AT&T feels American workers cost too much

[WaterMan]

So AT&T can't find the workers or won't pay people what they're worth?

 

http://money.cnn.com...x.htm?iid=HP_LN

Edited April 17, 2012 by WaterMan

[jetsfan]

So AT&T can't find the workers or won't pay people what they're worth?

 

 

Doesn't the market define what people are worth?

[detlef]

Sort of a misleading title, no? AT&T is having trouble finding qualified people and, rather than go overseas, is investing a ton of money developing a qualified, domestic workforce.

 

Now, of course there could be more to the picture than that. Like, they had a qualified workforce but wanted to get away with a lower-paid qualified workforce and have somehow figured out that it would be cheaper to go this route. Who knows. However, your title is misleading none the less.

[SEC=UGA]

I was ready to take up arms against AT&T corporate after reading the title... Then I read the article.

[matt770]

Ha , what a Dumb Dick

[WaterMan]

Sort of a misleading title, no? AT&T is having trouble finding qualified people and, rather than go overseas, is investing a ton of money developing a qualified, domestic workforce.

 

 

 

AT&T is throwing money at colleges instead of training people. Why not cut out the middle man and just train people yourself? If you have procedures, standards, and blueprints, why not just use your knowledge. Instead they are going to use this money as a tax write off while hiring more Indians. So they are buying themselves free PR while hiring the cheapest workers possible. Go America.

 

You should read the comments. There are workers qualified but AT&T laid those guys off to hire cheaper labor.

 

Here I will help find the comments buried under CNN's bs.

 

I was dumped from AT&T when they sent a whole organization of 5000 technical people to a contracting company and immediately replaced them with Indians.

I visited their technical locations and they are 95% young Indian guys who replaced most of the let-go middle-aged technical employees.

I've got 25 years experience and an MS in comp sci in the exact skills listed for their open jobs and they won't hire me or my suffering well-educated colleagues.

It's plain and simple dump-the-Americans-for-Indians, no more no less. This statement by AT&T that they can't find qualified Americans with technical skills is sickening hypocrisy. I was a skilled worker that spearheaded and successfully delivered entire projects in record time and still got railroaded out when they hired barely-skilled H1B Indians and offshore Indians by the planeload using the money they saved from their monopoly-days nest egg. Shame on AT&T.

 

I used to work for BellSouth; my parents worked for Ma Bell, my grandmother did, and so did my great-grandparents. I'd still be there if my entire IT division hadn't been told we were "too expensive" -- we were outsourced to EDS because that was supposed to fix all of BellSouth's ills. A spin off from AT&T during divestiture, BellSouth ended up being bought back by AT&T because their plan to replace all of us with either cheaper H-1B workers or contractors meant that the people that had the historical knowledge of how their systems worked were gone, and there was nobody left who understood interoperability. Well, you got what you wanted, so stop whining. We've moved on, and we are not coming back.

Edited April 17, 2012 by WaterMan

[matt770]

Dot or feather?

[Big John]

Dot or feather?

 

Rovers

[matt770]

JERRY: Kramer said I was supposed to bring him back some Cubans.

 

GUILLERMO: We are the Cubans.

 

Jerry stares, stunned.

 

JERRY: They're real Cubans?! They're human beings, from Cuba?!

 

KRAMER: I said Cubans. What'd you think I meant?

 

JERRY: Cigars!

 

KRAMER: Jerry, Cuban cigars are illegal in this country. That's why I got

these guys.

 

JERRY: You're making your own cigars now?

 

KRAMER: Yeah, yeah. I got investors all lined up.

[SEC=UGA]

AT&T is throwing money at colleges instead of training people. Why not cut out the middle man and just train people yourself? If you have procedures, standards, and blueprints, why not just use your knowledge. Instead they are going to use this money as a tax write off while hiring more Indians. So they are buying themselves free PR while hiring the cheapest workers possible. Go America.

 

You should read the comments. There are workers qualified but AT&T laid those guys off to hire cheaper labor.

