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 ...
6 years is a long, long time in the IT market.
Unfortunately, many average Americans have little to no concept as to precisely what it will take to beat the Indians and the Chinese...over the next 20-30 years. Are they ready for the sacrifice it will take and to work and to live to some extent like the Indians and Chinese? One thing is for certain, the Indians and Chinese will not stop being, well, Indians and Chinese, even if we insist. We have to beat them. I have some developed concepts as to how--at least in an ideal sense. But it is probably not practical. I am not confident yet that vast segments of beloved country, the American Man, the American Woman, the American Student, our populace in general are seriously ready for these significant life style changes and sacrifices. Americans will not stop being Americans just as Indians and Chinese will not stop being Indians and Chinese. They will in fact be ready for these changes at some time in the future, when they look at the table and realize their lunch has just been eaten by others, when the light comes on, but by that time it may well be too late. One cannot live in Asia for a number of years and not see this coming.
Yep. The tech economy is built on the backs of indentured servants.
Well Bill, we haven't curbed immigration yet and Vista still stinks. So your point is...?
It would be insane to do so. Engineering and software development groups are becoming third-world sweatshops.
It's about creating sweatshops filled with people whose names are unpronouncable, whose cultures are alien, and who speak little or no English. Pity you if you're the WASP project lead who has to deliver the product on time.
What do you do for a living? They should bring in a bunch of low wage foreigners to undercut your pay.
ping
But that is how America works. That's the whole point, isn't it? You don't want America to work that way, but it does.
People enter into restrictive contracts all the time. Have you ever heard of professional athletes who sign multi-year contracts? They're in exactly the same boat. They can take or leave the offer. They're not forced into it. Neither are H-1B visa employees. They know the deal going in.
Granted, it's a little more restrictive, in the short run, than being able to job-hop at will, but if it was such a horrible situation, why would people be freely lining up for the opportunity?
True, but it's also voluntary on the part of the visa applicant. Businesses have an interest in avoiding the situation of simply training someone to be their competition. Better to get some actual benefit from the employment before sending them off to beat you.
* chuckle *
I'm a programmer, for the most part. Some network admin, tech support, etc., but mostly Windows software development.
Here's a little anecdote from my own--well, actually my wife's--personal experience:
During the run-up to the Y2K changeover, my wife was a support analyst for a major medical software company. The company had ramped up the development department quite a bit in preparation for the effort. As part of that ramp-up, the company hired some H-1B programmers, mostly Indian IIRC.
After working with the development department for a couple of years, my wife overwhelmingly preferred working with the Indian programmers. The difference in attitude, professionalism and quality was like night and day. The Indian programmers were more humble, helpful, thorough, disciplined and easier to work with. Yes, there were some cultural and language barriers to overcome, but the important stuff was simply done better by the guys from India.
We Americans need to learn to quit whining and looking for others to make life easier for us. Frequently--not always, but frequently--we are our own worst enemy.
Do something to retain the skill that built your $%$#@ company, Bill. You are throwing them away in fovor of cheap labor. I won't buy any more of your crap unless it is "made in America" by Americans.
"I won't buy any more of your crap unless it is "made in America" by Americans."
I can't find much of anything
that fits that description. *&^%$#@
Legal Immigrants in Limbo
It is that time of the year again. Immigration reform is in the air. Recently, there were raids on many businesses and the resulting arrests were given wide publicity. The Bush administration is showing its zeal to pursue the 'illegal immigrants' and 'Undocumented workers' and enforce the immigration laws. The pro-immigration and anti-immigration organizations are ratcheting up their activities. One of the common refrains of the anti-immigration groups is 'If they want to come to this country, let them come legally'. So let us examine what the people trying to immigrate legally face.
A significant number of the high skilled immigrants who immigrate to the United States are categorized by the existing immigration law as 'Employment Based' immigrants. We would refer to this as the EB immigration in this article. The EB immigrants constituted almost 22% of the total immigrants to United States in year 2005. The EB immigration process consists of four steps. There might be minor variations but the time periods for the processing described in this article remain very close to reality.
1. Labor Certification - The US Department of Labor (DOL) administers this program. This process takes anywhere from 3 to 5 years. There are people in this queue who had applied for certification in 2001. Now imagine waiting that long for the first step. However, to its credit, the DOL has implemented a new program which has significantly reduced the time required for this process to less than 6 months. However, this program is beneficial to only those applicants who filed after December 2005.
2. Immigrant Visa application - After obtaining the Labor Certification, the employer petitions the USCIS for approving the certified immigrant for permanent residency. This process can take anywhere between 1 to 10 months.
