Comments on: Will H-1B caps force the next Google to open in Vancouver?
The window for tech firms to apply for new H-1B visas opens today; Google and others say raising the annual limits is necessary to keep U.S. companies innovative.
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>> Pablo Chavez, senior policy counsel, and
>> Keith Wolfe, global mobility manager.
Same old refrain, yet a lot of indicators show the job market is quite poor for software engineers. The most telling point for me is that the most H1-B visa holders they want are right out of college which puts a lie to the "can't find the skilled people" argument.
The fact is that companies can pay H1-B holders less. The skillset exists in the US, but the companies want to pay less.
I'm all for H1-B visa for true immigrants, and if the program changed to require subsidized citizenship applications by employers I would endorse it completely. But adding more H1-B applications so companies can pay less for a while until a foreign born worker returns home doesn't make sense for this country.
who are over 30.
However, it is quite good for good people. It is pretty much impossible to find good software engineers.
THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS THAT AMERICAN PROGRAMMERS (ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF THE PROGRAMMERS GUILD) ARE BORN WITH GENETIC CODES IN THEIR BRAINS SO THE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES THEY OFFER CAN'T BE DONE ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD.
THEY ARE SIMPLY THE BEST, AND IF YOU DISAGREE WITH THAT, YOU ARE A TRAITOR JUST LIKE THOSE CORPORATE MONEYBAGS WHO ARE TRYING TO DESTROY AMEdICA.
THIS IS JUST A PLOY BY GOOGLE TO KEEP ENGINEER SALARIES LOW AND DESTROY THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS..
WHY DONT THEY TRAIN UNEMPLOYED AMERICAN ENGINEERS WITH ALL THE MONEY THEY WILL GIVE AWAY TO THESE FORINERRS..
I AM A COMPUTER ENGINEER TOO.. WITH A DEGREE FROM DEWRY UNIVERSITY.. AND I SENT ERIC SHMIDT MY RESUME AND HE DIDNT EVEN BOTHER TO REPLY.. WHAT A SCHMUK.. I EVEN KNOW HOW TO USE THE CAPS LOCK KEY ON MY KEYBOARD.. YET THEY JUST WANT TO TAKE THIS JOB THAT BELONGS TO ME AND **** GIVE IT AWAY **** TO A FOREUNNER FROM SOME PIP SQUEAK COUNTRY LIKE INDIA OR CHINA..
THIS IS BECAUSE WE ALLOWED FORENNUERS TO TAKE OVER OUR AMERICAN COMPANIES IN THE FIRST PLACE.. WE SHOULD KICK OUR SERGEI BRIN AND ALL HIS ILLEGAL ALIEN FRIENDS FIRST.. THEY ARE TRYING TO DESTROY THE AMEdICAN MIDDLE CLASS !!! @!#!@$$$#! TRAITORS..
IDIOT. I'd ask you to go screw yourself, but even with CAPS on, I don't think you've got the size to get the job done.
Excuse me, is that a trade school just like ITT Tech?
My company's resume software has a filter specifically designed to screen the resumes submitted by the candidates who go to those fake schools.
For real truth about the invasion & over-population, goto numbersusa.com or capsweb.org.
CA is not an office park.
graduate from high school in the USA. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080401/lf_afp/useducationsoc
iety
You'd known the truth if you had attended graduate school in a
decent university in the US. In reality 3 out of 4 graduate
students are from outside the US (mostly, India, China, Taiwan,
Korea) so, they have a technical edge over US students. And,
that is the reason they are in such a high demand even during
the recession.
Your post shows very nicely why we need more foreigners here who actually have an education.
May I suggest going back to school and actually listening to the teacher instead of taking drugs???
THEN H1BS, THEN GREEN CARD HOLDERS..
MAY BE WE CAN THEN TAKE ON THE REAL VILLAIN IN THIS PIECE, ARNOLD SHWARZZNEGER. IF A THIRD WORLD FORENNUR CANT PROGRAM, HE SURE AS HELL CANT BE GOVERNOR..