 

Here I will help find the comments buried under CNN's bs.

 

 

I'm appalled...

 

Now, where do you find that they are hiring Indians, the cheapest labor possible?

 

 

AT&T (T, Fortune 500), which draws 90% of its revenue from the United States, says it's at a disadvantage compared to other global technology giants. It sees a growing talent gap between this nation and foreign countries, particularly in highly technical fields, but it doesn't have the option of outsourcing heavily.

"We have people putting fiber in trenches, building cell site and installing set-top boxes in homes," Stephenson said. "Those aren't the kind of jobs you can fill abroad."

 

 

Now, I am certain that in certain business units AT&T does have a number of Indians working for them, many of whom are probably first generation immigrants brought here to fill their sweatshops. But, you do have to admit that these Indians are not going to be the field techs who this article seems to be addressing.

 

Second, by throwing money at colleges for a tax write off, I'm assuming you mean that At&T is giving money to support programs in certain university systems that will teach America's future engineers and train people in the IT field. I'm highly dismayed that they would do such a thing and actually be able to write off the donated monies. Unfortunately, however, it appears that he ASPIRE program to which the article alludes, is targeted at High Schools. The scope of this program seems to teach student tech and vocational skills so that they can be the in the field techs, among various other lower skill (please do not confuse this with manual labor low skill jobs) jobs:

 

 

The lion's share of AT&T's jobs are for workers out on the front lines, deploying fiber, installing antennas and working directly with customers. Those jobs don't require a lot of engineering talent, but they do require quick learning and adaptability to new technologies, Stephenson said.

The reward is a high-paying job: Many of the most-skilled variety pay between $90,000 and $130,000 a year, AT&T claims.

 

 

 

Finally, from the quote above.... Well, doesn't look like low pay to me.... Waterman, you making that kind of scratch? Maybe you should go and check out what At&T has to offer... If you got the skills.

[stevegrab]

What a maroon....

 

They are training people I'm sure when they get on the job. But in the meantime they need some people with some basic skills, a desire to learn, to pursue a career in technology. That is what the program is about. Has nothing to do with "American workers cost too much" or getting some tax write offs.

 

The average high school graduate barely seems able to work the register at McDonalds where there are pictures and meal numbers and it tells them how much change to give. (Don't even try handing them 3.75 when the bill is 3.69 they get totall confused, probably can't count the change and enter the amount).

[SEC=UGA]

Can we block off a section where Money makers and Waterman can go at one another? Could be entertaining to watch the invisible god wage war against the invisible AT&T low paid Indians.

Edited April 17, 2012 by SEC=UGA

[Clubfoothead]

It makes no sense to be laying people off while claiming you don't have enough qualified people to fill the jobs...that's the kind of mindless inefficiency that is supposed to be reserved for federal entities.

 

The lion's share of AT&T's jobs are for workers out on the front lines, deploying fiber, installing antennas and working directly with customers. Those jobs don't require a lot of engineering talent, but they do require quick learning and adaptability to new technologies, Stephenson said.

 

The reward is a high-paying job: Many of the most-skilled variety pay between $90,000 and $130,000 a year, AT&T claims.

 

Edited April 17, 2012 by Clubfoothead

[SEC=UGA]

It makes no sense to be laying people off while claiming you don't have enough qualified people to fill the jobs...that's the kind of mindless inefficiency that is supposed to be reserved for federal entities.

 

 

If you look at the business units that are laying off, these are typically in the land line units that are collapsing. Also, you will find that advances in technology has allowed them to decrease staffing in certain areas.

 

They have been oustsourcing a good number of jobs to independent contractors further deteriorating their staffing levels.

 

However, they do know that there will be a need to replace their workforce in coming years. As I do not have the demographics of their workforce I can not be certain, but would be willing to bet that many of their workers are coming close to retirement age. You also have to consider that there will be a natural turnover of employees, you have to have a pool of skilled workers from which to draw in order to replace these people.

