Here’s some depressing news. AT&T’s CEO says his company is having trouble finding enough skilled workers in the United States to fill the 5,000 jobs he promised to bring back to this country.
“We’re having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs,” AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San Antonio, where the company’s headquarters is located.
So far, only around 1,400 jobs have been returned to the United States of 5,000, a target it set in 2006, the company said, adding that it maintains the target.
Stephenson said he is especially distressed that in some U.S. communities and among certain groups, the high school dropout rate is as high as 50 percent.
“If I had a business that half the product we turned out was defective or you couldn’t put into the marketplace, I would shut that business down,” he said.
Gone are the days when AT&T and other U.S. companies had to hire locally, he said.
“We’re able to do new product engineering in Bangalore as easily as we’re able to do it in Austin, Texas,” he said, referring to the Indian city where many international companies have “outsourced” technical and customer support workers.
“I know you don’t like hearing that, but that’s the way it is,” he said.
That’s sad.
AT&T CEO says hard to find skilled U.S. workers [Yahoo!] (Thanks, Cannon!)
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He’s straight lying. I work in telephony & I can promise you there are plenty of “engineers” & telephony contractors in Texas that would love that work.
@backbroken:
The thing is, a telephony “engineer” isn’t truly an engineer. No degree required, just experience.
@bufftbone:
“Here’s an idea. Don’t know how well it would work. Instead of trying to get mondo profits, dip into those profits a little bit more and use it towards salary/hourly wages. Perhaps some qualified applicants working other jobs may take notice and apply to work there. Give it a try.”
Publicly owned corporations exist solely to produce profits for their shareholders. So long as they are not breaking the law, they should do everything they can to increase profits.
That might not fit with the common fairy-tale view of the world, but when I invest money, I want returns, not coddling of people too lazy to find a good job.
well, at least they admit that they need quality workers I guess?
if you’re looking for folks who are qualified enough to understand all the jargon and gobbledegook you put in your contracts and bills i’ve got a pretty good idea for you…simplify them!!!
this is probably a bunch of nonsense though, if they are paying attractive wages folks will flock.
@arniec:
Call centers =! “Product Engineering”
@Jaysyn: Was going to say the same thing, only I don’t live in Texas (DFW is just too damn hot). Plenty of people who would be willing AND able to do that job. They probably just don’t want to do it for federal minimum wages.
That’s because engineering is fucking boring. Look it up, it’s a fact.
I’d like to know what their standards are when looking for people. I’m just wondering if they’ll hire anyone who seems like they’d be able to learn the job in India for a fraction of the price, but in the US they’re demanding 5 years of experience in a very particular set of tasks which would only be found among people who previously worked for AT&T (in other words, people who would hopefully have moved on to something else…they would definitely have lost some, at any rate), or for a competitor.
Because there are lot of job listings like that out there, so it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if that were the case.
I work for one of the major communications companies. I make around $70,000 a year, have world class benefits and I consider myself a skilled employee. I am represented by a union, get sick days and 4 weeks vacation. Our company is “surplusing” people as fast as it can. There is no shortage of skilled workers. Its a matter of wages. Those 5000 jobs Mr. Stevenson alluded to were negotiated by CWA contract to be brought back into the United States. The jobs that he promised to bring back to the United States were second level DSL technical support jobs. The real problem is what a company , any company, is willing to pay for the skill level involved. In India they can get college graduates to do these jobs for about $2.00 an hour.
Shocked by the timing of this I tell you!
March 12, 2008, Bill gates testifies to Congress – “U.S. puts tech jobs at risk by capping foreign workers. H-1B proponents in Congress acted quickly to take advantage of the attention Gates brought to the issue. U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) introduced legislation Friday that would retroactively increase the 2008 visa cap to 195,000, as well as set that level for the fiscal year, 2009, that begins Oct. 1.”
As someone who watched an entire Tech Support dept be replaced with workers from Tata – I say Liars all of them!!
What a giantic, steaming pile of %$#@.
Pity the poor CEO. According to Forbes, he made $19.6 million last year. In order to keep up with those kinds of numbers, I’m sure they can only afford to hire people at overseas rates.
