Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 7, 2007, before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing to discuss American competitiveness. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
Posted on 03/08/2007 9:47:42 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told Congress on Wednesday that overhauls of the nation's schools and immigration laws are urgently needed to keep jobs from going overseas. "The U.S. cannot maintain its economic leadership unless our work force consists of people who have the knowledge and skills needed to drive innovation," Gates told the Senate committee that oversees labor and education issues.
Gates, whose charitable foundation has given away more than $3 billion since 1999 for educational programs and scholarships, noted that about 30 percent of U.S. ninth-graders fail to graduate on time. "As a nation, we should start with this goal: Every child in the United States graduating from high school," he said.
Gates also challenged lawmakers to push for higher educational standards and to make more challenging coursework available to students.
A federal study released last month showed about a third of high schoolers fail to take a standard-level curriculum, which is defined as including at least four credits of English and three credits each of social studies, math and science.
Gates also called on lawmakers to give more resources and attention to improving the teaching of math and science — knowledge essential to many of today's jobs. Another recent federal study found 40 percent of high school seniors failed to perform at the basic level on a national math test. On a national science test, half of 12th-graders didn't show basic skills.
"We simply cannot sustain an economy based on innovation unless our citizens are educated in math, science and engineering," Gates said.
Legislation moving through the Senate, backed by Democratic and Republican leaders, seeks to get more people to become math and science teachers and would improve training for them. The bill also seeks to get more highly trained teachers in poor schools and would offer grants to states to better align their teaching with what kids should know to succeed at a job or in college.
Gates said the nation's economy depends on keeping the country's borders open to highly skilled workers, especially those with a science or engineering background. Federal law provides 65,000 H1-B visas for scientists, engineers, computer programmers and other professionals every budget year. High-tech and other employers say that's not enough.
"Even though it may not be realistic, I don't think there should be any limit," Gates said, adding that Microsoft hasn't been able to fill approximately 3,000 technical jobs in the United States because of a shortage of skilled workers.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said the issue would be addressed when Congress takes up broad immigration reform legislation this session. President Bush has expressed support for raising the visa cap.
Gates — who is No. 1 on Forbes magazine's list of richest Americans — also told the committee in response to a question that he opposes repeal of the federal estate tax. Current law will phase out the tax by 2010, but without further action by Congress it will be restored at a 55 percent rate in 2011.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 7, 2007, before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing to discuss American competitiveness. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions:
http://help.senate.gov/
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm
Talk about a self-serving position.
It'd be nice if someone mentioned in testimony that the reason so few Americans are even bothering getting into science and engineering in college is because companies like Microsoft prefer to hire cheap foreign labor instead. Who wants to suffer through years of hard classes and rack up tons of student loan debt only to find out there are no good paying jobs waiting on the other side?
Maybe Gates can bankroll a movie with intelligent young people NOT stereotyped as geekey losers. Or better yet, have people jumping up and down to music portrayed as "not having a life". Throw in some negative comments about teacher's unions and viola - you're half way there...
"What's good for (Microsoft) is good for the country."
So Gates' position is that we MUST educate our children more thoroughly, so that he can hire more foreign workers?
Idiot.
Federal law provides 65,000 H1-B visas for scientists, engineers, computer programmers and other professionals every budget year. High-tech and other employers say that's not enough.
NOT as true as they would have you believe. The motivation behind this is identical to the motivation behind the desire for illegal aliens in the agricultural and construction industries.
This egomaniac is not much better than Soros. Oh yeah open the borders, take the caps off of the Visa and how does this help AMERICANS????
Sorry Bill -- but the H1-Bs have already turned Silicon Valley into a suburbs of India and Pakistan.
Instead, pour some of your money into working to unseat the Teacher's Unions and get our Public Schools back to TEACHING and away from INDOCTRINATION or dumbing down the future Democrat voters..
Failing that - require the H1-Bs come from someplace other that the middle east or southeast asia.
I'd also like to see the statistics on how many of these H1-Bs ever go home.
Semper Fi
Gates supports the political party that supports the (non)educational system that is dumbing down students. Gee, why aren't there enough qualified workers? Logic applies to other areas besides computer programming, Mr. Gates.
I cannot go anywhere, stores, movies, malls, etc without feeling that I am in a third world country. They driving habits are atrocious. I would like to know how many accidents in Silicon Valley involve TCN's.
Gates is a NWO (shadow government) main player - end of story.
