Lowball job posting for the week 20080804
"Pay Rate: 30 to 35k yearly (southwest austin)
Reply to:
Date: 2008-08-04, 10:38AM CDT
South Austin Insurance Company Looking for Full time Entry to Mid Level Web Developer/Desktop Support Technician
Description:
Full time Entry to Mid Level Web Developer/Desktop Support Technician
Duties and Responsibilities:
• Design and develop web applications using current internet technologies.
• Develop Web interface with database management systems using SQL Server.
• Configures, diagnoses, and resolves basic local area network problems.
• Provide Technical support for users.
Requirements:
• Web Development experience
• Experience with IIS, Visual Basic
• Strong knowledge of ASP
• Proficient in HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Additional (non-required) Skills
• Experience with XSL/XML
• Exposure to Java, CVS (Source Version Control)
• Active Directory and W2k3 server.
Pay Rate: 30 to 35k yearly"
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Not as bad as some I've seen -- at least they aren't requiring a degree and huge amounts of experience... but the pay is certainly well below what the apologist media and education systems would have you believe that "computer skills" will get you. This shows you how glutted web development is... before the crash this type of job would probably have paid at least $10k more, which is a pretty big difference percentage wise.
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If they aren't requiring college, then it could be a reasonable start for a high-school grad with some experience. For a lightly-expereienced college grad though, a slap in the face.
Of course if they expect to get a overly-qualified candidate who is desparate, then as soon as a better job comes along, that person will likely be gone, unless something internal is attractive and retains them.
ASP? I think the pay is too high for ASP ;) It doesn't say ASP.net. Technology that is 11 years old.
I know nothing of the company that posted this job. However, I feel that the salary doesn't seem unreasonable to me given how wide-open the experience level description is. Someone with decent abilities could learn this in 6 months or less with a few books and minimal software/hardware investment.
Maybe this job represents a move away from high starting salary and recognizes just how much the abilities and attitude of one individual can make all the difference.
To me entry level is just that: pay someone $30,000 base salary and promote and/or bonus them if they work average or above average.
I find developers have all kinds of speeds and sustainability levels. One developer's 40 hour work week is another persons 20. And even if someone is decent speed as a developer, they sometimes get bored or burned out of only a few months.
Interviews only get you so far in learning someone's abilities, sustainability, attitude.
Just an alternate viewpoint. I'm coming from decades of experience and economics hobby interest.
What is really stinky about the amount is it figures out to less than what I made at my first job after college (in 1990) when you consider the difference in cost of living, and my first job out of college was a pretty crappy one, the kind that a young person takes to "pay their dues" or "get their foot in the door". This job would be the same, except that it appears that compensation has gone way down hill over the years. If this had even kept up with inflation it should pay around $40k to be comparable to what entry level salaries were back in the 1980s and 1990s.
Are you completely forgetting about global competition? China, India, Brazil, former USSR. These changes do not happen overnight. Wages and local opportunity slowly erode.
I started my professional computer software career in 1986 while still in high school.
I lived 12 months in South America 2004 and 2005. I found that those in the USA are not blessed with anything special to make them software developers. Sure, one region can be ahead or behind, but in a day when Ruby on Rails and Python are all the rage - being 1 year behind can make a big wage difference.
Jump on the next 'big technology', learn it 6 months before it hits 'mainstream', make 3x the wage of everyone else. Rinse and repeat.
Entry level in 1990 there was so many fewer computers, they were so much more expensive, and computers were a LOT harder and less entertaining (inviting) to use.
Back to economics and wages:
One does NOT need to commute to an office 9 to 5 in a big SUV, one does not need a 3,200 square foot house for a family of 2.5 people. It can easily be done from anywhere there is an internet connection, with cost of computer down to $800 compared to 1995 when a computer would cost $3000. Plus the books and free learning material (via the Internet) are more refined.
College education costs have soared, but I don't see any comparable improvement in eduction results. People in the USA seem to think that spending more equates to a good investment.
I suggest reading some globally focused economic views:
Book, 2008 "The Post-American World"
Book, 2008 "The Return of History and the End of Dreams"
Nobody can predict the future, including me - but I suggest that you are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Free trade is not just about getting cheap plastic toys at Target and HEB.
