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Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

351 pointsby dismal2almost 9 years ago

45 comments

knoctealmost 9 years ago
&gt; Pimentel’s client asked him for list of candidates trained in “Agile” project management techniques for helping companies boost their productivity by using more I.T. systems. The client was offering as much as 200,000 euros ($220,000) a year -- almost 10 times the average salary in Spain.<p>&gt; But such people are thin on the ground in Spain. It takes at least eight months for an experienced software developer to earn an Agile qualification and they also need the ability to deal with senior executives, limiting the pool of people who could potentially fill the roles.<p>That part of the article is hilarious, not only because 200K euros is completely made up and untrue (by far surpasses best salaries in other more decent countries), but because of the Agile qualification mention. Do we have Agile certifications now? What a load of bullshit.<p>The only truth in the article is this:<p>&gt; Spanish executives are less-skilled than their competitors in Germany, France or Italy, according to a study of 11 European countries. Only Greece came out worse.<p>And that&#x27;s the reason why the executives don&#x27;t find workforce. Being less-skilled means they don&#x27;t value the engineering profession up to the required level to compromise and give good salaries.<p>(Spanish dev here --working abroad obviously--.)
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vemvalmost 9 years ago
Spanish dev here, 3 years in the business, been twice a freelancer and twice an employee. My main complaints:<p>- The maximum salary a developer can earn at any given company is almost written in stone - around 36000 euros. Every public job posting will have that figure as the max. When it&#x27;s higher, they&#x27;ll water it down in the interview.<p>Why? Probably because they don&#x27;t have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. We all are perceived as &#x27;equal&#x27; or even replaceable.<p>- Also, companies are scared of the mere possibility of their programmers leaving. The sole hint of that you may leave will turn their red alarms on, and they&#x27;ll start searching a replacement.<p>There rarely exists here the mentality that a work relationship is a commercial exchange, not an intimate family-like relationship. Being open to the market is not &#x27;treason&#x27;.<p>- Tech stacks tend to be years behind San Francisco, whether is languages, frameworks, ops practices...<p>- Functional programming opportunities extremely scarce. Elixir is gaining traction here though.
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altozalmost 9 years ago
You have two groups:<p>1. 5 million unemployed people 2. very highly sought after workers<p>The employers complaining about people in group 2 being scarce are merely not paying enough. The workers complaining in group 1 need more skills that the market wants. They&#x27;re at different ends of the spectrum.<p>Other than that they live in the same country, they really don&#x27;t have much to do with each other. Whether you can convert people from group 1 to group 2 is an interesting question, but generally if it were easy to be in group 2, a lot more people would be in it.
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whamlastxmasalmost 9 years ago
The article says the average salary in Spain is around $22k. Even at twice that, it&#x27;s not hard to see why developers are not working for (or maybe even in) Spain. I suspect the problem has more to do with Spanish businesses not being willing or able to compete for developers with market salary rates.<p>It&#x27;s frustrating that they don&#x27;t provide data like that in articles like this. Instead of they a single data point anecdote about how a company can&#x27;t find an Agile project manager for &quot;up to&quot; $220k.<p>How about comparing the percentage of software developers in Spain to the US? Or discussing how the education for technology is different? Or what percentage of the unemployed are developers? Or software developer salaries compared to rest of EU. Or the number of Spanish developers working abroad or for companies abroad. Instead have a graph of Spain&#x27;s GDP and a graph showing the size of their workforce.<p>This is why I rarely ever click on articles and only read the comments. Most of the time it&#x27;s the only place with any substance.
