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194 Comments
- inactive, on 03/17/2008, -10/+61The problem is . . . employers are *ALREADY* playing games with their job descriptions - for example offering relatively low salaries for professional occupations . . . then bringing in SW Asians who are happy to work for these amounts. This legislation will have a serious impact on *AMERICAN* IT professionals. *Of course* microgate$ and other software companies are for it !!! This is the professional equivalent to leaving the border open for employers like Tyson.
- olenick, on 03/17/2008, -2/+35If they'd add these two rules the "shortage" would disappear: 1) H1B's cannot "consult" (outsource); they must work at the company they're hired to work at, for products (not services) their immediate employer will sell and market (example: working at Microsoft, on Vista), and 2) H1B's are entirely portable: if they're so smart and necessary give them green cards so they can quit for any reason or no reason at all, with no downside to their status no matter what they do after they quit.
Remember: the many of us who express concerns about the program are not anti-immigration: we are against unfair competition, which is what the H1B program is in it's current form. Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath put it best: the H-1B visa "has become the outsourcing visa... If at one point you had X amount of outsourcing and now you have a much higher quantum of outsourcing, you need that many more visas." - brad3378, on 03/17/2008, -6/+35Is there really a shortage of qualified workers?
If there was, wouldn't all of my friends in I.T. be working a lot of overtime hours?
This sounds more like a ploy to get cheaper workers if you ask me. - inactive, on 03/17/2008, -14/+34Microsoft is the enemy as far as American IT workers are concerned.
- XopherMV, on 03/17/2008, -1/+21We're in the middle of a recession. Their solution? Undercut American workers and American paychecks by increasing H1-Bs. In other words, increase the supply of labor in order to decrease the wages paid. Nevermind that wages haven't gone up over the past eight years when you factor in inflation.
If companies like Microsoft were truly interested in seeing Americans take these jobs, then they wouldn't be doing everything in their power to give these jobs to foreigners. There are a million things these companies could do to interest American workers to take these jobs. But they always bring up H1-Bs first. - americangoy, on 03/17/2008, -5/+22As a programmer/analyst, I want to say a heartfelt thank you Mr. Gates! Thank you for trying to lower the wages of professional workers like myself - $60,000 is too much, I agree. I think that the rates of programmers should be brought down to the level of a grocery packing man or the bus boy who cleans after you in a restaurant.
Meanwhile, make sure that the salaries of middle managers lording over people with ACTUAL skills stay the same or increase - after all, it is hard work playing solitaire all day and every week giving out new assignments to people who ACTUALLY WORK - like programmers, engineers, scientists.
All the best to you and your wife, Bill! - markdall, on 03/17/2008, -3/+18I work on a team where most people are in country courtesy of the H-1B visa. They're all really smart people, good people, and they get treated like dog crap. Seriously - they have to leave the country for three days at a time, so they can visit a consulate to continue their paperwork. While there, they are treated in way that if you were pull that ***** on a bunch of Texans would start a riot. To them it's bad, but "normal", and it makes me feel ashamed.
They all want citizenship too, and they're all DAMNED smart. The US needs people like them. - inactive, on 03/17/2008, -2/+16Great. Because we have a surplus of jobs in America right now... err...
- cliffzdude, on 03/17/2008, -2/+14It recently came to light that "Eight of the top 10 recipients of H-1B visas in 2007 are companies that either are based in India or have sizable operations there." "Indian outsourcing firms use H-1B visas to rotate in foreign workers to learn U.S. workers' jobs or upgrade their skills."
If this allegation is true, we need not increase the number of H-1B visas, rather we need to curtail this practice of using the H-1B visa by foreign corporations as a training ground for their IT workers. Its obvious. Send your IT workers to the IT capital of the world, get them "good" training, then bring their intellectual equity back home and work them for pennies.
