> For these displaced workers to find new jobs years of training could be required.
I think we vastly overstate the importance of training.
Being a farmer, I enjoy following farm-related discussions. Farmers spend just as much time talking about the shortage of talent as tech companies do, if not more. What is interesting about farms is that the job needs to be done in a timely manner no matter what, so you have to hire the best you can, and hope they become good at the job eventually.
Being a software developer, I also enjoy following tech-related discussions. We read story after story of people going from absolutely no experience to profitable software company in weeks, yet we still believe that years and years of training are required to work on even the simplest of projects.
Tech companies come with the luxury of artificial timelines. A tech company can leave a position unfilled for months or even years without any significant impact to the bottom line. Your software codebase isn't going to shrivel up and die or your warehouse of stock isn't going to expire if it takes an additional month or two to complete a feature.
There is no reason why anyone with a few days of studying software development cannot join the team. We just don't need them. We can wait and hire the guy who scaled out Facebook and developed Watson while working on iOS on the side. That is the shift in employment we are seeing and no amount of training is going to resolve the underlying problem.
I think we vastly overstate the importance of training.
Being a farmer, I enjoy following farm-related discussions. Farmers spend just as much time talking about the shortage of talent as tech companies do, if not more. What is interesting about farms is that the job needs to be done in a timely manner no matter what, so you have to hire the best you can, and hope they become good at the job eventually.
Being a software developer, I also enjoy following tech-related discussions. We read story after story of people going from absolutely no experience to profitable software company in weeks, yet we still believe that years and years of training are required to work on even the simplest of projects.
Tech companies come with the luxury of artificial timelines. A tech company can leave a position unfilled for months or even years without any significant impact to the bottom line. Your software codebase isn't going to shrivel up and die or your warehouse of stock isn't going to expire if it takes an additional month or two to complete a feature.
There is no reason why anyone with a few days of studying software development cannot join the team. We just don't need them. We can wait and hire the guy who scaled out Facebook and developed Watson while working on iOS on the side. That is the shift in employment we are seeing and no amount of training is going to resolve the underlying problem.