YOU NAILED IT ON THE HEAD DUDE !! THE FEDERAL GOVT. SHOULD SET THE MINIMUM WAGE FOR GRADUATES (ONLY AMERICAN GRADUATES) AT $150,000 PER YEAR.
ACCORDING TO MY DETAILED CALCULATIONS, THATS THE AMOUNT YOU NEED TO MAINTAIN A LIFE STYLE CONSISTENT WITH THE AMOUNT OF EFFORT REQUIRED FOR A GRADUATE DEGREE.
THIS IS THE ONLY WAY WE CAN MAKE SURE WE HAVE THE NEXT GENERATION OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS READY FOR WORK, RIGHT HERE IN THE US OF A.
GOD BLESS AMEDICA. :-)
WELL, YOU ARE THE GUYS WHO GET ALL THESE FANCY SHMANCY DEGREES, WILLING TO WORK LONGER HOURS, DONT CHANGE JOBS AS OFTEN.. CAN ONE REALLY BLAME AMERICAN CORPORATIONS ? NO DUDE.. NO.. ITS ALL YOUR FAULT.. REALLY. AND THAT OF CHINDIA.
===========
Sure, if you want to beat us, get those "fancy degrees" too. Work long hours, be more productive.
This is a capitalist country, remember? The best man wins! Whiners or Devry graduates like you can go to Russia. :)
Especially considering, we must provide for the ones here not producing and the ones that came and decided not to produce all the while continuing to import labor and exporting the value of our nation.
=======
Given this analogy, I think its safe to kick out US companies that have set base in India. Coke and Pepsi have killed hundreds of local businesses with their capitalistic business model.
Yet, nobody really complained in India. And now that something similar is happening on US soil, Americans are complaining! What hypocrisy! Whatever happened to capitalism and free market?
If a company wants to hire a smart person, it should be free to do so without geographical barriers. Every company wants to save money, so H1-Bs are a good fit. Yeah, if American companies want to spread globally, then Americans should allow foreign-born H1-B workers with open arms. :)
In America, I have to compete with job applicants from India, China, Europe and Canada.
As an American, however, I don't get access to India, China, Europe and Canada. Their governments protect their markets with restrictive visas, work quotas, and practices designed to discourage foreign laborers from entering their skilled markets.
Yet all those countries seem to demand that the only market I can easily work in be opened up to unlimited competition, even as they slam the doors in the faces of skilled Americans seeking to enter the so-called "global economy."
Americans can compete with the best the world has to offer -- but we should do so on a level playing field. America should impose visa reciprocity rules on various countries, treating their nationals with the same rules they treat our nationals. It's the only solution.
Anybody in technology can tell you that's not happening. In fact, wages for skilled technology workers have barely budged since the late 1990s -- even as the cost of living in tech hubs like Silicon Valley and Boston have soared.
You'd figure the free marketeers behind this latest push to sell out our country's future would pay attention to this little ideological inconvenience.
But as long as tech wages are stagnant; office parks in tech hubs are empty; and skilled user interface gurus, development engineers, and others over 35 are unemployed or underemployed (we all know lots of people in this situation), the facts don't lie. The "shortage of skilled tech workers" is about as true as "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
Get back to me when tech wages are increasing 8% a year and computer science graduates from everyday universities are swamped with job offers. Those sorts of numbers will indicate a "shortage."
FIRST WE SHOULD KICK OUT H1BS, THEN THESE COMPANIES SHOULD BE FORCED TO PAY US BACK WAGES AT INFLATION ADJUSTED 99 DOLLAHS.
AND YEAH, THERE SHOULD BE A MINIMUM WAGE FOR AMERICAN TECH WORKERS, SET AT $150,000/YEAR FOR ENTRY LEVEL POSITIONS. (I DID DETAIL RESEARCH AND CALCULATIONS TO ARRIVE AT THIS NUMBER. INFLATION ADJUSTED, THATS WHAT THE RATE FOR AN ENTRY LEVEL ENGINEER WAS IN 1999)
IT workers need to unionize, that is the only way we are going to be heard, and treated fairly. Otherwise the greedy corperates are just going to sell us all out.
