Comments on: The governator, COBOL, and minimum wage http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/mainframe-blog/the-governator-cobol-and-minimum-wage/ A SearchDataCenter.com blog Sun, 29 Nov 2009 03:55:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: PRM http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/mainframe-blog/the-governator-cobol-and-minimum-wage/#comment-2 PRM Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:13:07 +0000 http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/mainframe-blog/the-governator-cobol-and-minimum-wage/#comment-2 As an industry analyst covering this and related spaces for years, I see a lot more folks with COBOL skills looking for employment than I see employers looking for workers. Forrer is wrong - IBM and Micro Focus have academic initiatives for mainframe and COBOL skills (respectively), many community colleges are teaching COBOL in response to employer demand, and a vist to with site (IBM or Micro Focus) will list the universities involved. I suspect that Forrer's hiring issues are largely geographic - hiring is very much a regional issue - ther is no global supply of programmers unless you will relocate them from anywhere around the globe. And why the surprise that Arnold can't hire programmers for minimum wage? What "skill" can you hire for minimum wage? People acquire skills to avoid minimum wage jobs. Government has always had trouble attracting people because of comparatively low pay scales, and sorry guys but 10K lines of COBOL isn't a large problem. The REAL question that neither the NY Times (a truly bad article on the same topic - filled with hyperbole from a mis-informed Carnegie professor) nor this article visits is - in this day and age - why does ANYONE still do their own payroll? Purchase the service externally and redeploy the skilled people to other, core-competency efforts. Phil Murphy Principal Analyst Forrrester Research As an industry analyst covering this and related spaces for years, I see a lot more folks with COBOL skills looking for employment than I see employers looking for workers. Forrer is wrong - IBM and Micro Focus have academic initiatives for mainframe and COBOL skills (respectively), many community colleges are teaching COBOL in response to employer demand, and a vist to with site (IBM or Micro Focus) will list the universities involved. I suspect that Forrer’s hiring issues are largely geographic - hiring is very much a regional issue - ther is no global supply of programmers unless you will relocate them from anywhere around the globe.

And why the surprise that Arnold can’t hire programmers for minimum wage? What “skill” can you hire for minimum wage? People acquire skills to avoid minimum wage jobs. Government has always had trouble attracting people because of comparatively low pay scales, and sorry guys but 10K lines of COBOL isn’t a large problem.

The REAL question that neither the NY Times (a truly bad article on the same topic - filled with hyperbole from a mis-informed Carnegie professor) nor this article visits is - in this day and age - why does ANYONE still do their own payroll? Purchase the service externally and redeploy the skilled people to other, core-competency efforts.

Phil Murphy
Principal Analyst
Forrrester Research

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