More Visas
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I have no problem with immigrants moving to the United States but I do have a big problem with the H1-b visa. Most of have not been in the United States more then two or three generations. Let us not mince words and call it what it is ‘indentured servants”. Salaries are artificially kept low since these immigrants can’t switch jobs and loose their temporary status in the United States. We have all seen the silly want ads in computer magazines looking for impossible or paradoxical requirements at well below market rates. When they can’t find any “qualified applicants” they have to bring in employees on H1-b visas. If we really need these immigrants leta give them green cards but that would expose the fallacy of our immigration policy.
David Weil
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I support porous borders and free trade, but this is a painful point in the U.S. right now because of the armies of unemployed and underemployed people. Unless Gates is insisting on people with I.Q.'s over 180, there are tens of thousands of very good people who would move themselves to Redmond in a U-Haul to work for Microsoft.
Yes, there are lots of problems in public education right now (well, actually just systemic underfunding) but there is no shortage or competent, capable IT workers.
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No to more Visas and yes to more accessable education. If bill wants more workers then he should train up the people we have here already looking for jobs. For gods sake why are they willing to give a guy from india with a good education but no experience a chance but someone like myself has a decent amount of training and all I hear is "we need a SENIOR analyst" or "we're looking for someone with 10 years SQL server experience". In fact the older I get the less likely any company is to talk to me about an IT job. This is ridiculous.
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Yes to more affordable education, yes to more visas, knowledge has no boundaries and no country limits, if the US wants to keep being the leader in technology and science they have to seek for the talent wherever that is. Guys, Einstein and Bohr were not Americans!
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Just a thought: Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Dell, etc. are not hiring Indians and Chinese workers because they don't want to hire Americans. It's not just about pennies as someone mentioned earlier. Indians and Chinese who come to the US and work here don't make much less (or any less, from those that I know) than any American citizen who does the same job. These companies need more visas because they don't have the talent pool in the U.S. Someone mentioned earlier that there are plenty of IT folks who are looking for jobs... the trouble is, they're not qualified for the jobs that these companies are hiring for. India alone generate tens if not hundreds of thousands of highly educated, English-speaking engineers and developers every year. In the U.S., the number of engineering, math, science, and computer science graduates continues to decline.
If the U.S. wants to continue to be the world leader in technological innovation, it has to change its attitude toward basic research science and science education. It's not just a matter of throwing more money at science education or increasing the budget of the NSF (which was cut in the most recent budget coming out of the White House, incidentally), but also a change in attitude by parents and other role-models who teach that engineering, science and computing is the province merely of the socially backward geek who can't do anything else but bury him or herself in numbers and machines. If all those talented people rushing off to get MBAs or JDs were getting engineering or CS degrees, then perhaps we would be in less of a pickle with regard to importing talent from other countries.
Let me at this point make a pitch to this community to read Thomas Friedman's new book "The World Is Flat". It's a very interesting, even alarming, look at globalization in the early 21st century and it addresses exactly these issues. Those who agree or disagree with his point of view will at least gain greater knowledge of the world we are in.
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There are two problems with off-shoring (ok, slightly OT, but related, and as the topic is wandering back and forth I think I'm safe). First, there is an economic/social contract of sorts: I pay you to program, you spend your check in the local community (or at least part of it), some of that local community come back to me for programming projects (broadly speaking). The payroll taxes that you and I pay support local infrastructure from which we both benefit.
When your workers are overseas, they are not spending money in your local economy and your money is not being reinvested in your community. Their taxes are not helping local infrastructure, and are companies even paying payroll taxes? If they’re writing off their off-shore payroll, then they’re also dodging local taxes and contributing to the decay of infrastructure.
The other problem is balance of trade. How much do we import and export to India? I’m betting not very much. What about Canada, or Brazil, or several other countries in South America? We’re subsidizing a country without a direct benefit for us, whereas if we off-shored to Canada, we’d be bolstering the economy of a strong trade partner, there would be little in the way of language barrier (eh?), we’d have compatible time zones (same with South America) and I doubt there would be a shortage of takers.
(I plan on researching this some to get some solid info)
This grubbing for every last penny is going to kill us. There’s too many layers being ignored.
As far as visas are concerned, I think they should be paid a competitive wage and shouldn’t have a Sword of Damocles hanging over their head. If they’re paid more, there is less economic advantage in hiring them, and American workers might be more attractive.
