Coop and the H-1B pinata party
OK, so I'm not going to win a popularity contest. Most--though not all--of the feedback to my post suggesting that it was time to rethink the current annual limits on the H-1B non-immigrant visa was uniformly unimpressed. The responses ranged from depicting me as a clueless stooge for corporate interests to, well, just clueless.
Here's a sampling:
"Obviously you just don't get it. I am an American contract software engineer, graduated now 10 years ago, with a plan to start and run my own software company. The problem; since so many foreign workers are coming into the country, wages for my work have diminished, and I can not earn the necessary capital to start my own company, much less sustain it...and you spout off that we need more. Worthless."
Another one:
"There is no shortage of tech workers in the U.S. There is, however, a shortage of tech workers willing to accept slave wages. You needn't go farther than the classifieds section of any newspaper to verify this. The good news is that most Americans are starting to see right through the lies put forth by corporate lapdogs such as yourself whose only interests are cheap foreign labor and the bottom line."
Or my personal favorite:
"And you are still a jackass..."
I expected something like this. We're in the midst of a deepening recession and people are understandably mad and afraid and they are going to vent. So it is that the H-1B program serves as a convenient scapegoat. But the argument that top notch foreign-born computer scientists-especially those graduating from American universities each year-qualifies as a high-tech lumpenproletariat is flawed.
I'm not talking about someone fitting boards at a computer assembly line or an IT support staffer. Those folks all play important roles in the economy. But they won't be the people who staff up the coming push in green energy. Nor will they be the ones snapped up by Google or Microsoft to do basic computer science research.
Unfortunately, U.S. universities aren't graduating the same numbers of engineers as they did a couple of decades ago. So what to do? I'm with John Doerr on this one. Part of the solution is to double the annual number of engineers coming out of American universities to 60,000. At the same time, he wants to supplement that number by finding ways to keep smart foreigners who study engineering in the U.S. in this country.
Here's what he had to say at held last month.
"What we do is bring foreign nationals to the world's greatest universities. We train them, invest in them and make them go home," he said. "What kind of national strategy is that? So I would staple a green card to the diploma." If you have a better idea, let's hear it.
(Here's a video of his appearance)
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. Before joining CNET News, he worked at the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie. 
Instead of training foreign students, train US students.
If the reward is there they will come. Foreign students flock to US students because the reward is a green card. US students do not need a green card.
The incentive would be a high paying job waiting at the end of studies.
The H-1B program bringing in a glut of foreign workers lowers the salaries and makes that incentive disappear.
What part of this do you not understand?
Have you investigated the number of entry level positions available in the IT field? If you did, you would see that there are few and very far between. Have you investigated how many IT educated are now unemployed , underemployed, or are employed in other fields and have been for years? If you did, you would see that the average salary of IT graduates is way below $45K.
This is a bogus uninformed statement.
Go check DOL stats but don't say it's fake aftewards.
Address this FOOL:
Why are more than one in 5 H-1ber's here on fraudulent applications. Why are some h-1bers working in a laundromat? Address it FOOL!
Why is Pfizer using h-1b workers to replace skilled U.S. workers, address it FOOL!
JAKE LEONE
But the reality is that wages are being reduced. In fact, I don't know a company that is not asking their engineers to take a salary haircut. If there were a shortage, that wouldn't be happening.
the only reason that Doerr and the other VCs want to allow more incoming H1B workers is that it would allow the VCs to suppress wages further.
Even more insidious is that most of these visa advocates are asking for unlimited growth in visas -- right up until the point of saturation. What are those of us that are here and are trying to make a living supposed to do when we have been arbitraged out of our houses, homes, and our kids college educations.
Wise up and stop drinking the VC purple kool-aid.
People on H1 have to be paid the same as Americans. What part of that don't you understand?
Do you know anything?
The H1 is the solution, except for xenophobic idiots...
I have seen workers in so many companies. From what I see: a person who is a U.S. graduate typically does around 28-35% less work than a foreign hired worker. So it in that manner it makes sense for companies to get workers from outside (plus it is also a dollar to international currency exchange rate issue). If you give a foreign worker 1 dollar, that means a lot more to the worker than to an American. Thus companies get the same or close to same quality of work for much less.
Now that I am done supporting the other side.
I think there should be more laws that prevent companies to easily look outside of the country for workers. That would in turn create competition and better wages in the U.S. The way jobs are distributed is so much affected by how the government of the country makes the laws. Hopefully Obama will do something to close the loopholes that let's companies outsource jobs.
