Sorry I haven't had time to get back to you, gotta work for a living.
I want to go over a couple of things from your post, and then give you some detail outside of the Prof's statistical anylasis.
My comment about the Arm Chair General stands. While stat. anyl might be of some comfort to those who wish buy into their supporter's bend on the stats, if unbiased it only tells you what happened NOT THE FORCES THAT ARE DRIVING IT.
Thus, I put little faith in a paper that is devoid of the driving forces from the otherside of the fence.
Let me give you a few examples. Under "WHAT EMPLOYERS SHOULD DO" 12.3. "Hire on general talent not specific skills" "Do not shunt competent programmers to positions like customer support" "Look for applicant who looks promising but somewhat HIGH RISK" Then suggests hiring a PhD in physics who has done some programming. "Place less emphysis on grades and prestige of institution" If most employeers followed the Prof's advice there would be a lot more unemployment of Americans.
12.4 "What Recruiters should do" Here he wants me to hire a person to find a person to fill a specific job, yet come back with another HIGH RISK and the recruiter cut his fee. Dream on.
One question regarding Mr. Luh
Luh's firing appears to be the result of his exercising his right to free speech on the Internet---ironically, in which he OPPOSED
Pelosi's bills which would REVOKE China's Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status if China failed
So, it appears that Dr. Luh, a immigrant from TAIWAN, had offended somebody by posting articles AGAINST MFN for CHINA. Gee whiz, I wonder if he was a FREEPER!
I have to wonder if he was for or against before I wonder if he was a FREEPER. Please read or post with care it does make a difference.
Now don't get me wrong, the Prof does have a few ideas, internship is a good one. I had thought the industry was doing that anyway. I am not going to go into anymore examples regarding the rest of his paper, because I have some ideas from the other side that I think are worth everyones thoughts.
In a nutshell, I think the software industry for the the most part is a industry ready to move offshore very quickly. This wouldn't be the first time it has happened to us, and won't be the last. I think that focusing on the H1B program as a scapegoat ignors both the lessons of history in other industries, and elimination of the program now that it is in place will cause the industry to move quicker.
Lets take a quick look at history. The Atomic Bomb, we had it first, and I might add it was for the most part a Jewish immigrant development. Lost it in two years to Russia and then most of the rest who wanted it had it in the next 30. Had we offered all those foreigners in nuclear physics lots of money and a soft life we might have been able to keep it a lot longer, but not forever. Of course a few like Russia and China used force and restriction to keep their physicists.
Now, remember the electronics industry from 1950-1975? We went from all out production, sometimes three shifts a day. Some production workers were at close to $13p/h big money, and a car cost about 3K. Then along came the Japs at 1/10 the rate base. Production plants closed, only to open a day later. In most cases owned by the former plant management now working as "contractors" for the manufacturer, and the same production workers at 1/2 pay. We even moved plants to the south for low cost workers.
Then in our last desperate effort, the plants closed and farmed out assembly to home workers on a piece basis. Labor dept, IRS, etc gave the final death blow by changing the definition of contractor and EPA regs. The industry went over a period of about 5 years. As a side benifit, engineering, and semiconductors started to go too.
Now with software. It sounds like most of your competition is from India. FACTS.
Pop 1.029B India
.278B US
Lit rate 52% 535,080,000 IND Educated pop
97% 269,717,000 US
Per cap GDP $1,800 IND
33,900 US
Langu Offical Hindi/Associate offical English
Software training is a low cost subject to teach in a poor country. A few computers, and most of the rest is paper. Now I am not saying that they turn out a quality product, but they can turn out twice as much at about 6% the wage base.
So why hasen't the industry run like scalded dogs to India? Political stability. But our helpfull friends the Chinese are going to help out with that.
In CRN 6/24/02 is a story about the big Indian software house Majest (not sure of name) that the Chinese want to relocate to China. The Chinese will take care of the political stability issue, and the Indians seem to think it is a good idea.
I am sure you know that now China requires manufacturers as a condition for doing business in China a R&D facility incountry. And they made it clear no token facility, only cutting edge. Motorola just announced a new R&D center to replace their token one. Can you believe, HP just moved their cartridge production from MEXICO to CHINA
Now I do have some suggestions regarding H1B. If you cancel the program or do so by making it so restrictive as to accomplish the same, you will drive them all back, and market pressure will drive the domestic software either to outsource, or send three managers to India/China and setup.
Rather, allow the H1B but allow them a Green card within 6 months of entry. Have the green card renewed every year with proof of employment at the minium salary level of their initial entry. I think we need to do this for every tech profession. Read on before you flame.
Why, I agree that the H1B does grant the employeer a de facto servitude relationship with the employee. This would allow the good ones to receive proper pay from another employeer, and not depress the domestic rate. The bad ones would not be allowed to take another job at lower pay and stay, back to the old country for them. The H1B can be used as a filter to get the best, we are going to need them
Now getting back to how the electronics industry has fared since it's move offshore. We have been lucky to be able to keep the R&D and some very specialized manufacturering. But China is very aware that the R&D is the key and they are using their access to their market to force anyone who wishes to sell there to R&D there. We are in deep trouble if we don't get some leadership on this, and we don't have any time for lots of debate on it. Our exclusive Country Club (USA) is about to have it's legs broken.
