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…
Ah, yes, High Value Engineering Centers. I work for a major global engineering company that uses such places, again, Mumbai. A lot of projects are supposed to have 80% HVEC content. Yeah, right. A lot of re-work has to be done stateside, so where are the savings, when half the stuff out of Mumbai is dreck?
If a corporation fires an American worker and hires a foreign replacement, they should face tariffs for their goods sold in the U.S., as if they were a foreign corporation importing those goods or services.
And then there are the cultural and linguistic issues ...
I see a lot of H1Bs and offshores these days, but a quality American IT guy will always outperform the foreigners. Seen it with my own eyes.
“My youngest son graduated with dual majors in both Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “
In IT young, ambitious engineering graduates are a dime a dozen.
He has to develop a skill.
Every Cisco CCIE in the world that wants to work, is working. All of them. And making $100+ per hour in the US.
That does not require a degree at all.
But you can purchase coders for $20/hr.
As for the Electrical Engineering degree, much circuit board design and chip design is done by computers.
Bang.
I've had to completely scrap and rewrite a lot of offshore and H1B code.
It's shit.
The importation of cheap labor is a completely bipartisan undertaking.
Not my experience, and I'm very much nearing retirement age.
Just so people know, there are always good paying IT/CS related jobs in the military for civilians or contractors. Excellent benefits and the salaries have had annual increases recently. Many of these can be found in Austin Texas at the new Army Futures Command. There are other positions scattered around the world and in the other services. You need to be US citizens and have secret or TS clearance. You can be any age for most of the positions. Being a military vet may help you relate to the job and the people you will work with, but it is usually not a requirement. These jobs are often technically challenging and cutting edge.
It hasn’t for me but you have to be able to innovate and move up
Just curious. What is/was your profession and your employer? Were/are you secure?
Most of our company’s development is done in India, they work their asses off and do quality work—they need constant guidance but there are no issues with their skills
As a 20 year IT vet, I either saw or got caught up in the offshoring maelstrom a couple of times. I’m retired from that field now except for the occasional back alley pitch-in I can provide, so I’m not going to beat a dead horse and share war stories. But yes, the H1B racket needs to be busted into shards. I saw too many good, decent American workers get burned by corporate greedheads who hired overseas worker drones who weren’t a pinch of snuff better than the domestic workers they were replacing. I’m as much a capitalist as anyone on the right, but was all about feathering their own nests at the expense of screwing their own neighbor.
IMHO it’s best to ask people ahead of time in the industry what it’s like being them and how to get there. That’s what I did when I was on high school. The programmers I talked to told me which schools were good with CS and which ones weren’t. I went to one of the good ones and landed my first programmer job before walking the stage. Places in Alabama are still hiring programmers from those same schools.
Starting off making $45k as a junior programmer in low cost of living Alabama ain’t too bad. I got a couple of decade under my belt and make barely over 6 figures... again In low cost of living Alabama .
To still be a software engineer I’ve had to be prayerful, respectful of deadlines, treat people professionally, make a hobby of keeping up with changes, and pay attention to business needs to either predict software needs before asked or understand where leaders are coming from when they do ask.
Yep. The stress and pressure is high but the ability to earn the amount I do is worth it
The most important thing people forget is you have to build a network and make connections
I get unsolicited offers weekly as I know so many ppl and they know my reputation-but it’s taken years to build
Just have a certain skill set or degree is no guarantee these days
If it were ONLY the employer that paid the price for poor-quality H-1B/offshore work, I'd stand back and laugh while the market exacted the penalty for shortsighted beancounting. The problem is that the American middle class will have been mauled before the lesson has been learned - and Latin America shows us what it means to not have a middle class. Ending work visas and discouraging offshoring will preserve America, with the icing of saving shortsighted beancounters from themselves.
I didn’t feel secure at all times, but does anyone ever
feel all secure? I signed an agreement that either my
employer or I could terminate our relationship at any
time with or without case.
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