3. Adjustment of Status - If a immigrant visa is available, (and there are only 140,000 that are available each year, with a cap of 7% of these per country) the USCIS then allows the immigrant to file for adjustment of status and if approved, formally grants permanent resident status more commonly referred to as the Green Card. It is during this stage that the immigrant is subjected to background checks by the FBI and medical checks by USCIS approved physicians. Currently, the FBI background checks are taking anywhere from 8 months to a whopping two years. Also, immigrants from countries like India and China which are the main source of high skilled immigrants find themselves unable to even file for the adjustment of status because of unavailability of visa numbers. Given the current scenario, it is unknown how long it will take for these immigrants to be able to file for adjustment of status, but it is very likely to exceed 4 to 5 years
4. Citizenship – Five years after the Green Card is approved, the immigrant may apply for citizenship to the USCIS. At this stage, he has to undergo an additional background check, take a citizenship test before being eligible for approval.
As can be seen from the description above, the whole process can take 5 to 10 years just to obtain the Green Card and an additional 5 years after that to obtain citizenship. There are people waiting to be sure of their status for even more than that.
Let me make clear what this wait entails. When you are working on a work permit like H-1B, your employer sponsors you for a particular position in the future as a part of the EB immigration process. What that means in reality is that your employer cannot promote you even if you are capable and the employer is willing. In the convoluted logic of EB immigration, if you get a promotion you have to start from step 1 again. That means you are back at the end of the 5 to 10 year queue. Also, spouses of the applicants are not allowed to work even if they are qualified until the primary applicant can file for adjustment of status. Now keep trying to explain to your spouse to keep his/her career on hold for 10 years. The net result of these impediments is that a large number of these people prefer going back to their countries of origin or other countries that offer easier and faster ways to obtain permanent residency and citizenship. That is a big loss to this country.
And this is just for high-skilled and skilled workers, so our question and challenge to the anti-immigration lobby is ‘Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is and pressure Congress to pass a Comprehensive Immigration Reform to ensure that people can immigrate to the United States legally in a reasonable amount of time?’
United States is undergoing an unprecedented change in demographic situation. The Baby boomer generation consists of 77 million citizens born in the years 1946 to 1964. The leading edge of this generation is entering their 60s in 2006 and a large number of the baby boomers would start retiring soon. This is a double whammy to the US economy. Even now, the employers ranging from
small businesses in the north-east to big corporations like Microsoft are facing serious labor shortages. When a large chunk of US labor force starts retiring every year, businesses are going to be even more hard pressed to find suitable workers. At the same time, the demands for social services from this large retiree population would keep growing. The US economy would find it harder and harder to support an ever larger population in need of Social services support. Unless something
is done to deal with the coming labor crunch, United States is facing a huge economic and social services meltdown. The businesses would either fold in face of global competition or go where they can find labor that would allow them to be competitive leading to additional job cuts in the US. The immigration policy this country adopts would determine the future of this country. The only solution to deal with the labor crunch is to allow more employment based immigration.
As mentioned earlier, the total number of Employment based immigrants allowed per year by current law is 140,000 and it also includes the dependents of these immigrants. This limit was established in the early 90s when population of United States was smaller and a lot younger. This number has to undergo a sharp upward revision to account for the coming demographic challenge this country is facing.
The current immigration law has rules that prohibit immigration from any country in excess of 7% of the overall immigration. As far as employment based immigration is concerned, this limit is of 7% is
illogical. Skills are not evenly distributed in the world and companies do not hire people based on the country they come from but for the skill set they possess to get the job done. As president Bush aptly described "It makes no sense to say to a young scientist from India, you can't come to America to help this company develop technologies that help us deal with our problems". This cap of 7% has caused the applicants from large countries like China and India to wait for years on end. As we all know, these countries are undergoing rapid growth. If the United States does not make an effort to retain this valuable human capital, those countries are going to benefit at United States’ cost.
Every year, thousands of students from various countries come to the United States to pursue higher education. In a fairly large number of cases, the universities and various endowments provide financial aid to these students. It would make sense for United States to make an effort to retain this talent that has been educated in a large number of cases by the American taxpayers. It is a reality that the talent is sorely needed. Abolishing the country limits on the employment based immigration would make it easier to retain this talent and help ease the skilled labor crunch.
The USCIS has serious issues in dealing with the magnitude of immigration benefits processing expected of the service. The Bush administration has made some not entirely successful attempts to improve the workings of the troubled federal agency. The United States does not become safer if an immigration benefits application sits entangled in a bureaucratic nightmare for years on end. The USCIS should be mandated to process all existing backlogs in a reasonable time frame and provided the resources and leadership to accomplish this goal.
In the cacophony of anti-illegal immigration rhetoric, no one seems to be paying attention to the plight of the legal immigration applicants waiting for years for their applications to get processed. The United States is supposed to be the land of opportunity. The Congress should make an effort to ease the hardships of the people who have followed the law and are trying to immigrate legally so that these deserving immigrants also get a chance to pursue their American Dreams.
BUNCH OF BULL$%%%%
I know some computer people UNEMPLOYED right now BILL and YOU HAVEN'T HIRED THEM!
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
ping grrrrrrrrrrr
but, but... i thought developers were like buggy whips... unneeded with demand decreasing?!
don't worry... the dems will make sure he gets what he wants. they will push the H1B limit to 300,000 again... AND make it so anyone with an advanced degree can come to the US without being counted in the 300,000.
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