Slashdot Mirror
Questioning The IT Labor Shortage
spiel writes "There's a piece in today's NYT which points out the flaws in the arguments for increasing the number of H-1B visas. As one of those "older workers", this puts facts and figures behind what I have long believed." It's an interesing dicussion, although I suspect like most of things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.
Yes, in CA it's really that slow (although I hear it's improving), and you have to use the processing centre for your region. I know people for whom the transfer took 5.5 months. Your Nebraska experience has no bearing on how long it may take at a different centre.
OK, You're a commie... Well, at least a little too socialist for my taste. Let's look at this a little closer:
"no more hiring cheap foreign nationals to avoid paying for someone's experience"
So you're saying that as a business owner I don't have the RIGHT to hire anyone I want? The market can't punish me for hiring the wrong people and reward me for hiring the right ones?
"They could make IT companies hire and/or keep older workers, no more getting turned out to field when you don't know the lastest language (even though you could learn it in a month)."
If they can learn it, they should. No excuses, do it on your own time, make yourself more valuable, and you won't get the boot.
"They could give worker's a decent working day, nothing wrong with the occasional clock wrapper, but 70 hour weeks are insane and exploitive."
Perhaps your funniest one yet. This isn't the triangle shirt factory, there are no chains on the doors, if your hours suck, walk your ass out. Or are you 'trapped' by that nice fat paycheck?
"They could use a guild structure to offer an employment path that doesn't go through college, but instead focuses on on the job training, which many geeks prefer to dry textbook learning"
Ughh, I don't want my value to a company to be determined en masse. That's my biggest problem with working in an organized 'union' situation - I only get paid what my class gets paid. If my boss wants to promote me, or pay me more, there will invariably be some other 'guild' members to file a grievance for being passed over...
"someday you may not want to work a 70 hour week, you may have a family, you may grey hair or be balding, do you want to be replaced by an undercutting youngster or foreigner? "
Some day you may own a software development company, do you want to be FORCED to hang on to dead weight, or do you want to hire the best people for the job?
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
Do you actually know someone in this situation or are you hypothesizing? I know many people on H-1B working in the Bay Area. One of them is myself. And I certainly don't agree with your observation or hypothesis. Sure, I whine about being a "slave" sometimes, but who doesn't? What you said about that visa is true -- they are tied to your employer and you have to get a new one when you switch jobs. It is an inconvenience, but isn't that big of a deal because if you're any good, you'd find a job in the Bay Area in a second. I've switched jobs once so far and I'm considering moving on again. When I put my resume up on hotjobs.com a couple weeks back, I got 8 calls on the first day. Try treating me "like crap" and I'll be gone in a blink, I don't have to "take it" as you put it. Most countries in the world try hard to attract talents and work hard to prevent brain-drains. America is blessed with reverse brain-drains and people here are complaining. That is very odd, don't you think? Up until high school, I attended public schools in my home country. The taxpayers in my homeland paid for my education while the US economy benifits from it, and you're complaning?
Some personal experiences: I've programmed most of my life, as a hobby, in industry, and in academia. I went to one of the best technical schools in the world. And when I looked for a job in this industry? I couldn't even get interviews. After some time, I eventually got a position that paid about half the going rate.
Eventually someone I'd worked with the last time I was in industry (about 4 years before) got me a job with a more typical salary. I didn't come remotely close to being "qualified" on paper, because the "job requirements" were preposterous. They've been very happy with my work.
I personally know about half a dozen people who have had similar experiences. I also know that in industry resume's from people who have be in academia are routinely tossed out without a glance.
The IT "shortage" of "qualified" workers is based on 1) inflating job requirements (as another poster said "required: 15 years experince with a 2 year old technology"), 2) ignoring anyone who's been in academia.
If U.S. companies really need better workers, let them invest in training the people who are here and need better jobs, rather than looking for ways to flood the job market.
There is a shortage of managers that know how to get technical people to come work for them. However, it is not an extreme shortage because there are many instances in which good people are hired away to another company. Obviously the management of that person's new company is a little more clueful.
When managers of the companies that have good people hired away from them for better pay and better work wonder why it is that these people are leaving them, my response to them is: DUH!