I strongly feel big companies want a glut of talent to drive down the price of IT labor. Given IT labor is a bastion of brain equity that the US needs, it makes no sense, long-term wise. But then again, long term thinking, or lack there of got our economy where it is today. - paradexes, on 03/17/2008, -1/+13This is a good way (bad for all including the companies who think otherwise) to low ball Americans AND Foreigners by getting unsuspecting foreigners in and giving them a lower than market rate salary. More often than not they do this and get away with it since they take advantage of the foreigner who does not know American negotiating customs. This has nothing to do with skills. It has to do with saving some money at the expense of native (more expensive) talent. They claim there is a dearth of talent. Well there are alot of unemployed people out there that say otherwise so I call bulls**t
- eclectro, on 03/17/2008, -1/+12Hey, it's like outsourcing jobs, but in reverse. WTG congress.
- AnarkeIncarnate, on 03/17/2008, -8/+17Or, they can just go back where they were instead of doing the jobs our own people are having trouble getting interviews for (because they spent $50K on their career and want more than $8.50 an hour). It is not the job of the US to subsidize the technology industry with cheap immigrant labor or cheap ANY labor. The H1B visa was originally intended to ensure we had enough talent to be competitive in a worldwide market. What it is instead doing is providing corporate interests with cheap "slave-like" labor, in that the H1B cannot negotiate for better terms and is at the whim of $Corporation as to their status in this country. It is unfair to the people who come here and have their work manipulated and unfair to those already here who are trying for those same jobs, that unsubsidized would pay $50K/yr or more.
- suckmytuition, on 03/17/2008, -15/+24I have no problem with hardworking and intelligent immigrants coming to America. 1 of every 4 legal immigrants to America starts their own business. Just look at Google founder Sergey Brin - before anyone complains of immigrants taking jobs at least consider the huge amount of job and capital creation at one of the worlds largest companies: Google
Ignorance is NOT strength - Fellow Diggers, do not take a naive and rash position on this topic. Its debate is inspired by media companies wanting to increase readership, your jobs are not in danger and the quality of life in America is not going to fall
-suckmytuition - brad3378, on 03/17/2008, -3/+12Bill Gates has a lot of audacity to claim that we need more workers to promote innovation while using shady business tactics to stomp out smaller companies that actually do innovate.
- AnarkeIncarnate, on 03/17/2008, -2/+10No, shipping in workers who are bound to you is indentured servitude. It is an accepted form of "slavery" by today's standards. Oh and let me be the second to say ***** YOU
- americangoy, on 03/17/2008, -0/+8Incidentally, I just had a phone interview with an HR person, and the poor woman spent about half an hour complaining to me that the resumes H1B's fax her.... have little to do with reality. Because these people are so desperate for the big money (for them) in America, they will fib the resume and then learn on the job.
- VladislavIII, on 03/17/2008, -4/+12Yes, and as far as the IT customer is concerned as well.
- stretch611, on 03/17/2008, -0/+8Since 2000, I have lost my job twice to outsourcing/offshoring/h1b, etc... Both times I was told to walk now or I can continue to be paid for the next 3-6 months if I agree to train my replacement. (so much for their knowledge...)
The last time they realized that the new people were really bad for the job. In a final act of desperation I was told that I could stay on if I agreed to a 30% pay cut. (I left.)
I call Bullsh!t on anyone that thinks that this bill was not sponsored by big corporations and their lobbyists, not for any real labor shortage, but just to depress wages. - SpaceMonkeyZero, on 03/17/2008, -0/+8You've never had to spend 8 hours re-writing the crappy code coming from your off-shore coders have you? My company no longer outsources coding work because we had to constantly spend our time debugging their crappy code. Now only our testers are outsourced, and even those jobs are being brought back stateside due to poor quality on their part.
- XopherMV, on 03/17/2008, -0/+8We are not short on labor in the software industry. Bill Gates and his ilk have a incentive to make you think that in order to help keep labor costs down in their businesses. There are more than enough good workers available to take their available jobs.
- Arramol, on 03/17/2008, -1/+8Even as somebody who takes a pretty moderate approach to bashing/praising Microsoft, it has to be said that it's not a terribly innovative company. Smaller start-ups are often dependent on bringing something new to the table, so stamping them out does indeed greatly hurt innovation.
- dustyshadow, on 03/17/2008, -0/+7Most people here wouldn't be mad about H1B visa holders if employers weren't allowed to pay them significantly less money.