Well, what it comes down to is that tech careers probably won't support a traditional middle class American lifestyle in the future. I'm not completely sure what careers will, or whether we are going to see an implosion of our economy and our society over the next few years.
whether we are going to see an implosion of our economy and our society over the next few years.
I suggest you look around and where people have been "investing" their money since 2001:
-- Poorly built, energy inefficient, large houses
-- Poorly built, energy inefficient, large automobiles
The payoff for such investment? You are living in it.
Plain and simple, as a society - the USA over consumes, and it can't last forever.
Just one of MANY examples, published 6 years ago:
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/americas_consumption_trap
By the late 1990s, America's high consumption-low savings economy had gone into overdrive. Personal savings rates plunged, actually falling into the red for several quarters. Consumer debt increased to 110 percent of disposable income. Our current account ballooned to more than 4 percent of GDP in 2001. And our international debt passed the $2 trillion mark, rising to nearly 25 percent of GDP, a sizeable and growing burden that will be borne by the next generation.
It has only gotten WORSE since this was written in 2002!
As a society, the USA can live with a lot less waste. If you make $60,000 a year but SPEND $65,000 a year that isn't anything but a foolish lifestyle.
If you can live off $25,000 a year, what's the problem making only $29,000 a year? Overspending, consumption, is the real issue. Not the wages.
You are living in _deflation_ right now. Another word that goes along with deflation = depression.
Your government hands out more free money each year, year after year. Compounding eventually crashes, always does. I suggest you read up on fractional reserve lending and how it played a huge role in creating money in the housing markets of 1990-2006. You were living in borrowed-forward financial times.
These issues were understood right from the start of the USA, why have they been forgotten?
"All of the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arises, not from the defects of the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation." -- John Adams
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." --Thomas Jefferson
We aren't seeing deflation right now, except in housing prices. Quite the opposite actually, we are seeing massive inflation in most other things which are driven by rising energy prices. Of course the official government numbers intentionally factor out energy and food costs as well as "seasonal issues" in order to try to make the numbers look better but even at that the inflation rate and tanking of the dollar is starting to become alarming.
Software janitor,
3 months later... Are you convinced yet that we are in a period of deflation? Why are all banks in the world continually lowering interest rates?
Almost EVERYTHING is getting cheaper and cheaper.
Interest rates aren't lowering to consumers much, in fact auto and home loans are pretty tight. And food and other non-tech consumer goods are still seeing inflation. Gasoline prices I expect are only down temporarily and will probably be back up, and when that happens I expect inflation to be back in force.
Inflating commodity prices is offset by deflating oil prices, deflating housing prices, deflating wages.
If wages were going up with prices, then we would have inflation.
What we have here is a _crunch_ like the garbage compacter in Star Wars ;) Wages are not going up as fast as costs.
But overall, the money supply is deflating. The government is trying to combat that with handouts - rebate checks, extending unemployment.
A LOT of money was created and destroyed with the extremely rapid raises in housing prices. I suggest you read more on fractional reserve banking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking
The USA has no savings and many everyday people have incorrectly considered borrowed money 'income' for at least the last 6 years.
The bank failures have just started. This is going to be a lot larger than the Savings and Loan crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_Loan_crisis
from 1986 to 1995, the number of US federally insured savings and loans in the United States declined from 3,234 to 1,645. This was primarily, but not exclusively, due to unsound real estate lending.
This time, it was ALL kinds of banks, not just Savings and Loans. And commercial real estate is next!
I don't believe oil prices are deflating, at least not in the long run. I will be very surprised if we don't see oil prices continue to go up and drive general inflation with you. Housing prices also will stabilize at some point once the losses resulting from the bubble bursting have been tallied because construction costs will be raised by the general inflation of materials and energy inputs into building.
Whether wages are deflating doesn't affect the overall inflation rate much because overall labor costs to employers are still rising because of runaway benefits costs. Also its worth noting that only a few career fields have seen real non-inflation adjusted wage drops like the IT field has. Most other workers, while still falling behind adjusted for inflation have seen modest increases in pay. I believe that is largely because only tech workers have faced a market which has been glutted with cheap imported labor and rapid job loss caused by off-shoring. Manufacturing saw off-shoring in the past, but that hasn't been as big a factor recently because it is already done. Some areas on the low end of the job market have been negatively impacted by illegal immigration as well, but that is less of an issue because the wage differential between an illegal working in the US and between an off-shore worker in IT aren't nearly so large compared to the Americans they are displacing.
