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As layoffs grow by thousands in Silicon Valley and beyond, tech companies still say they still need access to skilled foreign talent.
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Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. A graduate of Queens College and Columbia University, Cooper received the Excellence in Journalism award from the Northern California branch of the Society for Professional Journalists for column writing.
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Meanwhile, visa holders are tied to the companies that hire them. If they do anything to get fired, it's back on the next plane home. So they work 60 or 70 hours a week, and never speak up. Then management complains because American workers want to have a life outside work before the kids forget who they are.
They need to scrap the whole program and start over.
Having said that, I think companies like Infosys are abusing the system so the H1-B program needs to be revamped, though that does not mean reducing the number of available slots necessarily.
I dont think, wcrosby, u r educated enough to comment on this topic. You r just pissed off on somebody and just commenting off rage and I m sorry for sounding rude but thrs no other way to put it.
Another thing, H1B ppl pay taxes, social security, medicare, they invest in market, to be precise they are very much part of the economical system. And American economy has always worked on immigration, getting the best of the people frm world and make thm contribute.
wht I feel, the bigger menace is illegal immigrants, they use all the resources and dont even pay taxes, but the only difference is tht they do lowly jobs which some ppl would not want to do because they wants to be a manager just after bachelors just like in Mcdonalds. to say it directly, education is very important, reducing the cost of education so that kids go to school for further studies thn just working at McDonalds for years after graduation.
I have one of my friend he graduated from purdue at lafayette with bachelors in aeronautical sciences and he now works in a cell phone company, why, coz the education is so costly and he cudnt find job in his field just after BS bcoz companies dont want to teach a lot of new recruits, thr r universities for tht, so he is saving up to go to school. But he doesn't blame H1B.
Its time for change, its time to accept the flaws, and change starts from yourself.
It's ironic that you find fault with wcrosby's education and yet what you posted is horribly difficult to read.
I'm not qualified to judge between you as to whether most, many, or all H1-B visa holders pay taxes. My guess is that wcrosby knows about specific cases in which a staffing company brings foreigners to the US on H1-B visas, but manages to put terms in the contracts that permit releasing them and returning them home at a frequency which just denies them residency status. If that's the case, then they very well might use a hole in the system to their advantage and avoid paying taxes. (That, by the way, is what wcrosby meant by "gaming the system.")
Should we not allow nurses from other countries because there are lay offs in the banking industry?
Should hospitals that are forced to lay off janitors also lay off their nurses from foreign countries. If there's no relation, then companies should be allowed to apply for H1Bs for business units that were not impacted by the layoffs.
The current unemployment rate is estimated to be 7-8% in the US. This equates to millions of people who could fill the positions you describe. Nursing requires some training, but not so much that an unemployed person couldn't complete training in the basic skills within two years, give or take a few months. If I recall correctly, a basic CNA course is only a few months long.
One last thing. Next time; please verify your facts before commenting - Sen. Grassley is a US senator from Iowa.
It's a cheap shot to target H1B visas, when they're capped at 65,000 a year. After all, software companies didn't start this economic downturn, and if you don't want to export the jobs outside of the US and remove their tax and spending base from the national GDP, then it's fairly clear that the criticism is misplaced.
Of course, abuse of the system is ripe & one does not have to look beyond Infosys, TCS (both Indian firms) for this. However , the one great simple fact remains they are ready to work for cheap!! If that is not capitalism I do not know what is. Americans demand hire salaries and benefits for similar work. I ask the simple question Why?? Its no longer the 80's or 90's where tech was so complex only a few could do it, tech for tech projects has become simple and convenient so that it's easier to do these things. Courses in schools are so ridiculously easy in many schools that few are prepared for science courses and degrees in college. Americans have such good facilities when it comes to education but they are squandered. I did my MS in this country and I had such a great time compared to my undergraduate engineering degree back in my country, I always thought that with such good facilities every kid must be dying to work in the lab or perform cool experiments. Alas, when I did my TA work, the pittance of students in science and engineering courses compared to overall population was eye opening. The students when they do come out realize that are definitely elite and think they deserve higher pay , when the truth is that unless you are doing some research in some really cutting edge fields your work is probably pretty simple and requires just a sound and clear logical mind. It's time for America to wake up to this fact, tools for IT have gotten pretty easy to use and they should pay their tech people a lot less and then perhaps America can compete and not rely on H1B workers to get their job done.
