5 ms·

> let's be real, this country doesn't have nearly enough STEM professionals to meet demand ... at current salaries.

by qdpb 11y ago

luisdaniel12 11y ago
not sure what you mean. Elaborate?
- x0x0 11y ago
  First, you simply asserted -- without any evidence whatsoever -- that the US lacks sufficient stem professionals. Two points: 1 - plenty of stem surveys (lumping all of stem together, as you did) show plenty of available candidates as calculated by the percentage of domestic stem graduates working in stem post graduation. see, eg, http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/09/15/stem-graduates-cant-find-jobs http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/09/15/stem-gradu... 2 - if you wish to limit the discussion to sf/valley type jobs, a honest claim is there aren't sufficient already trained engineers who wish to live in sf/valley at the prices employers wish to offer who already have the desired skills. There are lots of ways to address it: pay enough so that living here isn't a financial disaster (compare housing prices in sf/nyc (much cheaper than sf!), seattle, chicago, boston, etc), solve transport problems making san jose and sf essentially separate cities, figure out remote employees, hire women (and even retain them!), train engineers, etc. 2b - even a smidge of economics will tell you it's very hard for an actual shortage to exist; there's a clear lack of evidence of wage increases (over cost of living increases) that would accompany an actual tightening of the labor market
  - prostoalex 11y ago
    > pay enough so that living here isn't a financial disaster Higher salaries and higher employment levels seem to correlate with higher, not lower, housing prices. > solve transport problems making san jose and sf essentially separate cities How would you even address that? It's run by public agencies controlled by three counties (San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara). You need to get financial commitments from all three counties, railroad unions, state agencies like CalTRANS, etc. They're bringing BART to San Jose, so maybe things are already slowly progressing in that regard.
trhway 11y ago
what in your opinion the current salaries are and what they must be in order to attract enough professionals? I mean do you see a lot of people who aren't STEM professionals because they feel the salaries are too low? If they aren't STEM professionals than where they are?
- x0x0 11y ago
  I see a continued loss of excellent, experienced -- 10-15 years into their careers -- engineers from sf to Seattle, Chicago, Colorado, Boston, and Austin driven by an admixture of the poor wages in sf/peninsula compared to housing costs, poor transport plus long commute times, very high education costs for children, high daycare costs, and family unfriendly work policies. Three friends and at least nine acquaintances over the last 24 months. Compare the housing prices of what a three bedroom condo in sf (what a 2 child family wants) vs the other cities, plus the ability for mothers to take a couple years off work. Losing 15 to 20% of your salary to save 50% or more of housing costs is often a great deal.
  - klipt 11y ago
    The Bay Area is fundamentally broken in that cities refuse to build new housing and schools. Supply is limited, demand exceeds supply, and engineers are competing against each other for that very limited supply. So if all us engineers' salaries went up, it wouldn't help. We'd just end up spending even more to out compete each other. (Well, I guess it would help push non-engineers out of the Bay Area, but is that really what we want?)
    - qdpb 11y ago
      If there is nowhere to house new engineers, why do companies apply for H1-B?
      - klipt 11y ago
        That's mostly orthogonal to the H1-B question - why do they hire anyone? (Most of the hires are not H1-Bs.) I'd guess the answer is, marginally, hiring people is still good for companies. But combined with the lack of housing development, it's slowly but steadily making life worse for everyone in the Bay Area who doesn't yet own a house. If it continues this way, eventually people won't move here without ridiculously high salary offers, and companies will be forced to expand in cheaper cities instead.

> let's be real, this country doesn't have nearly enough STEM professionals to meet demand ... at current salaries.

by qdpb 11y ago

> let's be real, this country doesn't have nearly enough STEM professionals to meet demand ... at current salaries.

luisdaniel12 11y ago

not sure what you mean. Elaborate?

x0x0 11y ago
First, you simply asserted -- without any evidence whatsoever -- that the US lacks sufficient stem professionals. Two points: 1 - plenty of stem surveys (lumping all of stem together, as you did) show plenty of available candidates as calculated by the percentage of domestic stem graduates working in stem post graduation. see, eg, http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/09/15/stem-graduates-cant-find-jobs http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/09/15/stem-gradu... 2 - if you wish to limit the discussion to sf/valley type jobs, a honest claim is there aren't sufficient already trained engineers who wish to live in sf/valley at the prices employers wish to offer who already have the desired skills. There are lots of ways to address it: pay enough so that living here isn't a financial disaster (compare housing prices in sf/nyc (much cheaper than sf!), seattle, chicago, boston, etc), solve transport problems making san jose and sf essentially separate cities, figure out remote employees, hire women (and even retain them!), train engineers, etc. 2b - even a smidge of economics will tell you it's very hard for an actual shortage to exist; there's a clear lack of evidence of wage increases (over cost of living increases) that would accompany an actual tightening of the labor market
- prostoalex 11y ago
  > pay enough so that living here isn't a financial disaster Higher salaries and higher employment levels seem to correlate with higher, not lower, housing prices. > solve transport problems making san jose and sf essentially separate cities How would you even address that? It's run by public agencies controlled by three counties (San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara). You need to get financial commitments from all three counties, railroad unions, state agencies like CalTRANS, etc. They're bringing BART to San Jose, so maybe things are already slowly progressing in that regard.

trhway 11y ago

what in your opinion the current salaries are and what they must be in order to attract enough professionals? I mean do you see a lot of people who aren't STEM professionals because they feel the salaries are too low? If they aren't STEM professionals than where they are?

x0x0 11y ago
I see a continued loss of excellent, experienced -- 10-15 years into their careers -- engineers from sf to Seattle, Chicago, Colorado, Boston, and Austin driven by an admixture of the poor wages in sf/peninsula compared to housing costs, poor transport plus long commute times, very high education costs for children, high daycare costs, and family unfriendly work policies. Three friends and at least nine acquaintances over the last 24 months. Compare the housing prices of what a three bedroom condo in sf (what a 2 child family wants) vs the other cities, plus the ability for mothers to take a couple years off work. Losing 15 to 20% of your salary to save 50% or more of housing costs is often a great deal.
- klipt 11y ago
  The Bay Area is fundamentally broken in that cities refuse to build new housing and schools. Supply is limited, demand exceeds supply, and engineers are competing against each other for that very limited supply. So if all us engineers' salaries went up, it wouldn't help. We'd just end up spending even more to out compete each other. (Well, I guess it would help push non-engineers out of the Bay Area, but is that really what we want?)
  - qdpb 11y ago
    If there is nowhere to house new engineers, why do companies apply for H1-B?
    - klipt 11y ago
      That's mostly orthogonal to the H1-B question - why do they hire anyone? (Most of the hires are not H1-Bs.) I'd guess the answer is, marginally, hiring people is still good for companies. But combined with the lack of housing development, it's slowly but steadily making life worse for everyone in the Bay Area who doesn't yet own a house. If it continues this way, eventually people won't move here without ridiculously high salary offers, and companies will be forced to expand in cheaper cities instead.