3 months later...
:: quote :: Whether wages are deflating doesn't affect the overall inflation rate much because overall labor costs to employers are still rising because of runaway benefits costs. Also its worth noting that only a few career fields have seen real non-inflation adjusted wage drops like the IT field has. :: quote ::
Wages aren't just deflating, jobs are being outright eliminated. The longer people say "I won't work for less than 60K" and think "the government will take care of me" (socialized unemployment) the more pain we will have.
If you look closer, wage deflation is not limited to IT. IT was in a huge growth period (1980-2001) that has leveled off. A lot of high paid jobs have been eliminated in auto makers (Who is designing those complicated SUV's now?), banking and financial people have had jobs eliminated or wages cut. And Boeing airlines has had major competition and issues, losing sales even with the weak USD $. Commercial construction is hurting next, lots of engineers and architects out of work. Retail business owners and managers sure aren't getting paid more this year. Restaurants are closing. This impacts the high paid owners just as well as the staff.
Doctors and lawyers are doing fine wage wise; but health care costs can't keep raising at their unsustainable rate. the baby boomers will bankrupt the US government further.
What seems overlooked in the rush to macroeconomic analysis is that in market economies, salaries for labor are set based on supply & demand - at the individual consumer/supplier level. Having been in the software business since 1981, I've been appalled at times (think late 1990's) by what programmers of questionable competence have been paid - but hey, when demand is up, and supply is down, that's going to happen. In the end, a job is only worth what the customer/employer is willing to pay for it. It is not unreasonable to advertise what seems like a low pay rate, because it might be the perfect hours/location/fexibility/etc. to compensate the right individual as an offset to the lower cash compensation - and many businesses can afford to look for that one person - they don't need to hire a hundred.
Developers are also vulnerable to the increased "ease of use" of development tools. When a high school student with a couple of courses and a little experience can do the work because the tools make it easy, and the functionality required isn't that complex to begin with - then the job is only worth so much.
What also contributes to seemingly crazy high/low wages is that most consumers of technical talent (especially small businesses) are unable to accurately assess the skill of those they hire/engage, resulting in overpayment in some cases, and underpayment in others. If we could develop professional certifications based on the critical thinking and analysis skills that are the bedrock of good software design and development, perhaps consumers would have a clue as to what they're getting when buying/hiring services.
I definitely don't overlook the supply and demand... The ugly reality is that between 2001-2003 the US tech job market lost nearly a million jobs and between 2004-2007 only grew back about 1/3 of those. That means 600k+ former tech workers are either still chronically unemployed or underemployed or had to take jobs in other fields or "throwaway" jobs in order to get by. Starting this year we are again in a phase where the economy is causing US employers to shed jobs in mass numbers, although thankfully tech workers haven't been hit as bad proportionately as last time. One good thing is that since 2001 enrollment in tech majors at most colleges have been down by 60+%, which helps, but that has been largely offset by the importation of huge numbers of cheaper workers on H1B and L1 visas -- the number of those visas issued since 2004 alone exceeds the number of jobs that were recovered since the end of the crash. At any rate all that means that in most tech career paths there is a huge glut of skilled and experienced talent.
On a certain level you are right that it isn't unreasonable in an employer's market to advertise almost insultingly low-ball salaries because they can probably get someone desperate enough to take it. But that certainly doesn't mean that tech workers have to be happy about it and that we can't be critical of such predatory practices. In the end I think that companies who treat employees like that will probably get what they deserve because even in a down economy few quality people will long suffer such treatment at least not without morale issues. And I will have to admit, that there is a certain motivation by myself to "out" crappy employers and hopefully thwart their efforts to further erode the job market. I think that most of the really crappy low-ball jobs that I usually make fun of don't even offer particularly attractive hours, location, flexibility, benefits or whatever to make up for the crappy pay. I specifically don't usually pick on government jobs, because many people are indeed willing to put up with dismal pay for the benefits and vacation days that come with those jobs.
You are right about automation and ability for people with limited skills to operate "drag and drool" tools to assemble some simple software being a problem -- however, there are usually big downsides with that approach, if you've ever had to clean up after projects like that... Of course all too often management is so short sided they can't see that until it is too late (if ever), and as long as there is a perception that they can shortcut to quality results by substituting cheap labor for skilled and experienced labor, the latter will continue to suffer.
