Minnesota Headhunter: Minnesota Morning | Ageism In Tech, Minnesota Has More Jobs Than Unemployed Workers And Make It MSP Recap

Minnesota Morning | Ageism In Tech, Minnesota Has More Jobs Than Unemployed Workers And Make It MSP Recap

November 08, 2017

I am back spending more time at CoCo in the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. With the expansion there are more places to work, engage, be social and hide out. I still find my best place to work is “the balcony”. It’s a sweet view, quiet and I still feel like I am near the action without being in it.

And… I will be spending more time in the building. Look for an announcement in the next day or two.

Squirrel moment: Monday I posted 6 new Minnesota IT Jobs including Software Developers with Python and/or React experience for The Wildflower Foundation.

Ageism In tech

A little more than a year ago I wrote this post, Conversation With A Minneapolis Java Developer: Ageism In Tech and was not surprised at the number of private messages and email I received from tech pros with a similar story.

Indeed came out with this Report: Ageism in the Tech Industry:

Our survey of tech workers found that close to half of respondents (43%) worry about losing their job because of their age. Even more troubling, nearly one 5th (18%) say they worry about it “all the time.”

That’s a lot of people #ObviousThingToSay

What I wonder is if, how this changes as the workforce continues to age. Will the Millenial’s be worried about this 10 - 15 years from now or will we be past this nonsense that only young people can write code?

There are some other interesting stats including what types of roles the generations want to be doing.

Minnesota has more jobs than unemployed workers

The State of Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development announced that the State has 122,900 Job Vacancies in Second Quarter.

That’s not the big news.

The news is:

According to the figures, the Twin Cities had less than one unemployed person (0.8) for every job vacancy. In Greater Minnesota, the ratio was 1.1 unemployed people for each job vacancy.

On the surface that is cool particularly when thinking back to the “Great Recession” and the amount of people unemployed and the few jobs available.

But the numbers have a flip side:

44% of job vacancies were for part-time employment. Part-time is defined as fewer than 35 hours per week.
15% of job vacancies were for temporary or seasonal work.
32% of vacancies required some level of post-secondary education or training beyond a high school diploma.
43% of job vacancies required one or more years of work experience.
The median (50th percentile) wage offer for all job vacancies was $14.39 per hour.
55% of vacancies offered health insurance. Health care benefits are far less common for part-time job vacancies than for full-time job vacancies.

So yes that is some good news and shows job growth momentum. I would be more excited if these jobs were full time, permanent and with health insurance.

2017 Make It. MSP. Summit! recap

200+ attended the Make It MSP Summit at TCF Bank for our 2nd annual catch up on the progress made over the past year and idea generation for the year ahead. You can find a write up from Matt Lewis about the event by clicking Make It. MSP Wants Minneapolis-St. Paul to Attract and Retain the Best Talent.

Emily Fritz, Director of Talent Acquisition at Target, who led the effort to go to Chicago was at WE17 recruiting and missed our event. Check out her video here:

I was asked to step in and talk with Dan Linstroth about the “rapid response team” and generally about what our technology hiring group has worked on this past year. Then off to breakout sessions where I ran a session on “national awareness” where we expanded on current ideas and came up with new ones on how to promote the Minneapolis/St Paul tech scene:

If you would like to learn more about what we are up to with this regional hiring initiative (or other groups) click 2017 Make It. MSP. Summit Survey. Here you can sign up for the newsletter, group updates, receive materials and get involved.

I (we) want your help.

Photos:

I took this one a week or so ago on one of the last warn fall days we had. We transitioned into colder weather faster than normal and I am not ready for it:

Then last week we had a few inches of snow fall (thankfully it melted within a day)… this was a morning photo and then a few hours later:

Saturday…“the barge” showed up. A moment I had been dreading but with the cooler than normal weather did not shed a tear as I expected. Our friends from Minnetonka Docks arrived to take out our dock: