More Visas
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All Big Bill is interested in is cheap labor. Competent workers are threatened constantly. Threatened with losing their severance if they don't cross-train their replacements before they get laid off. If these people coming into the country on the work visas are such geniuses, why do we have to train them first?
The only thing that is going to happen if we allow the visas to continue flowing is a flood of the domestic labor market. That means lower salaries for all of us. Isn't it enough that most families have both parents working? Should they have to work two jobs each now too? The American dream is slowly being eroded away and the gap between the rich and poor is widening.
The loss of the manufacturing sector hurt this country bad enough. Losing the professional sector will kill the middle class. No one is safe from losing their jobs from this ridiculous example of fat cat politicking, not teachers, not nurses, not accountants or doctors or lawyers.
[font="Tahoma"]Bryant E. Byrd, BSSE MCDBA MCAD[/font]
Business Intelligence Administrator
MSBI Administration Blog -
I'm based in the U.K. and I think it would be very difficult to encourage people into IT as its such an insecure area right now. Rightly or wrongly (and thats a whole different discussion) companies are outsourcing which makes any kind of non customer facing role insecure.
I see this as big as any industrial revolution that has occurred. 25 years ago in the U.K. you would have laughed at me if I said all the coal mines would be closed, but they've all gone. I see this as the same thing, industry is moving on and rightly or wrongly people need to adapt to that change. Personally, if some asked me what they thought would be a good career I think I would tell them to become a plumber or electrician!!
Just my thoughts.
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plumber, electrician or a database developer/administrator - in this constantly changing/evolving world - DATABASES ARE INDISPENSABLE & HERE TO STAY
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
Steve,
I read SQL Server Central daily update mostly for your column. It was disheartening to see such topic today. We should be more concentrating on SQL Server rather than any other topic.
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Sorry that you didn't like the topic. It's hard to write about SQL everyday
.While I did focus on the US and it's H1-B policy, this is applicable to any country. What if Germany were experiencing heavy immigration requests? What about Australia? The US is a WONDERFUL place, and immigration is largely responsible for that. We don't have a strong culture, but a mix of peoples' cultures from everywhere and that's a good thing.
However, having limits on that isn't necessarily a bad thing. We still give out lots of work visas, I'd bet more than any other country. I know when I tried to get one for the UK it was way more difficult than someone in the UK getting one for the US. My point is that I'd like to see jobs within a country, any country, stick mostly with those in that country.
And these days with the Internet, there are still many ways to hire someone in say Australia to work for a US company without having to get them a visa. Especially for a large company like Microsoft.
This is a statement by large corporations that the profits and dollars are more important than their nationality. I think that's a bad trend and while I don't have the answer, I don't think allowing large companies to grow unchecked is it.
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Steve (and all);
As a long-time IT professional, I am disheartened to hear that admissions to computer science departments have been down for the last four years, reportedly due to the fact that, given such a glut of IT people on the market, they see no future in the business. If we really care about maintaining a viable industry here, we need to make sure our own best & brightest can succeed.
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If you want skilled IT workers just hang around large companies like the Bell's GE, IBM, GE etc. The bodies are pile up like cordwood. There is not a shortage of workers, just an abundance of greed.
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I agree with Steve. Businesses here in U.S. will realize one day that their very customer is the former worker whose job was either outsourced or given to an H1 worker. Only by the time they realize the error of their ways they will be closing their business because their customer, the former employee, cannot afford to buy their product. Heaven help us when that time arrives. It may be sooner then we think.
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I am confused how can those companies save money by importing "H1B" worker, especially in IT industry? Some of my friends worked with "H1B" and received same benefits and compatible salary as local people. They also have to pay the tax and social security as others.
People have to continue to improve their skills no matter where they are in current global environments.
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Allen,
As most of the other posts have mentioned, greed is a main factor. I've had the experience of working for a mortgage company, Countrywide Mortgage, as a contractor a few years back. It seems that this company feels that there is a shortage of intelligent IT professionals in the United States and prefers to sponsor Indian workers instead (approx. 75% of their IT). The benefit that they gain is that instead of paying a salary of lets say $75k per year, they pay these sponsored individuals $20k to $35k per year. This accomplishes two things in our industry. First, it angers most Americans. Second, it drives down the yearly salary for the industry which in the long run, would drive away future IT'ers looking for a solid career.
