Posted on 07/31/2015 8:22:21 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom
Another tech giant that says it must import foreign workers because there aren’t enough skilled American workers in the industry is laying off thousands of workers.
Qualcomm — a major producer of smartphone chips — announced last week it’s eliminating 15 percent of its workforce or about 4,500 employees, just weeks after fellow tech giant Microsoft announced a massive round of layoffs.
Both companies are top beneficiaries of the H-1b visa program, which backers say allows companies to temporarily hire foreign workers for jobs they can’t find qualified Americans workers to fill. Critics contend the program is really used to cut costs. (RELATED: Displaced American Workers Sue DHS Over New Visa Rule)
Microsoft and Qualcomm were in the top 15 users of H-1b visas in Fiscal Year 2013, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data obtained by Computer World. They’re part of a major tech lobbying effort to increase the cap on these temporary workers, on the grounds there is a shortage of Americans with science, technology, engineering and math degrees.
“Qualcomm has been engaged within the technology industry in highlighting the ‘skills deficit’ in all areas of today’s workforce, especially engineering,” a spokeswoman for Qualcomm told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “This is an industry-wide problem, and we are committed to working to build the pipeline of students studying STEM fields.”
One in five of the new Qualcomm hires in Fiscal Year 2013 were foreign workers with H-1b visas, according to an analysis of SEC filings by Ron Hira, a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology who is an expert in offshoring. Those 900 foreign workers hired in 2013 triple the total number of workers Qualcomm hired in 2014.
“Qualcomm and other tech firms have argued that they turn to H-1Bs because there is a significant shortage of American talent available,” Hira told TheDCNF. “Given the recent large layoff announcements by Qualcomm, Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco, how can the tech industry continue to argue there’s a shortage of American workers?” (RELATED: Senators Ask Feds to Investigate Guest Worker Visa Abuse)
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hira also analyzed the skills of H-1b workers Qualcomm hired from Fiscal Year 2010 through 2012, and found most of the workers weren’t the highly skilled, U.S.-trained workers lobbyists imply make up the majority of H-1b holders.
Thirty-five percent of the 1,265 workers Qualcomm hired at that time held only a bachelors degree, and just 32 percent held advanced U.S. degrees. Only 44 of them held Ph.Ds from U.S. universities.
“This is very different than the carefully constructed, and misleading, narrative constructed by the tech industry that the H-1b program is primarily a vehicle for keeping people from abroad that the U.S. trained, and paid for,” Hira told TheDCNF.
NEXT PAGE: ‘I’m sure that a lot of the people laid off could be doing the jobs taken by the H-1bs’
Starving Indians might actually be doing a better job... because they’re starving.
And I’ll bet their bottom line barely moves up.
They’re hiring them for being easily controlled individuals.
That goes for all those who claim to be Christian no matter what church they claim to be a part of or not a part of. The heresy of Americanism totally swamped the Catholic Church and didn't ever have to swamp others because they were as much worshipers of America as of God to begin with.
JMHo
Have you ever been accused of being a patriot? And if so, what country?
The false dichotomies are flying thick and fast in this thread.
I consider keeping bread on my family's table and a roof over their heads to be Christian work. Do you disagree?
You think that you can view the picture from one single angle? Do you agree that if you carry on according to Christ in all matters you will be blessed?
Righteousness, not selfishness, exalts a nation. There are ways to grow the pie to the benefit of all having suitable attitudes to accept it, and Christ is the quintessential “infinite sum game.”
Of the eternal Zion, I suppose.
In all others I am visitor.
The bad perspectives are flying thick and fast, and some from you.
As a very confessedly non biblical example, there is the parable of the monkey and the nuts in the gourd. The trapper wants to catch a monkey so he makes a hole in a gourd that is just big enough for a monkey’s empty hand, and fills the gourd with nuts and affixes it to a tree. The monkey comes along, sticks his hand into the gourd, grabs a fistful of nuts, is unable to withdraw his hand from the gourd, and stands there raging until the hunter comes along. Had the monkey figured to take one nut out at a time, which would have been possible, he would have eaten and escaped the hunter too.
