Roger_Dooley

The job market may be slow in some areas, but new grads still seem to be doing fine:

Weak job market is actually mad for grads by Barbara Rose

Silverweed

The following line from the article gave me chills:
"Organizations are looking to backfill with less expensive new college hires as more experienced workers are laid off or choose to opt out early..."

Advice to the new grads: watch how your employer treats their experienced workers, as you can expect the same treatment once your pay level makes you appear on their radar.

kyledavid80

That's exactly what I'd thought when I read the excerpted paragraph. So it isn't so surprising that heavy recruiting happens despite the higher laying off, but because of it. It lowers costs. I've heard this happens quite a bit in the chemE industry (though I don't see why it should be specific to that).

eupseudes

Although, it makes one wonder: does the productivity decrease due to lack of experience balance out with the lower pay?

JohnC613

well, eupseudes, younger workers tend to go about their work in a more lively fashion, work longer hours without complaining, and especially in certain rapidly changing fields, are more tech-savvy and quick-learning.

Columbia_Student

That is not true. They are cheaper but do play more video game at work(I hear it everyday). I'm not sure about "without complaining". I think older workers do not complain about raises while younger workers do. Older workers are more reliable.

lauras50

Older workers are less likely to run out in a year or two for the next better offer. Older workers know what they're doing. You can't have a whole company of new workers, who might not have the history or knowledge to know what they're doing and not one to supervise and train them.
I've been an IT recruiter for 29 years and I've seen it all before. In the early 1990's companies were firing all the mid managers and more senior workers to save money. A little later they went back to try to hire them back and half had left the field. There were so many cases of bad management and costly mistakes because companies tried to cut costs and tried to make believe they didn't need lower level managers supervising the less experienced workers and could do without the most experienced (and more expensive employees).. Not good at all.
I am happy, for my son's sake that he will have a job, but junior employees, no matter how "confident" they are cannot take the place of experienced people without a learning curve, just so the CEO's can earn more money. Running "lean and mean" doesn't always work well. It's also true that outsourcing overseas also doesn't always work as well as stated (although cheaper) because the time differences and distances and different standards don't make things better...just cheaper, so.....the CEO can make more money.
I do believe that it behooves companies to continue to hire entry levels.
When I first started recruiting in IT there were very large training programs at companies and they actively recruited recent college grads. During the 1990 recession they abandoned these programs and didn't hire entry levels, because regular employees were working enough for 3 anyway and there was no money, nor time to train. After the recession when there was an upsweep in hiring they all wanted intermediates....and there were so few. Of course, if you don't hire entry levels...there won't be intermediates in the years after! They may well have learned the lesson of keeping the influx going.
The point here is companies need to keep hiring Entry levels, BUT they should NOT lay-off the more senior people just to do that! Labor is a resource as important as financing for a company that wants to run well.

shpeel

all this article does is provide relief for 2008 grads.

It even states concern for 2009 grads! so what about 2009's like me and beyond??

sakky

No? See below.

Interesting. That doesn't explain the structure of many high-tech startups, many of which are founded and staffed almost entirely by people fresh out of school, or in certain highly notable cases (i.e. Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Dell) by people who were still in school and in other highly notable cases (i.e. Apple) by people who had quite recently dropped out of school. Nor did these companies quickly staff themselves with 'experienced' employees; for example, it took Apple quite a while before they actually hired anybody with significant levels of experience.

Coincidentally (OK, probably not), startups are the most likely business structure to commercialize disruptive technologies. A major problem that every established firms that are staffed by experienced workers face is that they have great difficulty in marketing new products that may disrupt their existing business model. Startups have no existing business model and hence nothing to disrupt. Yet the fact is, the history of the technology industry has been characterized by a Schumpeterian-style cascade of disruption after disruption and hence why so many of the most successful tech companies of today didn't even exist in the recent past. It boggles the mind to think that 10 years ago Google didn't even exist and now we can't even imagine life without it. Yet Google was started by 2 Stanford CS students who had never held a real job in their lives, and the first engineering team was basically comprised of the founders' CS school buddies, almost all of whom had also never before held real jobs in their lives.

