AT&T CEO Says Hard To Find Skilled US Workers

Reuters:

The head of the top U.S. phone company AT&T Inc (T.N) said on Wednesday it was having trouble finding enough skilled workers to fill all the 5,000 customer service jobs it promised to return to the United States from India.

"We're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs," AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San Antonio, where the company's headquarters is located.

Read the whole story: Reuters

Comments

[phonetramp]

Our CEO makes millions! His statement is both crass, racist and dishonest! He cant find "skilled workers"?He forgets the thousands that he has laid off to "consolidate" (i.e. make more money for himself!) There are many who are highly skilled and have also alrdy been 'cultured' to deal with ATT and its ungodly stupidity. This is a slap in the face to Americans , and to the people his company has DUMPED so they could see more profit! After such an asinine and inaccurate statement, the very next day, he stated " we're going to invest in education" (not saying where- how much!) trying to cover tracks! What a crock! Did you know that at ATT you are allowed TWO sick days per year AND get a DOCTORS SLIP?? NO JOKE!!! and you are TIMED on how long you use the bathroom! ALSO--every employee MUST sign papers each year saying we would maintain the highest ethics and integrity both on AND off the job. OUr mgt is neither college-educated or that bright. We have to investigate our on our OWN how to run the company and find answers as to WHO does WHAT. They are babysitters who are useless and are highly paid to do nothing! He is a LIAR. another greedy CEO! Making WAY more than they are worth. And what was his qualification? CRONYISM------that was his qualification. I hope his statement gets him a ticket out of ATT. Youre an embarrassment to ATT!!

[vandegrasse]

I hate the rich. Lying bastards. It sure isn't hard to find greedy corporate CEO's!

[JPIndependent]

PART 2
AT&T today said that in order to port my landline number to my mobile phone - on my existing plan - that I “had to give” them my social security number, birth date, and driver’s license. AT&T said if I didn’t supply that information, then I could “no longer continue this transaction and AT&T would not provide service.”
Mind you – they were demanding information that they ALREADY HAD (because I was a customer many times through the years). They wanted me to provide it AGAIN – “just to be sure.”
Needless to say, I said it would be fine if we ended our relationship. And then Dana Ruben, AT&T Supervisor, said, “Well, okay then. I can help you terminate your service right now if you wish.”
How’s that for customer service treatment from a monopoly? And why the need for a social, a birth date, and driver’s license? Please – where can a battered and broken AT&T customer seek refuge in the wireless world from poor customer service, invasive data collection, and morally bankrupt consciousness? (Note: I’m just talking “refuge” now…I can’t even think about a potential relationship with another phone provider right now.)
P.S.
AT&T “individual” contributions to the ‘08 presidential campaign (according to opensecrets.org):
HRC = $56,300
BO = $59,646
JMc = $87,600 (Mack also had AT&T listed in the “top corporate contributor category at $111,600)
And no big surprise: Dennis K = $0

[JPIndependent]

PART 1
Huffington Post…please help. And forgive me for posting my AT&T “wireless” comment / question here, as comments for the relevant post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-huffington/why-does-att-need-my-soc_b_64526.htmll ) are no longer being accepted.
On the above mentioned post dated 9-15-07, you stated – along with details about your painful AT&T experience – that you already had a phone company that you were happy with: “I presently use another phone company for my Moto Q, and am quite happy with their service.”
Please tell me the name of the phone company you were referring to. Was it Credo Mobile? (Yes, giving up International service will hurt, but it will be worth it.)
Today, I decided to permanently end my abusive relationship with AT&T (yes, after years of getting kicked around, being snipped at, being lied to, doing their work for them, filing for divorce and grudgingly reconciling). I am finally done.
On top of my already gargantuan list of grievances about AT&T – as a crappy corporate “citizen,” as government spy and partner, as a lousy monopoly, and many more, which were also touched upon in these comments – today I added the straw that broke the camel’s back...aft­er several years of being a great, low maintenance client - with superb credit - who always paid on-time.

[PacificGatePost]

The real challenge rests in education so that such decisions become history...­.........

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/03/education-dynamic-of-sovereignty.html

[Blurp]

Oh please, Mr. Stephenson­... can I have one of those jobs? I know you'll probably only pay about $10 an hour, which is what I was making two DECADES ago. Of course it'd help if, just like wages, AT&T's prices didn't increase every year. You and all your corporate cronies better find nice pads in India, cuz soon the American worker is gonna be looking for blood.

