I, the undersigned, respectfully request your leadership, compassion and support to immediately address the burgeoning unemployment and underemployment problems among engineering and information technology professionals across the United States. As you know, the congress passed one of the largest tax cuts last summer as well as allocated one of the largest defense budgets in 20 years to spur national security and economic growth in the United States. As a result, many defense contractors in New Jersey, my home state, and across the country have secured a large number of defense contracts but still fail to hire a decent number of unemployed American engineers and information technology workers as of the time this letter is written. One main reason is that the local and national information technology companies and most of the defense contractors in the United States are still cutting most information technology and engineering jobs and have outsourced as much as 30-80 % of the engineering and information technology source code development and software quality assurance to companies located in cheap labor countries in Asia such as India and Communist Main Land China. The information technology companies and defense contractors in the United States also changed most of the basic job requirements by integrating 3-4 basic requirements taken from other job classifications into one position’s requirements. Then they added a high level of security clearance (up to top-secret level with a polygraph test) for defense related jobs. It is impossible for unemployed job seekers in America to meet such a high level of security clearance as a standard requirement for the position. The information technology companies and defense contractors in the United States also cut the pay scale as much as 30% from the average pay scale for information technology and engineering positions located in most states in the United States. These two actions alone make all unemployed hi-tech and engineering professionals in America unable to even qualify for those positions and, in most cases, unable to fit in or filter through the hiring process in order to obtain the same type of position they had before. They are now forced to take lower positions from different job classifications at a lower pay scale, in most cases a little above minimum wage ($7.50-$12.50 per hour). The American information technology and defense companies as well as corporate recruiters and agents are now also recruiting job candidates using only high-tech tools such as voice mail and websites links with little or no human interface. Such recruiting tools prove to be of almost no value to job seekers because most of such websites links are designed to go to non-related job search activities sites such as SPAM mail companies. As a result, no one applying for defense and IT positions using this non-human interface method in America receives consideration for a position and reaches a dead end in the application
Narit Thapanadilok | Email | Homepage | 01.03.04 - 11:09 am | #

Say it again, Narit ... and often!
Anthony Segredo | Email | Homepage | 01.03.04 - 4:25 pm | #

heath, these quirky slices of life snapshots of yours combining text and video are gems. you dont see this anywhere else.


i've always liked gergen. the way you threw him off his guard with your last question allowed us a glimpse beyond the facade. we're so used to seeing pundits with superegos, but here you see gergen pulling in other people to include them into his spotlight. when's the last you saw that?

thanks for sharing that with us.
niner | Email | Homepage | 01.03.04 - 4:44 pm | #

Thanks Niner. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. Gergen was a big one for me. I've always had great respect for the man. You always know he's going to be fair and reflects a historical perspective of one who was there: no matter the party affiliation.

HE
Heath@DeanTV.org | Email | Homepage | 01.03.04 - 5:04 pm | #