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Comment by ansy | Hacker News Reader

Could H-1B be more effective? Yes. It could definitely be more fair to the visa holder and do a better job of attracting and retaining the most skilled workers.

But I also think it's totally wrong to say we don't have a technology labor shortage. The best evidence of this are the salary numbers for people with math and science degrees. It's not because physics and math suddenly got more valuable. It's because tech is so starved for labor it's hiring people from different disciplines to do the job and it's actually brought the average salaries in line with CS and engineering graduates.

Also, even if we had an adequate national labor supply, the job opportunities are not distributed proportional to population density. The density of technology jobs is highly concentrated in a few parts of the country, but we are producing qualified engineers everywhere. And not everyone is willing or able to move.

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There is a luxury yacht shortage. I say this because I want to run a luxury yacht business and I'm unable to buy a luxury yacht for the $10 that I have in my pocket.

There is a Ferrari shortage because I want to start a "Uber With Ferraris" business, and I'm unable to buy a Ferrari with the $10 that I have in my pocket.

There is a developer shortage because I want to start a software business and I am unable to buy a developer with the $10 that I have in my pocket.

There are no shortages. There is capitalism and the market. If salaries rise so that My Brilliant Idea Co is unable to hire a software developer, that just means that My Brilliant Idea Co isn't valued by VCs or Angels such that they can afford to hire the necessary people.

My company was unable to hire people. When it increased offers by 40%, suddenly it could hire people.

Thank you. The supply of employees is only constrained by employers' willingness to pay. At the current prevailing wages, supply is not meeting demand. This does not necessarily mean there is a shortage.

I know tons of people my age who wanted to go into computer science. They failed out, lacked the dedication it took to make up for missing skills, etc.

The wages are making people try, but the field is difficult.

Increased wages could also pull people back into software engineering who are skilled but left for more lucrative fields (or careers with better upward paths).

There can be shortages and you could also be able to hire people by pricing competitively.

If there are 100 open positions and 80 available software engineers, if 1 of those positions is able to pay twice as much as the next highest, they will get that software engineer - it doesn't change the fact that there are 80 engineers to go around, and no matter how high they offer in pay 20 positions will go unfulfilled.

No. That just means that there are unviable businesses when software engineers are priced correctly.

If there are 10 businesses that each need to hire 10 engineers, but there are only 80 engineers, then the price of the engineers will be determined by which 8 businesses have a business model that can afford those 80 engineers. The other two businesses don't have a viable business model. They can't sell enough X to account for the cost of the engineers.

Likewise, if you have a business that depends on building an electric car, and you can't afford to buy lithium at market price and still make the car cheap enough, then that isn't because there is a shortage of lithium. Its because you don't have a viable business model based on the price of lithium.

In my example above, there is no shortage of Ferraris. There is only a shortage of people willing to sell their Ferrari at $10.

Or stock. There are 100 open positions for AAPL at $129, but only 80 offers at that price. Thats not a shortage of AAPL stock. That just means there's only 80 people willing to sell at that price. However, if you offer $160 for AAPL, suddenly you'll find a lot of sellers.

Only 80 engineers looking for work? Find someone that looks good on LinkedIn and offer them double their salary. Suddenly more than 80 engineers available.

> Find someone that looks good on LinkedIn and offer them double their salary.

You make the assumption that individual employees are economically rational individuals. That is, they will optimize their lives to maximize income without regard to other factors.

It also asserts that employers clearly advertise pay for a position, which we know is not usually the case. It's not like you can peruse job boards and know exactly what every company will pay you. Sure, sometimes they have (very side) salary bands, but the vast majority of tech workers don't know what their offer will be until it is made.

>But I also think it's totally wrong to say we don't have a technology labor shortage. The best evidence of this are the salary numbers for people with math and science degrees. It's not because physics and math suddenly got more valuable. It's because tech is so starved for labor it's hiring people from different disciplines to do the job and it's actually brought the average salaries in line with CS and engineering graduates.

This series of claims is so different from the reality that myself and many others have observed that I don't even know where to begin. Physics graduates are literally jumping off of buildings because of how poor their employment prospects are. Can you provide any sources for the statements you just made?

http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/majors-that-pa...

#11 Physics & Mathematics $56,200 starting, $111,000 mid-career

Compare that to Computer Science

# 5 Computer Science (CS) & Engineering, starting $71,200, mid-career $116,000

Also, I work with and have interviewed many people with physics and math degrees. Granted, there's some sampling bias going on there. But the ones I know didn't really have prospects actually using their degrees in their respective fields unless they got a phd and went into academia. So they all went into tech one way or another.

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