There are less US students pursuing technical careers because they can also see this trend. Why go into a field of study that will not help you build a long-term career.
I disagree with the view that the loss of H1B would mean the loss of any tech advantage we have.
My perspective is that our tech advantage began its decline as we brought in more H1B workers and outsourced more work. No offense intended but I do not see the level of curiosity and creativity in my H1B workers as I did my US workers. This creativity in IT and a close partnership with the business helped provide our company with a technical edge over others. That edge is on the decline and I fear that we may end up being just another face in the crowd.
I have nothing against bringing in more foreign workers, but give them real rights, like green card holders (nobody is complaining about them, because employers discriminate against green card holders and citizens equally in giving preference to H1Bs). Also, while some are well-qualified, many are no more qualified than American workers (if not less so), meaning the justification that there aren't any qualified Americans is likely false - there just aren't enough Americans with those skills willing to work for the same salary as a receptionist (no offense to receptionists). A sizable fraction of visa applications also have fraudulent or at least inflated resumes, particularly for education or work experience from outside the US.
What is holding wages down is the ability to pay visa holders lower salaries, as well as outsourcing (much of which is to domestic visa holders employed by contract employers). And this isn't a matter of turning one's nose up at anything below $100,000/yr; many people in tech fields are being offered salaries not much better than minimum wage (assuming minimum wage had been properly adjusted for inflation over the last 30-40 years). Also, the notion that competing in a global economy means we will all be poorer is immediately belied by the fact that the richest 5% of Americans are still getting richer - MUCH richer - at everyone else's expense. It's not that there isn't enough money to make us all wealthier, it's that only a small fraction of people are getting those gains. This isn't the fault of anyone in India or China or wherever, but it does factor into Americans' attitudes.
I have nothing against bringing in more foreign workers, but give them real rights, like green card holders, so they won't be exploited (nobody is complaining about them, because employers discriminate against green card holders and citizens equally in giving preference to H1Bs). Also, while some are well-qualified, many are no more qualified than American workers (if not less so), meaning the justification that there aren't any qualified Americans is likely false - there just aren't enough Americans with those skills willing to work for the same salary as a receptionist (no offense to receptionists). (And again, it becomes true by making the market unappealing to Americans, cutting off the pipeline of new employees in that field and siphoning many of those already in the field off into other fields with better pay.) A sizable fraction of visa applications also have fraudulent or at least inflated resumes, particularly for education or work experience from outside the US.
As for Capitalism the job market and economic market are not so different from the battle for renewable fuels vs oil.
Under one paradigm capitalism can be viewed like farming where the market is a renewable resource where it is grown, cultivated, and harvested continually. Under the farming paradigm companies have senior resources mentor younger IT workers in a form of continual renewal of skills and training. By employing many people in the target market for living wages and other companies doing the same the product sales market is continually fueled with hearty wage earners to buy product. This has the best sustainable outcome, but cultivation costs so returns are slow and modest, in other words not much opportunity for making big management bonuses.
Under a different paradigm Capitalism can be more like oil where resources are seem as limited and its about grabbing low hanging fruit before others do. This is about sucking the cheapest, wherever you can get it and when that source is gone move on to a new one, empty wells be damned. If outsourced workers get too expensive go offshore, if those get to expensive then offshore to somewhere else. Meanwhile operating in declining markets means continually lowering of product costs continually to keep sales going, even if quality has to be lowered as part of the equation. This system has the greatest chance for quick and large gains (and big management bonuses!) as opportunity is grasped, but since nothing is put back into the target market sales opportunities dry out leading to bankruptcies.