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franciscopalmost 9 years ago
Spanish dev here. I created with some friends the most active Maker group in Spain [1]. We won contests like Hyperloop&#x27;s, NASA&#x27;s SpaceApps (once winners, twice finalists), making robot competitions [2], teaching to everyone, etc. A couple of days ago we were talking about who would continue it, since ALL of us are leaving the country for different reasons.<p>So I can say that I know what it means that skilled workers are leaving first hand. Now I reverse the question, why would we stay? Spain has some great things, such as weather, food and party, but it&#x27;s horrible in any tech-related industry.<p>For instance, I did a couple of internships to help with my University credits and earn some money. I got paid per month almost the same that I&#x27;m getting paid now every couple of days working as an US contractor. Not only that, now I&#x27;m doing things that I really love, challenging but rewarding, collaborating with the best people I know and living wherever I want. We made <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.angularattack.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.angularattack.com&#x2F;</a> , now we&#x27;re launching a new one way better (not yet public though) and I&#x27;m helping doing two websites for two of the biggest Venture Capital firms in USA.<p>Now tell me, why should I go back to working 9-5 for some company that doesn&#x27;t care at all about developers and treat us as code monkeys, for peanuts and in horrible conditions? I had a horrible chair for example but there was &quot;no budget&quot; for a better one.<p>It&#x27;s a pity because the country gets worse, but it&#x27;s also good since the hard working Spaniards get the best -- even if it has to be outside. I am lucky I can visit my sister in UK and my friends in Japan, Sweden, Germany and USA :)<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;makersupv.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;makersupv.com&#x2F;</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;orchallenge.es&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;orchallenge.es&#x2F;</a>
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Daishimanalmost 9 years ago
I&#x27;m wondering what is the cognitive dissonance with employers who are unwilling to train workers. I mean, I understand the reasons if you&#x27;re a an SMB, but large corporations used to train their employees or hold something close to apprenticeship programs.<p>I&#x27;m guessing this is more along the lines of &quot;we want qualified work but we&#x27;re not really willing to pay for it&quot;?
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jandrewrogersalmost 9 years ago
The gap isn&#x27;t the pay or the training per se.<p>A growing issue I see frequently is that companies need more highly experienced (read: senior) people, and are willing to pay for it, but there is no fast pipeline from &quot;no experience&quot; to &quot;highly skilled&quot; even if companies did invest in training. Meanwhile, the existing pool is much too small to meet demand; redistributing the talent won&#x27;t address the underlying issue. Companies are hiring to fill a need <i>now</i>, not 2-3 years in the future. The company or product generating the demand might not even be around in that time.<p>An unfortunate reality that people tend to ignore is that the length of time required to train for the average high skill&#x2F;high pay job has been <i>increasing</i>. There are many high demand specialties in software that require a <i>minimum</i> of 2 years of hardcore experience to really be &quot;experienced&quot;, but you can&#x27;t manufacture that overnight and the hiring companies have little use for someone without that experience. Many companies with existing teams do recognize this and hire a mix of junior and senior talent to generate an internal pipeline but you still need the senior talent when building teams in the first place.<p>Reallocation of people sounds simple but it doesn&#x27;t account for the increasing latency of acquiring a different skill set at the level of quality required to perform the jobs that actually exist. It is a sticky problem because it is a bit of a vicious cycle.<p>NOTE: this is a more general observation, Spain has its own peculiarities.
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muse900almost 9 years ago
Greek here, living and working abroad.<p>Spain is doing a bit better than Greece but its on the same boat.<p>When I speak with friends back home, I do get a feeling that they don&#x27;t want to work. Is it because they are lazy? part of me wants to say yes. I can&#x27;t ignore the fact that the working conditions are awful. Salaries are quite low compared to the rest of Europe, an employer has full control over you, and can fire you any time. An employer won&#x27;t ever promote you. They will just hold you as long as they can and then they will just hire someone else for less money. Also when you have internet and so much information avaialble to you, and you can see what are the working conditions in other Countries it kinda makes you sad.<p>I live in London, and tbh there have been many times that I&#x27;ve been thinking what am I doing here. London is quite expensive and the salaries are not as high compared to rent, food etc (at least for developers).<p>Now I just made this comment in order to give an overview of whats going on to a country that is on the same boat as Spain.
