"Why, specifically, is training not an option?"

That would take too much time! Better to spend years lobbying to expand incoming worker numbers vs spending less time training people in the skills you need (short term). Longer term look to invest in education programs here too, but hey, that costs money. Better to keep billions overseas, then complain about the state of the country's education system, than pay taxes on the money and have those taxes help better the very country you're complaining about.

Here's ways to demonstrate there really is a talent shortage.

- wages rising, in real terms, faster than inflation. And not some bullshit fed measure of price inflation (ex the things that inflated), but bay-area inflation that counts the 10% annual increases in rent / home prices.

- getting serious about remote employees

- if location is really so critical, paying enough that talent from the midwest / west moves to the bay / nyc. And not fresh grads, but engineers 10 years into their careers. I currently see experienced engineers leaving sfbay.

- companies, particularly big ones like oracle, google, linkedin, yahoo, fb, salesforce, and even vc coalitions getting serious about addressing local cost drivers, ie housing and transport.

I see zero of those.

Training is seen as competitive suicide, because while you bear the costs of training, your competitors can then poach your trained employees by offering a salary that is less than your total cost for that employee but more than the salary you pay that employee.

X = cost to train employee

Y = salary of employee

Competitor pays Z such that Y < Z < Y+X and puts you out of business.

The second factor is that if you raise wages for one person, then the rest of your workforce expects those wages. So a 10% salary increase for one person quickly becomes an across the board 10% bump on your personnel costs.

Bribing, lobbying, paying PR firms, pulling the wool over people's eyes is all judged to be a smaller expense and a worthwhile cost-saving measure.

The economically viable solution is to have schools do the training, but universities are likely not the best model for getting good tech workers.

> because while you bear the costs of training, your competitors can then poach your trained employees by offering a salary that is less than your total cost for that employee but more than the salary you pay that employee

I tell everyone that in this day and age, the company is not loyal to you -- they will get rid of you very easily if they need to, and so you should not be loyal to them. However, if the company starts investing in you, training you, then you should be loyal to that company. I would't go to a competitor that pays higher in this case (if they pay higher than 2(X + Y), consider it :)).

> Training is seen as competitive suicide, because while you bear the costs of training, your competitors can then poach your trained employees by offering a salary that is less than your total cost for that employee but more than the salary you pay that employee.

Then I guess the company will just have to do without.

Seriously, if the need is so great then maybe, just maybe the company should do the training and should reward employees for staying.

Otherwise, maybe the need really isn't so great.

And what is the cost of not having an employee?

And surely, if your pay sucks so much your employee jumps ship the minute he/she finishes training maybe your company sucks.

The airline industry has one of the highest training costs of any industry and they still pay for training. Some manage to contract the employee into staying a couple of years (but this is not allowed in all countries)