True grace attempts to understand where everyone is with respect to God, and then attempts to come to an accommodation that helps all people concerned approach God more nearly.
I guess you’re grinding an axe for the Catholic Church which I can recognize without having to accept. Many evangelical branches did, in fact, put Christ at the head, and gave praise to God when things went right, and sought God’s forgiveness, mercy, and guidance when things went wrong. But this attitude has faded over the years in many, not all, places.
If you were running a company like Qualcomm and found yourself wanting to make a move like this, what would you expect to be the reason... mere greed? Or rather, fear? I put my bets on fear.
Now yes there could be a political fiat solution that simply forbids Qualcomm and others to make such a move. But a better perspective is to make a case that Qualcomm does not need to have such fear. And it will take being super serious about getting Obama’s legacy out of the picture in order to do that.
And also, being in a mixed-contractor situation myself (H1B’s and citizens) I know there are reasons to fear being let down by the H1B’s as well. The situation will eventually punish its own excesses.
In the end, a rising tide lifts all boats. Quit diverting tides to feeding huge armies of government drones that produce nothing, and the boats will begin to rise again with production of things that people actually want. Most people have some idea of blessings even if not an eternally saving idea of God, and accordingly spirits lift when the government is not siphoning off resources into a racket. With lifting spirits come more willingness to work hard and to appreciate what one has worked hard for.
Lots of people talk the talk about Grace and Charity by looking at the macro equation rather than what's close at hand. That fits into the, "in the long run, we're all dead" school of thought and is directly contrary to what Christ taught regarding our duty to work for the night is coming rather than rolling over for what gets us through the next temporal night in the most comfortable or profitable shape.
If the things believers choose more directly reflect the Lord, then this will in turn prove a better demonstration (or witness) to doubters and unbelievers.
“Keep the H1Bs out” just strikes me as a double edged sword that could harm as well as help. I am currently working in a contracting situation where, for reasons unknown to me but that I did not refuse, I was chosen to serve alongside of a large group of people from India. And I’m actually doing it pretty well, though surely part of the reason is that I can relate to the client who is still pretty much conservative white bread American. Competencies and loyalties range from great to very little among the H1Bs.
I’ve also found that among the people from India are a lot of sincere Christians. Having to exercise that faith in the third world gives them a perspective that many American Christians lack today.
And let the H1-B workers in to increase profit margins (which is in reality the goal of their being imported) strikes me imitating the rich young man who, when Christ told him to sell all he had and follow Christ, turned away from Christ because he was wealthy and didn’t want to give up his wealth.
It’s also partly because those people are viewed as being more flexible in assignments.
The “average American” still thinks he is entitled to the old fashioned idea of a stable career... or else bust, and there is a lot of bust going on as a result.
I am not facing life on that basis any more. It may be more dangerous to walk the tightropes, but it is also more rewarding in its successes.
But to the extent that they are simply nakedly more profitable (which I might even dispute, all factors considered) we need to ask why. What have we winked and nodded at far too long around us that has contributed to this kind of bias? Maybe we have expected the government to be an all providing shmoo? So guess what they now tax?
According to Ted Cruz, who proposes we let in another 325,000 foreign tech workers, this type of American worker replacement never happens. After decades in the engineering industry I know for a fact it does.
Such as ... ?
As a very confessedly non biblical example, there is the parable of the monkey and the nuts in the gourd. The trapper wants to catch a monkey so he makes a hole in a gourd that is just big enough for a monkey’s empty hand, and fills the gourd with nuts and affixes it to a tree. The monkey comes along, sticks his hand into the gourd, grabs a fistful of nuts
I assure you, I don't have a fistful of nuts.
With collateral damage along the way.
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