I completely agree with you on employers inability to accurately assess skill levels of candidates and the inequity in pay that results from that. Unfortunately I see it as highly unlikely that given the way that certification programs work that they will ever be of much help. Most of the cert programs are more designed for the benefit of the vendor than they are employers or workers. The vendors are directly monetarily incentified to maximize the number of people paying for the certs, and at the same time they also want to be able to go to employers and say "there are x million certified monkeys you can hire to do y". Vendor run cert programs tend to dominate the landscape because they have name recognition and they spend a lot of time advertising and promoting them.
3 months later...
::quote:: reality is that between 2001-2003 the US tech job market lost nearly a million jobs and between 2004-2007 only grew back about 1/3 of those. ::quote::
I suggest that 2003 was a sustainable level; the 2004-2007 mini-boom you saw in IT was just fueled by the credit lending of banks. You saw a lot of heavy focus on "startups", but look at the IPO market - bye bye.
That money is gone for now. We will be lucky in 2009 to have the 2003 level of jobs. That 1/3 is going to disappear.
Now 2010, 2011 and beyond, we might have another surge in IT spending lead by the government. With Obama in charge and inflation kicking back in [government response to deflation] - wouldn't surprise me to see a lot of that newly minted money to go into social media, massive government-focused websites. Also very likely to see a renewed focus on keeping jobs in the USA, with a disdain toward outsourcing all to China and India.
But this mess is so world-wide, I am just guessing - my crystal ball gets real cloudy after spring 2009. I know this Christmas will be pretty bad (continued deflation), with bad January results to follow. What the government tries to do about it (good or bad) is the wild card to me.
My prediction has been for a while that over the next couple of years between 1/3 to 1/2 of all Americans who are now technical workers will permanently lose their tech jobs and be replaced by cheap imported labor or have their jobs sent off-shore. I don't see any sign that anything other than lip service will be spent towards keeping jobs in the USA, if anything the move to off-shore jobs and replace citizens with H1B/L1 visa holders will grow even more quickly.
I do agree that inflation will start to grow again as the government will continue to do massive helicopter drops of liquidity injections to try to get things moving again. The rebound in the strength of the dollar appears to be mostly caused by the temporary drop in oil prices, however now that the election is over, I expect oil prices to start to creep back up and the dollar to start to drop back. Consumers will get squeezed as banks will not pass along interest rate savings, they will take the cheap money from the fed and raise interest rates and fees to consumers in order to try to make back their losses.
Thanks to my son's history project this semester, I tripped accross a term I think is relevant to what we're seeing in technical labor markets this decade: "Liquidation of Labor".
Henry Ford shocked many of his contemporaries by creating a program providing employees the opportunity to earn a higher wage (double the going rate), based on tenure, accomplishment, and (early in the program) personal character.
His company was suffering from 300% annual turnover - which seems unthinkable today, but gets at the heart of the notion that labor is a commodity with no uniqueness, and thus has "liquidity" allowing it to be bought and sold at the lowest possible price - just like grain on the commodities exchanges.
While we like to think of enlighted business practices coming much later - see if this doesn't sound like the Japanese auto manufacturer's model in the 1980s & 1990s: "It is not usual to speak of an employee as a partner, and yet what else is he? Whenever a man finds the management of a business too much for his own time or strength, he calls in assistants to share the management with him. Why, then, if a man
finds the production part of a business too much for his own two hands should he deny the title of "partner" to those who come in and help him produce? Every business that employs more than one man is a kind of partnership." [Henry Ford: My Life and Work]
Shazam! Now, I don't think Ford was an exuberant altruist - but he certainly was hip to the concept of enlighted self-interest. Retaining workers increased quality and reduced the cost of production - and higher wages increased demand for the product they produced - which on the grander economic stage drives overall economic growth, which is very good for the captains of industry as well as the laborers.
Unfortunately, the wisdom exhibited by Ford and many others over the past century seems to be out of vogue in the technical world, where outsourcing is just one manifestation of the flawed philosophy of "liquid labor". Every time one of us establishes a long-term relationship with a client (or a vendor/service provider) within which we can demonstrate the value of "partners" as opposed to commoditized laborers, we help counteract this destructive trend toward commoditized labor.