Wage curves for IT professionals (was Re: lbo-talk-digest V1 #3370)

Peter van Heusden pvh at egenetics.com
Thu Sep 21 01:50:24 PDT 2000


On Wed, 20 Sep 2000, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Curiously, the new State of Working America reports that the wage
> premium for programmers and other IT professionals has remained
> remarkably flat, despite all this talk of strong markets. It may be
> that their compensation isn't fully reflected in government wage
> surveys, but the visa controversy suggests that employers don't want
> to pay up for talent, even if it's in relatively short supply.
>

That's pretty much the buzz I've heard in online forums. Does the SWA report break this wage premium down in age catagories? The general chitchat suggests that firms hire 20-something programmers, who are productive but still rather cheap, and try and get rid of 30-something or 40-something programmers - those whose added skills would generally result in higher salaries.

So I'd be interested to hear what the wage vs. age curve looks like - although that would be skewed by the small number of older, well-paid consultants. Figures on unemployment rates in the field vs. age would also be interesting.

Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844



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