{I do agree with Bill Gates, Andrew Grove etc. on what they told the Congress.}
If we could put a man on the moon without the H-1B program we can do just fine without it now.
US needs bright people, American or foreign. the system should allow the selection of the brightest, not the cheapest, but with a decent pay that makes attractive to this people to work. This makes things complicated.
you wrote:
"Most of the designers of the rocket that put a man on the moon were foreign born (German)."
Please back up this statement with some evidence.
Also, are you aware that the O-1 visa has no cap? It is quite easy for a person with extroordinary talent to get one of these visas? Why is this not enough?
Granted that there are many H1B holders that are not better than American workers, but you cannot say that every American worker is better than every foreign worker. Let´s bring the best as it always has been. O-1 only is for the people that are internationally recognized, but there are many persons that are very good even though they have not received international recognition. H1B helps address this.
There's a difference between trading with the third world, and remaining a capital-rich country, and BECOMING the third world. Americans want to buy any products that the third world can make cheaper--without becoming exactly identical to the third world. In fact, remaining different is the POINT of free trade.
That said, neither Adam Smith nor Milton Freidman would agree with H-1B (and in fact Freidman publicly disagreed with H-1B and called it a subsidy.) Noone ever considered immigration to be a form a trade; people are not goods; people consume goods. People are the whole point of economics to begin with; it is a social science, and its whole purpose is to increase the wealth of people (which in turn, implies that people must remain a scarce input in production.) If we accept that the US should dramatically increase its population through immigration, then we should also eliminate birth control and any other attempts we make to increase our wealth per capita by limiting our numbers.
And EVEN IF we were to accept the--very flawed--idea that immigration is trade, there is no logical reason to make a special exception for techies as H-1B does. We could simply knock down our borders and let in every dolt who doesn't appear to be criminal. In fact, if we did this, programmers in the US would get richer, at least relative to the rest of the population.
Oh I forgot, I'm supposed to be arguing like a fifth grader with insults. OK,
"Day took ur jobs"
"Goobacks"
you happy?
On a separate note, I'm happy to compete with the best and brightest people in the world, here in the USA. If visas aren't raised, we'll just ship the jobs out completely, and the salaries these workers would be making and spending here in America will leave the country completely.
When you get replaced by an H-1b worker who you are forced to train, you will begin to understand.
for those who do not know how they get these h1-b jokers in here, they post a job, in most cases they will actually conduct interviews for local US candidates and select one, but then the offer comes is way too low. Say the position is for an Oracle DBA and they offer $25k/year (good DBAs can get over $100k). Well that is a joke and the candidate(s) reject it and move on. That company then claims they were unable to fill the position locally and get qualified to import a h1-b foreigner. This happens everyday.
Financially, law school is a better deal (even given their larger cost/debt). So it's not surprising that a lot of smart American kids prefer law school or med school to IT, engineering, etc grad school.
1) sharmajunior 's comment is totally off base. On average, the domestically educated engineers I have worked with have been more effective at their jobs. This is not necessarily because they are smarter or better trained or can write more lines of code, but because they tend to have better communication skills, a better understanding of customers, and more willingness to stick their necks out and make their opinions heard.
2) Regardless of the relative quality and availability of domestic and foreign engineers, it's foolish to assert that the H1-B program doesn't hold wages down. Of course it does, and not because H1-B employees are willing to work for peanuts, but because of simple supply and demand. News flash folks - basic economics also applies to the labor market.
3) There are definitely some absolute first-class engineers who come over on the H1-B program. They may not be the majority, or even common, but IMHO we should make every effort to put these top performers on a path to citizenship (assuming they want to become citizens). We should always open our doors for the truly best and brightest. I'm just not sure about the rest.
Get real dude!
His idea to "staple a green card to the diploma" of foreign graduates is not is his own - he is parroting the language of the corporate lobbyists advocating for a greater influx of foreign workers.
John Doerr calls for doubling the number of engineers being turned out by U.S. colleges - but fails to make case that there are any jobs waiting for them. It's odd that, in spite of his role as "venture capitalist," he takes a communist/socialist posture towards the government rather than the free market controlling the labor market.
Charles Cooper has again failed to report on both sides of this issue, and failed to address the objections raised by the U.S. workers who are being impacted and displaced by the H-1b program. He fails to address that companies can sponsor H-1b workers regardless whether qualified Americans apply for these American jobs, and fails to address that the largest users of the H-1b program are Indian consulting firms.
