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 ...
EXACTLY!
He is saying two things at once....you know like a paradox thingy.
True, if you're to cram them into the same time-frame. I don't think he meant that the H-1B workers are both working as employees and creating jobs at the same time.
But there are plenty of good examples of immigrant workers who work their required time, then go on to create successful start-ups which employ many others.
I agree with you, but the brains are not there, or I should say, here. The liberals have successfully ruined education.
Shsssh..You hurt some kids self esteme./Major Sarc
the free market would be to bring them in as citizens. but companies don't want that, they know if their visa is conditional on their employment, they will work for less. and they do, I see it everyday.
Agreed.
Bill Gates is not stupid - the man knows what he's talking about.
Better look carefully into what he is saying before we react.
Also - we would all do well to walk the halls of Microsoft, Google, IBM, SAP, and the other tech giants.
Their technical offices are not filled with WASP's - they are filled with Asians, Indians, Russians, etc.
Get the picture?
Bill Gates is not stupid - the man knows what he's talking about.
Better look carefully into what he is saying before we react.
Also - we would all do well to walk the halls of Microsoft, Google, IBM, SAP, and the other tech giants.
Their technical offices are not filled with WASP's - they are filled with Asians, Indians, Russians, etc.
Get the picture?
Oops - oh well twice for effect.
Some are born with a silver spoon in thier mouths and some are born with a dot on thier forheads.
Yes, other countries do a better job with restricting the intake pool to those with education but Australia is brining in a lot of uneducated Muslims and there is conflict in the general population about it.
It is our education system.
And those people are making good incomes at the places you mentioned.
OK, yes it is restricted to a degree. You're right.
But it's far more capitalist in nature than the protectionist cries for restricting H-1Bs across the board. After the contractual 6 years are finished, it's purely free market.
just doing the jobs Americans refuse to do...
100% CORRECT
100%
Hey Billy Boy, I know of some really excellent programmers in NW Pakistan you'll want to get in here. Some ones in Syria as well ... /s
It's like being asked to "show us how you would solve this problem" on your interview and you think it is just interview BS but what they really are doing is getting free work out of you becuase someone left.
As well as Red Chinese (some of whom are anti American enemies beneath their corporate exteriors) as well as members of terror cells, and the like.
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