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kartanalmost 9 years ago
Spanish here. I moved to Sweden, I prefer the business culture here. Less non paid extra hours. More respect from managers. Better pay. Etc.<p>They rant about not being able to use more people as part time slaves. It&#x27;s a problem of using industrial business mentality in the high tech industry. They care only for reducing salaries and getting long hours with no respect for the developers that are expected to be code monkeys.<p>So yes, they don&#x27;t find as a big supply as they want.
calgooalmost 9 years ago
So I live in Barcelona at the moment. I have 10 years of system administration experience and 3 years of devops &#x2F; sysadmin experience as well. The average salary I am offered when I look around is between 25K and 45K Euros a year. However, I would say the ratio is about 60% &lt; 30K &amp; 30% &lt; 35K.<p>For friends and family that are looking it really depends. If you are lucky and have &#x2F; had a position in certain companies who are well known, you might get into the higher bracket. If you dont, and for example only have a University degree, then expect to start between 15K and 25K (unless from one of the known private schools, in which case you can normally jump to the next bracket).<p>From what I know, the two places to look are Madrid and Barcelona, but Madrid normally list almost double the amount of jobs that Barcelona does (mainly because a lot of headquarters are located there).<p>Another important thing that I have notices is that its a lot harder to climb internally in companies here. It depends if the company has American business culture or Spanish (but sometimes it tries to be American but its run in a Spanish way). This is in general over all businesses. My wife is currently working at a call-center and have co-workers who have been in that position for over 10 years. There are basically no way to get promoted, unless you get lucky and someone retires or leaves. I have seen this everywhere, basically no way to really grow, no incentives to grow, an over educated workforce, where the cashier in the supermarket has a masters degree in childcare or similar.<p>There is a saying here, where they call people &quot;mil eurista&quot; meaning thousand euroist more less. The amount of the working population that earn around 1000e a month is quite high but its something thats accepted here basically. People are not happy about it, but &quot;At least I got a job&quot; attitudes are everywhere.<p>A last thing, take care regarding any unemployment numbers that appear during the month of May, as thats basically when the tourist season starts. That alone probably employs over 1,000,000 workers during the summer months.
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tluyben2almost 9 years ago
I live in Spain (am Dutch); even more; I live in Andalusia. For me that&#x27;s better, besides getting people to work. We cannot find people at all for programming or our brewery. Everyone around us is unemployed, however they either a) do not speak English; we speak Spanish, but a lot of our clients do not b) do not want to work c) are foreign and have no papers to work. It&#x27;s quite horrible. And it&#x27;s not for lack of trying; we have been trying for at least 5 years. In my experience it has nothing to do with payment. This is just limited to Andalusia ofcourse; my colleague says it&#x27;s better up north, however some people I met from other parts and who have companies complain about the same thing.<p>Then another issue with the country is the extremely hard time you have in hiring someone ; paperwork, you cannot fire them even if they are crap etc. And the paperwork to get grants for hiring people (which are there) is incredible. We have a company in PT as well and it&#x27;s quite different there. The gov needs to take their finger out. Luckily we have a very helpful (Spanish) mayor who loves entrepreneurs and helps us with whatever, but he also shakes his head when talking about hiring people locally.
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jlg23almost 9 years ago
What I am missing in the article and in all discussions here is: Why not pro-actively train people? Looking 2 months for someone with some kind of certification for &quot;agile&quot; is already a fourth of the time required to train someone who is already working for the client (numbers taken from the article).<p>If one is willing to pay 220k and cannot find anyone while most job offers (according to comments here) max out at 36k, make a deal with a current employee: &quot;We pay for training, after 2 years you get a bonus of 72k and we double your salary.&quot; Company does not make a loss even if the dev leaves after 2 years, it has built the experience in-house and it had 16 months to disseminate the newly acquired knowledge to other employees.<p>The mindset that people must already have knowledge about some specific technology and universities accommodating employers there is exactly why we have so many code monkeys who don&#x27;t know anything about CS finishing with a degree in CS who, after a few years, realize that their knowledge is basically worthless because the IT world has moved on and other languages or stacks are now en vogue.