These are the same companies want H1B visa people which they can shackle to the job.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
That's true, and I apologize for a hasty response.
But you're right, there are more issues attached to getting the money for college, even if it isn't exactly $30k/year, which is the point I was trying to make.
I realized sadly once when I was helping out a large intro CS course at a major university that for fall semester, 6 of the new TAs that were responsible for giving students an introduction to computer science had just stepped off the plane 2-3 days before with little or no "spoken english." These masters/doctoral students were great people and some of them were even good teachers, but their grasp on english was horrible, and I have to believe this directly harmed both what the students thought of CS and their grades too.
In theory that university has an spoken english test which must be passed, but when push comes to shove, if they don't have enough english-speaking TAs for the courses they have students enrolled in, they throw them in regardless. The math department was even worse than CS.
Why would being able to speak the language be such a horrible requirement for TAs?
Sorry, this is a subject I'm sore about... mostly because most people in CS that I know are DEFINITELY arrogant about what it takes to know as much as they do (which is, a combination of brains, effort/dedication, and fortunate living)...
/. that got posted after this). I already did an internship (for free) for a major media company for a whole summer, and since then the only decent job I've gotten was delivering chicken. I'm too focused on school (as I do struggle a lot with keeping focused and organized, as opposed to understanding or learning anything) to become distracted with a professional job DURING school, I have inconvenient circumstances that have prevented me from finding a decent internship in my home area for the past few years (quitting school nor permanently choosing to live near school are acceptable choices to me), and AFAIK this school has no co-op opportunities. Furthermore, from what I know of the tech industry and tech jobs, it's all unappealing enough to turn me off entirely, no matter how skilled or interested I am in the material. 70 hour workweeks, cubicles, and flourescent lights are all horrifying to me. The point? It'll be a sorely missed $80k I spent on college, even though that sheepskin will probably help me out wherever I go.
I do agree, mostly. My nitpicks (and they are minor) are:
Between Pell grants and working through college, neither of these ways are easy, guaranteed ways to get the money to make it through a good CS program. I can't speak for Pell grants other than I know a lot of PRISONERS get them here, but I do know that pulling off a full-time job before/during college requires a lot of stamina. Again, easier said than done.
Also, internship/co-op programs are getting very competitive... to the point where it's like trying to get into an Ivy League school. Especially for internships, since companies are not interested in employing a programmer for just 3 summer months. It's much easier to score a f/t job outside of school or training, yet much harder to keep up with both school and a f/t job at the same time.
-UNNECESSARY RANT-
I suppose, in the end, I'm speaking out of jealousy. Right now I'm taking a full load senior year at my university, looking to graduate in May, and I'll be happy to be out of CS forever once I get my degree. I've seen none of the riches, fame, or opportunities that they speak of in the news a lot (see the other NYT article on
-END RANT-
Anyway, yes it is possible for a lot of people to afford college in the US, but there are no guarantees... and hard work does not equal success all the time. And remember the main topic of this discussion... that if these companies need tech workers so badly, why aren't they training them and hiring them from THIS country?
To your credit, they do hire lots of people without college degrees, and it is possible to just take it the long way around (although that's admittedly very difficult to pull off, wouldn't you agree) to get the college degree... but my personal bias is that it's bad enough to spend 4 years and $80k schooling for a field I won't want to work for... but even worse to have a job you don't want AND a degree you don't need, and to spend 8 years and $80k doing both at the same time.
I dunno. Perhaps CS programs just suck lately.
How dare you compare voluntary employment to the atrocities our forefathers committed against real slaves? To do so trivializes our past crimes to an almost criminal degree. My ancestors didn't fight a war to end voluntary employment. Ceasar Chavez didn't fight for the rights of workers who were making good money. The employees of the triangle shirt factory didn't perish because the latte machine broke down. You need to get a grip on reality buddy...
Quite frankly, reading your post made me sick..
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
TeTalon
You are either a part of the problem, or a part of the solution, which are you.
TeTalon
You are either a part of the problem, or a part of the solution, which are you.
