall_is_working_full_stop/
- An overview of Time Off Negotiations after Accounting for non on-call Wages
https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/94990/how-much-should-i-be-paid-extra-for-being-on-call
- If your time is restricted is the standard, lugging a laptop, distance from work, length of activities
https://www.n-able.com/blog/7-steps-getting-your-call-pay-policy-right
- Drinking alcohol is not illegal in developed nations, many employers allow up to 2 beers during lunch.
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2276039-how-about-drinking-when-you-re-on-call
- If you're not scheduled to work, you're not scheduled to pick up the phone.
https://eddy.com/hr-encyclopedia/on-call-compensation/
- Calling an Employee off schedule for an Extra shift is not the same as them being alert and waiting for a phone call from work to attend to a work related matter.
https://www.thebalancemoney.com/do-you-get-paid-for-being-on-call-2060048
- Nurses ponder the health implications of being on call. Is there a good set price for extra work time?
https://medium.com/@kristinapulford/how-much-money-would-it-take-for-you-to-be-on-call-24-7-e2f74b9f8b9e
- The considerations of being on alert for an employer related notification when not at work.
https://work.chron.com/disadvantages-being-connected-work-24-7-22290.html
Chronus, Chronograph, Chronology in addition to other terms that are in less common use amongst professionals.
- Getting an Attorney to help Negotiate Wages
https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/on-call-employment-wage-law.html
Something to note: Business contracts must be compliant with the law. In other words many people don't need business contracts because the law already governs the majority of business concerns. A contract would often cover details the law is vague on or details the law does not specify. All employment contracts are governed by labor laws first.
If you can't use your time freely, then its work. If work calls you to see if you can cover an extra shift its not work but you don't have to answer the phone or come to work if you're not scheduled to work. You can also say no or provide the times you would be willing to be available for work instead of having time off. And scheduled time off/periods of rest overall suck in the US when compared to other nations on Earth.
If you are refraining from non-illegal behaviour during time off to be on-call then you can't use your time freely. And, if you are engaged in illegal behaviour outside of work, your employer usually does not have authority or authorization to investigate, stalk, harass or invade your privacy. Employers can always file a police report or call an attorney if they suspect you of stealing from work. Paranoid employers should run their business lawfully and file police reports for work related crimes that happened at the workplace, on company equipment and/or remotely while accessing business systems. Employer's should not bother their employees during their time off and when they are not getting paid. Most employers use supervisors or have a
willing to be on call occasionally pool for additional work inquiries during time off. Or they pay people to be on call or come to the office to catch up on work and/or be on stand by.
Y2K and .com Bubble. Plus 2038 Time Standard.
- What was the .com Bubble?
https://www.britannica.com/event/dot-com-bubble
- What was Y2K?
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/y/y2k.asp
- What will the 2038 Time Clock problem be?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
2009 Financial Crises layoffs
- The whole economy crashed! and everything is in a major recession!
https://www.forbes.com/2009/01/09/january-layoffs-fires-lead-cx_kk_0109january09layoffs.html
- Goodbye tech folks. Circa 2009.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/tech-layoffs-the-scorecard/
2022 Tech Layoffs (due to Covid-19)
- Over a 1/4 million tech folks fired.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7041385379039432704
- The big data analysis of the tech firings of 2022.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/navigating-impact-january-tech-layoffs-saas-companies-ellis-m-ed-/
- Just seeing what kind of people are still looking for jobs.
Don't actually have a job available.
Why did you collect my personal information then?
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7045470228415197184
- Tyson Foods fires some people. It has over 30,000 employees.
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/new-layoffs-tyson-cuts-1700-jobs-6188026
- LinkedIn fires some people too. It had over 17,000 employees before the firing.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90893848/linkedin-mass-layoffs-microsoft-job-cuts-employees-anniversary-tech-industry
LinkedIn had a total of 17,900 total employees in all job roles before the layoffs.
Housing Conditions near Tech Hubs
- Google and Facebook charge $30 a night to let their employees sleep in the parking lot.
https://money.com/rent-van-google-parking-lot/
- One dude lives in a moving truck at the Google Parking Lot. Software Engineer.
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-lives-in-truck-in-parking-lot-2015-10
- Another dude uses a Camper and saved to buy a house in 4.5 years. Also a dude that sleeps in a van.
Visual Designer (camper). Ecologist (van).
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/google-worker-lived-for-54-weeks-in-camper-on-company-campus
- Living in TJ, Mexico and working in San Diego.
$200k Mexican Condo or $300 two bedroom.
1 hour commute includes border crossing.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/real-estate/sd-fi-tijuana-housing-20161006-htmlstory.html
- San Francisco workers increasingly commute 90 minutes each way to save money on rent.
750 hours a year commuting.
31 days of time on the road to or from work per year.
https://www.sfgate.com/traffic/article/Bay-Area-commute-San-Francisco-traffic-12861808.php
- In San Jose with $200k/yr income only 12% of the available homes are affordable.
In most US Cities, an IT worker can afford almost any place they want to live in.
https://it.slashdot.org/story/21/01/30/067245/study-finds-the-least-affordable-city-for-tech-workers-silicon-valleys-san-jose
- Los Angeles rents Bunk Beds now. It has a Silicon Beach they want to make popular.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2323340/The-appalling-apartments-Los-Angeles-Bunk-beds-420-cats-worst-cities-renters-America.html
Say someone makes $20/hr and $2,805 take home
(actual income. No writeoffs, no refunds).
Beds are now $650 because article is from 2013.
30% maximum affordable rent is $841.50.
A help desk specialist makes $18 to $24 per hour on average in the USA.
- Check your take home pay. Uniform and Proportional.
Same tax rate for all/no tax brackets.
e.g. if someone making $20k pays no taxes and someone making $40k has a $20k tax bracket bill, why bother.
https://www.talent.com/tax-calculator?salary=41600&from=year®ion=California
Here you can see the monthly take home pay per state based on hourly pay
(its a monthly average because some months have 4 or 5 weeks).
- Bunk beds are also available in San Francisco.
They're a bit more plush than Los Angeles.
https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-renters-living-in-bunk-beds-rent-soaring-2019-7
- Daily Mail verifying same/similar data as Business Insider.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7218067/Renters-Los-Angeles-San-Francisco-paying-1200-month-bunk-bed-shared-space.html
- More details of Bunk Bed Realty at Tech Hubs.
Apparently its also considered a privacy rights waiver.
https://archinect.com/news/article/150144831/giving-up-privacy-to-live-in-america-s-most-expensive-cities
aside: their website name is pronounced our connect by many people reading it for the first time.
Economic Conditions for non-Tech Workers living in Tech Hubs
- $16,952 yearly take home pay for a Yelp employee.
Working in Customer Service, living in San Francisco.
Gets fired for yapping her mouth.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/yelp-employee-criticizes-ceo-on-medium-loses-job
- $1,200 Rent for a $1,200 per month janitor in Silicon Valley.
https://reimaginerpe.org/20-2/Goldman
- 20 Hours a week commuting to save on rent.
1,080 hours a year spent on time to/from work in San Francisco.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/20/pr-rep-commutes-4-hours-every-day-to-avoid-45000-dollar-san-francisco-rent.html