| I hear this comment every now and then. Because so many people say this, I really do mean this as a sincere question and opening to a discussion: have you considered the concept of supply and demand curves? At a low price, the market will demand a lot of a good or service, but there's less incentive to supply. At a high price, the market will demand less of a good or service, but there will be more incentive to supply. Let's apply this to developers. At minimum wage, there would be a lot of demand for developers. However, there wouldn't be much incentive to become a developer. As a result, there would be far more job openings than people interested in working the job. At 500k a year, fewer people would want the services of developers, because they'd only be needed for very high value projects. However, lots of people would be lining up to take the job. Economic theory tells us that supply and demand will meet at an equilibrium. So if there are far more job openings than developers, that suggests that the curves are not yet in equilibrium. As salaries for developers rise, demand will fall, until they are in balance. Markets aren't perfect, and the real world is messy. But supply and demand are still in effect, and your comment suggests that you haven't even considered this. Saying that is a shortage of developers at 100k a year makes as much sense as saying there's high unemployment among developers who will only work for 500k a year. Except that even that rarely happens. People who talk of a shortage of developers, amazingly enough, most often don't even mention salary. It's as if they have no concept of how salary affects both supply and demand. Now, in this particular iteration, we do have a number, $500,000 a year. However, many of us on this forum are calling malarkey. Show us some numbers that you're actually offering and paying this salary and we'll talk. Otherwise, many of us suspect this is all bluster. |