Posted on 03/24/2015 5:24:29 AM PDT by Kaslin
Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, believes passionately that the United States needs more skilled foreign workers. He has long advocated increasing the number of so-called H-1B visas, which allow those workers to come to the U.S. for several years and, in many cases, work for lower wages than current employees. Schmidt is frustrated that Congress hasn't done as he and other tech moguls want.
"In the long list of stupid policies of the U.S. government, I think our attitude toward immigration has got to be near the top," Schmidt said during a recent appearance at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "Everyone actually agrees that there should be more H-1B visas in order to create more tech, more science, more analytical jobs. Everyone agrees, in both parties."
The Eric Schmidt pleading for more foreign workers is the same Eric Schmidt who boasts of turning away thousands upon thousands of job seekers who apply for a few prized positions at Google. For example, at an appearance in Cleveland last October to promote his book, "How Google Works," Schmidt explained that his company receives at least 1,000 applications for every job opening. "The good news is that we have computers to do the initial vetting," Schmidt explained, according to an account in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Other tech leaders join Schmidt in calling for more foreign workers. Some companies are actually lobbying for more H-1Bs and laying off American staff at the same time. For example, last year Microsoft announced the layoff of 18,000 people at the very moment it was pushing Congress for more guest worker visas.
Given all that, there's not quite the unanimous agreement on the need for more foreign workers that Schmidt claims. At a recent hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a number of experts testified that the H-1B program, so sought-after by CEOs, is being abused to harm American workers.
Ron Hira, a Howard University professor and author of the book "Outsourcing America," told the story of Southern California Edison, which recently got rid of 500 IT employees and replaced them with a smaller force of lower-paid workers brought in from overseas through the H-1B program. The original employees were making an average of about $110,000 a year, Hira testified; the replacements were brought to Southern California Edison by outsourcing firms that pay an average of between $65,000 and $75,000.
"To add insult to injury," Hira said, "SCE forced its American workers to train their H-1B replacements as a condition of receiving their severance packages."
Hira testified that such situations are not unusual. And on the larger issue of whether there is, as many tech executives claim, a critical shortage of labor in what are called the STEM fields -- science, technology, engineering and math -- another professor, Hal Salzman of Rutgers, testified that the shortage simply does not exist.
"The U.S. supply of top-performing graduates is large and far exceeds the hiring needs of the STEM industries, with only one of every two STEM graduates finding a STEM job," Salzman testified. "The guest worker supply is very large (and) it is highly concentrated in the IT industry, leading to both stagnant wages and job insecurity."
The hearing also featured Jay Palmer, a former Infosys project manager who blew the whistle on a case in which the big outsourcing firm paid $34 million in fines for worker visa violations. "I watched this on a daily basis," Palmer told the Judiciary Committee. "I sat in the offices in meetings with companies that displaced American workers only because the Americans who had been there 15 or 20 years were being paid too much money."
So not everyone agrees with Schmidt on the need for more H-1B workers. Certainly not the laid-off IT employees at Southern California Edison. And not the workers reportedly displaced by similar practices at Disney, Harley Davidson, Cargill, Pfizer and other companies. Who knows? Maybe some of those workers have been among the 1,000-plus who apply for every Google opening.
To hear the witnesses before the Senate Judiciary Committee tell it, Congress needs to act -- not to increase the number of H-1Bs but to close the loopholes that allow them to be so badly abused at such a cost to American workers. "Congress and multiple administrations have inadvertently created a highly lucrative business model of bringing in cheaper H-1B workers to substitute for Americans," Hira told the committee. "Simply put, the H-1B program has become a cheap labor program."
First I have been in software for over 25+ years as both a developer and a manager. I agree with Asians, they are qualified. I have worked with many, many Indians over the last couple years, both here and in offshore positions. They are by a whole not qualified. They coding standards suck and they do not understand how to move design requirements to real world code. I won’t even touch the language/accent barrier.
You got a turd in your pocket?
They usually are.
The law requires companies to make a "good faith" effort to hire Americans, and to hire a foreigner only after they've "proven" that they can't find a qualified American.
So, the way they get around that requirement is to craft a job description that nobody can meet*, announce that there are no qualified Americans available, and then hire a foreigner. The foreigner doesn't meet the job description either, but nobody goes back and verifies or enforces that he does.
*I have personally seen job postings in the IT world demanding, e.g., 5 years experience with a technology that had only been out in the market for 3 years. This is done to justify hiring a foreigner "because there are no qualified Americans".
Please post requirements/qualifications.
Corporatism + GREED = Failure to true capitalism We no longer live in F.A. Hayak's free market capitalism.
It is the same reason municipalities are fighting for amnesty. You know, the jobs Americans won't do?
It is pretty naïve to disregard the notion that politicians and corporate elites are in concert to help each others goals.
I work with many Indians. They are qualified, but their stories of H1B status and being beholden to the government and corporations is kind of scary.
So what was the salary being offered?
If he’s telling the truth at all, probably 2 h1b’s at 12/hour
Most HR’s are shes.
The American students have been told the lie that there are no real tech jobs available. This has been going on for years. I teach many would be and current American tech workers who are going for bachelor and master degrees. They are swamped by students from the Indian subcontinent who by hook or by crook will try to maintain an A average even though they are lying about their competencies. A few are good and many become somewhat competent by working in an H1B position formerly held by an American citizen. There are plenty of Americans who are ready, experienced and making themselves ready for tech careers but H1Bs are often hired to fill their jobs. The only sector H1Bs have not yet breached are the jobs that require U.S. citizenship and a clearance.
True, but this one man. He’s just looking to punch Americans out of the way to find H1B’s for cheap. That might be a more male type HR rep.
To me that sounds female.
The other issue is that these guys get their degrees for free (or damned close to it) in their home countries, while their American counterparts are on the hook for 30K+ in student debt.
I saw this coming three decades ago. Unless a government security classification is required to perform the duties of your profession, you are in danger of being replaced by a foreign worker. Even with a security classification, if the flood gates for H1B workers is opened, it’s only a matter of time before you are replaced.
Perhaps so. Nasty one indeed though. Hates American workers and probably gets a kickback for every H1B they can hire.
This article is addressing STEM graduates and experienced workers in tech who are being replaced by cheaper foreign labor. There are plenty of qualified US citizens for most of these jobs.
Eric Schmidt has a “open” marriage meaning he has no morals so you expect something like this from him.
Seeing millions of Americans unemployed while those companies that could hire them will instead hire foreigners instead just so they can pad their ceo pay more and give them something to talk about at the clubhouse.
Hiring US IT workers they may have to get by with 4 vacations mansions instead of 6.
“Everyone agrees, in both parties.”
Wonder why? Could it be because special interests own them, and they consider themselves accountable to special interests instead of doing what’s best for the American workers?
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