If these companies seriously thought there was a real shortage, why don't they try to recruit american students, attending these universities? Why don't they encourage american students into IT and CS programs, offer incentives, tuition grants, etc? Big corperations are cutting degree programs, not increasing them, so there lies the hard evidence of their lies.
They cry shortage, but what they really mean is that they still have several american IT workers they want to get rid of for cheaper H1-B's. That is what they are doing, right now. The more they get the more americans they can lay off and pocket the difference.
Its so bad right now, I feel like its not even just the money, its like they do not want americans to understand technology, so they can use it against us.
I have over 25 years of programming experience, dozens of languages, nearly every platform and OS out there, and experienced in 100's of applications, and I have been turned down for IT jobs that I was way over qualified for. The only way I have kept myself employed is by not being in a purely 'IT' role, but rather adjacent technical roles, where IT skills are not the only requirements.
If there's such a shortage of skilled technology workers, then how come technology wages have stagnated for the past nine years?
Shortages ALWAYS lead to higher prices. If there truly was a shortage of technology workers, then tech salaries would be sky-high and most graduates with tech degrees would have no problems with job security.
But neither is the case.
No getting around that simple fact.
YEAH MAN !! WHAT WE NEED IS AN INCOME PEG. WE NEED TO PEG THE WAGES TO 1999 LEVELS, AND ADJUST THEM FOR COST OF LIVING EVERY 6 MONTHS, AND THROW IN A 3% HIKE OVER AND ABOVE THAT. WE SHOULD DEMAND BACK WAGES FROM OUR GREEDY CORPORATIONS TOO..
ITS CLEAR THAT WAGES HAVE STAGNATED SINCE 1999.. THOSE WERE THE DAYS MAN.. I MISS THEM TOO. I HAD JUST LEARNED HOW TO CREATE MY WEBPAGE IN HTML, AND A COMPANY HIRED ME FOR 90 GRAND MAN !! AND THEY GAVE ME STOCK OPTIONS TOO ! THATS HOW MY SKILLS WERE VALUED BACK THEN.
TOO BAD, OSAMBY CRASHED THOSE PLANES AND THE H1 LIMIT WAS RAISED TO 195,000.. ALL THAT CAUSED THE STOCK MARKET TO TANK ALONG WITH AMERICAN WAGES.
IN FACT, HERES A BETTER IDEA, INSTEAD OF PEGGING WAGES, WE SHOULD PEG STOCK PRICES OF TECH COMPANIES AT 1999 LEVELS.. THAT WAY, THEY WONT FEEL THE PRESSURE OF BEING PROFITABLE..
THAT WILL SURELY CREATE MORE JOBS FOR AMERICANS, WONT IT ?
If you follow their line of thinking, it's probably not a shortage of skilled tech workers, but a shortage of skilled tech workers _at a market-clearing salary_.
Sure, if you pay programmers $1,000,000 a year, you'll have lines stretching across the state. (Don't tell my editors, but I'll quit my job at News.com and sign up too.)
The problem is that $1M is not economic to pay U.S. programmers given that someone in India will do excellent work for $20,000.
So if you're MS, Google, Yahoo, etc., and you can afford to pay $100K a year for a programmer/engineer in the U.S., but you can't find someone qualified who's willing to take the job, what do you do? There's a strong incentive to move the job overseas, so that's what you may do.
Gates et al are scumbags.
YEAH MAN !! HE MADE ALL OF HIS MONEY IN THE US, AND IS NOW GIVING IT AWAY TO PROJECTS IN AFRICA AND ASIA.. IF HE MADE HIS MONEY FROM US, WE DESERVE IT MORE THAN THEY DO !!
WE NEED TO KEEP AMERICAN MONEY IN AMERICA..
WE NEED TO KEEP AMERICAN JOBS IN AMERICA.
THATS THE ONLY WAY AMEDICA CAN BE GREAT AGAIN !