Being a good manager is very difficult, I never said it wasn't, and I know it's not necessarily a zero-sum game. The situation you're talking about is true to some extent. But I've worked for a lot of small companies, and (depending on how their profit-sharing is setup) if they cut somebody and still get the job done that money IS available to dole out at the end of the year. To them and the other guys still there. I've been told that, explicitly, so don't tell me it doesn't exist.
In large companies the situation is more complex, but let's face it, if you save the company $50k/yr in somebody's salary you may find an extra $10k in your bonus.
As far as holding my tongue, I think I'd have to hold my cynicism first: Attend a board meeting to ask about my manager's compensation? There are so many levels of management in the last big company I worked for that a good secretary can have an "assistant VP" title. You think they're going to stop conducting their huge multinational business to discuss some manager with me? Give me a break.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
This is such a crock! I'm sure companies will go through the whole process of H-1B AND pay them the same rate as a US programmer instead of hiring a US programmer. Because we all know that companies don't care about labor costs. (bzzzz, wrong answer)
Hmmmm.... (checks salary)... (checks visa stamp in passport)... (checks bonuses)... (checks 1040 form)... I would appear to get paid more than most US programmers.
Guess they don't care.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
The difference in IT development between Australia and the USA is that Australian Capital Gains Tax makes Australia an unattractive place for venture capitalists. Therefore the proliferation of new, interesting projects is smaller per capita. But enough about Australia.
A couple of things I will say to people considering H1-B, especially if a recruitment agency is handling your visa proceessing:
--
NO TOUCH MONKEY!
Oh, shut up, mr. troll expert. Why do you assume I'm trying to troll? Now go away.
Not only that, when they raise the price of the education, do the teachers get a raise? Do they buy more books for the Library? Better equipped labs? Shit no! Where does that money go?
Jedi Vacquero: We don't need to show you any steenkin' boches!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
oh god. heh, where I'm living, in southwestern ontario, you pay ~700 CANADIAN a month for a pretty new townhouse, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, kitchen, etc, in a pretty good area close to most ammenities.
I assure you, when I move to the United States, it will be with the goal (and responsibility) of Citizenship in mind; not
coming in, taking advantage of and culturally diluting the American way of life.
We just imported a bunch of Canadians where I work (company closed their office) - and we're all pronouncing "about" like "aboot" now! Damn Canadians! At least they're learning to surf now.
Jedi Vacquero: We don't need to show you any steenkin' boches!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
And why is there a shortage of people with experience--it's the old saw of not being able to get a job without a experience and not being able to get experience without a job.
If you had read my post you would have realized I said competence and not experience. I've interned at two companies the past two years and made a decent amount of money and I am still in college (i.e. I have less than 6 months of work experience), this didn't stop me from being able to turn down internship offers from Intel.
Most of my friends who have guaranteed offers from the companies they interned with also have little or no work experience besides the classes they've taken and stuff they've done in their free time.
The problem is that a lot of people believe that once they've learned one technology that they've earned a right to stop learning. Frankly this is B.S.. I learned Java a year ago and mostly from the Internet and was working a well paid job this summer writing Java code. While at this job I picked up Perl and now have reasonable experience with it. The job market is currently tight enough for self-motivated people to gain jobs without needing years of experience as long as ythe have ability.
I don't really see the connection between being a jock and being able to perform under intense pressure. I have played many sports growing up and I have never seen this "intense pressure" you speak of in sports as greatly as in, say, an IB exam in high school, or performing at a piano recital, or countless other non athletic pursuits. This is not to say that there are not moments of intense pressure in athletics, however you can't simply say that the only way to experience pressure is to be involved in athletics, which is what your third line seems to be asserting.
While I agree with your points on people being naturally dismissive of things they cannot do and also that lessons learned athletics have helped you in other pursuits, your odd numbered lines (assuming the subject line is line 0) are somewhat trollish.
Importing the best and brightest is probably the only way for the US to maintain dominance in intellectual business.
I've considered immigrating to the US through employer sponsorship and have studied the US immigration process for well over two years now. The best and brightest people will proabably do the same and draw similar conclusions to mine before considering coming to the US -- that the immigration system is all one big lottery.
