I think the lack of independent testing for skills is a major problem that really shows in this H1B issue. Employers must rely too much on the reputation of colleges and the transcripts of their graduates to decide on employees with no established work history. They literally CANNOT do that for H1B hires — a list of foreign college degrees is a complete unknown and unreliable qualification.
If even American students were expected to get certifications in individual skills then employers in IT would have a better measure than just a college’s rep. Unfortunately, most of the certification courses I ever saw in my IT career were a joke — just a way to collect money from students without any honest assessment of the skills being acquired. I hired several MCSE people who couldn’t troubleshoot their way out of a paper bag. I hired coders with BS degrees from American colleges that took weeks to code what took me 1/2 day. Honest, tough, TIMED, certification testing would weed out most of these H1B foreigners who are far from “highly skilled” as the H1B requires.
As it stands, the only way to allow H1B is to require the employers put their money where their mouths are. Make the application/sponsorship fee $200K/yr on these visas. If they are that expensive, you can be sure employers will be choosy and not using them to undercut American wages.
At the same time, this H1B visa (and other work visas) does not address outsourcing jobs to foreign workers. The IRS should ascertain what foreign payments by American employers are going to pay foreign workers — and then collect Payroll Tax and Income Taxes on those payments just as though the workers were Americans.
A few thoughts. I test my applicants myself. At least all the programmers take a test. The test shows code that is wrong. And they have to make it do something different. The good ones also see and correct the problems and inefficiencies as well. They just can’t stand to leave them.
Colleges do the best testing when they accept people. I am not sure there is too much learning for the dollar after that. I hire people from certain colleges because I like that they got into the college. University of Chicago is one I love for non programmers. To go there you like to work hard. And you are not trying to get rich. You are trying to do stuff.
You are right foreign colleges are hard to understand. In India and China, a college named after a big city is very hard to get into. In India its really the field you get into. Getting into an engineering program almost anywhere in India for a named university means you are very smart and detailed. But we rely on our 3 problem test exclusively for programmers. It has served us very well for two decades.
I wish the republicans would change the tax code so that employers get a very large tax break for hiring American full-time employees who make more than $50K and less than $250. Maybe even 50% tax rebate on their salary within this range. Then we could stop with all the other garbage. Companies would hire all the American workers and try to get them over $50K. If they still hire foreigners its because they really need them.
This works better than boarder taxes. Its easier. In the end boarder taxes are supposed to help American workers. But its too easily gamed. Just make hiring American workers cost less through a big tax break.
I also want them to pay employees making over a $1 million with after tax money only (amounts to dividends). That way bonus’ would be spread to more of the staff than they are now.