GOD BLESS AMERICA.
With your comment about certain people being scumbags you only show that you don't have any education. No wonder you can't get a job.
And just to further your education, people on H1 have to be paid the same as Americans.
Meanwhile, these jobs go unfilled waiting for graduates?
Or they permanently go overseas?
The pathetic state of high schools in America simply do not produce people capable of entering these programs without a lot of remedial work. If a freshman can not walk into a calculus class on his or her first day of college and be able to pass, he/she needs remedial work, which can take a year or more to get to the most basic level of mathematics training.
How many HS seniors are ready for that? 10% is an optimistic number.
And yes kids, Calculus is really the lowest level of college mathematics, anything before that is remedial work.
Don't believe me? What are the first two to three courses required in a mathematics degree program? Hint: It is not algebra.
THEY JUST WANT TO HIRE SOME H1 WHO WILL WORK CHEAPER THAN US AND LONGER HOURS..
HOW CAN WE MAINTAIN AN AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE IF WE ARE MADE TO COMPETE WITH THESE THIEVES AND BEGGARS ?
WE SHOULD THROW OUT THESE H1S AND REPLACE THEM WITH AMERICAN KIDS.. MOST OF THE TECH JOBS DONT NEED ANYTHING BEYOND A HIGH SCHOOL DEGREE ANYWAY.. WE'LL DO ALRITE WITHOUT THESE H1 PHDS AND MASTERS.
THATS THE ONLY WAY WE CAN SAVE THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE.
GOD BLESS AMERICA.
Second, it is about qualified people. Sure, it is possible to find slackers who managed to graduate with the help of grade inflation. It hard, though, to find people who can actually do the work.
They live here, you know, so they have to spend quite some money here, e.g., for apartment/house, food, car, etc.
And since they are college graduates and earn quite a lot of money, they won't be living in crappy areas of town...
http://www.scragged.com/articles/the-other-immigration-idiocy.aspx
explains that the colleges are setting up campuses overseas so the students won't have to come here, ever.
This is terminally stupid, but the bureaucracy doesn't care. They have taxing power to fund themselves, so the bureaucracy is the last element of the society to collapse.
WHY not open such office in any of the US cities where because home prices are at a small fraction of home prices in Vancouver salaries will be that much lower as well.
AND then invest some of these savings in supporting Universal Health care and Universal Education in US which will result in many more Americans being able to go to college to be highly educated so companies like Google do not need to take advantage of the Tax payers in Canada and Europe whose Taxes make Universal (free) Health Care and Education possible for their people and thus their people so desirable to big US corporations like Google.
For more about why lack of Universal Health Care and Education are TWO of the reasons why US economy is so hurting compared to European or Canadian economies as EVIDENT by Euro and Canadian Dollar that have gained an amazing 60% vs US Dollar over last 7 years check out this Blog here:
www.anoox.com/blog/real_news
Dont be silly - even most third world countries can manage that.
Mind you, I guess that explains why all you Americans have such terrible teeth.
And as the Indians begin to enjoy a new level of wealth, they're going to improve their economy and create new demand for products and services. And resultingly, higher salaries. (I hear of one Indian firm that does outsourcing for an American company who now hires Americans living in the US to do some inbound phone calls.)
Eventually the increase salary demands of Indians push the outsourcing elsewhere... maybe even eventually Africa and the Middle East.
And that, too, will create demands and spread capitalism.
...
And to the person who complains that visa holders just send all their money home, what about these big colleges building campuses in other countries. Do they not send the money home to the US?
"Do they not send the money home to the US?"
No, they don't. Or at least nothing significant. Do you really think that very much of their staff and faculty is American? Think again.
But that wouldn't be good business practices now would it?
- We can stop them, IT workers UNIONIZE!
- by chash360 April 3, 2008 7:44 PM PDT
- A labor union can stop this, its time IT workers unite!
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (148 Comments)If you want to have any future in IT, this will have to happen, otherwise the entire field will be turned over to migrant workers!