Harris Miller Quotes on People (6 Quotes)

I'm dissatisfied, and I believe the people of Virginia are dissatisfied, with the direction this country is going. Unless we begin to focus on the real problems in Washington, the way Governor Warner has here in Virginia, we're never going to meet the challenges we face.

Now, I'm a businessman. If these people were working for me, they'd be out the door. They'd be fired right away.

The people who are here are here because they are committed to making sure that we all work together for the betterment of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States. Frankly, I find that most of the people here have already made up their minds. Most of the people here are pretty politically involved one way or another and they already have got their commitments. I am not sure that I will convince a lot of voters today.

The shortage of IT workers has changed the nature of the position of HR (human resources) director, for one, because employee retention has become almost an overwhelming issue, ... Companies might have seen a 10-to-12 percent turnover rate a few years ago, if lucky -- the turnover rate is now more like 20 percent plus. People are stealing employees from one another left and right, and employee loyalty, frankly, runs only as deep as what the company can offer.

In the late 1950s, in line with the space race and the Cold War, the government put a tremendous emphasis on funding engineers and computer people. The country had a massive focus on subsidizing students, supporting government labs, and supporting colleges and universities. So there was a huge growth spurt in the talent pool in the 1960s as colleges and universities pumped out large numbers of technically trained people.

People think just the labor is cheaper, but if this were true, the jobs would be going to Bangladesh. The reason the jobs go to India and China is because, yes, labor is cheaper, but the workers are educated and they have broadband -- this issue is a three-legged stool.