Overview of labor market trends: the big picture
Workforce.com has this by Samuel Greengard: “What’s in Store for 2004.”
“The issues for the new year include a changing labor market, dwindling talent, knowledge drains and heightened demand for workforce-management metrics. ‘Any organization that isn’t worried about the state of the workplace should be,’ one expert says.”
Some of the most interesting points (to me):
“It certainly isn’t grandpa’s workforce. The growing use of temps, independent contractors, consultants, part-time employees and outsourced labor is changing the way both employers and employees think about jobs, loyalty and the pursuit of goals. It’s putting greater pressure on human resources to manage diverse groups of workers–often with wildly divergent values and attitudes. Factor in a sluggish economy, ongoing layoffs, a skilled-labor shortage and clampdowns on H-1B visas, and many companies are reeling.”
“Although the economy is expected to display a pulse in 2004, underlying fiscal trends remain painfully intact. First, baby boomers are aging, and there aren’t enough young workers to plug into the labor force. Second, a shortage of engineers, computer programmers and technical specialists has left many U.S. companies feeling like a sports car that can’t get the high-octane fuel it needs. Finally, a recent study conducted by Teradata Corp., a division of NCR, shows that average employee tenure is now at an all-time low of 3.6 years.
Those in the trenches are well aware of these problems. John Malenic, director of human resources at NVIDIA, a Santa Clara, California, firm that manufactures high-end graphics chips and boards for the computer industry, is among those struggling to keep performance revved up. In fiscal 2003, the 1,500-employee company bucked a general downturn in the technology sector and racked up a sales growth of nearly 40 percent, approaching $2 billion in sales. It is adding employees at an annual clip of more than 30 percent. ‘Because of the downturn in the economy, it has been possible to find talent, but when things pick up, all bets are off,’ he says.
Like many other tech executives, Malenic is irked at the federal government’s move to slash the number of H-1B visas to levels of the pre-dot-com era–approximately half of peak levels. He says that it is increasingly difficult to find the engineers and technical experts needed to build sophisticated semiconductors. What’s more, companies face limits on the number of visas for workers from particular countries, further reducing flexibility. Although such cutbacks fall under the guise of homeland security, he and others believe that old-fashioned protectionism is also a key factor. ‘There’s still a fear that we’re hurting American interests by giving high-end jobs to foreigners rather than U.S. citizens,’ he says.
Ironically, the employment crunch is prompting some companies to outsource IT, computer programming and entire design functions to India, China and other countries. Nearly 5 percent of human resources jobs have moved offshore in the past year, and the figure is expected to climb to 15 percent by 2007. By 2015, 3.3 million U.S. high-tech and service-industry jobs will be overseas, according to Forrester Research. That’s 2 percent of the entire workforce, and $136 billion in U.S. wages. So far, the Bush administration has adopted a hands-off approach–though it’s anyone’s guess how things will play out in the months ahead.”
C’mon, lets adopt a reasonable approach on immigration so American companies have a choice besides shipping the jobs away. This would be a good issue for the Democrats, except they’re likely to let big labor and other traditional liberal constituents talk them into a protectionist approach.
