Posted on 03/07/2007 2:25:58 PM PST by fishhound
Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, on Wednesday warned that restrictions on the number of skilled workers allowed to enter the US put the country’s competitiveness at risk.
The comments marked the latest attack on restrictive US immigration policies by the technology industry, which is facing a shortage of skilled workers even as demand for their skills is increasing.
Speaking before the Senate committee on health, education, labour and pensions, Mr Gates said that tighter US immigration policies – governed partly by concerns over terrorism – were “driving away the world’s best and brightest precisely when we need them most”.
“It makes no sense to tell well-trained, highly skilled individuals, many of whom are educated at our top colleges and universities, that the United States does not welcome or value them,” Mr Gates said. “America will find it infinitely more difficult to maintain its technological leadership if it shuts out the very people who are most able to help us compete.”
Mr Gates said that other countries were taking advantage of restrictive US policies by catering to highly skilled workers who would otherwise choose to study, live and work in the US.
“Our lost opportunities are their gains,” he said. “I personally witness the ill effects of these policies on an almost daily basis at Microsoft.”
Mr Gates’s comments on immigration were part of a broader warning over the state of US competitiveness.
Mr Gates said he felt “deep anxiety” about the US’s ability to remain competitive if it did not act quickly to improve education, invest in basic science research, and reform its immigration policies.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
“These reforms do not pit US workers against those foreign born,” he said. “Far from displacing US workers, highly skilled foreign-born workers will continue to function as they always have: as job creators.”
Which is it Bill?
What a pile of BS! How about training our OWN people for jobs???
He just wants a supply of cheap labor and screw the American workers and American cultural system and anything else that gets in his way.
What do you mean? His statement seems to me to be self-consistent, and accurate to boot.
If we adopt a protectionist attitude toward competition in the labor market, we're simply socialists.
It doesn't matter what market you try socialism on, it still doesn't work.
Artificial restrictions on the labor market will have exactly the same effect as restrictions on any other market: it will increase costs and multiply the underlying problems.
Exactly. Furthermore, there is nothing preventing Bill Gates from opening a Microsoft Office in India or where ever he pleases. In fact, he already has done so.
I think they get a double bubble.
The foriegner comes works for less than training an American...
then..
when they ship the work oversees...
the foriegner can go home and do it there for more the average pay there.
I have seen foreigners come to train then the factory isshipped over with them and thier former American floor trainers are left with without a job.
"Hi..this is Tran we would like you to show him how to operate this...as he will be working here..."
And while we are being so international, why is it that a Microsoft Package I buy in India is so much cheaper and clearly states "Licensed only for use in India"?
I'd be breaking the law by using it in the United States.
I'll speak from personal experience. I hold a BSc in Computer Science and in 2003 was laid off as were 10% of the workforce. The H-1B visas workers at the company were not laid off.
It's all about cheap indentured labor. The H-1B visa workers are obligated to the company for 6 years and cannot switch jobs even if offered a more competitive salary. That's not a FREE MARKET economy. It's an INDENTURED SERVANT market.
Why would a college bound American student want to study engineering or software development when they see the older generation being laid off from those professions and being replaced by cheap foreign workers with H1-B visas?
It makes more sense for them to study law and find a job producing nothing that adds to the GDP in the future.
Bill Gates and Larry Ellison are two of the biggest shills for more H1-B visas since they help to improve their bottome line. What happens when we've sucked up all the computer professionals from abroad? Are we going to import them from Mars?
Bingo!
How is that not a free market? The indentured H-1B workers are free to accept the terms of the deal, before being hired, or not. Nobody kidnapped them or sold them into slavery.
Existing workers are, presumably, free to work for the same--lower--pay as the H-1B workers.
How is this not free market? Employers are free to find the best deal they can for high-tech labor. You're free to work for the lower price, and probably keep your job.
Excellent question. And I believe fewer and fewer American kids are studying those fields exactly for the reasons you listed in your full reply.
I have a family member that works for the Prince of Darkness. She says that that is EXACTLY what he needs them for! No one can figure out what all the Indian guys are doing there when American kids have the same education and degrees.
It might not be so free if tehy are obligated to the one company that brought them.
My point earlier is that people who
filfull jobs as workers
are not the same as people
who create jobs.
He is saying two things at once....you know like a paradox thingy.
They say the Indians are predisposed to "think" in code better than we can. As in they can code on the fly in thier heads...and it is different than Americans.
Sh*t...I guess I am a computer biggot.
It's not a free market when you bring in a labor force that is restricted from competing for higher salaries and must stay with a company for 6 years. I can accept the competition from foreign labor if they are allowed to compete for salaries and accept jobs offering higher salaries. In that situation the competition is fair and a free market. The current situation of H-1Bs not being able to accept other job offers makes it not a free market. They are not free to move to another company nor accept a higher salary offer.
Skilled, educated people are always welcome. Problem is that our CONgress puts limits on the skilled and has a wide open border policy for the ignorant, uneducated, unskilled, welfare dependent, and in many cases criminals.
Go figure.
We are getting to the point where our kidz will be so mis-educated and uneducated that we will be able to keep the technological edge we have taken for granted for 50 years. And if that scares you, just think what China is doing with their children.
I agree with you, but the brains are not there, or I should say, here. The liberals have successfully ruined education.
Perhaps. I dunno - you're looking at a DOS dummy who gazes at her Vista screen and clicks the "allow" button when it tells her to.
But I find it disturbing that anyone is allowed to import workers into the country when qualified Americans in the field go begging for jobs. I'm sure it's all legal, but I think of places like Australia where, if I'm not mistaken, they will only allow you to immigrate if you don't take a job from a qualified Australian.
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