Coder group: H-1Bs behind women's decline in IT

Want to know why women's share of tech jobs is shrinking? Look at the temporary guest workers entering the country, most of whom are male.

That's the case being made by a group that advocates on behalf of U.S. software programmers and opposes H-1B visas. The Programmers Guild plans to release a report this week that re-examines data from a workforce diversity study published last week by the Information Technology Association of America industry group. Among the guild's arguments: the use of H-1B visas contributes to low shares of information technology jobs held by women and some racial minorities.

"Often employers force their U.S. workers to train their H-1B replacements, under threat of termination for cause and loss of benefits--driving women and underrepresented minorities out of the profession," the report states.

A number of reports, including the recent ITAA study, have documented a decline in women's share of tech jobs. The ITAA found that the percentage of women in the IT workforce dropped from 41 percent in 1996 to 32.4 percent in 2004. That report also discovered that employers hired men at a higher rate than women between 2003 and 2004. The number of unemployed skilled male IT workers dropped 34.4 percent from 189,000 to 124,000, while the number of unemployed skilled female IT workers dropped only 5.2 percent, from 97,000 to 92,000.

According to the ITAA, the declining representation of women is due largely to the fact that one out of every three women in the IT workforce falls into administrative job categories that have experienced significant overall declines in recent years.

The Programmers Guild, though, said a factor in the underrepresentation of women in the IT workforce is that a disproportionate number of H-1B workers are male. The guild cited federal data from 2002, showing that women made up 24 percent of temporary workers and trainees admitted to the country.

H-1Bs, which allow skilled workers to be employed in the United States for up to six years, account for one kind of temporary worker visa. Other such visas are for agricultural workers and nurses.

John Miano, founder of the Programmers Guild professional group, has estimated that more than 180,000 new H-1B workers in the computer field came to the United States between 2001 and 2003, while computer-related jobs in the nation increased by just 27,380.

Bob Cohen, senior vice president at the ITAA, dismissed the guild claim that the influx of predominantly male H-1B workers could explain the drop in women's percentage of the IT workforce. The "assertion is simply that: an assertion," Cohen said in an e-mail. "...the percentage of women in (nonadministrative) IT categories between 1996 and 2004 is roughly the same. We do not think the H-1B program impacts these figures."

H-1B visas have long been a point of debate in the tech industry. Thirty-nine percent of H-1B visa petitions approved in 2003 were for workers in computer-related occupations, with nearly 37 percent of all approvals that year for workers born in India. The program's annual cap of 65,000 visas was expanded last year, with 20,000 additional permits reserved for foreigners with advanced degrees from a U.S. institution.

Industry leaders have defended the visas as a means to fill shortages and give U.S. companies access to international talent as they compete globally. Visa backers, which include the ITAA, also say they serve as a brake on offshoring.

Critics have said the H-1B program undermines U.S. wages, is ripe for abuse and fuels the shift of skilled work overseas.

The guild suggested that the ITAA's own report indicates the visas are undermining America's tech leadership.

"(A)necdotally, the (U.S.) IT industry is experiencing a 'brain drain' among certain foreign-born IT workers who have been working in the U.S. IT work force for years and are now returning to their native countries like India, Pakistan and China to lead major technology companies," the ITAA's report said.

"The ITAA report bolsters the guild's concern that the H-1B visa program is being used by our economic adversaries as a means of gaining tech skills in the U.S. and then returning to their home countries like India and China to lead major technology companies," the guild said.

[cyberspittle]

Can't compete with H1-B

When an H1-B is hired at a lower rate, you can't accept a lower wage to support your family. When you can get an apartment and other living expenses shared by H1-B roommates, you come out ahead. Sending money home to a developing country to support your family at a fraction of a cost here in the U.S., well you get the picture. Also, most other H1-Bs are often referrals by other H1-Bs. IT and other aspects of high tech are run by the "Indian mafia". Try getting your foot in the door, when you can network a position.

[JoeF2]

H1s are paid the same

H1s have to be paid the same as everybody else.
This "lower rate" stuff is an urban myth.