Certainly:
a) Mandate that U.S. universities stop admitting foreign students while turning away the top American HS grad applicants. USC and UC Berkeley are among the schools turning away 4.0 HS grad California residents, while admitting students from countries that are our foreign competition.
b) Reconsider what U.S. interest is being served by bringing in so many foreign students, knowning that a certain number will return and compete directly against the U.S. economy? How is that any different than if Camp Pendelton admitted terrorists for U.S. military training?
c) LET THE FREE MARKET WORK! If there were no H-1b program, U.S. tech wages would rise, making the profession more attractive to the brightest American students. As it stands, the brightest students now reason, "If I ever want to earn six figures and still be employed after age 40, I better go into business, law, or medicine."
www.programmersguild.org/FACTSHEETS/
a) Let them in to study and send them home.
b) Your statement has nothing to do with the subject but who cares. Just don't give them a Green card make them work for it. You don't see Americans running off the work in India do you? Maybe Canada, but thats just north Montana...
c) Its not free if the cmpanies spend millions on lobbiest to change the out come. Free up the government to make these choices freely, ban the lobbiests, and vote with your head.
To be more like France means: make the companies NOT want to hire anybody, because it's VERY difficult and expensive to fire anybody; pay all those non-working immigrants with 10 children welfare, etc?
b) This comparison is ridiculous. Dynamic intellectual exchange is essential to the vibrancy of scientific method and practice. Without it we would get major systemic issues like groupthink which degrade the quality of our education. Incidentally, there are training exchanges within the military and scientific communities.
c) Your entire post rails against the priciples of a free market, and then you are saying let it work?
Free market means that the market forces prompt decisions without the types of interventions you have suggested. The second assumption is also incorrect on more than one level. The brightest student is going to base a decision on a number of factors including their educational strengths, traditional family occupations, location, personal career preferences, lifestyle desired, etc, etc. Also, IT presents a much more stable and certain income than business, law or medicine, and I speak as an American IT professional from a family of lawyers and entrepreneurs, and I am married to a doctor. Business pays less to the median worker; law and medicine require much more time, both while training and time at work. Medicine also requires insurance coverage and other investments that greatly reduce your net income. The extra tuition that you pay and the ridiculously low wages as a resident result in very high opportunity cost... trust me, I do much better than my wife at this stage, and there is no way I would trade my job (stress, hours or pay) for hers.
The xenophobes from the so-called "programmers guild" are rather unqualified.
The bright students would never subscribe to the xenophobic agenda of the so-called "programmers guild."
Do you not see anything wrong with this:
U.S. Department of Labor Strategic plan Fiscal Years 2006-2011
(pg. 35) states:
"... H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker."
http://www.dol.gov/_sec/stratplan/strat_plan_2006-2011.pdf
John Doerr was talking about L-1 visas, not H-1Bs. Last year over 90,000 H-1Bs converted to permanent "green card" status. Over 426,000 H-1B declarations were processed. The salaries and the sponsoring companies are available on-line at http://www.flcdatacenter.com/CaseH1B.aspx
Each one of the applications required at least 2 interviews of unsuspecting American job seekers to show that the sponsors tried to find "qualified" alternatives. That's 1,000,000 fraudulent interviews. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
From the PERM data, you can see that applicants from India are paid 25% less than Brits, Aussies, and Israelies. Not only paid less, but the companies can be seen to cite two different prevailing wages for the same job.
The only growth industry in the US these days is HR. It doesn't require any special talent, degree or qualifications. Go onto LinkedIn to see how many recruiters there are at the next job you're applying to..
Now, why is that?
The actual answer is complicated. Let's begin by stating clearly: The IT talent in this country is still the best in the world, but several factors work against us. 1) US undergrads pay the most in the world. They have the most debt. That makes grad school very hard. 2) I hire, unfortunately, chinese (mostly worthless), indians (occasionally clever, usually not), and all sorts of others. Foreign school system do not produce the creative mind. In most cases, the chinese especially must be led by the nose. Americans are the most innovative and best at new ideas. 3) Most foreign students get into this country and get accepted by schools due to credential fraud. Many many chinese are chinese "doctors." They get this chinese "doctorate" in about 1.4 years. It's a fake credential, but is considered by idiots in the US as equivalent to a US doctor.
There is a lot rotten about H-1B. We need to ELIMINATE the program entirely.
2) US schools are great but only the people who graduate from them will be creative.
