H-1B Study (All you US Citizen IT Workers are TOAST!)

U.S. House Judiciary Committee Testimony ^ | September 10, 2002 | Dr. Norman Matloff

[dark_lord]

Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage

Due to an extensive public relations campaign orchestrated by an industry trade organization, the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), a rash of newspaper articles have been appearing since early 1997, claiming desperate labor shortages in the information-technology field. Frantic employers complain that they cannot fill many open positions for computer programmers.

Yet readers of the articles proclaiming a shortage would be perplexed if they also knew that Microsoft only hires 2% of its applicants for software positions, and that this rate is typical in the industry. Software employers, large or small, across the nation, concede that they receive huge numbers of re'sume's but reject most of them without even an interview. One does not have to be a ``techie'' to see the contradiction here. A 2% hiring rate might be unremarkable in other fields, but not in one in which there is supposed to be a ``desperate'' labor shortage. If employers were that desperate, they would certainly not be hiring just a minuscule fraction of their job applicants.

Here is a table showing the actual number of job applicants hired for a variety of companies:

American Management Systems	2%
Broderbund Software	1%
Cisco	5%
Cohesive	2%
Datascan	5%
Deltanet	4%
ECbridges	2%
Flashpoint Technology	2 to 5%
R.D. Raab	1%
H.L. Yoh	4%
Inktomi	less than 5%
Microsoft	2%
Net Perceptions	2%
New England firm	1%
Qualcomm	4.5%
Radiant Systems	under 1%
Red Hat Linux	under 1%
Tangis	under 1%

Table 1: Percent of software applicants hired

In other words, there is no shortage of ``bodies,'' i.e. there is no shortage of experienced computer programmers. The problem is that employers are not willing to hire them. Employers are only willing to hire from three narrow categories of programmers:
* New or recent (within a few years of graduation) college graduates, who have cheaper salaries. Note, though, that even among new computer science graduates, fewer than half are hired as programmers.
* Foreign nationals on work visas, who have cheaper salaries.
* A relatively small number of experiencedprogrammers who have background in certain highly-specialized software technologies.

Dr. Matloff says: "Hiring managers have often complained to me that their firm's Human Resources Dept. screens out resume's of applicants who the managers feel qualified. HR apparently decides to screen out the applicants who are too expensive or too old - and then complains that there is a ``shortage'' of applicants...There does seem to be coordination among the HR departments of the various firms. The HR departments of the major firms in Silicon Valley hold monthly meetings, at which the firms exchange information with each other on policy, salaries and so on. (Personal communication from Paul Donnelly, IEEE-USA, June 30, 2000.)...All the firms hire an extremely low percentage of their programming applicants, due to the fact that all the firms overstate job requirements...Almost all firms aim for applicants having three to seven years (or two to eight) of experience."

He says: "It seems safe to say that experience may not be the most valued commodity, according to a survey of 200 IT managers nationwide conducted by InformationWeek Research in May. Though age wasn't specified in the question, only 2% of the managers said they would most likely hire a worker with 10 or more years' experience. Almost half-46%-preferred to hire a worker with four to 10 years' experience, while 26% said they would hire a worker with less than three years' experience, and another 26% wanted an entry-level worker or recent college graduate."

[discostu]

And that's why I don't deal with those questions. The way you phrased it I thought you were asking how Information Technologies (the department, you know the network guys), two departments I've never heard of and QA (the department) workd together. Like everybody else who runs around doubting other people full time on FR you deliberately state the question vaguely so any answer I give is wrong. It's the classing "what's one and one", it can be interpretted as 1 + 1 (which is 2) or 1 next to 1 which is 11; either way the person answering is wrong and the person asking get's to pretend they won.

BTW you forgot Regression Test, Alpha Test, Beta Test, User Acceptance Test, Automation Test, Basic Functionality Test, and ST could be Stress Test or even Standards Test, and of course UT could be Usability Test. Then there's Code Review, Installation Testing, Upgrade Testing (oh gee ANOTHER UT). The list goes on and on. And you have proven nothing except your own desperate need to avoid the topic.

[FormerLurker]

The more people they can put out of work in America and make their existance dependant on the largesse of the state, the faster America will approach a state where the people will have to give up soverenity and join the world government just to survive.

That I think is the TRUE motivation for this fiasco. Certainly greed motivates corporate America, but what of our "representatives"? Whom do they TRULY serve?

[discostu]

Now that's actually good information.

[FormerLurker]

I wonder if George Bush will support my household and the other household I've supported through these years with this very heroic effort I've made to build a programming career. I wonder if George Bush will serve as a reference to help me get my old career revived.

If anything, it appears that GW is cutting back fuel assistance this year. How does one come to terms with that, when there are MORE people that need help than last year? And what about the prices of heating fuel if we DO have a war with Iraq?