If it wasn’t for the damn minimum wage law, these poor companies could afford to hire their slave labor.
wow. I wonder what the highschool dropout rate in Bangalore is.
Does anyone believe anything these sacks of s..t CEO’s say anymore. Their only talents now seem to involve constantly increasing their own salaries and perks while simultaneously driving their companies into bankruptcy.
Umm, Sprint just laid off about 4,000. Maybe they could work for AT&T? Just a thought.
I think the quote was misinterpreted. I think what the AT&T CEO really said is that “We can’t find enough skilled workers in the United States to fill our 5000 positions that pay minimum wage.
Now, that I can believe.
Oh this just burns me up. I applied w/ ATT here in the Central Valley (California). I lost my job last year, and am desperately looking for a new job – no plans to job hop here; I just want one that I can hopefully advance within the company and then retire from. The CSR positions w/ ATT here pay about $18.00/hr to start. My dad retired from the phone company after 35+ years, and my sister-in-law (another reference in good standing w/ ATT) is a business division CSR there now. She gave me the heads-up when they posted their employment ad and told me to get my resume in ASAP. End result, never heard from them despite my college degree, professional resume listing my sales experience, and impeccable work history. I understand they’re looking for employees with “call center” and telemarketing sales experience. Sorry to rant and ramble, but it’s just so frustrating to read this crap…
@DCGaymer: My feelings exactly. Come to the Midwest, AT&T. How about Michigan? University of Michigan is one of the top ten engineering schools in the US, the state needs the jobs, and I’m sure there are plenty of people there ready, willing, and able to do the work. How about in the Chicago area? University of Illinois and Purdue University, also top engineering schools, are about two hours away each. Granted, the cost of living is higher out here, but pay a living wage and you should have no shortage of excellent candidates.
wait a few more months and he should have access to plenty of unemployed engineers.
Someone noted there is a big difference between a “programmer” and an “engineer”, which I would agree – but those in Bangalore are programmers. We have some H1B people from india, and while they are smart and trained, they have difficulty doing anything creative (debugging, finding implementation errors, or errors in documentation). And they cost maybe half.
You get what you pay for. There are lots of engineers. Shortage? Not at (contract rate) over $90/hr. Yes at $50/hr. You can get lots of people here or in Bangalore.
And is there anything the CEO, CFO, CIO and whatever do that can’t be done by someone in and from Bangalore? Maybe they should be replaced by someone making less than 6 figures.
I doubt it would ruin the company and stock price any faster or deeper.
Wow…last time I checked, a company worth $230B could afford to pay proper American salaries for 5,000 workers. Of course, the bean counters at that company are so cheap, they would spend $3 to save $.50.
The statements from the article are so vague, I wish the reporter would have requested an interview to get clarification.
As mentioned above, I’d have to say that the translation of AT&Ts BS is “We don’t want to pay people who have the skills what they’re worth.”
@bohemian: Yeah but an employee can live off of $15/hr, therefore no company will ever pay that much starting.
Wait – so he’s having a hard time finding U.S. citizens whose qualifications include speaking poor English with an Indian accent and who enjoy transferring callers around 5 times before hanging up on them?
Maybe other countries can start outsourcing their need for asshole CEO’s to the U.S.!
Um, call center jobs are not “skilled” labor, guys. This is talking about engineers. Specifically in the world of hardware engineering at the chip development level, so many of those graduates are here on educational visas. When I was an Elec Engineering major I was one of 4 American citizens in the class, and that’s at a major state university.
Sure, they don’t want to pay 75k when they can pay 23k, but that doesn’t mean there’s an abundance of this type of labor just coming out of college with nothing to do. The truth, like most things, is somewhere in the middle.
Based on my criteria, we have a shortage of qualified CEOs.It doesn’t seem to matter how much we pay them, they still don’t get it.
Ask AT&T especially the Wireless side what their turnover is – it is like 60%. The real question should be to CEO Stephenson as to why they can’t hold on to the people they have? Why they let their talent walk away? Why they focus their energies on employees in their 20′s and 30′s?
@wring: Found an article with the drop out rate for India in general, it’s 39% at age 10.
[www.savethechildren.net]
Although I have already far surpassed this level of job… I would rather flip burgers than work for AT&T.