United States hemorrhaging core tech jobs: Trend could imperil the American programmer

San Mateo County Times ^ | Sunday, July 20, 2003 | Rachel Konrad

[Marine Inspector]

Ping.

[mvpel]

Rescind all H1-B Visas now.

[only1percent]

How does rescinding H1Bs reduce outsourcing? If we assume (as is fair) that the best, most talented Indian programmers are getting most of the H1B slots, sending them back to India only strengthens the Indian outsourcing companies.

[VadeRetro]

Trend could imperil the American programmer

"Could?" Duh-uh!

[Lion in Winter]

Nickcarraway, old boy,

Did you know that Cap Gemini is a French Outfit? bo hiss... French!

Me thinks that the first company they bought in the USA was DASD, a computer consulting company out of Milwaukee, Wi. Perhaps it was about 1982. One is not quite sure.

They fired many a DASD employee, but of course. My sister-in-law had worked for DASD for several years and VERY briefly for the new froggie owners.

VOILA'... her position was gone!

Ah, yes. Froggies.... green, as well YELLOW!

*/8 ^ (

[VOA]

bump

[Lion in Winter]

You have hit the proverbial nail on the head there, VadeRetro... spot on.

Well, duh.... right!

*/: ^ /

[JoeSchem]

Twenty dollars an hour sounds about right for sitting on your gluteus at a computer terminal. I don't see engineers as being dumber than computer science majors and that's about what engineers are making these days. Do people deserve $65 an hour for four years of college?

[fuente]

"...threatening to prolong the three-year U.S. economic downturn."

Oops, too late. In fact, this combined with 9/11 IS the economic downturn.

[BRL]

I was talking to one of the programming consultants that our company often employs about this subject. (He is a fantastic asset to our company when we have used him).

He said that everyone was all excited about the telecommuting jobs.... where people could just log on at home and not come to work. Well, the telecommuting job is now a reality, but they now outsource those jobs to India. If your job requires interfacing with others to get the project done then it won't be outsourced.

Telecommuting is here, but it did not turn out as expected.

[scottlang]

The issue of jobs could derail Bush's reelection. Yes the economy is slowly improving, but if a large number of white middle class subrubarrian people (core Republicans) do not feel that their job outlook is good they will look elsewhere. A moderate Democrate who addresses the issue of outsoursing, h1b, and l1 visas could walk away with the 2004 election.

[VadeRetro]

As I know only too painfully personally well, the market for programmers in this country has been ratcheting down since the end of the Cold War. It may twitch up a little bit, once in a while, but the drops can be dizzying.

The people who get shaken out of the tree don't get back in, either. Soon the only actual work being done in this country will be things that absolutely postively cannot be moved offshore. Such things tend to involve the immediate laying on of hands and are often what is traditionally viewed as "menial."

I don't know what I would tell a young kid in this country to study. Hindi, maybe.

[EGPWS]

Some who oppose the trend, which such industry stalwarts as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell and Microsoft are embracing, believe it could even usher in the end of American domination in technology.

Hogwash

We ARE technology to the rest of the world. This is all doom and gloom talk. No country in this world is going to surpass American technology. As for the jobs going overseas? Well, the lower jobs can go and we can improve ourselves individually and we can open the borders so the lesser skilled can come to our country to do the job(in some cases illegal) or we can defer the jobs to overseas countries. We were, are, and will be the lone superpower in this world either way.

[oceanperch]

So now we have are lower paying jobs going to those carrying a Mex. ID card and our higher paying jobs being shipped out of the country. Hmmmm

I guess all Americans will have to become politicians to find work.

[Nick Danger]

We need to look at where we have strategic advantage -- whether it's resources or skills," Pryor said. "It frees up people and dollars to do much more value-added strategic things for clients."

That's pretty dumb for a guy who probably thinks he inhabits the high end of the bell curve.

He's right — for himself, and for people like himself. But the number of people who are running around doing "value added strategic things" is pretty small, and that's just as well because there aren't all that many "value added strategic things" to do.

The average IQ is 100. There are a lot of people in the old bell curve within 10 or 15 points of that. They aren't going to be doing any "value added strategic things" for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. But neither are they going to sit still and shut up while the way they make their livings get shipped to India.

That guy is a flip jerk, and he is going get Hillary elected thinking like that.

[oceanview]

Yeah, we will dominate the industry, we just won't have any Americans employed doing it.

I think 2008 is where this problem really comes home. The Rs cannot afford to cede a block of voters, these displaced workers, who come from the private sector white collar middle class. That's a demographic we cannot afford to lose votes in. This trend could be Hillary's ticket to the White House in 2008. Somebody better wake up.

[oceanperch]

I noticed some new sheets I bought from an American Company (distributor) came from India.

Also now that I have been avoiding Made in China products I have been seing a lot of Made In India. Clothes and bed linen.

[EGPWS]

I guess all Americans will have to become politicians to find work.

But then we would ALL be taking and nobody giving. It wouldn't work. It however would never stop the Dem's from trying though.

[garbanzo]

We're giving countries like China and India the support they need to build up their technology industries, and the result could disadvantage us in the long run

Yes let's treat the C++/C# and Java languages as national security technology. No one else outside the borders of the US should learn to program or even read for that matter.