[KeepItGreen]

The obvious question that is not even asked is "When is it necessary to have a college education to work at a call center?” If you can read and communicate a full sentence, and have basic computer knowledge, that should be sufficient enough for employment. For cripes sakes it's not f'n rocket science. My sister was in management and a trainer at a call center that handled credit cards etc. The jobs were mostly held by women whose husbands also worked, single mothers and college students needing the extra income and flexible hours. The jobs were seldom full time and to qualify for insurance you needed to work at least 35 hours per week so most of the workers were kept under the required hours. The call center had a high turnover rate because of the rate of pay and lack of full time employment, not because the people were too stupid to do the jobs. The problem was that the good employees with experience would ask for more time and better pay and was constantly denied it. Now the call center is in India.

[TheShadow]

What an arrogant S.O.B..
I am sick and tired of hearing form Microsoft, and Oracle, and now this jerk informing us about how Americans are not up to the skill level to fill the jobs that they shipped out, or otherwise filled here in the U.S. with their foreign H-1b Visa workarounds. This new tune rings deaf as the jobs they want to bring back here pay a nonliving wage.
Hey Bill Gates - Why don't you open some of those MS training centers that are practically free in India for people to obtain MSCE's here in the U.S.?
Hey greedy CEO's - quit your bitching, and put your money where your collective lying mouths are. Better yet, reinvest our money which you earned on the sweat of our working backs, and long hours at the office back into this country. And while you're at it, quit discriminating against the legacy designers, and infrastructure architects who are over 50 years of age and bring us all back into the technical world we once worked in: After all we designed it, built it, and maintained it for a long time as you saw fit....We know how it works, and how to fix it, and how to make it better.
Geesh!

[olephart]

"We're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs,"


The primary skill is the ability to work for 70 cents per hour and no benefits. Thus Haiti and India are prime locations for job growth. As a footnote, you may not know this but jobs created by American Companies in Foreign Countries are counted in the new jobs created statistics posted every month. Just another doctored number for the peasants like the report that there was NO INFLATION in February.

[Jason357]

He obviously hasn't experienced outsourced customer service lately, if he thinks they offer superior service. If education is his concern, what has he done lately to improve US education?

[Birdman]

What he really means is that he cannot find skilled workers willing to work for Minimum wage.

[duckfan00]

Birdman-
You hit the nail right on the head....th­ese guys want only their 'leadership' teams to make money and screw the rest of their associates­...I searched AT&T career web site and found only 16 various jobs nationwide anyway....­we have to go after these guys now when they are goung to insult US workers...

[phonetramp]

BINGO!!!!!!!!! at least someone speaks the truth!!! believe me, I know. I work for ATT and spend my day talking to the OTHER companies people, and not only do they not understand or speak english, they couldnt solve a problem if their lives depended on it!! So now Stephenson wants to replace the US people with MORE outsourced call centers!! If he does that, then WHO is going to solve the problems that the OTHER call centers are clueless about? My job has gone from ATT employee to having to decipher foreign language and solve problems that shouldnt be mine to solve and wouldnt NEED solving if American/English speaking employees dealt with AMERICAN people in the day-to-day running of the business. Bring on some more foreign people and pretty soon NOBODY will be able to solve problems, thanks to inexperience, lack of TRUE phone smarts and mastery of the english language. Thanks for posting some TRUTH!!!

[marignymitch]

Let me translate for CEO Stephenson: 'Americans who are willing to take our low-paying jobs lack education and educated Americans are unwilling to take such jobs.'

Educated Indians, unlike their American counterparts, are willing to work for beans, by American standards, and AT&T bean counters like it this way. Still the trade-off seems specious to me. I can't understand these employees and they can't understand me. And then we have the cultural divide. They simply lack the necessary communication skills. A call to an AT&T customer 'service' rep is an exercise in frustration. So, while these workers are cheap, they are ineffective. I'm unsure how this benefits AT&T long term.

[mooph]

I'm sure we could find a CEO-for-less in a developing country too.

[WIpatriot]

What's funny is I know a few dozen people who could solve his problem before lunch.

[franlong]

This is a load of bull. U.S. companies don't want to pay experienced workers what they're worth, and they don't want to hire anyone over 40. This guy is making a plea for the government to train young, inexperienced, cheaper workers at taxpayers' expense. If the government spent the money to crack down on age discrimination, American companies would have all the experienced high tech workers they need. Enough with the greedy CEO's.

[Rule Of Law]

People believe what's convenient and shy away from basic facts for fear of being labeled with the tin foil hat smear.

