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Comment by tw1010 | Hacker News Reader

Or, you know, there's no shortage and it's just a narrative ploy from corporations in order to decrease wages.

A shortage of something increases the price... a corporation ploy to create a fake shortage to increase price, decreases price?

Parent's point is that the message is propaganda aimed at fostering measures that will result in increased availability, hence reducing price.

The fake shortage is an illusion, but it results in a real increase in supply, which decreases price.

and how that did work so far? All I can see wages are going upward for a years

Wages should always be going up at least with inflation and tech has been enormously successful in the past few decades so tech workers should be outpacing inflation. That said, it could quite possibly be even better for tech workers if, for example, the H1B system wasn't abused to bring in cheap overseas labor.

If the shortage was so bad, companies wouldn't be so picky when it comes to older workers: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/09/ibm_age_iayoffs/

Research into real wages in Silicon Valley has found that 90 percent of jobs in the region are paying less than 20 years ago.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/tech-companies-blamed-for-20-y...

Your own article says "The one group of employees whose wages rose across the board are those working in the high-tech sector in Silicon Valley, with median pay up 32 percent compared with 1997." and tech sector employees are who we are talking about.

Meanwhile housing prices and rents in the same region went up 300%. Seems like a major net decrease in income.

Yes. When you can important workers on an H1B that will work for 1/2 or less of what an American would make....

You increase the wage of the American by 2x (but don’t hire much of them) , but bring in 10 from a developing country... the company net cost for 11 devs is less, the American worker doesn’t complain, and H1B don’t complain cuz the ones that do get sent back, and the story that there is a shortage continues. But society as a whole degrades lol.

Case in point: America the past 50 yrs

you understand that shortage increases wages ?

Companies stick to a narrative of a tech shortage, lobby government and universities to help import/train more talent, supply of talent increases, wages drop.

I disagree that this is what is happening, given my own experience. But I'm not sure what the solution to the problem is. The smartest people I've worked with are motivated to learn more every day. You can offer the best training, but if someone doesn't care about inproving their skills or expanding their knowledge, you can't do much. Also, working effectively in a team environment also requires some soft skills that some people just don't have nor do they care to develop them. Again, can't force people to care.

I think it is companies prerogrative to find a way to have cheaper qualified labor (within legal boundaries). Where companies fail in most cases is a qualifed/quality part of equation. Unfortunately I was in situations where given a pool of applicants I wouldn't hire any but stupid head count game is you snooze , you lose and no, management doesn't always understand addition by substraction priciple :-)

also I see a lot of developers overestimating how good they are and demanding compensation that is not realistic to what they can deliver but they are within their rights to ask and if they get it more power to them

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