[ILUG] [OT] Government Promises

[Noel Carroll]

An interesting point Mark that makes me wonder myself.  I'd doubt there are
that many indigenous job seekers right now queueing up to work in Intel.
Although in some quarters the government do seem to be ramping up the number
of available graduates, there is still a huge deficit.   DCU have, to my
knowledge, quadrupled the amount of punters doing Computer Applications in
each year compared to the 100 or so per year in my time.   Still, here in
Cardbase, we have to go far and wide to find suitably qualified people.
This has made for a very ecelectic work environment where the international
staff outnumber the indigenous ones and come from every corner of the world.
I haven't discussed it with anybody in HR but the work permit situation
doesn't seem to be a major hurdle.  What I see happening is that, while
there is reasonable sized pool of applicants here in this country, there
seems to be a much smaller number of adequate quality or equipped with very
specific skills in the security and e-commerce sectors.   A further question
lies in whether this ramping up of capacity is simply turning out quantity
with a lack of quality and, also, if the educational system is not of a high
enough quality to sustain this boom for indigenous labour.   I don't know
how the rest of you on the list interpret the situation overall but this is
based on my own experiences over the past 2 and a half years.

Noel


> Hi,
> 
> Intel announced yesterday an investment of $2 billion and
> 1000 new jobs. So the big question is where are these people
> going to come from. This perhaps follows on from the education
> discussion yesterday, but do you think the government is making
> promises it can't fulfill. We could change (and have changed) 
> our work 
> visa policy but with current inflation and housing issues will this 
> really work?
> 
> So today's topic of discussion, and something that will affect 
> everyone in the computer industry in this country, is: Will we become
> victims of our own success, we will price ourselves out of the 
> market and is the government making promises regarding the 
> availability
> of a skilled workforce? A promise they have no real chance of
> keeping.
> 
> If the government does fail to keep this promise, will this signal
> an end to the stream of high tech companies willing to set up shop
> in Ireland?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Mark
>  
> _______________________________________________________________
> 
> Mark Fallon			E-mail : Mark.Fallon at oracle.com
> Senior Software Engineer	Phone  : +353-1-8033207
> Global Product Engineering	Fax    : +353-1-8033221
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