[WaterMan]

So the argument is that the qualified people are too old to work anymore. Yet how many older people have the same skills with technology as younger people?

[SEC=UGA]

So the argument is that the qualified people are too old to work anymore. Yet how many older people have the same skills with technology as younger people?

 

 

Yep, that is what you should take away from from this thread...

[Clubfoothead]

So the argument is that the qualified people are too old to work anymore. Yet how many older people have the same skills with technology as younger people?

 

 

I'm sure AT&T makes some money off of laying them off instead of allowing them to continue to do quality work until they retire on their own. So there's that if AT&T is in your portfolio.

[matt770]

Wow, so corporations are soulless and evil? Someone should send an anonymous email to 60 Minutes so they can look into this phenomenon.

[WaterMan]

Wow, so corporations are soulless and evil? Someone should send an anonymous email to 60 Minutes so they can look into this phenomenon.

 

 

There's no need. The economy speaks for itself.

[Deathpig]

Why do you hate immigrants? Those old guys had their turn, now it's time to share.

[millerx]

In response to this quote:

I used to work for BellSouth; my parents worked for Ma Bell, my grandmother did, and so did my great-grandparents. I'd still be there if my entire IT division hadn't been told we were "too expensive" -- we were outsourced to EDS because that was supposed to fix all of BellSouth's ills. A spin off from AT&T during divestiture, BellSouth ended up being bought back by AT&T because their plan to replace all of us with either cheaper H-1B workers or contractors meant that the people that had the historical knowledge of how their systems worked were gone, and there was nobody left who understood interoperability. Well, you got what you wanted, so stop whining. We've moved on, and we are not coming back.

 

I worked for Bellsouth as well until getting laid off and I have one question for whoever wrote this... Where was your union on this? The techs that work for Bellsouth are/were under the CWA Union, so I'm sure they had NO problem with the company telling them they were being laid off because they were too expensive.

 

In my case, I was on the tech side in a division called the Digital Services Group. It was the internal "tier 3-4" technical side of their internet service, so it's not like the downsizing I experienced was due to being with outdated technology like the land line phone services. Nope, in my case, as was with many of the friends and people I worked with, we were laid off because of seniority alone. What they did was kick people out of their jobs, ones that had been trained on and had years of experience with (some with double-digit years of seniority ) to bring in even more "senior" guys who hand been out in the field working on those outdated land lines and had no concept of the new technology. Brilliant way to run a business!! and some people wonder why their service sucks!

[WaterMan]

In response to this quote:

 

 

I worked for Bellsouth as well until getting laid off and I have one question for whoever wrote this... Where was your union on this? The techs that work for Bellsouth are/were under the CWA Union, so I'm sure they had NO problem with the company telling them they were being laid off because they were too expensive.

 

In my case, I was on the tech side in a division called the Digital Services Group. It was the internal "tier 3-4" technical side of their internet service, so it's not like the downsizing I experienced was due to being with outdated technology like the land line phone services. Nope, in my case, as was with many of the friends and people I worked with, we were laid off because of seniority alone. What they did was kick people out of their jobs, ones that had been trained on and had years of experience with (some with double-digit years of seniority ) to bring in even more "senior" guys who hand been out in the field working on those outdated land lines and had no concept of the new technology. Brilliant way to run a business!! and some people wonder why their service sucks!

 

 

Seems their problem of not be able to find workers stems from letting all the workers go.

[WaterMan]

I was ready to take up arms against AT&T corporate after reading the title... Then I read the article.

 

 

Well I thought Fox was bad until I read this "article" that seemed to be printed off at AT&T. They really did some hard investigating work here to find out why AT&T can't find any workers during the Great Depression 2.

[WaterMan]

So AT&T scrapped American workers that were too expensive and is now making a profit, but what's this? No one is buying their products.

 

I guess they need to set up shop in India where all the workers all.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/earnings/story/2012-04-24/att/54498254/1