[toasterlovin]

The fact that different professions earn different amounts of money is, in fact, an indicator that the higher paying professions have a shortage of people able to perform the work. Working conditions and pay for programmers are incredible and would be a life changing improvement for most people. That the profession hasn’t been flooded with talent is a strong indicator that there isn’t enough talent out there.

[Znafon]

> The fact that different professions earn different amounts of money is, in fact, an indicator that the higher paying professions have a shortage of people able to perform the work.

If we have 2000 people, we need 1000 doctors and 1000 secretary and it takes 8 years of training to be the former and 1 year for the later, won't doctors be paid more even without shortage to take into account risks and length of studies?

[rileymat2]

No, but the length of study and risk will generally cause the shortage at a particular wage.

[ken]

> The fact that different professions earn different amounts of money is, in fact, an indicator that the higher paying professions have a shortage of people able to perform the work.

In some cases, of course, that's because there's a professional association (like the AMA) that limits the number of new workers in that field.

> Working conditions and pay for programmers are incredible and would be a life changing improvement for most people.

Pay is excellent, as you say.

Working conditions ... may or may not be good, depending on your perspective. Half the people I meet don't want to sit in an office all day. Many others refuse to work at Amazon (or even buy from them) or some of the other big companies because of their reputation and what they're doing to the city. "Brogramming" still exists. I know many programmers who get asked to work late without penalty to the company.

> That the profession hasn’t been flooded with talent is a strong indicator that there isn’t enough talent out there.

I know plenty of ex-programmers and people who would make great programmers if they only wanted to. From my perspective, I'd say the talent exists, and the money is incredible -- therefore the working conditions must be pretty severely lacking.

[toasterlovin]

You're limiting your perspective to white collar workers who could be programmers if they so chose. Do you think that people making $12/hour working in food service or retail wouldn't gladly become programmers if they were able to?

[dragonwriter]

> The fact that different professions earn different amounts of money is, in fact, an indicator that the higher paying professions have a shortage of people able to perform the work.

While prospective purchasers tend to describe a situation in which market clearing price is above the price they are willing to pay as a shortage, it's not. A shortage is when nonprice rationing results in unmet demand willing to pay above the actual trading price.

There's also a planning concept of a shortage in the form of supply inadequate to meet some threshold deemed essential, e.g., by society or authorities (which tends to result in economic shortage as price controls or nonprice rationing are imposed). Market price differences alone don't establish the existence of either type of shortage.

[toasterlovin]

Sorry, I’m using the word ‘shortage’ in the colloquial sense. I’m unaware of any technical meaning it may have in economics.

[thawaway1837]

In addition, salaries in software engineering have been rising faster than pretty much any other field. Further indicating that there is a shortage relative to other fields.

[ken]

Or that people who aren't programmers don't actually consider the working conditions to be all that great.

[Amezarak]

Working conditions and pay are highly variable. Pay outside of a few major metro areas is not that great, and working uncompensated overtime is common in the industry.

[toasterlovin]

Programming jobs are essentially universally better than food service or retail jobs. They're easier, they pay more, they're more prestigious.