Well it's time you read something that isn't a conspiracy "theory," isn't found on some backwater alien invasion web site, but is an actual, hold it in your hands real document written in 1975 that outlines exactly every step that must be taken to destroy our freedom and this country.

Hard to believe? Well if you want more of the same old shite that leaves you feeling comfortable sitting there in front of your computer screen saving the world one post at a time, then don't read this document.

"The Crisis in Democracy" paper, written for the Trilateral Commission, 1975, New York University Press Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington and Joji Watanuki.

In this paper the authors propose that there is too much freedom in contemporary democracies, and that it is necessary to curtail personal freedoms in order to preserve the governability of democracies.

Stop and think for a second: TOO MUCH FREEDOM! Their answer to us was that freedom was the threat. And the basis of that Freedom, in their estimation, is Education, and this paper outlines the program for the dumbing down of American school kids, the destruction of union and lowering of wages, and the admission that home ownership is a threat to their power. Look around you. All these things are coming to pass, Today! It's no accident. Do the reading. Then get mobilized.

[hoopesaz]

A paper is a paper. What evidence do you have that it is being implemented to limit freedom? Who is executing the plan? Is it a person, an agency, a group? Don't just bait us, help those of us who are skeptical understand. Without evidence it is just fearmongering.

[Firbolg]

For evidence consider ATT's terabytes of stolen personal data. "Your World Delivered" indeed. Delivered to the NSA without your permission.

[WIpatriot]

Got eyes? Can you google? Ther truth is out there.....­>

[Rule Of Law]

You want me to read it for you too? Fearmongering? I think the greatest fear mongers are those who wish to keep others in the dark.

First--read who wrote it! You've heard of your master of the universe buddies over at the Trilateral Commission, you know what they stand for, so give the folks here a break! Just that fact answers all your questions.

Here is a link to where you can buy it on Amazon, though you might try your public library first:

http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Democracy-Governability-Democracies-
Trilateral­/dp/081471­3653/ref=s­r_1_1/102-­2847203-93­51330?ie=
UTF8&s=boo­ks&qid=120­6645110&sr­=1-1

The Trilateral Commission was founded in 1973 by elite private citizens in response to to civil rights protests, the Vietnam protests and the women's movement. In 1975 this private Commission published a study by Huntington, "The Crisis In Democracy" which defines citizen participation in decision-making as a danger to democracy, and urged a "moderation of democracy" as a deterrent against the "crisis".

To quote Huntington: "This general 'crisis of democracy' resulted from the efforts of previously marginalized sectors of the population to organize to press their demands, thereby creating an overload that prevents the democratic process from functioning properly." This danger must be corralled if elite control is to reign unimpeded.

[Rule Of Law]

Part two--

One of the Commission's decisions in the 1970s was to reign in and control a press that it felt was too "populace.­" How effective is this Commission? Consider what has happened to media ownership in the U.S. over the past thirty years. Consider also the corporate media's refusal to expose and condemn the lies and falsehoods that has led to our imperial stance, our belligerent foreign policy, the erosion of rights, the Supreme Court appointment of a president, and the U.S. dismissal of International Law.

"The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authoritie­s." --Secretary of Defence; Zbigniew Brzezinski

For those who can't be bothered with reading,here are some YouTube links on the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzlTjhGxr7Y&feature=related

[Rule Of Law]

You want me to read it for you too? Fearmongering? I think the greatest fear mongers are those who wish to keep others in the dark.

First--read who wrote it! You've heard of your master of the universe buddies over at the Trilateral Commission, you know what they stand for, so give the folks here a break! Just that fact answers all your questions.

Here is a link to where you can buy it on Amazon, though you might try your public library first:
http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Democracy-Governability-Democracies-
Trilateral­/dp/081471­3653/ref=s­r_1_1/102-­2847203-93­51330?ie=
UTF8&s=boo­ks&qid=120­6645110&sr­=1-1

The Trilateral Commission was founded in 1973 by elite private citizens in response to to civil rights protests, the Vietnam protests and the women's movement. In 1975 this private Commission published a study by Huntington, "The Crisis In Democracy" which defines citizen participation in decision-making as a danger to democracy, and urged a "moderation of democracy" as a deterrent against the "crisis". To quote Huntington: "This general 'crisis of democracy' resulted from the efforts of previously marginalized sectors of the population to organize to press their demands, thereby creating an overload that prevents the democratic process from functioning properly." This danger must be corralled if elite control is to reign unimpeded.