I think last week’s discussion of employee retention has some merit, talking about how an $80k programmer is worth more than a $30k programmer who is replaced every two years. My current job as a contract programmer illustrates this, there is such a huge amount of institutional knowledge required that I have to get out of people to do what I’m doing that it’s pretty difficult at times. If they tried replacing some of these people who’ve been here 15-20+ years, I shudder to think what the mess would be.
My $0.002 worth.
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font] -
Move visas AND more education....
An open society will prevail over a closed society in the long run.
survival of the fittest.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Borders are just lines in the sand, anyway.
The internet says that we're all human, and I believe it.
Signature is NULL
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What Bill Gates and other CEOs won't admit is they are unwilling to train. We don't have a shortage of skilled computer scientists in this country, only a shortage of people in control willing to train existing workers. Upper management is graded on a 3 month cycle, so saving some money in the short term is always going to make them look good. What people don't realize is we have ceded our society, not just our jobs to foreign countries. All the major credit card companies and banks now have their transactions keyed, verified and stored overseas. What happens to all of our financial transactions when India gets infiltrated by financial terrorists instead of the bomb making kind.
Mike Demmitt -
Reply to OP:
I think the only way to ensure you're hired or keep you job or earning power is to maintain your position as an expert. That means being educated, but more than that it means *staying* educated. I'm a consultant that works in the US and I meet a lot of IT people each year. On average, about half of the IT people I meet speak with a strong accent. I can't tell you if they're on H1Bs, green cards, or are full citizens, but it's clear they are here on visa or have recently immigrated.
Many of these foreign workers are very smart. Most are Indian or Chinese with a few others mixed in. Nearly without exception they are college graduates with a science or math degree. A very large portion has a science or math master's. Add to that the fact that they are generally well versed in current technology too. Their ability to communicate clearly in English can sometimes be a problem, but in all other factors they tend to be excellent.
Now contrast that to the average American IT professional I meet. About 2/3 have college degrees, with about half of those being degreed in a science or math field -- many have business degrees or simply an arts degree. Of those with degrees maybe 20% have a master's with half of those being an MBA or some other non-technical master's. Already that's a big difference, but here's the biggest -- many times they're underqualified and lazy. Let me give a couple of examples: IT people who work with databases for multiple years but don't know more than elementary SQL or PC Support people with multiple years experience who don't understand the concept of a network share. What is more is that in some cases I've attempted to fill a knowledge gap by offering to mentor someone in an area they lack that I know, and more times than not I get fed an excuse why they aren't willing to learn something.
I consider myself to be very patriotic, but I'm appalled by some of the American IT workers I run into. These people have jobs but deserve unemployment for their utter lack of effort to maintain their marketability.
Don't get me wrong though, there are plenty of fantastic American workers and there are foreign duds as well. And not all unemployed workers are unskilled -- I have several friends who are excellent but still have trouble finding jobs. However, on the whole, I blame the majority of the American IT unemployment problem on those IT "professionals" who refuse to do what it takes to get and maintain an IT career.
Now are more H1Bs the answer? I think they're better for our economy than general off-shore outsourcing. In any event, I don't think competent IT people have anything to worry about though. They may have to learn to work with more Indian, Chinese, and other foreign workers, but their jobs aren't in jeopardy. In fact as more and more incompetent IT people are replaced by competent foreign workers the American competent IT worker becomes more rare and thus more valuable. Will America lose its technological edge? I doubt it. Our edge was created by Capitalism in the first place, and that's still what drives the outsourcing. We may face stronger competition globally, but I see that as a good thing for the industry and world, not a bad thing for America.
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To the dozen's of highly qualified people I know who have been recently laid off you comments ring of ignorance or stupidity. They were laid off and told very clearly their jobs were going overseas. Their education or skill level was not the issue. A good American programmer is as good as an Indian, and with both the business knowledge and the language it is an easy decision. The decisons being made are for greed only. I think it would be better to try to address this by limiting any government contract (state or federal) to only companies with US citizens. If ou think that will cost the taxpayer more money, wait until you see what 100,000 more unemployed with do for the government piggy bank
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My job's not one of moderator but it would be NICE to keep the tone even & friendly and not resort to personal comments - everybody's entitled to an opinion/viewpoint and not everyone is going to see eye to eye on this topic...
I think the site owners should insist on everything said in the third person only...maybe that'll help set the tone and maintain a balance...
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
I am just going to throw this one to the wind for fun.
