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.
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.
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.
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.
Sir - You nailed it. I experienced this and saw many of my trusted friends booted from the industry.
My other experience w/ these H1Bs over the past 20 years is that they are not as skilled as the US worker. Yes, everyone’s installation is different and you have to train them on your naming conventions and environment. I get that.
What I see is the H1B work lacks the critical thinking skills to determine what is important, move past analysis and into solution space. If there is a big critical problem effecting a business critical application, then you better not be in a hurry w/ H1B as they suffer from analysis paralysis.
I am a bit luckier than the author starting my career in 1978. I am done.
To the author -
If you have remained in IT and are now earning a 2002 salary, might I recommend that you consider that your skills have grown stagnant. Like all highly technical fields, the required industry skills change over time and to remain viable, one must stay current.
As a remedy, consider a shift to cyber security. Likely it would not require a significant adjustment. If you have a programing background, there is a demand for code reviewers. If networking is your background, consider specializing in firewalls, vpns, routers etc. If you want to have some fun, consider penetration testing. Recent estimates show that cybersecurity will have a shortfall of 500,000 positions in the US alone.
I am sorry to hear of your troubles. I too am a DeVry Institute of Technology grad, 1985. I attended their Lombard campus.
The bank I work for will be hiring some 900 people over the next few years, we’re re-insourcing many functions that were outsourced the past 3 years. It was a disaster.
Would you be willing to send me your resume?
I’m Larry.
Why it's as smart as outsourcing all of our manufacturing to the communist chinesesis.
BTW, a link that works is https://organizationsandsocialchange.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/will-u-s-tech-jobs-turn-all-indian-the-h1b-visa-dilemma/comment-page-2/#comment-4052
Would hiring a person to develop and maintain a Wordpress website be found in the IT field? Do these people work as independent contractors? If so, where can this person be found?
Just curious.
Industries change, employment patterns change, everything changes.
That said, we need an America first policy from manufacturing to farming to technology to finance.
>> After 31 years in a highly skilled field a person should not feel threatened by the loss of their career.
Unfortunately, not reality especially in the constantly changing IT universe.