Posted on 04/26/2020 7:11:07 PM PDT by jroehl
Goodbye American Information Technology Worker
After serving four years in the Army I took advantage of my VA benefits enrolling at DeVry University of Chicago to obtain a degree in Computer Science. I started my career in Information Technology (IT) in 1986. I saw this as a field that would pay the salary needed to support my young family. I was correct in that I was able to find employment immediately after graduation with a company in Chicago and I have been fortunate to work in this field for the past 31 years providing for my family.
Today I find myself in the position of praying that I can last 7 more years until I reach retirement age. After 31 years in a highly skilled field a person should not feel threatened by the loss of their career. Yet this is where I find myself, clinging to my current position, accepting cuts in benefits and no salary increases by my current employer, thankful that I still have a job.
Why would I be thankful for a job that pays less in salary than I earned in 2002 and for an employer that, on a monthly basis, lays off American employees to bring in foreign workers at a fraction of the cost?
Because I am one of the few left. Luck has placed me in a position that, through contractual requirement and regulation, does not allow an H1B worker to do my job. American IT workers are being replaced by H1B visa foreigners. These American jobs are not being sent to another country. They are being lost as a result of American corporations bringing foreign workers into the United States to replace American IT workers. This is being done so that corporations, American corporations, can squeeze out a few more drops of profit with the American IT worker as collateral damage.
There is no shortage of skilled American IT workers. I know more out of work computer programmers and systems analysts than employed ones. American corporations have found loopholes in the H1B visa program that allows them to put Americans out of work and bring in cheap foreign workers even though there is no skill shortage. You do not work in the same field for 20 to 30 years and suddenly become unskilled and unproductive. If the American IT worker no longer has the skills required to do his or her job, why is it necessary for them to train the foreign worker taking their place? Shouldn’t the foreign worker already have the skills needed if not more? Isn’t that why you find it necessary to bring them into OUR country and replace us?
American families are experiencing financial and emotional stress, tearing some apart, so that American corporations can make a few more bucks. How do you, as an American citizen, sit in a conference room and decide that those few dollars in profit justify putting your fellow Americans out of work? How can you place so little value on the people that have given their very best effort to you? The people that, through their efforts, made your corporation better and more profitable? Unlike Mitt Romney, I do not believe that corporations are people, but there are American people working at high levels within these corporations that are making these decisions. How do you justify it? How the hell do you sleep at night? How do you look at your spouse and children with any pride at all after what you have done? Knowing that you have unnecessarily caused hardship to your fellow Americans. Is increasing your bonus, through hurting others, worth it?
Every corporation in our great country has the right to make a profit. Capitalism has fueled our growth as a nation. But to bring foreign workers into our country to replace Americans who are only guilty of making a good enough salary to support their families is morally reprehensible.
I hope that the loopholes in the H1B program will be closed and that this practice is stopped. Our President has mentioned taking action to do this in some of his speeches and there are at least two bills being proposed in Washington addressing this issue.
Perhaps I am naïve to think that it will happen but for all of my fellow Americans suffering as a result of this Un-American program I pray that it will. And I personally pray that I will make it 7 more years.
Signed, An American IT worker still hanging in there…
IT has always been a great way for a young worker to overachieve financially - but it always transforms into a lousy job (though not necessarily a lousy contracting option) for anyone over 40.
Please, Mr. President, stop this H1B treachery.
This is why the “Wrong Nationalities” must start filing discrimination lawsuits
The law and The Constitution clearly state “NO PERSON”
Keep testing the courts until they learn to read the plain meaning
Meanwhile, help make it a political issue as well. ENOUGH
You don’t want to know who is driving that big rig either. The transportation industry is going down the tubes fast.
I feel for him. Hope he finds work soon!
People from Mexico are most ready to do my weed whacking. Am I guilty?
I agree that the quality of the work is a problem, but the employer has to answer for that. In my STEM field, the quality often works the other way around. It’s shocking how many STEM graduates from U.S. schools I’ve come across who are borderline illiterate. If you’re a U.S. college graduate and you can’t even write coherent English, then you don’t even have the ONE SKILL that should set you apart from your foreign peers.
Didn’t you qualify for a Government job, or did you make a choice?
I am called out to build a job next week that we should get done in two weeks. It is to add a computerized picking system to a grocery supplier. The irony is that the job is critically needed to help a big box retailer meet demand, however the installation will not be brought online as ALL the PROGRAMMERS that would commission the install are down visiting family in Mexico and cannot get back through the border. 5 years ago all the IT guys were Americans, but they were forced to train their replacements. Now ALL the IT is H1B visa types, as they will work at half the cost and 3/4 the competence.
The company I work for was taken over by a Teachers Union, it all went downhill from there. Moved factories over the border, ran out the Americans, now 80% of the construction guys, mill wrights and electricians all speak Spanish on the job.
Sad thing Corporate greed has done to America.
Two of my sons graduated from “good schools” (physics and CE degrees) and got fantastic jobs right off. One contracted for six figures before he even graduated. I’ve never seen that kind of money.
And we don’t have any connections I assure you!
Perhaps we are outliers I don’t know. But they have done fantastic, been headhunted - one’s a senior software engineer and one is a systems manager or something right now.
Mumbai programmers are just as good as American programmers.
Just ask Boeing about the Mumbai programmers who worked on the Boeing 737 MAX.
Unfortunately, I have heard him explicitly say he wants to EXPAND H1Bs. More than once.
I hear ya. I got two degrees and three certifications, yet all I’ve been able to land is an admin job. Granted, I can use my IT knowledge to benefit my work section, but I am not doing what I spent four years of college training to do.
We really do need to take back our education institutions. That’s our weak link.
To the author: I made more money every year in IT.
I advanced my career through self study, continuous learning and the desire to reform into what was needed in that era.
That said, I saw many hundreds lose their jobs to H-1Bs.
If you do not move into management or project management, you are at risk with any enterprise that builds and sells products.
Think of the fate of a 48yr old construction worker with pain in every joint and be damn glad you’re in IT.
There never was a real need for H1B. That program needs to be eliminated or have a minimum wage so high attached to it that we are only importing super geniuses. The program has been being gamed for a long time and people with faked foreign qualifications are being peddled by H1B recruiters for hire by American companies. My son told me that when he worked at a large tech company in Austin that the H1B workers were clueless for the most part and were baffled by very basic stuff. He said the situation there was really quite pathetic and he got out as soon as he found another gig.
So my daughter has told me.
She is highly valued, at least at present.
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