- paradexes, on 03/17/2008, -1/+8This is a good way (bad for all including the companies who think otherwise) to low ball Americans AND Foreigners by getting unsuspecting foreigners in and giving them a lower than market rate salary. More often than not they do this and get away with it. This has nothing to do with skills. It has to do with saving some money at the expense of talent. They claim there is a dearth of talent. Well there are alot of unemployed people out there that say otherwise so I call bulls**t
- AnarkeIncarnate, on 03/17/2008, -0/+7Make this simpler. Why not just say that the H1B holder has the right to change employers if the job they are leaving for offers better pay or more favorable working conditions in the narrow field of their expertise and is within 100 miles of their primary location in the US. Also, H1B holders must be paid at a STANDARD wage for the area based on statistical analysis (Tax returns) of workers in the same field of employment. Fudging with the "Field of employment" for an H1B will be punishable by a fine of $500,000 for the company, per H1B holder, and mandatory 1Yr imprisonment for the manager who signed off on the H1B acquisition.
I would LOVE to see them ***** with that. - stretch611, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5Just because that is the law does not mean that companies follow it. From what I have seen, most H1B's in the tech industry make 20% less than an equivalent citizen.
- inactive, on 03/17/2008, -10/+15And they are still good enough to take your job.
- InspectorGadget, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5Are we outsourcing spam?
- Olivaw, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5***** nothing wrong with that unless you are paying substandard wages and dragging the payscale down for those talented American IT professionals to the point that the talented people you describe are unwilling to go into the field in the first place...
- ElRayQuieres, on 03/17/2008, -1/+6Too bad we can't trade some of the idiots for them.
- brad3378, on 03/17/2008, -1/+6I didn't mean to imply that only smaller companies innovate......but then again, all companies are smaller than Microsoft.
- SpaceMonkeyZero, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5$30,000 to be a .NET developer in New York City!! Good Bye Mumbai, I'm making the big bucks now!
- americangoy, on 03/17/2008, -6/+11Mr XXXXX let me be the first to say FU*K you.
Sincerely, one of many. - Malthaeus, on 03/17/2008, -1/+6HI-B recipients may be smart, but I call ***** when people say there aren't enough Americans to fill the roles. My firm hasn't hired an American IT worker in 8 years - all the new faces you see are foreign nationals here on H1-B's, or new hires from off-shoring to Mexico. Everyone one of them replaced an American citizen.
- brad3378, on 03/17/2008, -3/+8So do you ever type anything worth reading?
- Drizzit, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5You missed a key point there. "Prevailing wage established by the dept of labor." I'm sure it's not the actual going wage.
- stretch611, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5And IBM is just as bad as the Indian companies on the list... They use H1B's to outsource work. IBM service division was their fastest growing segment when I last looked (about 2 years ago.) To the porint that they sold off their small hardware division (PC's) (they kept mid-range and mainframe businesses.)
- brad3378, on 03/17/2008, -0/+5Sure,
It's all about supply and demand.............
I'm originally from the Detroit area, but there are so many unemployed Engineers there right now I literally doubled my income by leaving the Auto Industry and entering a field I'm not even familiar with. The same thing is going on with Blue collared workers in Detroit and their wages are falling dramatically. The automakers and suppliers are taking advantage of the situation and hiring the cheapest qualified workers they can find.
Too many workers = more competition for the same jobs = lower wages in the long run. - cubicledropout, on 03/17/2008, -20/+24I work with several people who have h1-b visas, and the cap is so low right now that they have to have their paperwork in within the first couple of hours in order to keep their jobs each time they renew. Additionally they don't even know if they are accepted for several months. I think that better h1-b visa rules are necessary.
- D3koy, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4Wow, and people say sarcasm is dead...
- XopherMV, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4Hell, free trade is not truly free. "Free" trade pacts are chock full of thousands of pages devoted to protectionism for business in the form of copyright and intellectual property rules. The average person could care less about these rules and would rather get rid of them in order to get better priced goods. But, businesses work overtime to make sure you understand that these protections which benefit only them is not "real" protectionism.
No, "real" protectionism is when citizens argue for something that actually benefits them, such as environmental or labor protections. In fact, anything which could potentially take money away from business counts as "real" protectionism. - BohicaTwentyTwo, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4Maybe you can help me. I need to figure out which variable was added by our overseas developers:
String sText ="";
String sText1 ="";
String sText2 ="";
String sJatin="" ; - stretch611, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4I would digg you up twice if I could.