3) If they get accepted due to credential fraud, how could they graduate? Are you going to say they're cheating all the way to graduation? If those Chinese PhDs are idiots, those who hire them must also be idiots.
You ask a great question!
"WHy isn't US govt. stopping H1B ? If citizens feel peeved about H1B, govt. should stop it. Are you guys not making your voices heard during election and all ? Vote down the representative who is pro-H1B ."
Unfortunately our elected officials are influenced by lobbyists who come bearing re-election campaign funds.
Note this article where India is sending a group called NASSCOM to washington in March to ensure that any jobs program Obama comes up with does not "stop the joy of theoutsourcing party".
see http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Nasscom_team_set_to_meet_Obama_officials/rssarticleshow/3701602.cms
Hopefully these meetings will be out in the open and not "pay for play" like indian businessman Iftekhar Shareef who held the fund raiser to purchase the senate seat from the Govenor of illinois.
http://www.andhraheadlines.com/%28A%28CJJO5SR5yQEkAAAANTU5YWRkOGQtZThmYy00NDJmLWI2MmItOGM3ZTVjYjYzZjQ4XoIDw2u6LBYt3ifRuhh5zPjANvY1%29%29/NRI/BrowseArticle.aspx?tab=6&ArtID=33697&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
"...Among other concessions, especially for Indians, Mr Shareef would like to press for immigration reforms and issue of higher number H1B visas ".
1) US undergrads do not pay the most in the world. It is not uncommon in China for the whole family fell in debt to send their only child to university.
2) I don't think you really hire any Chinese or Indians. You are an idiot if you hire what you think as worthless. Maybe you are not an idiot, but your jobs can be done by idiots, no doubt your employees are idiots.
3) fake "doctorate" in 1.4 years? Are you kidding? I can buy one in a US school immediately!
There are few US workers in the IT industry for 1-2 years because all the entry level positions go to H-1b workers.
My tennis coach graduated with a degree in IT honors and cannot find a job requiring only a degree.
When was the last time Microsoft and Google held career fairs and recruited from MIT? Last I heard, Google was laying off a ton of workers.
Just 3 months ago: http://career-fair.mit.edu/company_all.php
What is an IT degree? That sounds like a ITT Tech thing... ITT is no MIT.
1)Money: For the last generation and a half (thats todays kids and half of their parents) society has taught us that the only thing worth having is money. Without money you are a failure and a social outcast. When kids who have been brought up this way enter college they look ahead four years and think, what kind of job will I be able to get when I graduate? The answer is "well, not tech; theyre arent any jobs *now*, there sure as hell wont be any in four years."
2) Social perception: When was the last time school homecoming was held for the smart kids instead of the athleticcally successful kids(aka jocks)? Most kids want to be popular; being a "science nerd" or "computer geek" is not a way to being popular. Notice how its OK to be a sports geek or a car geek, just not anything tech related.
3) Religion: Most of America's most popular religions are stridently anti-intellectual. Mostly this is because smart people wont pay their life savings to a good looking guy in an expensive suit who says God will give them $10 for every $1 he is given. So these "churches" preach subtle hatred toward smart people. And these deceived people go on to raise children who have been taught that while technology is good, learning it is bad. And God will hate you for it.
Its much better to be a lawyer or a clueless pointy-haired boss.
You could say this about any profession. If we passed a special visa for plumbers, and protected everyone else, the typical car salesman with a clogged drain could say--not only are the extra plumbers unclogging drains cheaply, but they stimulate the economy by buying cars (and raising my commissions--and the prices of cars!) To the car salesman, in this case, it looks great.
But what does the plumber see? Lower wages and higher priced cars. "Stimulating the economy" from his perspective, is inflation--for the number of goods did not increase, only the number of consumers.
If "stimulating the economy" by flooding the labor market is a good idea then you should have ten kids. This is a flawed arguement.
Fact is, programmers would be better having one job go overseas to one programmer over there, than by bringing that same programmer over here. Outsourcing is somewhat inevitable, and they can defend against it by specializing in what cannot be outsourced (small projects with frequently changing specs.) With outsourcing, an American job is lost; with H-1B a job is lost. However, with H-1B, programmers also get inflation and higher prices on everything they buy.
If you have problem VOTE otherwise don't complain. In current economy they have more people and less work so why hire outsider..no go figure that..
when gas price was so high nobody complain or protest of any kind (fill half tank or manage somehow but don't make voice) . In US people will do that work go home and come back..otherwise Bush has no chance of coming back for 2nd term to create so much problem..
anyways enough is said in press and else where...waste of time
You would be surprised at how many politicians will just accept large campaign donations to spout things that don't make any sense.
