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…
Nor is anyone entitled to pay less than the American market price for labor by getting foreign-labor welfare. As our President said, "Hire American!"
Don't know if this has changed or not but back in the early 90's the code that controlled the south eastern electrical grid was outsourced to India. So in effect, the grid was controlled by India. I wrote to my congressman at the time complaining about it ( Thurmond and Hollings were my senators at the time ) All I got was form letter lip service back from them.
The Mumbai programmers had nothing to do with the MCAS system. MCAS was fully developed and tested at Boeing’s Seattle center by US workers, per Boeing. Some sites had been pushing the connection because it makes for sensationalist clickbait headlines. But that’s all it is. Sensationalism.
I was a STEM specialist for four years, and got laid off very late in the dot bomb carnage. No degree and spending $$$ retraining... and who do I hear on the radio? Lindsey Graham saying how there weren’t enough programmers for all the jobs, how we had to import 50,000 programmers, my own Senator. I could have spit lead right then and there. It still burns me up today.
Indeed. There are plenty of jobs available in IT if you have the right skillset. In fact there were far more jobs available (pre Covid) than there were candidates to fill them and many with salaries comfortably in the 120k to 130k plus range and beyond. But companies are looking for dynamic motivated people with current/ 2020s skills ( Data science, cloud, devops, AI, modern programming languages..etc), not unmotivated people with 1980s/1990s skills who bolt from the office at 5.
No, companies keep advertising for jobs they have already filled. They keep looking for better trained or cheaper employees non-stop. It also has the effect of making H1B visas appear needed.
Indians all fall under as minorities. How can they be minorities when they dominate 99% of IT and computer science in the US?
Close family member worked for HP. Terminated after working her butt off for them for 20 years. She had a dual major in computer science and accounting. Fantastic grades. Did her no good in the end.
Jobs went to India.
The irony is these Indian programmers had children, who now cannot get a job in IT, because they are US citizens.
See post # 62
Wack your own weeds. How hard can it be?
So are you a dot or do you just import them?
I've regularly seen, from H1-Bs, grammar and spelling mistakes on emails -- to managers or to entire teams -- which would get a US employee fired on the spot.
But with H1-Bs, you're not even allowed to notice.
How does one transition to this? Is there "we don't hire Americans" / "we don't hire over 35" in this area?
Stuff it, troll.
Good luck with that one.
I think the mere possession of an MBA should be a criminal offense in most cases.
The only place that H1B visa is needed is a place like Guam that has a real problem getting people to move there
The importation of cheap labor is a completely bipartisan undertaking.
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Sad but absolutely true!
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