Posted on 08/04/2015 6:44:35 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom
[...] Yet many studies suggest that the STEM shortage is a myth. In computer science and engineering, says Hal Salzman, an expert on technology education at Rutgers, "the supply of graduates is substantially larger than the demand for them in industry." Qualcomm is not the only high-tech company to be aggressively downsizing. The computer industry, led by Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, cut nearly 60,000 jobs last year, according to the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The electronics industry pared an additional 20,000 positions.
[...] As we've reported, the majority of H-1B visas go not to marquee high-tech companies such as Google and Microsoft, but to outsourcing firms including the India-based giants Infosys and Tata. They're not recruiting elite STEM graduates with unique skills, but contract workers to replace American technical employees — who often are required to train their foreign-born replacement as a condition of receiving their severance. This is the scandalous method of cost-cutting used by companies such as Southern California Edison, which outsourced the jobs of some 500 information technology employees, as we reported in February.
For such companies, raising the visa limit is about exploiting a loophole in immigration law to save money — workers on these temporary visas are typically paid less than U.S. employees doing the same work, and more complaisant with American bosses because they'll be deported if they lose their jobs. [...]
It's unlikely that such hard numbers will silence the drumbeat for more high-tech immigration, Teitelbaum says, as long as big tech companies have Congress' attention. "The lobbying opposition is weak," he says. "There's no interest group that's as well organized and financed to say that this is an emperor with no clothes on."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Duh.
Sad to say, one sees FReepers parroting those myths.
Back in the early 1980s, my older brother worked at a meat packing plant in a small midwestern town for $17 per hour, which was reasonably good money at the time. Now, the same industry in the same type of towns hire illegals and pays them even less even though the price of ground beef at the super market has more than tripled. Go figure.
Corporate greed undermining both America and American workers to make more money. Just like our beloved politicians!
It’s been phony for the last 20 years. They were making this claim running up to Y2K and since.
Let’s just call Customer Service and get an answer:
“My name Peggy...”
Uhuh.
A number of executives at Ameriquest held a significant interest in a certain “outsourcing” firm.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Ameriquest+Tavant
Obviously it was just a coinkidink that millions (500+?) of dollars were funneled through that enterprise ASAP.
There’s no shortage of STEM workers; there’s a shortage of STEM workers willing to work in Los Angeles (or any other high-cost area) for $33 per hour.
Yep. Plenty of tech workers here if they’ll pay for them.
The tricky part, of course, is that rising tech wages here lead to more offshoring of tech work.
Technically nobody should be “hiring illegals” (which is different from H1B arrangements, which tend to be contractors). It is banned. But the nation is falling asleep with the nodding and winking.
A contractor economy makes sense to nervous companies in a tight time with greedy, proud tyrants (not private enterprise, but government) presiding over it. I’ve switched to that mode and in fact am working cheek-by-jowl with H1B, which almost to a person are very decent.
With 100 million Americans unemployed should I call them a liar?
I was at one company that would spend more money to offshore, because it was “cheaper”. I think it had more to do with being able to write it off vs having employees.
Wow. The truth smacked LASlimes in the head.
I’ve been in the IT industry for over 20 years. Over the last 10 years there has been an absolute avalanche of foreign tech workers flooding the market. Most are Indian. Some are good, many are not. But they generally accept less pay than a lot of Americans.
They are definitely crowding out American college graduates.
They’re looking at the level that contractors tend to get paid, and with the weaker obligations that exist to contractors vs. official employees. So, surprise, they see contractors on their plate and that’s it.
It is a penny pinching time. With the monsters in Washington, wouldn’t you?
Being considered technically trained does not equal being a reliable or useful worker. Our colleges are giving a lot of degrees to completely useless people.
My niece has a 4 year degree and lives the life of a hippie because she doesn’t want to be chained to a desk. Her whole circle of friends are the same way. They’re too busy exploring their creativity or sexuality and bragging about their education to get tied up with a job in a “socially malignant” corporation they hate.
Frankly if I were looking for an employee, I would turn to my GED holding nephew who goes to work during the hours required of him and doesn’t expect 6 figures for a part time job. He can be trained for a high tech job within reason
I can confirm. However, an average-to-poor H1B generally costs way more than a correctly-paid good American IT guy.
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