The RAND Research Center, commissioned by the US federal government, has prepared a report on the state of the labor market requiring high qualifications. According to current information, the personnel issue is already acute now, and in the most important sectors of the national economy. There is a lack of creative specialists, that is, people who are able to think creatively and develop non-standard solutions. The situation is aggravated by the fact that there is nowhere to take them. This problem is not only American, it has spread throughout the world.
Why is America attractive to creatives?
Soviet programmers
In the 60s and 70s, Soviet computer specialists were considered respected people, but this profession in the USSR did not imply special material preferences. Huge computing rooms, densely packed with oversized cases of processors, storage drives, disk drives and printing devices, rustled with hundreds of fans, were blown through by air conditioners and, in fact, were not very comfortable places. Programmers conjured with punched tapes and punched cards, which seemed mysterious to an outside observer, like ancient Egyptian letters. Salaries were average Soviet, sometimes slightly higher.
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Everything changed dramatically after one of these specialists left for permanent residence in America. There he immediately fell into the category of highly paid and desirable employees. Practically no retraining was required - the Soviet computers of the EU series were a "clone" of IBM computers. Education in the USSR was very good, and knowledge, together with professional training, was highly valued. This is how the myth arose about the omnipotence of "Russian programmers" who allegedly created almost entirely American software.
School of Russian Programming
Several government and commercial organizations are involved in the search and recruitment of IT professionals outside the United States. For example, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, headquartered in Washington, has data on 134 thousand potential recruits and 250 companies around the world, theoretically ready to fill any order for the creation of software. Among them is RASA-USA ("Russian-American Scientific Association"), which oversees the recruiting of information specialists from the Russian Federation. Contrary to the prevailing, but already outdated stereotype, the qualifications of Russian programmers as a whole are not very high, their share in the overall result is only 0.36% in the overall American volume. In the list of partners in terms of the number of projects common with the United States, Russia is in 25th place among other countries (2014).
However, this is explained not only by the insufficient level of creativity of domestic IT specialists, but often by their unwillingness to leave for the United States to work. As one of the cartoon characters used to say, "We are well fed here too."
China
Programmers from the PRC have long occupied a large niche in the corresponding segment of the labor market. Now the situation has changed to a diametrically opposite one. Chinese companies themselves are looking for IT specialists in the USA, Germany and other countries considered to be highly developed. And they cannot, which is typical, find it, even taking into account the factor of unemployment, which swept both the Old and New Worlds. Programmers in the Celestial Empire are offered very good salaries, they create comfortable conditions, but there are very few worthy candidates. This is reported by PwC in its report "Growth and Value in a Changing World".
India
This country has also recently been a source of skilled programmers for the entire world. The population of India is huge, the competition in the labor market is colossal, but these factors by no means stimulate the emergence of specialists who are able to think outside the box and be creative in solving problems. Recently, a casting was announced, test assignments were given, but none of the four hundred applicants for the proposed vacancy coped with them.
In America itself
Silicon Valley employers sound the alarm - no one to work! With a large number of university graduates, including very prestigious ones, very few of them can be called engineers. Qualifications are frankly weak, but self-esteem is high. For less than $ 80 thousand a year, few people are ready to "strain", and in fact, quite recently, the normal salary was considered an amount of $ 45 thousand. But the problem is not even that. Most of the old school programmers have already changed their seventh decade, they will soon retire, but there is no change. In five, seven years at the most, this generation will leave, and the United States may turn into a technologically backward country.
Cause analysis
Medical scientists have proved more than thirty years ago that mental laziness is more of a pathology than a personal vice. Technological advances in recent decades have greatly simplified the process of handling computing equipment, which, on the one hand, is good, but at the same time, this ease has a detrimental effect on thinking abilities. At the same time, the profession of a programmer has not become easier because of this, and it still requires the same creative approach as at the dawn of cybernetics, and there are fewer and fewer people willing to strain their brains. Using gadgets does not require effort, getting used to them occurs in early childhood, which has a relaxing effect on mental development. A study conducted in a large representative group (100 thousand people) by the University of Aarhus (Denmark) under the guidance of Professor Helle Matiasen,revealed a significant superiority of children reading books over their peers who actively use the Internet in terms of mathematical abilities, self-discipline and self-motivation.
What to do?
Experts reasonably believe that for the normal development of future generations, legislative changes are needed to regulate the access of minors to the Worldwide Information Network. The country that does it first will gain in the foreseeable future undeniable advantages in the form of citizens capable of creative achievements.
Painter Gene