More cheap labor! Oh, wait, BillG said Microsoft pays them $100K a year. Nevermind, that was shown to be a lie. He just wants cheap labor, drying up the American pool because there are fewer prospects.
It will be interesting to see who Bill Gates supports for president.
Actually the government has no idea how many visas they actually issue. Seems we need a count of what we have before we make yet another 'guest worker' program.
On top of that, if 20 million illegal aliens isn't enough workers, bringing in more legally won't accomplish anything. Little wonder that there are 3.6 MILLION visa overstays in this country and Homeland Security has NOT a clue where they are.
Bush Admin. issues Thousands more H1B Visas than allowed by law.
”But Congress still hasn't seen fit to release that report to the public, perhaps because the numbers are much higher than the government has authorized.”
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The number of H1B visas an existing guest worker program for skilled workers is capped by Congress at 65,000. Another 20,000 foreign students who graduate from American universities with advanced degrees are also eligible for the visa.
That's 85,000 visas a year. But the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service approved 116,927 applications in 2005. It approved 130,497 in 2004.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/26/ldt.01.html
These are the figures USCIS admits to processing EVERY DAY. Gonzales, who heads USCIS admits they cannot handle what they have now and cannot implement another guest worker program.
* Conduct 135,000 national security background checks
* process 30,000 applications for immigrant benefits
* Issue 7,000 permanent resident cards (green cards -PER DAYx 250 days = 1, 750,000)
* Welcome 2100 new citizens. (x250 days = 525,000)
* Welcome 3500 new permanent residents.(x250 days = 875,000)
http://uscis.gov/graphics/publicaffairs/DayinLife_050629.pdfmuch higher than the government has authorized.l
One thing people don't realize. When you build experience, you are also older. When you reach the age of 40, disability insurance for the company ,in most states, goes sky high. It may cost a company $2000 a year for a 20 year old and $10,000 for someone over 40 or 50. They will offer early retirement to save that money. They will find a way to move older people out and bring in the younger ones.
Now we have an entire underclass of white collar slave labor. There are so many unemployed engineers in this country, and this idiot wants to bring in more cheap labor.
'cuz they'll work for a couple fish heads and bowl of rice and American engineers won't....
Sorry, Bill. You can afford to pay Americans a fair wage.
Where was this self serving jackass when our jobs were going overseas? He sure didn't mind sending Microsoft jobs overseas. Now, he wants to bring in workers from other countries to flood our job market. IF he wants to become a politician, he should run for office, but otherwise, he should keep his mouth shut!!!!!
Does anyone besides me get sick of hearing these NGO's give advice to our idiot congress critters? I'll grant you, they are totally incompetent, but they sure don't need information from people who are only in it for themselves. Our government is a big joke!!
Sure. He says he wants to stop jobs from going overseas. He also wants non-Americans to take the jobs. Things like this have totally destroyed job prospects for American IT people. He's a leftist. Anything he says is probably wrong.
**Oh yeah open the borders, take the caps off of the Visa and how does this help AMERICANS????**
It doesn't. It has already put me, both my brothers, and lot's of other engineers I know out of work.
Any young American student that is bright and hard working enough to make it in an engineering curriculum, would be absolutely STUPID in making this career choice.
Bill Gates is a self serving prick.
Bill Gates was once described as the "Liberal mugged by Reality". Once liberal, he has begun to rethink some positions.
I tend to agree with him on competitiveness and H1-B's. The engineering and science jobs are out there but the current crop of American students are more interested in parties, boos and bangin. The liberal arts mindset. Those engineering / science degrees are "too hard" for the lazy generation.
Part of it is cultural, prosperity has enabled the US to take it's eye off the ball - competitiveness. Part of it is also the stanglehold the teachers union has on education. If Bill really wanted to address the situation he would identify the elephants in the room. He has on the former but not the latter.
One of the reasons no one mentions it is because the statistics show that four-year engineering degrees are (mostly) rewarded with the highest salaries.
Why hire an American when you can hire H1-B's for half the salary and none of the benefits?
Gate's knows where his bread is buttered; MS is already overflowing with Indians on work visas.
Anyone who lives or works in Redmond can figure out why he wants this. Gotta say, though, I do like the plentitude of ethnic restaurants that have cropped up here.
'cuz they'll work for a couple fish heads and bowl of rice and American engineers won't....
I wouldn't take it that far but the Indian Farms masquarading as IT Consulting Firms and those who actively use them as HR vendors definitely aren't following the rules nor the spirit of the law to ensure no domestic talent is willing to take the job at the prevailing wage. The H1B consultants end up taking home half what American colleagues (sonsultant or staff) take home at the end of the day if you take the overhead and margin portion of the "Consluting Firms'" Bill rate.