A few decades ago the farming paradigm was working great, but then due "exuberant" stock bubbles wages and prices were thrown out of whack. Then some companies got hold of cheap foreign labor and goods which upset the system further driving all companies to do the same to compete. The result is the system of mentorship and continual growth has been broken, and every company is doing a power grab for the cheapest of anything. Now the economy is taking the hit as markets have been deprived of wage earners forcing economies to reel back creating fear and thus further economic decline. This will continue till balance is restored to markets insuring enough wage earners are available at sufficient wages to buy products. Otherwise it will deteriorate to market collapse where a few rich will survive, and the poor will perform labor, in other words complete collapse of the middle class everyone in the world so desperately wants to be part of.
H1Bs, offshoring, sweat shops, cheap credit, risky loans and the rest are just tools of exploitation to take from a market without investing into it. Sadly when a market is not treated as renewable it ceases to be renewable, hence the an economic meltdown.
The fact remains that very, very few HS graduates couldn't even get through the preq calculus and physics courses much less the automata and algorithm courses.
They simply don't have the background and are too lazy to work hard. That is why people coast in the business department, because it leaves them time to spend half their college years in an alcoholic haze. CS doesn't.
I remember a recruiter for a company that was interested in me noticed I didn't have any accent on the phone (I have a Slavic last name that could sound Indian to some perhaps). After they realized I was really a US citizen they quickly lost interest! I could not believe it.
I think part of the problem is that recruitment in tech is basically gone. They've totally lost it. They don't know what they're doing, don't know how to hire the right people, they don't want to put any effort into finding the right people, they definitely don't want to put any effort into training anyone. What the hell happened to training and mentorship? They don't know what to do so they just ask Infosys to throw them a few warm bodies and hope it fills their need.
- H1B versus Outsourcing. Which is better for you ?
Some points to ponder over:
. once a job is bangalored, it's gone forever. A H1B, still keeps it within reach.
. H1B pays taxes in US. Bangalor'd pays in Bangalore.
. H1B is a skilled person (unlike an illegal immigrant). By imporing the skills, you raise the skills available in US. otherwise you raise the skills available overseas.
. Imagine: If all bangalore engineers were given H1B as soon as they finished college, how would infosys exist ?
So again - bangalore vs h1b : who is the lesser evil ?
2) Why companies can't ration H1b ?
. First they get rid of H1Bs who are working as contractors.
. Then they close down projects (now both H1bs and regular employees get fired).
. tracking and maintaining H1b vs regular is not an easy task when specially they've spent some good amount in finding the right fit.
3) Is H1B really willing to work cheap ?
. Yes and no.
. Yes, they get lower salaries (70-100k) than regular employees (90-120k)
. But after adding the overheads (30-40k) charged by the "body-shopping companies"; h1b to an IT company comes to the same as a regular employee or more (100-140k).
. And they are the first ones to go.. only their "termination of contract" is not reported as "firing" as they are (probably) still employed with the body shopper.
Not true by a LOOOOONNNNNGGGGG shot. They had 3 people doing my job in India and the work was still getting done slow and poorly. Thus they fired 3 people and hired me. I get the work done much faster and way better quality. You just can't outsource everything but you can try and fail. Outsourcing is for lower skilled jobs to save money it will never replace time differences, quality of work, speed of work, language barriers, etc. that are seen with outsourcing. Lots of companies are pulling stuff back from over seas because of this. That's why H1-B is becomming a bigger issue. They pull work from our seas to H1-B visa instead of allowing an American to fill that spot for money reasons. Pull the H1-B and we can start helping qualified American's get jobs again.
