“H1B visa represent jobs Americans can’t do. Our public schools have done a terrible job teaching applied math and science.”
I agree our public schools stink but disagree with the rest. I run a tech company and have no problem finding qualified people. The only reason companies use H1Bs is they can pay them less and work them to death. Most companies don’t even care about the quality of the worker, just the cost.
Many companies will tailor the job description for the sole purpose of disqualifying Americans.
Bingo. For the companies it’s a no-brainer. They can word the job description to skirt along the “must pay comparable wage” part of the H-1B and get themselves a foreign contract worker for $20k or more less than an American worker. Plus, the H-1B will generally work harder and for longer hours, because he’s working scared. As I understand it, switching jobs is extremely difficult for H-1Bs, and if they lose the job, they have to go home quickly. It’s cheap skilled labor for tech companies, without tying themselves down to paying an employee benefits or paying higher contract rates for an American worker.
This is why the best bet for American IT folks (especially ones like me pushing middle age) is to get into specialties that play to our strengths. In my case, I’m getting out of development and into quality assurance, and using my communication skills to keep myself somewhat valuable. Prakash or Deepti might be able to work 65 hours a week for months at a time where I can’t, and sling code just as well as I can at half the rate, but I can write and communicate better, and that counts for a lot.
}:-)4
I am not talking about technicians. I am talking about folks who work in the labs — R&D. Go to any university lab in the country — half if not more of the grad students are from abroad.
Trust me. I bet I was the only American kid in my math class to get an A in calculus my freshman year in college. I went to a private high school and had calclulus there—most of the other American kids hadn’t even had trig in high school. By the time I hit multi-D...in a class of 30 kids, 10 were from the states. That was 15 years ago, I doubt much has changed.