Tech Giants Struck Deals on Hiring. What deals?

The front-page article in yesterday’s WSJ (Silicon Valley Tech Giants Struck Deals on Hiring) made for an interesting read. Many of us in the IT/IS-tech industry have either suspected this kind of collusion for long, and some perhaps wished for it, when faced by high rate of attrition at critical times.

The article quotes observers who expect mediations for a settlement to reach a conclusion. Settlement on this case or not, a few reasons why we might see continuum of some form of “collusion” and informal alignments among executives of tech giants.  

• IT resources, especially skilled and experienced resources continue to be scarce. ERP consultants, Systems Integration experts, mobile device programmers and even web developers can write their own paycheck.
• Demand for IT resources is #Glocal. Demand for skilled personnel in micro-markets (esp tech hubs like Silicon Valley, research triangle parks and cities like Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad) translates to a bulk of the “global” demand.
• While the world continues to flatten mobility, especially global mobility of workforce continues to reduce
• Many techies and IT managers continue to be reluctant to adopt use of tools and technologies of collaboration. Some of the challenge is cultural but there is also a strong human dynamic issue here: nothing like being able to sit across the table or yell across a cube to have a chat.

In this instance, the bosses of big giants in Silicon Valley - Google., Apple, Intel Corp. and Adobe Systems are accused of colluding to suppress wages, by agreeing not to poach each other's employees, among other things. And more interestingly, there is some “evidence” of this which is being touted in the lawsuit filings.

What is to say the bosses of offshoring IT giants in the Asian Silicon valley in Bangalore and Hyderabad aren’t doing the same?  Yes, yes, facts seem to be pointing otherwise: Infosys Q4 attrition at 18.7%,  One in 4 Wipro staff to get up to 20% salary hike There again, knowing how IT management “best-practices” continue to go global; perhaps . . . . .