pvaldesalmost 9 years ago
The &quot;you need more skills&quot; issue is a false problem. Is just that the bad guys have kidnapped, blocked for years, or freeze, most of the good jobs.<p>This is a mediocrazy and they need to raise a lot of walls for keeping off the brigther people who give them a bad image by comparison. And all is carefully planned to keep this people unemployed also for the next four years.<p>Requisites to be a minister in Spain?. Speaking english? not necessary. Holding any sort of degree of PhD? Not necessary. Years of experience working for private companies?. Not necessary, but it helps. If you helped a big company to contaminate a bay for example, you could be even be promoted as the next environment minister.<p>Requisites for the rest of guys for a normal job?. A hamster wheel. Well, first of all you need to be fluent in three or four languages, just because maybe one time a year, or once in ten years, you could need to speak with a foreigner; and for some reason you can&#x27;t just raise a phone and hire a professional translator for this special day. You will burn in hell if you dare to suggest your boss this logic and simple solution. Then you need to have a degree, a PhD, and also a few masters, and being able to hypnotize a goat in less than five minutes, and work for free for some years, and ...<p>Job market in Spain is a question of kinship and means being promoted directly in lots of cases... or never.
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dthalalmost 9 years ago
&gt;&gt;“It’s a paradox,” said Valentin Bote, head of research in Spain at Randstad, a recruitment agency. “The unemployment rate is too high. Yet we’re seeing some tension in the labor market because unemployed people don’t have the skills employers demand.<p>There&#x27;s no real paradox there. Employment of young people, and therefore normal career progression for that cohort, essentially shut down for 6-8 years. Now the pipeline is a little empty.
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anjcalmost 9 years ago
Same thing is happening in every country, it seems. Spanish companies have the entire EU from which they can draw workers without any paperwork or issues, and yet they can&#x27;t find any? From central&#x2F;eastern Europe even, whose workers may have lower wage expectations?<p>No. They&#x27;re flagging this &quot;shortage&quot; and will simultaneously petition their government to allow faster issuing of&#x2F;more visas to non-EU countries, i.e. India etc, with lower wage requirements for incoming workers.
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winestockalmost 9 years ago
Check out this little gem from the article:<p>“Education and work exist in two alternative worlds that don’t really connect,” Gomez said. “While in other nations, like the U.S., college education is designed to get you a job, that’s not the case in Spain.”<p>This may be a case of &quot;the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill.&quot;
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joeyspnalmost 9 years ago
It&#x27;s a catch 22<p>1 - Spanish Universities not in tune with the market reality, pouring out thousands of unemployed people into the market...<p>2 - Graduates living in a bubble... 99% not wanting to move their asses and thinking that the academic degree is all they need. Get a crappy job or move to another country. Let others create the jobs...<p>3 - Zero entrepreneurial spirit and risk aversion, making starting up a remote to non-existing option. Blame it on the executives of your crappy company, and obviously, the government...<p>4 - Gov not having a clue about scientific research, innovation and entrepreneurship, with policies that fail to build a proper ecosystem for startups, and also fail to connect academic and industry worlds (I.e: Silicon Valley &lt;-&gt; Stanford).<p>5 - Back to 1
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konschubertalmost 9 years ago
&gt; It takes at least eight months for an experienced software developer to earn an Agile qualification and they also need the ability to deal with senior executives,<p>I am a bit confused by this sentence. How does one &quot;ear an Agile qualification&quot;? Why does it take eight months? What is &quot;the ability to deal with senior executives&quot;?
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HillaryBrissalmost 9 years ago
Starting about 2009, there have been a lot of discussions about whether the unemployment in the US was &quot;structural&quot; or not.<p>Some argued that a huge number of laborers and potential employees did not have necessary skills and therefore would be unable to find work. Period. This was a big component of unemployment.<p>Others including Paul Krugman and Dean Baker argued that, because employment was down <i>across most every field</i>, the cause of the unemployment was insufficient demand. They basically likened it to the Great Depression, where highly employable people were thrown out of work despite their skill levels.<p>This news story makes me think that we have some combination of the two stories going on in Spain. And maybe also the US?<p>Of course, how the country responds to that situation is a separate discussion.<p>Maybe the government can just borrow some cash (at historically low rates) and, instead of building another airport somewhere, educate twenty thousand IT engineers, even paying them to go to school. Maybe government could demand that employers train people.<p>Also, what&#x27;s going on in the EU with the free movement of labor? Don&#x27;t some IT people want to move from Estonia and Poland down to sunny Spain?