I run an outsourcing company here in US and I?ve been in this business last few years now. I read the previous comments and i think there are few good points. However i would like to express some of my ideas particularly we work in this field daily basis, First i don't think that H1B visas benefit this country anyhow, the fact is that companies who can outsource or bring their operations overseas have already done this. The corporate need for money is the main factor here and companies go for H1B visas because they need these people here in US rather that working overseas for them. Also H1B visa means clear drop in quality and development and i have this in numbers and i know its fact! We had a company who let go their American workers who were highly educated here in US and were really top people in their field, the company then bought in 20 people some just graduated school from Asia...
the people they brought in were not up to standards and the company actually lost money in production and development but they were still continuing keep their H1B because their salaries were just so much cheaper. Why? It?s all money... if there would not be H1B i personally think America tech industry would be even better off because America has excellent universities and standard of education but companies would replace almost anyone for cheaper cost if they only could. Don?t get me wrong am not an American but just sharing something i deal everyday... American company does not care about American they care about money, there are rare exceptions but there is no such thing like shortage of brains in US if there would be demand for those brains inside US.
If the rest of the world is so full of awesome talent, then why are foreign workers so eager to leave that environment to come to the poor US? Is is charity?
And second, what was the name of that last great technology to come out of India or China and take the world by storm? Can't think of it? That's right, there wasn't any.
1) outsourcing is more bogeyman than actuality. There are jobs that simply cannot be outsourced, unless you enjoy throwing time, money, security, and quality down the nearest toilet. Note that this has nothing to do with any inherent superiority on the provincial side of things, but that all of the resources go down the crapper due to time differences, cultural diffs, the fact that your sensitive data now ventures outside the network perimeter, and etc. As someone who has dealt with offshored labor and its results (e.g. in programming, you often spend more time cleaning up offshore-written code than if you had simply written it yourself), I can tell you that cheaper damned sure doesn't equate to quality product.
2) Any company that demands H1B labor yet lays off huge numbers of local folk deserves to be horsewhipped. This isn't due to any patriotism, but due to blatant greed and the obvious bad PR it's going to generate. This has nothing to do with specialized labor, since there are very few jobs that require such a degree of specialization.
3) I actually like the H1B folks I've worked alongside. They're good people - just trying to get along and get ahead, like any other human being would. That said, this has nothing to do with folks immigrating, and everything to do with corporations stupidly putting their own public image in jeopardy.
4) like inachu said - the H1B folks who successfully become Americans are suddenly just as liable to get the pink slip as Joe Sixpack who was born and raised in the US... so it has nothing to do with any sort of skill shortage.
Personally, any corp who lobbies for H1B's while laying off thousands (MSFT, I'm looking at you since you're the noisiest about it) deserves to be taxed higher than corporations who do not partake in H1B programs at all, or who demonstrably tries to keep and attract local employees before even bothering to do H1Bs.
I think employers should be obligated to pay double taxes for each visa- or outsourced worker (and maybe triple contribution to the unemployment fund.) We need to protect the American worker and remove any advantage for hiring outsiders. If this involves lowering tech wages, fine - this is a free market after all.
- by crystalpie January 27, 2009 7:16 AM PST
- This is discrimination and race prejudice. Job offer should based on talents, skills and personality , not on where they are born or skin color. H1-Bs are providing labors to tech companies, and now they are becoming targets of those politicians. Pathetic!
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- by xcal78 January 27, 2009 8:17 AM PST
- You got the discrimination and race prejudge in the wrong place. It's against the American workers! Had lots of jobs been open to ALL not just import an H1B person I'd agree with you but I've seen many many cases in recent years where a job was filled by an H1B person without considering anyone in country first. The H1B was implimented to import talent and skills where we lacked the people in country to do it ourselves. That's just not the case so the H1B is being misused by companies now. It's not the H1B person's fault the companies abused the power to get them here but someone needs to resolve the issue. Make new H1B visa's very strict to get and grandfatehr in all the existing ones till their visa's expire.
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