Corporations start with the American worker which created their IT department and made it successful.
They refuse to invest in their long term career and no longer give them any training in new technologies.
They replace the American with a cheaper foreign contractor that lacks experience, but will work for much less money.
The unemployed citizens cause a labor surplus, which in combination with H1B's in the field cause a significant wage depression.
College students see a glut of jobs along with wage stagnation and decide that they want to do something else.
Then the corporations complain that they can not find local talent with the skills they need. Even though they caused it by not encouraging people to study the field in college or retraining technologically competent people with a proven track record. - BohicaTwentyTwo, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4Companies will get what they pay for, whether they outsource their work overseas or whether they pay immigrants to do it here. However, American IT professionals need to really think about their salary requirements and their job description. If you are making six figures and it will only take about two weeks for you to train up someone with half of your experience, you probably aren't working hard enough.
- AnarkeIncarnate, on 03/17/2008, -1/+5Because often their qualifications are fabricated and they are here working for 1/8th what an American would work for, doing the same job, poorly.
- stretch611, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4The one thing you forgot to add is that them American worker generally has to pay for his own higher education. Also, in IT, continual education is also expensive. Yet the foreign workers generally have access to either cheap or no cost higher education and no student loans to pay off.
- XopherMV, on 03/17/2008, -1/+5Actually, the man providing the better value will win the competition for the job, granted he is legal to work here, which is the real question at hand. Do we want foreign workers replacing American workers within the borders of the United States? I say no and most people also say no. I like my job and do not want to be replaced. I like that my parents have jobs and do not want them replaced. Same goes with every other American I know who works. Your sort of thinking would have us all removed from our jobs to replace us with cheaper foreign workers.
Your attitude against American workers is exactly why we do not need laws like this on the books. And frankly, that is why most Americans oppose this nonsense. Luckily, we are a Democratic Republic. We can vote down the excesses of laissez faire capitalism such as this H1-B nonsense. - AnarkeIncarnate, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4*****. I have seen too many incompetent and heard from friends about too many incompetent people who are not pulling their weight and being paid substantially less. I don't care if the company pays other fees. They are doing basic budget wrangling. "My budget is still OK, but the company still pays the same" crap happens all the time. It is short sighted and moronic. There are so many things wrong with H1B it is not even funny.
Just like Copyright and Patent reform is needed, as the original intent is no longer serving the public good, the H1B platform has been subverted. This is no longer to ensure that there is not a gap in the ability of an American company to compete. This is cheap slave labor to force the cost of tuition up (To create parity in degrees that may not even exist) and to force wages down. This is not capitalism, this is just stupidity. - Rsulliv1, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4This is already the law, I believe.
http://blogs.payscale.com/ask_dr_salary/2007/05/sa ...
By law, the salary requirements for H-1B visa holders call for their pay to be "equal to 100% of the prevailing wage as established by the Department of Labor, or the actual wage paid by the employer to similar employees." - masamunecyrus, on 03/17/2008, -0/+4I have a ***** clue. In the 1800s, you could get on a boat, come to America, and after signing some papers to make sure that you're legal and documented, thus you pay taxes, you could come to America to better your life.
Nowadays, unless you're a Mexican and can just cross the border, it can easily take 5 years just for them to process your application. I'm currently trying to help a Japanese friend come to the US to work and the process to allow that is not only insanely confusing and complicated, but it's more or less impossible, even with total fluency in English, unless you can find a company that is authorized to request immigrant employees, and then you get that company to hire you, a process that is hard in itself due to you not being able to be living in the US to do job interviews.
Coming to America to better your life is almost no longer possible outside of illegal immigration. If you want to come here, you have to be well educated, you have to have money for dozens of applications, and you have to know exactly what you're going to do here and how you're going to do it even before you get here. That's not how America used to be. - HaloZero, on 03/17/2008, -5/+9H1-B Visas don't get much lower wages, if you include the cost of all the applications and stuff then the cost of a H1-B worker and a regular American worker are the same. They are not doing this to save money (at least not in tech), they are looking for talent in a field where people have been not doing technology.
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