Free Republic

One of the primary narratives associated with comprehensive immigration reform has nothing to do with the millions of low-skill workers that would be granted an opportunity to compete against Americans for jobs. As a letter sent to the president and Congressional leaders signed by more than 100 chief executives of major tech companies and trade associations indicates, there is a shortage of highly-skilled American labor that drives reform as well. Yet as The Atlantic’s Michael S. Teitelbaum reveals, that narrative is a lie.“A compelling body of research is now available, from many leading academic researchers and from respected research organizations...

It's a common for people in the acting, modeling and music industries to feel pressure to maintain a young appearance. Actors and actresses over 30 and 40 complain they cannot get roles. Now, all that anxiety is coming to Silicon Valley. In The New Republic, Noam Scheiber illustrates just how severely ageism plagues parts of the tech business in California. "Silicon Valley has become one of the most ageist places in America," Scheiber writes. Dr. Seth Matarasso, a plastic surgeon that administers Botox treatments in the Bay Area, told Scheiber that he frequently treats middle-aged Silicon Valley workers, saying the...

The tech-bus protest isn’t just a San Francisco thing anymore. This week, the anti-gentrification act of blocking a private shuttle full of high-paid tech workers spread to Seattle, where a handful of buses carrying Microsoft employees were stopped by demonstrators. The protest was chronicled by local Tweeps and community websites.

New tech industries start small but can grow into permanent, billion-dollar slices of infrastructure. Sometimes that seems to happen overnight — like with smartphones. And sometimes it takes years — like with the dumbphones that grew like mold from the mid-1990s through the late 2000s. And now, for example, the prevalence of smart mobile devices has spurred the mobile app industry, an entirely new piece of infrastructure which supports thousands of companies and billions of dollars in sales. There is a discussion going on over on Quora about which industries are poised to gain the next $1 billion. We pulled...

Should education and experience always command a high salary? It seems reasonable to think so — yet older employees with advanced degrees may lack the specialized skills needed to satisfy rapidly changing market demand. In perhaps no field is this more true than the tech industry. I recently conducted an e-mail interview with Norm Matloff, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who believes there is widespread age discrimination in the tech industry. (His busy schedule made it impossible to get Matloff on the phone.) In particular, Matloff contends that the tech industry has manufactured a false talent shortage...

December 21, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Five years ago, some unemployed IT workers in Connecticut formed an advocacy group to fight against the H-1B and L-1 visa programs. The group's strategy was old-fashioned for the Internet Age, relying on face-to-face lobbying to reach out to federal lawmakers. And the group, called The Organization for the Rights of American Workers (TORAW), was successful in getting visa-reform legislation introduced in Congress. But now TORAW is disbanding, according to John Bauman, president of the Meriden, Conn.-based group. Bauman said this week that he has made 16 trips to Washington this year and met with...

STEPS were taken by a distributor for Apple Computers to ensure that Israeli-made parts do not enter Bahrain after an Israeli-made battery was discovered by a customer in an old Apple Computer model.Apple Centre manager Asif Mohammed Irfan said the battery powers the calendar and clock of an old Apple G4 model but added that he didn’t believe that it was sold in large numbers.“We were not aware that the computer contained anything made in Israel. We, in turn, informed our Dubai-based suppliers Arab Business Machines who were very displeased with the discovery,” he said.“They have taken up the matter...