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mtrnalmost 9 years ago
A company once flew me to Madrid for an interview. Unfortunately, I cannot understand Spanish, but the receptionist at the hotel seemed to mumble to a friend: look they are flying people here, but our people are unemployed. It seemed a bit crazy for me as well, since I was unsure, if my person and skills justified <i>that</i> kind of effort.<p>The interview went fine and I think I was offered something around 30k, which was below my current wage in another (non-capital) European city, so I had to decline, although I loved Madrid and the team seemed really nice.
mooredsalmost 9 years ago
Wonder if it has anything to do with low salaries?<p>Just as an example, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12017439" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12017439</a> has a pretty low salary for the skills they want.
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mathattackalmost 9 years ago
I&#x27;ve seen software projects where this was a big issue. Many ambitious Spaniards wind up working in London or elsewhere. Then Spanish companies have to hire overpriced consultancies to fill local tech positions with underqualified resources.<p>I wonder how much the Brexit will send folks home.<p>My impression is that many companies are looking at Spain as alternatives to London HQs, but those are also the kind of jobs for elites, rather than the 5M unemployed. Very hard to convert housing builders into programmers.
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macspoofingalmost 9 years ago
This was a frustrating article to read. I got the sense the author missed something. Spain is part of the EU common market which numbers 500 million people - how is it that this is only a problem for Spain, and why can&#x27;t they recruit fellow EU citizens to make-up the shortfall?
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davidgerardalmost 9 years ago
Pay. More. This. Is. The. Market. Speaking.
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p0ncealmost 9 years ago
When you are willing to hire women, older people and provide adequate salaries (dare I say work conditions), suddenly there isn&#x27;t so much tech shortage.
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winestockalmost 9 years ago
From the article:<p>&quot;Pimentel’s client asked him for list of candidates trained in “Agile” project management techniques for helping companies boost their productivity by using more I.T. systems. The client was offering as much as 200,000 euros ($220,000) a year -- almost 10 times the average salary in Spain.&quot;<p>So they&#x27;re willing to pay ten times the going rate, but they&#x27;re not willing to take the time to train anyone?<p>But wait; there&#x27;s more!<p>&quot;But such people are thin on the ground in Spain. It takes at least eight months for an experienced software developer to earn an Agile qualification and <i>they also need the ability to deal with senior executives</i>, limiting the pool of people who could potentially fill the roles.&quot;<p>Again, note that they&#x27;re willing to pay ten times the going rate, so training them for eight months and then paying them the regular wage would pay for itself after a few months on the job; but they still won&#x27;t train. More importantly, look at the part which I italicized. Dealing with senior executives takes special skill? I am but a lowly suburban nerd, and the ways of my betters intimidate me, so could someone enlighten me as to what that journalist is talking about? I have a sneaking suspicion that Clay Shirky knows.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shirky.com&#x2F;weblog&#x2F;2013&#x2F;11&#x2F;healthcare-gov-and-the-gulf-between-planning-and-reality&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shirky.com&#x2F;weblog&#x2F;2013&#x2F;11&#x2F;healthcare-gov-and-the-...</a><p>&quot;Back in the mid-1990s, I did a lot of web work for traditional media. That often meant figuring out what the client was already doing on the web, and how it was going, so I’d find the techies in the company, and ask them what they were doing, and how it was going. Then I’d tell management what I’d learned. This always struck me as a waste of my time and their money; I was like an overpaid bike messenger, moving information from one part of the firm to another. I didn’t understand the job I was doing until one meeting at a magazine company.<p>&quot;The thing that made this meeting unusual was that one of their programmers had been invited to attend, so management could outline their web strategy to him. After the executives thanked me for explaining what I’d learned from log files given me by their own employees just days before, the programmer leaned forward and said “You know, we have all that information downstairs, but nobody’s ever asked us for it.”<p>&quot;I remember thinking “Oh, finally!” I figured the executives would be relieved this information was in-house, delighted that their own people were on it, maybe even mad at me for charging an exorbitant markup on local knowledge. Then I saw the look on their faces as they considered the programmer’s offer. The look wasn’t delight, or even relief, but contempt. The situation suddenly came clear: I was getting paid to save management from the distasteful act of listening to their own employees.&quot;<p>EDIT: formatting
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alienjralmost 9 years ago
There was a Polish composer, writer and politician Stefan Kisielewski who used to say: &quot;Socialism is a system which bravely fights problems that are not known in any other system&quot;. That describes situation of Spain perfectly.