[joelam888]

Stop the blame and switch your job

Either your boss is stingy, or, maybe simply your job performance is poor.

[Mystigo]

H-1B Is A Farce

There are a lot of numbers in this story, but the ones that jump
out at me are these:

180,000 new H-1B workers in the computer field came to the
United States between 2001 and 2003.

and

Computer-related jobs in the nation increased by just 27,380 (I
assume over the same period of time, although it doesn't say).

The H-1B rules state that a position must be offered to any
qualified citizen at a market rate of pay, before the position can
be filled with an H-1B applicant. Furthermore, there must be a
position. You can't just bring someone in without an actual job
waiting for them.

However the numbers above indicate that 150,000 citizens, were
actually *displaced* by H-1B visa holders -and that is assuming
zero growth in the US IT labor pool. The alternative of course is
that 150,000 H-1B visa holders came over and found no job
waiting for them and we all know that didn't happen.

Unless I am mis-reading this, only black-hearted corruption in
the board rooms and congress allows this unmitigated farce to
continue. We can't vote the CEOs away, but we can vote the
congressmen out. If you are worried about your tech job, or are
already one of the 150,000 unlucky ones, then get out and vote
against the plutocrats running this country. If they are more
scared of us, than they are in love with corporate graft, we can
make a difference.

[joelam888]

Story behind the numbers

You can't tell the story simply by looking at the numbers. From my experience, most American workers who worked in the IT industry a few years ago were not real geeks. They rushed to the field with liberal arts degrees (imagine English degrees) or minimal IT background (basic HTML only).

Let me know one day if you see someone who graduated from MIT with a Computer Science/Engineering degree lost his or her job because of H1-Bs, period.

[joelam888]

Only losers blame at H1-B

I looked at the LCA database, H1-Bs DON'T (I repeat, DO NOT) have a lower wage (unless you define 50k+ low), so people should yell at their own employers if they think they're being underpaid.

The fact is that H1-Bs do their job and that's the primary reason why employers hire them despite of all the HASSLES (sponsoring visas $2000+, dealing with lawyers, and filling out paperworks). AND, more importantly, all of them have at least bachelor's, and MOST of them hold graduate degrees.

All in all, you can tell the people who put the blame on H1-Bs are either uneducated, unqualified, or inexperienced, period.

Indian Bachelor's Degrees are 3 Year

degrees. In The Philippines, the students go from 6th grade to high school so that a 4 year university degree is equivalent to 3 years of high school and 1 year at an American community college. Your comparison of degree titles is like comparing apples and mangos.

[joelam888]

ACTUAL H1-B SALARY DATABASE

Sample:

http://www.h1b.info/lca_job_list.php?name=MICROSOFT+CORP&company=Microsoft&year=2003

Don't yell again once you learn the fact. Go upgrade yourself instead by learning .NET or J2EE or getting a graduate degree, period.

Just take a look at the low pay for Oracle H-1bs in Silicon Valley

Thanks for pointing (linking) me to this database.

Having lived in the Valley all my life, I know now (thanks to link) a large number of the Oracle Engineering jobs are not paying a living wage.

Which is around 60k (for an apartment, car, and food).

I looked in Detail at some of the Oracle Software Engineering positions and noticed salaries of around 45-60k are typical, for positions that had max pay of around 130k.

And I know the average pay for these jobs (at other companies is about 100+k), with options.

Oracle was really milking the H-1b program during the recession.

I saw very few positions that payed more than 90k at Oracle for software engineers.

Ellison is a complete egotistical miser.

He tries to cover up his miserliness with pittence give aways. They guy's got 6+billion which he earned off the backs of thousands of laid off California workers.

Even his top-execs can't stand the guy.

"Not enough to win, everyone else must fall." Is an un-american, completely disloyal statement.

And is not true of warrior code.

Ellison is complete slime.

The growth of Oracle is more similar to that of MCI than any real software development company.

[0null]

h1b wage database

http://www.h1bwage.com

[T100C]

H1-B Visas

It should be noted that the preferential H1-B program applies ONLY to holders of advanced (MS or PhD) degrees from US universities. Indians with BS degrees and/or MCSE (or whatever it is that M$ calls it) need not apply.

