Certification - June 2006 - (Page 42)

CM0606.qxd 5/5/06 6:54 PM Page 42 Lessons in Employment: A Tale of Two Countries BRIAN SUMMERFIELD Unemployment levels are a concern for workers around the world, and perhaps none more so than the professionals in the highly competitive IT industry. But this economic measure is only half the story. What makes a country's workforce employable, and THE BOOM IN MUMBAI what doesn't? To figure this out, we should consider the cases of two nations who have been in the news Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in India, a com- a good deal lately for events that ultimately boil down pletely different employment story is unfolding. Some of the largest corporations in the world IT and other- to employment or lack thereof . wise are sending representatives to that country to announce plans to recruit Indian workers by the thou- THE FRENCH CONNECTION sands. The incentive? An abundance of quality labor at competitive prices. The only thing that limits us in A few months ago, French Prime Minister Dominique India is the speed at which we can recruit, Microsoft de Villepin proposed a bill that would ease the restric- founder Bill Gates said during a recent visit. tions on businesses to hire and fire workers during And the speed at which companies such as their first two years of employment. The new law was Microsoft, Dell and Cisco can recruit is getting a lot designed to help the 18- to 25-year-old age group of the faster. There was a story in the news recently about French workforce, which has a 20-percent unemploy- Indian employment headhunters applying the same ment rate, find work. Employers in France are reluctant concepts found in so-called speed dating programs to take on younger workers because existing regula- to new hires. Indian staffing services company TVA tions make it difficult for companies to get rid of any Infotech actually rented out a 20,000-seat basketball employees they hire, even if they're performing well arena so that hundreds of job candidates could sys- below expectations. tematically shuffle through multiple employer booths The response of young people in France to this bill in quick intervals. They literally can't hire people fast ironically, its intended beneficiaries was to hit the enough in that country. bricks. More than a million of them took to the streets of Paris to demonstrate against what they perceived to be an unjust law, evidently focusing more on the fire half of the hire-and-fire equation. These protests were seri- WEB POLL ously disruptive to the French economy, causing such Was the Last Certification Exam You Took: severe delays and shutdowns in transportation and aca- demic, financial and government institutions that Villepin 20% and President Jacques Chirac retracted the bill. Extremely difficult? 38% Somewhat hard? Conclusion 16% Moderately challenging? Obviously, there's a stark contrast between France 24% and India in terms of employment. The main differ- Kind of easy? ence between the two isn't the quality of the work- 2% A breeze? force the average French worker is probably much better than the average Indian on paper, as profes- View other Web polls at www.certmag.com. sional knowledge and proficiency is distributed unevenly throughout the latter country. Yet Fortune 500 companies won't be flocking to France anytime that's nice in principle, but bad for a dynamic free- soon, in spite of the large numbers of skilled, educat- market economy if taken to extremes. On the other ed and very available talent there. hand, India has no such legislation. The primary reason behind this disparity is the eco- Thus, the same principle that allows IT professionals nomic principle of liquidity. Like money, labor is a to receive a fat paycheck today might cause them to commodity, and the more fluid it is, the better. lose their job tomorrow. Techies around the world should keep liquidity in mind as they assess their Businesses want to be able to move their assets 4 volatile industry. around as freely as possible. As mentioned earlier, France has regulations that lock companies into employment agreements for the long term, and these Brian Summerfield is Web editor for Certification Magazine. Send can be extremely difficult to get out of. The country him your favorite study tips and tech tricks at brians@certmag.com. has essentially legislated job security, something 2 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE June 2006  http://www.certmag.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Certification - June 2006

Editors Letter
Table of Contents
Data Stream
Consultants Corner
Tech Careers
Virtual Village
Certification Evolution: Job-Role Certifications for Your Future
Inside Certification
Must-Have Non-Technical Skills for IT Pros
IP Telephony Engineers
Specialty Certification
Interface
Ad Index
Endtag

Certification - June 2006

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