The problem with experienced workers is that while they may indeed know more, they are also unwilling to risk a lot. Startup firms can take flyers on wacky technologies because, frankly, they have nothing to lose, and similarly, inexperienced workers can take flyers on insane-sounding business models, some of which will actually turn out to be momentously profitable. Few people believed that you could actually create a company that sold just standalone computer software until Bill Gates came along. (In the old days, software was just something that computer companies always sold bundled together with the hardware). Similarly, the Google founders had no idea how they were going to generate profit when they started the company, and took years before finally settling on advertising. On the other hand, the risk they assumed was minimal. If Microsoft failed, oh well, Bill would just go back to Harvard, and similarly if Google failed, big deal, Sergey and Larry would just go back to Stanford. None of these guys had any ongoing financial responsibilities. But if you have a mortgage to pay and (especially) if you have a family to support, you just can't afford to take high levels of risk, which is why so few experienced people work in startups. It is that inability to assume risk that makes experienced workers worse than newcomers within the startup arena. Startups are notorious for paying out either nothing or paying out millions. If a newcomer fresh out of school ends up with a payout of nothing, it's no different than what he had before (which was nothing).

lauras50

Indeep that sounds great. Many young people feel they know more than any other generation and want to do it themselves, but that means that many startups end up re-inventing the wheel, when older tried models might help (at least in the case of financing). If you do some other research you will find there are many big mistakes that are made, some with terrible ends, that might have been avoided with some experienced help. How many startups do you think end up as successfull as facebook and google?? Very few startups last, much less grow exponentially. Experience can help these companies avoid making costly mistakes that have already been made by other companies. Even college or an MBA cannot teach what solid experience can teach. The point is, there is room for new innovative blood, but there is also a need for old fashioned knowledge to help protect against running wild and ignorance about industry.
Most innovators don't necessarily come in knowing about all sides of a business. You can be super technically, but that doesn't mean you're an expert on finance or marketing. I just saw a story on 60 minutes about the founder of Facebook, (I believe), and he had made some mistakes that wouldn't have happened with some experienced people around. AND by the way, i know of older workers who do love startups. They are very willing to work at one, hoping to end up with large stock portfolios. These young innovators just have to interview until they find someone who has the experience, yet is open to new ideas. As an IT recruiter with 29 years of experience... BELIEVE me they do exist!
I also think the point is that a good mix of people might make for a better percentage of successful startups! It reminds me of the old adage when I was young : "Never trust anyone over 30". Well guess what...30 comes and goes and you will one day be one of us. :-) I hope you get to work on a new and exciting job and don't get cut out because your're too old and people think you no longer know "anything".

asc3nd

Isn't this good for the economy?

If firms reduced the number of workers they hired (especially young ones), we would be in a very rough situation.
As the number of young workers increase, the old must go. Now, I completely agree with lauras50 that experienced workers should not be fired, because, well they simply have more experience.
But young workers are being given the opportunity, and as more young Americans find jobs, they consume more. (The younger people consume more than older people, simply b/c one tends to save more of his income as he ages.)
One of the only ways to escape the reccesion that we are in today, is through awareness, and greater consumption (w/o dept). Our generation knows not to go in dept, because we have seen what it does ... also we are in a reccesion, so we will save (not as much as "experienced" workers.)
Because young workers will tend not to save as much, and consume more, our economy will start to grow, and escape recesion, as consumption is a direct factor in GDP.

So all in all, the practice of firms hiring new grads, in replace of older, more experienced works, is in fact more beneficial toward the economy, and therefore its beneficial toward all american citizens (in the long-run).

barrons

In the long run investment provides more gains than consumption. Older people invest more and grow the economy through its base. Not through buying more tvs from China.

dntw8up

For every successful high tech start up you can name, I can name a thousand that have failed. Those that were successful had experienced people advising them. Youthful exuberance tempered by experience results in companies that flourish. One without the other sandbags even the best ideas.