Here ya go!
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 ...
Really I wonder how much of this is about Tech companies staying in absurdly high rent districts instead of fanning out to places with reasonable home and grocery prices as well as actually having enough water. It’s sort of like they are self-screwing and they aren’t going to outrun price point forever for obvious reasons.
I wonder whether it is a pride issue for folks who like myself had had long stints of service as a “regular employee.” That they feel it demeaning after that to be in a position like I am. I find it less demeaning than the welfare rolls, but YMMV. I understand rotten economies.
If I am making money in any manner off of them, it’s because my boss here is one. And I was floored to find he was one of the most gracious folks I had ever met in business. Compared to him, a lot of my other, “all American” bosses were jerks.
Ditto that.
One other observation (to add to the others I've raised on previous h1b tech threads:
I've noticed that it appears to be really difficult to locate h1b-type folk who actually take initiative when working tickets. I'm astounded at the time it takes to get really simple work completed when a work order comes in that I have to assign to another group. I pride my self upon fast turn around (within our change management guidelines) when tickets come in that I have to work (primarily working DNS stuff these days). If I have something that needs action elsewhere, I can wait days just for someone to admit that their group can and should handle the work. You find that is because these foreigners seem to just refuse to notice a ticket assigned to their group, and take it on. Instead, it will sit there and possibly be bounced back for the flimsiest of reasons.
Drives me crazy, because internal customers can see me as the front side to that whole process because I'm the go-to guy to get stuff done.
Well I guess you could try to say that,
if workers who have to take on debt obtaining skills to obtain employment,
are then compelled to train foreign replacements to do what they had been hired to do,
thereafter are blacklisted,
thus artificially causing a shortage in the market.
.....
but what do you expect from a bunch of pot smoking vaxxers?!
So true. The “pinhead employers” you describe don’t have the foggiest as to what goes into constructing a system that users find easy to work with and meets their needs and is easily maintainable. Would it ever occur to them that such systems cost less in the long run? Nah. All they know about is “code” and whose hourly rate is the cheapest.
Ever since I’ve been in IT, employers have been grousing about how much they have to pay programmers, whom they regard as little more than glorified clerical workers. The dream has always been to make programming tasks equivalent to low-level clerical tasks, with correspondingly low wages. First they tried “packages,” then “fourth-generation languages,” then a variety of other pie-in-the-sky stuff - now their latest elixir is foreign, third-world workers - but nothing seems to work out the way they would like.
A project of any complexity is going to need to keep locals around.
Yeah I’m in. Just got my contract cancelled with EMC so they could piss off even more customers with offshore resources.
Beautiful
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You
It’s amazing how many justify government intervention into the labor market for the benefit of the cronies.
There has NEVER been a shortage of good competent IT people in the US. even at the height of the Y2K mania. Just a shortage of Americans who can survive on third world salaries.
“as a rule of thumb IT are considered too old by Personnel those who are at the rip old age of 35. “
About that. By age 50 IT workers are not even considered.
Good for him!
“Is that not what capitalism and free markets are all about, making the most profit possible utilizing the principles of supply and demand?”
... while obeying the LAW.
Gaming the H1-B process to get cheaper workers is no more legitimate capitalism than the guy who steals laundry detergent from Walmart and sells it half price for cash.
Here ya go!
Never mind the set of citizens that are trainable, but are viewed as a problem for having a US citizenship.
The interesting part is that non-citizens are trained without any regards to competence or receptiveness to training - their main attraction centers around not being a citizen.
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