Now what else can we do? I wish I had a lot of answers, but one thing as a business owner really hits me when I do previous year runs. If we can somehow get beyond some political correctness and really examine things we do to ourselves that will raise our cost of living without also examining how many jobs it will cost, or generate.
We have got to demand more return for our tax dollar, or a reduction of taxes. I just received my new and improved real estate tax bill, taxes are now 30% of my mortgage payment. My long distance rate is one third of what it was 10 years ago but my bill is the same, taxes makeup the savings. Dito with my basic phone service. Power bill now has a 20% utility tax. I call the power co to report a outage, it's all auto, put in my phone number and it's done. Call the county to report a pot hole and I go through three people. Where is the efficencies we are supposed to get from all the fancy computer equipment we are buying for our govt. I would expect to see the same downsizing as industry. Any other suggestions?
In summary from the other side of the equation, I see Mr. Matloff's study providing soultions that will only drive your industry offshore quickly, and most likely to the Chinese who are welcoming software developing Co's with open arms. I do wonder who paid for this "study" and how much KuaiXue costs? We are going to need it very soon. I also wonder if his simulation software works for neutron multiplication and reflection?
I hadn't noticed your post to me until now.
My comment about the Arm Chair General stands.
If you're referring to Dr. Matloff, he's a recognized expert in the field. Are you saying you're more knowledgeable than he is on this subject? Since Dr. Matloff has provided HIS credentials, why don't you supply us YOURS?
For you to critique his statements as if you ARE are an expert in this is absurd.
One question regarding Mr. Luh ...
I have to wonder if he was for or against before I wonder if he was a FREEPER. Please read or post with care it does make a difference.
You might be right on that one aspect of the discussion, I did read that page a bit in a hurry (I do have other priorities to attend to). BUT, Dr. Matloff also relates that President Bush ALSO opposed revoking China's MFN status at the time. At least Dr. Matloff doesn't support the wholesale import of Chinese workers to replace Americans, as you appear to do.
In a nutshell, I think the software industry for the the most part is a industry ready to move offshore very quickly. This wouldn't be the first time it has happened to us, and won't be the last. I think that focusing on the H1B program as a scapegoat ignors both the lessons of history in other industries, and elimination of the program now that it is in place will cause the industry to move quicker.
So do you think that all of our defense systems should be designed and developed by China? Our space satellites, ground systems, and telecommunications infrastructure should be developed by them as well?
You seem to think computer software is simply such visible items as MS Word and IE. You don't appreciate the extent to which MANY things depend on software to work correctly.
Additionally, the economy is collapsing for the very fact that MUCH of our manufacturing resources already HAVE been shipped overseas. We are left with next to nothing, and these self-absorbed corporate executives can't seem to understand why their stocks are falling.
Lets take a quick look at history. The Atomic Bomb, we had it first, and I might add it was for the most part a Jewish immigrant development. Lost it in two years to Russia and then most of the rest who wanted it had it in the next 30. Had we offered all those foreigners in nuclear physics lots of money and a soft life we might have been able to keep it a lot longer, but not forever.
I believe it was foreign immigrants who SOLD our nuclear secrets to the Soviets and Chinese. It was only because of espionage that Russia and China were able to develop nuclear weapons in such a short period of time. And that is happening even MORE extensively today.
Now, remember the electronics industry from 1950-1975? We went from all out production, sometimes three shifts a day. Some production workers were at close to $13p/h big money, and a car cost about 3K. Then along came the Japs at 1/10 the rate base.
A engineering technician back in 1983 would make $18,000/yr, or roughly $9/hr. A tester would make several dollars less an hour, and a assembly worker would earn less than that, close to minimum wage ($5/hr or so).
Cars were around $10,000-$14,000 for something reasonable. Corporate greed killed the industry, with massive kickbacks for both vendors and government inspectors. Waste, fraud, and ineptidude were also part of the equation. As it was then, as it is still..
Few workers worked in union shops such as AT&T, where there might have been a somewhat higher rate of pay. For the most part, workers in the electronics industry were payed minimal wages however.
In summary from the other side of the equation, I see Mr. Matloff's study providing soultions that will only drive your industry offshore quickly, and most likely to the Chinese who are welcoming software developing Co's with open arms.
I don't agree with that summation. I don't think embracing slave labor from foriegn lands as a solution, and especially not at the expense of wiping out our engineering base here in the US. The problem IS that we are laying off American workers, so there is now less money being injected into "the economy".
I do wonder who paid for this "study" and how much KuaiXue costs?
Well, it WAS a report to Congress, so perhaps it was federally funded? As far as the cost of "KuaiXue", universities do develop software for free you know. Click the link on the biography page and you'll see you can download it free. The same is true for any of the GNU tools such as emacs, gcc, and a myraid of others, which are freely available from major universities.
I also wonder if his simulation software works for neutron multiplication and reflection?
You've just demonstrated your ignorance here. JSim is a Java event simulator for software development and debugging, and MSim is a multiprocessor simulator, again for software development.
There is an enormous amount of software development tools and specifications available from the academic environment, all of which is freely distributed through the Internet. It is for this reason our technology has leaped as far as it has in such a short period of time.