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BjoernKWalmost 9 years ago
Language is a large part of this problem, not willing to pay market prices is another.<p>Why else would recruiters have to look for candidates in Argentina when there&#x27;s a huge amount of suitable candidates in the EU with an automatic work permit?
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Oletrosalmost 9 years ago
I&#x27;ve seen offer for senior .NET developers for 20.000€&#x2F;year before taxes and going through outsourcing companies.<p>20.000&#x2F;year is 15.000&#x2F;year after taxes.
heisenbitalmost 9 years ago
Mr. Pimentel is a Managing Partner and regional director over several countries and as such the main job is to talk the playbook and drum up business. Finding good people is hard and we are the right guys to talk to. Finder fees are proportional to salary so aiming high is important. He claims on his web page to hire country sales directors and country managers so talking salaries of 200k+ is probably quite natural for him. Maybe he is more thinking of a person who can turn a dead end organization into an agile one - such a feat is hard and requires a multitude of skills. In any case it is likely that some things were mixed up in the interview.<p>One thing is clear - after the property bust in Spain and Portugal a lot of the higher skilled and mobile people were heading elsewhere. There has been a brain drain in the region. Disproportionally high (vs. average Spanish) salaries may be required if mobile top talent is needed. Agile project management or product ownership for run of the mill projects aren&#x27;t those. But when talking about roles that shape organizations then things may be different.
njloofalmost 9 years ago
One of my first jobs (in the US) had a great strategy for getting low cost talent:<p>1. Hire cheap 2. Train on the job 3. Lock in your investment with a multi-year employment contract, broken down into options to &quot;not renew&quot; the contract at 6-month, then 12-month, intervals.<p>Worked great, they got cheap talent and a means to weed people out, and I got valuable training I used for the next 15 years.
fiatjafalmost 9 years ago
&gt; From software developers and mathematical modelers to geriatric nurses and care workers, a mismatch in qualifications means companies are struggling to fill posts, even though the unemployment rate at 20.4 percent is the second-highest in Europe.<p>This is the result of years of malinvestiment in human capital. The Austrian Theory of Business Cycles explain.
smsm42almost 9 years ago
So, if they don&#x27;t have enough qualified workers, why don&#x27;t they start creating on-the-job training programs? I understand there&#x27;s risk in such investment (i.e., you train a person and then they leave for a higher salary) but there are many ways to counter it. Is there something like that happening in Spain? If not, why?
rcarmoalmost 9 years ago
I&#x27;ve been pinged by recruiters for positions in Spain pretty much every week, either multinationals who need to grow their presence or local corps looking for experts. Cost of living is about the same as here in Portugal, but my previous experience with local execs makes me leery of those opportunities.
SixSigmaalmost 9 years ago
The agriculture sector employs many North African illegal immigrants.<p>Visit the greenhouses of Almeria and see what happens when you take your camera from its bag.
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vonnikalmost 9 years ago
The skills gap is very real in America, too. It can be hard to find the people you need. And many of the folks who are out of work don&#x27;t fit the bill. There are specific training programs, sponsored by large companies, that are trying to give post-high-school trainees the right vocational skills... (Can&#x27;t remember the names atm!)
reledialmost 9 years ago
There&#x27;s a lot of talented Spaniards out there. I know because I can proudly say many of them are my teammates.<p>Did I mention we are hiring? Clojure, Ruby, Data.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fundingcircle.com&#x2F;uk&#x2F;careers&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fundingcircle.com&#x2F;uk&#x2F;careers&#x2F;</a>
Animatsalmost 9 years ago
That&#x27;s what the US has done. There are lots of available workers in the US with non-salable skills.