Let them choose to do as they please becuase ultimately if they screw the system the system will catch up with them. Imagine if all the American citizens have no jobs who will buy the ridiculously overpriced stuff they sell. Sure by off-shoring or out-sourcing (as some choose to call it) they save money and can bring the product cost down but I have to say I haven't seen it happen, if the price comes down so does the quality, go check out Wal-Marts crap furniture and go to a real furniture store. Sure that recycled cardboard pressboard table is cheap but it will absord water and bloat and fall within a year whereas for 4 times as much I can by a reall table made of solid wood that will last for generations. Alas it is the poor mentality of people that they can save money now without really comparing what they woul get.
Now don't get me wrong Wal-Mart is great to have in place to keep competion up but the reality is they sell 80% crap products of inferior quality if you actually compared the items.
Same goes with companies, they have to show ever increasing profit when on Wall Street so they are willing to look to cut the workin class people before they cut improper procedures or higher paid management that is duplicating effort. Ex. John Kerry went on TV and stated that his wifes company got a tax break of something like $85 million and that the Bush tax cuts were just wrong. However when asked about what they would do with the money he never would comment. The fact is they didn't do what Buh intended and that was to hire workers. Imagine if they had hired the average person at a salary of $35,000 they could have added 2400+ new jobs.
It al is a numbers game and ultimately when noon hre works the system will have to b so that the government provides and they will hve to tax al items comin into the country and all business an all foreign workers. I think I might enjoy havin nothing to do for the rest of my life.
And for those who argue that I am being over zealous about it, just wait until it happens in your country to you. Greed is the ultimate in driving forces and those who have it don't generally care (some exceptions) about those who don't.
Then yo can also add it other government factors such as overtaxation and litigation issues that have gotten outta hand (hey stupid the coffee is hot and if it spills on you while you are trying to screw with putting cream in it and drive you deserve to b burned) and many laws that make everyon a criminal.
You know I would have already bought Office 2003 if it was so darn expensive, and MS has 40 billion in a backup fund and they are outrageously all about pay them.
Eventually all of these issues will catch up with the rest of the world if nobody opens their eyes. I just hope when the new world government is created and we all have GPS in our heads with personal ids that it all started event before this point with all the same comments about som other field of work (such as steel).
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I agree 100%. We need to be more concerned about the USA and less about money, or are you not patriotic? China is becoming rich from our money and who is concerned? No one! We will become a third rate country. Don't think that won't happen? Read your history books. History is full of examples.
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We should not blame Bill. The issue should be put into the global perspective. Just imagine if Cisco cannot outsource their R&D while Nortel /Siemans (non-US company) can, do you think Cisco can survive in long term?
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I can't agree with Steve more, especially on two points. I trust government very little, and I trust corporations even less. Especially one that has more in capital reserves than all the rest of the top IT concerns combined (Antares, last I heard it was more like $60 billion). Perhaps this goes beyond the scope of this thread, but...
set CynicalWorldView = ON
IMHO, we no longer have a representative form of government in the USA. Haven't had one for a long time. The Federal and local Governments are largely controlled by the legal profession, lobbyists, PACs, and special interests, many of which represent corporations. Corporations are controlled by and large by two things: The almighty dollar and bottom lines. Corporate tax rates when adjusted for inflation are currently at an all time low in the US. At the same time, middle class income tax rates for US citizens are at a historic high - yes even with the Bush tax cuts. This should be a surprise to no one as there's nobody left to advocate the interests of the common working person. Government doesn't know, and corporations don't care about the plight of the average worker.
set CynicalWorldView = OFF
I may sound like a radical socialist there, but I'm not. After many years, I've become what I like to refer to as a 'bleeding-heart' conservative.
That said, there's a lot that's woefullly wrong with the immigration policies here. I've had several good, hard-working friends from other countries who sought residency status here and would have made model citizens, employees and taxpayers. Instead, they were eventually prohibited from working, refused visa extensions, and finally either deported or forced to leave on the most trivial and arbitrary grounds. The Patriot Act and other forms of xenophobia emerging here since 9/11 have contributed a lot to this. Is it any wonder then that illegal immigration has become such a problem?
But you have to have an immigration policy that makes sense. If you did, the H1B's and other special forms of visas and quotas wouldn't be neccessary. Then again you should have a fiscal policy that makes sense. And a defense policy that makes sense. And a foreign policy that makes sense. And an energy policy that makes sense...
I'd better go back and re-run that command. I don't think I shut CynicalWorldView completely off.
My hovercraft is full of eels.
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