Look at one particularly famous hi-tech immigrant. A Mr. Linus Torvalds, whose H1-B is sponsored by Transmeta. Fortunately for him, his Green Card application is going through a faster route. He's qualified for EB-1 (Employment Based category one) which allows him to forego the lengthy Labor Certification process which would've added at least two years wait. And yet still, Linus complains. The IEEE-USA and Immigration Reform Coalition have even gotten him to sign their letter in support of green cards for new immigrant labor.
What about those H1-B holders whose GC applications don't qualify for EB-1. The EB-2 for jobs requiring a Masters, or the heavily over subscribed EB-3 for any job needing only a bachelors? Waiting times for: Labor Certification + Priority date to become current + i485 processing + Employment Approval Document(EAD) + final ajustment of status to GC holder = in excess of 5 years. Assuming an H1-B is renewed it can only allow a person to work for 6 years in the US.
Technically, once an H1-B holder has reached the EAD stage they can remain in the US indefinitely on their current visa working for the sponsoring employer. The adjustment of status queue itself (the one Linus is currently stuck in) has been bottlenecked for well over a year. Indefinite indentured labor anyone?
And in the space of just 1 year look what has happened to the dot coms. Layoffs, pink slips, bankruptcy. Even well established companies like Shockwave, Qwest and Novell are laying off hi-tech people. Of course, with the labor market so tight, the US citizens and residents will get snapped up by other more successful companies within a weeks. But what of the H1-B holder who now has ten days to find another sponsor or be deported? Even if one is so lucky as to find a new sponsor for the H1-B, the 6 year time limit cannot be reset. 2 years spent at a dot.bomb means only 4 years left at the new company. The GC application must start from scratch, and there simply will not be enough time for it to complete processing.
And even if all the bottlenecks were to magically disappear by noon today, a recent IEEE-USA study suggests that the quota of H1-B's (65,000, or 200,000 if the cap is raised) entering every year would render the Green card process one big lottery for many. Only a tiny fraction of H1-B holders get adjusted to GC in any given year. This number was no more than 25,000 in 1998 due to all the backlogs.
So, No thank you. I don't think I'll be working in the U.S. Maybe, I'll try Canada. From what I hear, a hi-tech professional can get residency within 18 months. Many former H1-B holders from India are migrating northwards taking valuable US hi-tech experience with them.
Well, since there really is no hi-tech shortage in the US, this Computing Science Ph.D. who can program in C/C++, Perl, Java, Python, Tcl/Tk, is familiar with many Internet protocols, OpenGL programming, and gives training courses in Linux/UNIX, will probably not be missed.
Bye
Not strictly accurate. The government (at the time) wanted to decrease unemployment amongst the young, and to be seen to be "doing something", so they made the decision to convert the polytechnics into universities. I'm not sure how to map this directly onto US education concepts, but the basic difference is that a university is an academic institution that can award its own degrees, whereas a polytechnic was more vocational, and franchised degree programmes from external authorities.
So what we ended up with is a system in which degrees from traditional universities (Oxford, Cambridge, London, a few others) have retained their elite status (as they have the resources and reputation to be very selective in admission and rigourous in examinations) and the ex-polys offering courses in "media studies" or "art history" or other vaguely-defined subjects.
Because it was so easy to get into a "university", and because education is (quite rightly) preceived as valuable, there was a huge influx of people, but the quality of the average graduate plummeted. Despite their reputation, people of ability from *all* backgrounds have always been able to get into some of the elite UK colleges, which are meritocratic in the extreme (for example, UCL) with others such as Durham admitting people based on their social background.
As the student population increased, the cost of supporting them while studying went up, also more people weren't working or paying taxes, and of those people, a smaller overall percentage of graduates were able to enter the workforce in graduate-level roles, because rather than studying engineering or whatever (UK Bachelors degrees are typically more difficult than US ones, but fewer UK grads take a Masters, so I guess it balances out) they had studied things that weren't relevant to industry.