The republicans don't know it, but their mortal enemies have been created with this policy and these enemies will march until they achieve victory.

It is certainly obvious to me that the next president will not be a republican if this trend continues. It is a sickening thought that we might have to vote for one who is for abortion and "gay" rights, but what choice do we as a People and as a Nation really have?

[Red Jones]

they very well could be marketing those h1b visas to other companies. That's how government works, they put special clauses in the laws to set systems up to help special people make money. So, they fill out the paperwork, line up the h1b person and get it approved, all to simply sell it for a modest fee to someone else. We don't know.

[FormerLurker]

Ok, you know the terms. Let's simply drop the old discussion.

[Red Jones]

fantastic links FL

THINK REVOLUTION!!!

[RKV]

Not impying that hiring our own first (all other things being equal) is charity. The superior command of English alone is worth some differential.

[RnMomof7]

It is called wage depression..a fair one world government can not have workers in one of the states making too much money..so we bring in cheap inports ...bingo the engineers are suddenly deciding between cookin burgers at McDonalds or working for Microsoft.......equalization

[discostu]

It's all over the place though. There's a bunch of possible explanation, most of which revolve revolve around crappy data (at some layer) or bad interpretation of the data (either at the querieing procedure level or how we are seeing it). I went through about a dozen different queries aiming at different locations (no scientific sampling of course, database integrity testing is time consuming and monotonous and I'm not on zazona's payroll) and I haven't seen a single page of returned data without these apparant duplicates. It's wierd, not invalidating, just wierd and something worth keeping in mind when looking at the data.

[Red Jones]

In las vegas many casinos hire 100% recent immigrants to be dealers. My friend was very frustrated about her low wages. She moved to Vegas, she went to dealer school, her personality is fantastico, she charms and entertains men like you wouldn't believe. She would've been perfect. At the big casinos now it is 100% recent immigrants in the good dealer jobs, americans need not apply. So, if they get away with that discrimination there, then I'd say the laws are simply not enforced when you discriminate against americans.

Also, Matloff claims that in silicon valley it is common for an asian owned company to hire 100% from the home country. Not just programmers, managers and executives, but secretaries and janitors too, I'm saying 100% even when they have dozens of employees. This is a common pattern in america. Matloff says he found a company that advertises in chinese language newspaper in california when they need people.

Discrimination laws are enforced in a very subjective manner, that's just the way it is.

If a white person even speaks about this, then the republican jerks will tell you that he is a racist, but if a white person behaves in this manner, then he'll have charges against him. That's our country, so forget about enforcing discrimination laws.

[Red Jones]

it's weird and you do have an eye for data anamolies.

[jackbill]

(1) Question: Are the H-1Bs paid the fair ``prevailing wage,'' as claimed by the industry?

Who decides what is "fair"? And the term "prevailing wage" turns my stomach. That's a freaking Union term and it does nothing but cost the American people money.

That said, I believe that the H1-B has to be approved each year and Senator Santorum said this morning on C-SPAN that he doubted that it would make it in the upcoming Congress.

[Red Jones]

It is a sickening thought that we might have to vote for one who is for abortion and "gay" rights, but what choice do we as a People and as a Nation really have?<\i>

You're right, it is sickening.

[Joe Hadenuf]

This immigration insanity has become a volatile issue. As our politicians and so called leaders continue to stand in stone cold silence.

[discostu]

Working on a fund accounting application (previous job) does that to you. It also makes you a very boring person.

[blueriver]

Most of the people applying for jobs are simply not qualified for them.

This is simply not true. I know very many qualified engineers who have worked in the industry for 15-20 years who can not even get an interview. The HR departments are throwing away a lot of good resumes because the applicants are Americans or are over the age of 40.

[A. Pole]

Isn't this against the law to specifically seek out foreign workers instead of American citizens? Anybody, any thoughts on the legality of this?

Since it is illegal to discriminate due to age, sex, race, religion, or national origin, I'd say that it IS illegal.

I do not know about "national" origin, but in the case of actual nationality/citizenship there should be a discrimation in FAVOR of Americans! Otherwise what would be the purpose or meaning of citizenship? Market will not be a substitute for a nation.

[greggy]

Really simple. WHEN the United States government wants to put America back to work, the United States government will nullify GATT, NAFTA, deport all H1B's, ect. Until then, one can only conclude that putting Americans back to work is not on the minds of the Bush Administration.

[MattAMiller]

Is ANYBODY complaining about an IT labor shortage anymore? I'd like to laugh in that person's face. It's rough out there for us IT folk. Unemployment in Silicon Valley is almost 8%.

I have no doubts it will straighten out. And I think the Republican sweep on election day will, at the very least, resolve a lot of uncertainty.