I directed the graduate program at Clemson University, the state land grant institution of South Carolina in the period 1994-2004. For most of that period the ratio of Indian to American applications was about 10 Indians to 1 American. Total numbers of applicants per year was roughly 300 Indians to 30 Americans.

During that period we ran a strong "affirmative action" program favoring American applicants with respect to BOTH admission and financial aid. As a result our enrollment was typically 40 to 50 percent American.

Even though admitted via affirmative action with regard to GRE scores the performance of the American students was roughly on par with the Indian students.. but ALL of our graduates with reasonble records have had no trouble finding employment. It has been my experience that US companies also provide preferential treatment to US resident graduate degree holders and that salaries paid to US residents and H1-B holders are comparable.

I truly wish that we had 300 well qualified and highly motivated American applicants to our graduate program each year. But until that happens I personally believe that this country should do all that it can to attract the best and brightest from India and other parts of the world and do all that we can to ENCOURAGE THEM to make their lives here.

Mike Westall
Professor of Computer Science
Clemson University

[joelam888]

Good suggestion but...

the fact is that a computer science degree is nothing more than a paper in the industry. I saw many of the CS graduates from top tier universities having a tough time landing a job because of their lack of working experience.

Plus, there're not many employers who are patient to wait for a fresh grad's development and provide them training.

MCSE/Cisco is another story, it's not even software engineering related.

[Razzl]

Cohen, do the math

"180,000 new H-1B [mostly male] workers in the computer field came to the United States between 2001 and 2003, while computer-related jobs in the nation increased by just 27,380."

"Bob Cohen, senior vice president at the ITAA, dismissed the guild claim that the influx of predominantly male H-1B workers could explain the drop in women's percentage of the IT workforce. The "assertion is simply that: an assertion," Cohen said in an e-mail. "...the percentage of women in (nonadministrative) IT categories between 1996 and 2004 is roughly the same. We do not think the H-1B program impacts these figures."

Listen, Bob, if the percentage of women in "nonadministrative" IT categories remains the the same, it's because more women can't fill slots and raise these percentages in the face of competition from all these male H-1B holders in the candidate pool. What don't you understand about this?

[inachu]

Illegals follow the lead of H1B holders.

Learn what you can
Master it
Leave company and start your own company.

But in this case now Illegals run their own lawn mowing business driving out the very people that hired them.

Stab in the back plain and simple and theft of IP

[jess2828]

As an over-fifty woman who works in technology, I know first-hand that mostly male H-1B workers have flooded the market, depressed wages and pushed people like me out. There is not one other woman of my general age in my division of several hundred people.

Need more? Within the past year, Best Buy quietly settled out of court with hundreds of older workers whom they fired and replaced with long-term contractors, many of them young and from Asia etc.

And as far as being the best and the brightest: PLEASE! Sure there are few gems in the crowd, but by and large they are very average workers who bring language and cultural challenges to the workplace that would not otherwise be there including some of their own deep-seated biases against women.

[apeg]

If a company can find a shiny-new engineer, up on current technology, at half the price, OF COURSE they will do so and toss out the 'older' engineers, and they will lobby to keep the flow coming. Corporations do not offer training to keep the workforce current, support education in the US, or offer family-friendly policies like part-time and flex-time because they do not need to - foreign engineers are available. Women take a double-hit because many of the foreign-born male engineers are culturally not disposed to treat women as equals. I know from experience this is true. I used to love working with male engineers in Silicon Valley - the most intelligent and progressive men on the planet, but no longer. Also, there are thousands of women engineers who stepped out to raise families and could easily be 'retreaded' to fill existing jobs, but corporations demand an increase in H1-B visa quotas instead of helping them find a way back in. So of course women are leaving the field and young women aren't blind - they see what technology has become. I have a friend whose boss demanded she work on Thanksgiving because the holiday meant nothing to him. Women see this hostile environment and if we can we run, baby run! (A lot of men too).