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No more Visas. If corportations can't find domestic workers with the skills they need they need to work with the educational institutions to produce more and better students. I work with several persons here on H1 visa's. I'm amazed and what their educational background is as it relates to computer science. I've also been associated with a local Community college for 15 years that produces students with Computer Science Associates degrees where half of their courses were Excel, Word, and Powerpoint. Colleges stopped teaching programming (ie logic, methods) years ago in favor of the "flavor of the moment" like VB or .NET. Students may know how to tweek and object's properties but they have no idea how to actually write code that lives within a complete application.
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Strange, I posted this once and it never showed up, so I will try reposting:
You rarely hear about top economists warning about outsourcing and the new practice of firing American workers and replacing them with cheaper foreign guestworkers using H-1b and L-1 visas because most media sources are owned by large Corporations.
First, Dr. Paul Samuelson, dubbed "The Father of Economics", professor emeritorious, MIT, formerly a supporter of Free Trade conducted extensive research and has changed his position. He published a report explaining how the theory of "comparative advantage" no longer applies due to unforseen changes like high speed internet and the ability for Corporations to chase the globe for cheapest, educated labor sources. Nobody in the United States can graduate with a degree in Economics without studying Dr. Samuelsons economic teachings.
CNN's Lou Dobbs, author of "Exporting America" and host of Lou Dobbs, CNN Moneyline, possesses a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. Excellent book and recommended reading. I highly recommend watching his show every evening at 6 and 11 pm, central standard time and checking out his website where he lists every company proven to be outsourcing jobs or importing cheaper labor.
President Reagan's Asst. Economic Policy Advisor, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, man responsible for tax reform plan that pulled US out of recession of the 80's is crying out warnings of the United States deteriorating to 3rd world status and losing it's technologal edge due to outsourcing and use of cheap imported workers.
I highly recommend everyone read Dr. Robert's articles at the following link:
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/all_columns.htm
Kindest Regards,Mary
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Mary,
Yikes
, I feel bad. Graduated in '89 with an Economics degree and I haven't heard of Dr. Samuelson. Or at least I don't remember the name
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Here's an outstanding article:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/4/29/142131.shtml
The Wealth of this Nation, Part I, by Diane Alden
In its best form, capitalism is a system which is not biased towards any group of people or special interest. At its best it emphasizes and supports a level playing field on which as many individuals and economic entities as possible will progress.
When capitalism is working correctly no particular economic interest has a comparative disadvantage. Capitalism doesn’t ask for favors from government nor does it expect government to pay its bills or change the playing field in its favor. In the past, and of necessity, it must struggle to maintain a kind of balance in the economic realm and that has to do with the actions of a free market. When it works well it frees and supports the political and social realm so that a range of good can be accomplished for the greatest number of people.
The fact is in the United States today, at least on the transnational or multinational economic (globalist) level, we do not have capitalism. What we do have is corporatism.
Global corporatism has nothing to do with the free market. It is instead about the concentration of economic ownership in fewer and fewer hands. It is about having the taxpayer pay for its mistakes and covering its investment losses through bailouts and government intervention in the market place. It is about the central management of a single global economy by the World Trade Organization or speculation and bogus monetary policy through the IMF, or the machinations of a bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels or Davos. It is about derivatives and junk bonds and paper chasing. It is about a number of large American corporations opting out of their responsibility to the nation-state known as the United States of America.
The problem for the United States at this moment is that an economic and political imbalance favors large transnational corporations. Those multinational or global entities owe no allegiance to the United States, to communities or to U.S. workers or even to the very idea of the nation-state.
As the insightful economist and commentator Robert Locke explains: "Capital increasingly views nation states and traditional values as impediments to a borderless, frictionless, anything-goes world in which everything is organized for the sole purpose of making money. If one accepts the premise that the most important thing in life is money, one accepts their consequences."
Furthermore, “corporatism is the economic system that has largely replaced capitalism in this country. Like capitalism, it is based on private ownership and management of the means of production. Unlike capitalism, the free market is not trusted to provide goods, but is systematically manipulated by government to do so.”
(Entire Article off Link)
Kindest Regards,Mary
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Fred,
Do you mean to tell me that out of 296,035,593 Americans corporations cannot find a handful of suited IT professions?
I agree with you on point, I have met and worked with many foreign IT workers who have amazing programming skills. However, you wouldn't replace your son, little Jimmy, in a track competition with the neighbors kid just because he's 10 seconds faster. In my case, I would work with and train little Jimmy until he's as fast or faster than the neighbors kid.
Let's skip the IT example for a moment and take a simpler task, like operators. There is nothing more irritating than calling your local phone company for help and finding that the person on the other end is not even in the US (or in North America for that matter).
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