Why Are Tech Companies Laying Off Americans Doing the Jobs They Say They Need Immigrants to Fill?

RUSH: Investors.com is the source for the story that Obamacare premiums are jumping 23% this year, even after subsidies. "President Obama has talked a lot in recent months about how health care inflation has moderated in recent years, and he always manages to credit Obamacare for the result.

CALLER: I wanted to mention that it's amazing right now that tens of thousands of STEM educated Americans, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, computer science folks and all this are being laid off by Microsoft, by different companies, and are having to retrain their --

RUSH: Ho, ho, ho, ho, hold on just a minute here. I'm confused because I have been under the impression that people like Microsoft and Facebook and Google have been asking for more H-1B visas so they can get more people immigrated to the country who are highly educated in math and technology and so forth, the STEM types, and you're telling me that they're laying them off?

I think a lot depends on if a company is on the way up or the way down.

If a company’s prospects are bright then the labor they use as input will be multiplied many times over by what they can sell their output for and the premium is on finding good people and what they pay them is secondary.

If on the other hand this is a company that has enjoyed some success in the past but is now on a death march to irrelevance the incentives are completely reversed. Here’s it’s all about keeping the Titanic afloat and if possible stealing the chandeliers and getting them in the lifeboats. In this case the premium is on finding as many low priced drones as possible to keep bailing water out of the sinking ship.

Two different scenarios - two different outcomes.

Odd that you mention Indian Recruiters. When I had my phone number on job boards, I’d get INUNDATED by Indian recruiters, who would send you an email, and then IMMEDIATELY call.

And I noticed multiple conversations in the background. So, boiler-room operation of some sort.

I would tell them I would examine the email when I got a chance, and get back to them if interested. About half then claimed it was an “urgent” position. I ask where they got my resume, what source.

I then point out that each profile on the job sites has a notice, that contact for “urgent” or “immediate” requirements fell under the terms posted at my about.me page, which state that by contacting me, they accepted the terms and how did they plan to pay the “urgent/immediate position evaluation fee” of US$500., credit card or PayPal ?

That usually got a hangup.

Several times, I got so swamped by calls from Indian Recruiters, that I had to turn my phone off to get work done.

And on one afternoon, I decided to investigate these “World-class” organizations who wanted me to contract for them. 95+ % had ONE office in the US, and multiple offices in Bangalore, Mumbai, etc.

A similar percentage had bad to awful employee experiences listed at glassdoor. Including things like paychecks being held for up to two months (and in the particular case, the individual contractor told the client he was stopping work because the agency refused to pay him. Three hours, and a phone call from the client to the “big office” later, all his back pay was in his bank account. I assumed the client told them that if they weren’t going to pay the contractor, they weren’t going to pay either. ..

But the funniest thing, is that I started googling both the addresses and the phone numbers. And generally, the phone numbers were only vaguely associated with the address. So I Google Mapped them, and went to Street View.

These “world-class” companies’ US Addresses were UPS Stores, Apartment buildings, and in one memorable case, a lot where it appeared the building had recently burned down.

My conclusion is, the overwhelming number of Indian Tech Recruiters are VOIPing in to a POP in the States, and running out of bullpen/boiler room operations somewhere in India.

I’ll pass, thank you. . .

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