Sure, right after you build an OS that doesn't SUCK.
My company would love to recuit Registered Nurses on the H1-B program but because of the IT industry most H1-B's are sucked up by MS and other IT companies.
Well, if you're a software engineer, there are plenty of jobs.
I get contacted by headhunters pretty much every week checking if I'm looking to change jobs or if I know anyone who is.
I have a friends who work at other companies calling me to ask if I know anyone who might be looking for a job or who might be unhappy where they are at.
I'm not doubting that there are some disreputable and foolish employers who replace good employees by hiring in immigrants at a lower pay rate. Crappy employers do exist.
However, such crappy employers have a hard time keeping good employees and even those immigrants are going to demand pay raises or leave if they are competent enough to find work elsewhere.
I do agree that we can't just allow unlimited H1B visas. We can look at the unskilled labor market filled with illegal immigrants to see the result of flooding the labor market.
However, the market for technical workers is awfully tight right now. At least around here it is.
Once you build experience and get higher pay, you become "replaceable" even though your skill may be better than those people with the H1-B visas.
That may be true with respect to some jobs. It hasn't been my experience. If your employer really can replace you with a more entry level person without a significant effect, then I expect your days are numbered at that company, but that has little to do with H1B visas. There are simply some jobs that don't require a lot of experience, and unless you're willing to work for what an entry level person gets paid, you had better find job path within the company that makes better use of your skills, or be prepared to find another job when the company decides you just aren't providing enough value to justify your pay.
But I guess I shouldn't complain.
With the way things are now, I have good job security, and if I get tired of what I'm doing I would have little trouble finding a new job and would likely be able to get a decent raise for switching jobs as well.
At the same time, maintaining a good job market requires continued economic growth, and if technology companies in the area can't fill positions, the work will go elsewhere and the economy and the job market will sour.
I can remember one layoff here where we layed a couple really good people while keeping some questionable ones. Why did we lay off the good people? They were here on H1B visas, and we were required by law to lay them off before laying off any Americans which could theoretically do the same job. The company did the right thing, but it sucks to lose good people.
My boss and the people they worked with gave them good references, and I believe both had new jobs within a few weeks.
On an amusing side note, one of the people we layed off that I was less impressed with went to work for Microsoft. Though he may have been a good worker, he just wasn't very good at what we had him doing for us.
Good luck to your nephew. I'm an IT contractor and the rates have not gone up for me in three years and I'll probably lose my current gig when I raise rates in July. Meanwhile the H1-Bs who have been in similar slots for up to 14 years have never received a raise. How do you compete with that Mr. Gates?
I work in this industry. H1-Bs have caused these salaries to come down significantly and have displaced many US workers. I have no problem with any company earning infinity dollars a year or more, but I think even a company like Microsoft can afford to pay good salaries to American workers.
Let me see if I have this straight. He wants to keep the jobs from going overseas, by bringing the people from overseas to work here? So basically we need immigrants to do the jobs that Americans won't do AND immigrants to do the jobs that Americans will do. What the hell do we need Americans for?
In the interest of civility, I propose a compromise...
We can grant all the 12 million illegals in this country H1-B visas... that will surely satisfy any needs Bill Gates might have, and save him the cost of moving the people here. :)
</sarcasm>
Gates, like Soros and the Google boys, is a Citizen of the World. After all, there's a lot more money to be made...
Wow! Thought I might have stumbled into DU-land here.
I can't argue with one thing Gates says. We need more home grown engineers and scientists? Absolutely.
Brain drain INTO the U.S. is a good thing? Absolutely.
65,000 technical professionals annually into the U.S is a bad thing, but 3 million unskilled is OK? I like Gates' immigration plan better than Bush's.
Bill Gates wants to bring in cheap workers from overseas, AND let the government take your estate from you. He sucks.
void becomeUncompetitiveInScienceAndEngineering( ) { while( companies hire more foreign labor ) { cheap foreign labor writes unmaintainable code foreign labor walks out door a year or two later taking knowledge with them and leaving unmaintainable code behind incentives for US works to enter science and engineering reduced a) dealing with unmaintainable code left by transient foreign workers b) reduced salaries produce less and less science and engineering personal need to hire more and more foreign workers } }
Do all companies offer disability insurance? I've been at maybe one or two that do.
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