I cringe when I hear politicians say "we don't have a worker shortage, we have a skills shotage" and just expect this statement to be taken as fact, even as we hear of mass layoffs of IT workers being forced to train their replacements.
If a US worker is training an H-1B worker, it is the H-1b worker who needed the training.
Suggesting that we take 4 years to educate former assembly line auto workers with a bachelor's degree and other specific IT courses would be a program guaranteed to fail, which the H-1b lobbyists would love.
Keep this in mind. By Indian law, US workers cannot go to India to compete but our H-1b laws allow Indians to come here to compete. Does this seem fair to anyone listening?
Instead of training foreign students, train US students.
If the reward is there they will come. Foreign students flock to US students because the reward is a green card. US students do not need a green card.
The incentive would be a high paying job waiting at the end of studies.
The H-1B program bringing in a glut of foreign workers lowers the salaries and makes that incentive disappear.
What part of this do you not understand? "
The part that he is not an independent journalist but rather a mouthpeice for a boss that with a political agenda? Boss says write something about H-1B, and your opinion is--and he does.
CNET is a member of a very well-known tech lobbying organization and will not generate unbiased articles about H-1B. And secondly--it doesn't matter if his opinion is popular--vile opinions that everyone hates also generate traffic. So it's a win-win to write articles like this. Who knows what the author REALLY thinks.
That said (and yes, it stinks that this can be passed off as journalism--its as if CBS News had a board member sitting on the Democratic or GOP national committe--bogus) here's the flaws in his arguement that noone seems to care about:
1. We live in a country that protects 99% of all Americans wages from foreign competion. Everyone's except bean pickers and programmers.
2. Economics don't consider making one-by-one exceptions to an otherwise protectionist policy free trade.
3. Indians are starting to have doubts about coming here specifically because of the unfair treatment that progammers get after arrival. You'll be wealthier (at least numerically, but not in terms of other people's wages) as a small fish in a big pond than as a big fish in a small one--but--it's not very much fun.
4. Numeric wealth doesn't matter when it comes to status in society (which is a major component of happyness.) Relative wealth does. An Indian programmer (in India) has a much higher status in his society than an American programmer or an H-1B.
5. American programmers are underpaid. The person who said programmers make double the national average wage is ignoring two very important facts. First, programming is difficult, and there's professions that are less difficult (nurse, police officer, in some cases--truck driver and car mechanic) that pay as well or better. Second, in 95% of the world countries, programmers make ten times the average wage, not two. That includes India.
6. The above fact is a direct result of our immigration policy deliberately selecting programmers. It is not a natural result of economics.
7. If you want to be a third world country, be a third world country. But a free-market one. Open up the gates and let the whole stinking world in if they wish to come in. But don't deliberately select programmers.
8. There is no need to fill up comp-sci classes with foreigners when we're declining top-scoring Americans from our Ivy League schools on the basis of race. (Admittedly these Americans, if they were admitted, would not have chosen a comp-sci major if it underpays.) The answer is this: stop admitting foreign students simply because they choose tech major and give top-scoring Americans who were declined for "diversity" reasons a chance to reapply if they agree to include a comp-sci major or minor in their studies.
We shouldn't be educating foreigners with taxpayer dollars if Americans scored equally high and were declined for political reasons.
Thanks for the insult. Clicking on your name reveals you insult nearly everyone. You apparently believe that 2% of America is not in the upper 2% of intelligence. While Asians do score slightly higher (on average) I suggest you re-read the bell curve or an IQ study before jumping to the conclusion that 2% of Americans (5 million people) aren't smart enough to go to Ivy League schools. 1% of Americans--2.5 million people, about 600,000 of which are in their twenties right now--are definately smart enough for the graduate school programs at Ivy League schools.
My grammar mistakes when typing in a little box in the middle of the night aside--I should mention--I scored in the 99th percentile on the SATs. I would have gotten into Havard easily as an undergrad if I could pay.
I also scored ABOVE Harvards mean on my GMAT. While they weren't "eagerly waiting my app" they would have admitted me in the absense of affirmative action.
Care to insult someone else without those scores? Thanks.
Oh and your last insult "my friend who used to work at McDonald's is applying for an entry-level IT job" you dealt someone else clearly reveals you are not an American. People who used to work at McDonalds or Wendys or Burger King are now lawyers, professors, and yes--some of them work in IT as well.