forthefuturealmost 9 years ago
It looks like Spain has almost reached the US&#x27; rate of economic non-participation.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ine.es&#x2F;en&#x2F;prensa&#x2F;epa_prensa_en.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ine.es&#x2F;en&#x2F;prensa&#x2F;epa_prensa_en.htm</a>
fiatjafalmost 9 years ago
At the same time, I bet there are a lot of Spaniards getting majors on philosophy and other weed-smoking specialties.
ssjohalalmost 9 years ago
So EU was merely a clever plan by stronger economies to suck brains out of struggling economies?
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SFJuliealmost 9 years ago
It means the expectation of the demand (companies) are not matching what the market provides.<p>Having to look for a job in Europa, I dare say most job offers are laughable.<p>C#, PHP and java are MODERN technologies that no one should be scared of.<p>Windev is a very good tool.<p>Mysql and mssql are the only two worthy databases.<p>Free software is a free as a bier.<p>AGILE is SOOO complex...it has to be officiated religiously like ITIL or ISO norms.<p>They want software devs on the market already proefficient in proprietary&#x2F;tricky technologies, and no one understand why jobless persons with so much time cannot buy these 10K€ tools and use their worthless time in self formation.<p>And salary expectation are low : a coder MUST not be paid more than any manager. Even the manager responsible for the cleaning team of 500m² office with a headcount of 2.<p>They just have irrealistic expectations. That&#x27;s all folks.
mikerichardsalmost 9 years ago
So Spain isn&#x27;t Germany, but I&#x27;m curious why even in the midwest (St. Louis no less), senior developers easily command $120k+.<p>But I guess this also goes to the point why SV is only playing &quot;normal&quot; senior developers $150k&#x2F;yr?<p>Unless you&#x27;re really digging the Bay Area lifestyle (or &quot;I&#x27;ll get my chance in the next cool startup), why even bother.
internautalmost 9 years ago
Europe in general, with some rare exceptions, does not value the kinds of skills that are selected for in SV.<p>The culture is bad. The incentives are all wrong. Pay peanuts, get monkeys.<p>The typical business person in Europe considers him or herself top of the pecking order. This only looks to be true relatively because they hire less capable workers. These are the exact kind of people who imagine hiring twice as many developers gets the job accomplished faster i.e. simpletons.<p>The typical software engineer is at least one standard deviation above them. Just not in one specific area. In everything. I have friends who did part-time degrees in literature or language studies while they were also studying for computer science at some of the most elite european universities. Most geeks are systems thinkers and have no trouble in grokking areas outside of their main thing. Many of us refuse to be put into a box.<p>Having interests in exclusively one thing is a pretty fair indicator of not being very adaptive, I&#x27;d say it&#x27;s almost defintional. That is the kind of person they want to hire. You can hire them, but they won&#x27;t be very good.<p>Then you get these idiots who think they can run circles around us because they have the phone number of a venture capitalist or bank manager. Get a grip boys, your money doesn&#x27;t count for much when a software engineer can be ramen profitable so easily. I have all manner of skills I don&#x27;t bother to put on the market because the rates of pay are so pitiful and I can obtain better results by doing my own thing. Lots of other people just physically move. This is then misread by the business community as &#x27;not enough skills&#x27;.<p>The other thing is that most projects they offer are really boring grunt work where you learn nothing by doing them. If there was an actual project we found cool or innovative we&#x27;d probably work for lower base salary plus some equity, but that&#x27;s not the kind of work we get here in Europe, those kinds of benefits are reserved for Clod-Class. A good many programmers would prefer to work 20 hrs a week as janitors and then work on interesting projects rather than put up with this bullshit plus work 60-70 hour weeks. How many European programmers are told they&#x27;ll be paid 20-30 euro per hour but actually are required to work three or four hours a day for free? Apparently they like to think we can&#x27;t do arithmetic but can order a machine to do floating point operations just fine.<p>Diagnosis: Failure to Coordinate. Failure of Imagination.
knownalmost 9 years ago
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wage_slavery" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wage_slavery</a>