Your insults don't prove America has a shortage of smart people; it proves that many H-1Bs are closet racist jerks.
I "would have" gotten into Havard easily as an undergrad if I could pay.
They "would have" admitted me in the absense of affirmative action.
BTW, your last reply looked much more like an insult. Look at the mirror first before you blame on others.
I "would have" gotten into Havard easily as an undergrad if I could pay.
They "would have" admitted me in the absence of affirmative action."
Yeah, joelam. I need to make excuses for myself. Every stinking person walks up to me asks, why don't you have a PhD from Havard? That happens 100 times a day. Trust me.
Not.
I have a graduate degree from a top-30 school. And people don't usually question obvious statements such as "most schools accept applicants who score above the mean of the entering class, in the absence of any other considerations." That should be pretty obvious given what the definition of what a school is, what an application process is, and what a mean is.
One other thing about grad school--my MBA program had plenty of foreigners. I don't think they scored above all other available applicants (they did score above the average of the entering class--but they most certainly did not all score at the top.) The program was going to have a certain percentage of foreigners no matter what as they added an "international flavor" to the program.
I'm white; I scored about 60 points above the school's average GMAT. Many white males who scored right at the average were probably rejected.
Another interesting tidbit: many of the foreigners in my MBA program had to return home after graduation. The reason: non-technical business majors don't get visas as easily as techies.
Clicking on your name, once again, reveals a pattern of "arguing via insult." So here's an insult, joelam. Since you're so scarce and so needed, show me an SAT and a GRE/GMAT/LSAT that 500,000 Americans didn't already beat.
Fact is we'll get buy just fine without you. Or with you. But you're not desperately needed, trust me.
I do agree that there are many talented and hard working people on H1-B visas.
But the simple fact of the matter is, as a software contractor I had to take a 35% pay cut simply to stay working. Why? Because at my new position at Verizon Wireless I am the ONLY native English speaker in my software group and the rate they are paying seems like a princely sum to many.
Never mind the fact that I have double the experience of anyone in the group, I had to take the pay cut or Verizon would simply have filled it with someone willing to move halfway across the country for the same money I was getting paid when I entered the industry 13 years ago.
http://www.southampton.liu.edu/news/commence/1996/kermit.htm
Most tech company CEOs nowadays have degrees, in business management. You see, the high ranking management jobs are still in the hands of Americans excel in money making.
The suggestion to increase the number of engineering graduates to 60,000 discounts that the ASEE and National Center for Education Statistics for 2006 have the total number of BS engineering graduates at over 74,000. Even with new math the number of graduates already exceeds the number quoted as being needed.
According to the Bureau of Labor statistics (http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#projections_data), the number of engineers added to the workforce between 2006 and 2016 is a total of 160,000 or an average of 16,000 per year.
BS candidates pursuing a graduate degree are assumed to be counted with their BS grqaduating class for a very simple analysis, With 74,000 BS graduates for new 16,000 jobs that leaves 58,000 graduates for replacements for retirement and others leaving the field. It certainly appears that there is an excess of engineering graduates if these numbers are valid.
Numbers for the computer occupation become more blurred since there is no distinction made in the BLS data for jobs requiring an Associates Degree and Vo-tech certification or for BS degrees in the business tracks (MIS, CIS, MBA, etc) . These business specialties are not sorted in the statistics I have available.
Before people claim that more engineers or computer specialists are needed, they need to look at the numbers - the official projections of need. From my analysis with just published data, the number of US graduates less a fraction attributed to foreign nationals, is adequate for the projections of new plus replacement engineering and computer specialists without any H1B visas. If just 50% of the H1B visas are in these specialties, the additional 42,500 employees per year displaces citizens from the new and replacement jobs in the engineering and computer specialties.
- by CanadianKat December 15, 2008 12:32 AM PST
- Like they said in South Park-- "they took our jobs!" Well, I mean, I'm one of those evil H-1Bers you guys are complaining about, so, as a cat macro might say... "I'm in ur country, taking ur jobs!"
- Reply to this comment
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- by wshun0 December 16, 2008 3:56 AM PST
- Agree! It is now USA become the world's only superpower- by stealing the best scientists from all over the world. Amusingly, most Americans do not realize this.
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Showing 1 of 3 pages (131 Comments)Ah, well. Truth be told, the Canadian government doesn't much like it, either-- you Americans "steal" away some of our best educated talent, education paid for by the Canadian tax-base.