Given this, it makes a good deal of sense to adopt the US system, where people can study whatever they please, so long as they pay for it themselves. The only economically viable alternative would be to shut all the ex-polys, and return a university education to only the most academically able. A third possibility is of course an additional tax on graduates, but the Labour government (currently in power, and responsible for dismantling the grant system and introducing tuition fees) remember the last time the UK suffered a "brain drain" under their rule.
(I completed a Mechanical Engineering degree in the UK, and worked part time during it).
Well, this is a crock.
First, its 'USA', not 'USia'--or are you saying that the phrase "of America" should be abbreviated "ia", and perhaps not 'oA'? (Note the abbreviation "USofA" or "USoA" have been used in the past in liew of "USA" by people trying to make the same assertion you are making.) And by abbreviating "America" with a lower-case 'a', are you suggesting that "America" the landmass is somehow "inferior?"
Second, given the history of the name "United States of America", using the term "American" to refer to a citizen of the United States is not unreasonable. Prior to the US Civil War, the US was known as "these united States of America". (Note capitalization--or lack thereof, with the "united".) The federal government governing the various united States located in America really didn't have a name--it was refered to as a matter of course either as the Federal Government, or by an apropos description: "these various united states of America."
The term "American", thus, is derived from the fact that citizens of the various states (who are refered to first and foremost as members of their local state--so, for example, I'm a Californian) also happen to live in North America.
Of course things changed after the Civil War. Canadians and Mexicans refer to themselves as such in the same way that Oregonians and Californians do. But the term "American", used commonly to refer to a citizen of the United States (note the "the" preceeding "United") stuck, in part because we still don't really have a name for our Federal Government--just a working description which we capitalize differently.
Just as soon as we come up with a real name for our country, I'm sure the term "American" will be dropped in liew of the new name...
So let's see. He pays taxes, so he is helping to build France. Of course unemployment in France is not 0% so there are a number of French citizens who are contributing less to building up France than this immigrant is.
So by this logic, as "the people who have built up their country have the right to decide", that means that France should disenfranchise the unemployed and give voting rights to working immigrants who pay taxes. Right?
I'm not saying that immigrants should automatically be granted voting rights and citizens who don't work should be disenfranchised. What I am saying is that this notion that "taxpayers built France", and thus immigrants who pay taxes shouldn't have any say is illogical as hell.
I'd hire you. The reason is that the word Banyan means something to me. Most HR flunkies can't say the same thing. That is why companies need to get a clue and start having technically informed people contribute to the hiring process. It is not a fun job but programmers, particularly tech leads, should sift through resumes an hour a week or month as well as interview prospects. (Or better yet get a decent CTO to help hire.) If not that, HR reps should be instructed to speak with a seasoned techie before they discard resumes with acronyms and names they don't recognize as well as go into interviews with a list of questions prepared by techies. If you left hiring up to HR, Zimmerman couldn't get a job in internet security.
Sorry, I was just drawing upon experiences watching a foreign couple go through this. There existed an exit barrier for her, since the company was doing the immigration mambo for her immediate family. They were Chinese (and this was several years ago), so leaving the job (and returning to China, if I understand correctly) would have been problematic. She implied that moving companies meant rebooting the immigration process, at which they'd been working for a while.
I suggest that part of her compensation was the possibility of US citizenship, which creates noise in the job market for the domestic workforce. Let's assume she and I have identical skillsets, experience, etc. If her compensation function was:
money + benefits + US citizenship
while mine was:
money + benefits + having a life
The hiring company is at a great advantage, since moving towards US citizenship is significantly valuable to her. The company can outsource the immigration stuff to lawyers (who, BTW, aren't likely to get pushed to finish) at lowest cost possible. If they have a number of such workers, economies of scale (re: the lawyers) kicks in, and the company reaps even more benefit.
Meanwhile, she percieves that she's making $X, and will work that hard, when financially, she's getting $X - value of potential US Citizenship. To work that amount, I would have to make $X, which puts me at a disadvantage.
The company is thrilled, so long as her value of potential US citizenship is less than marginal lawyer's fees. Note that an incentive exists to actually MINIMZE the legal talent and effort put forth, both financially, and from an HR standpoint.
I think that covers it. No trickery, no ethical wrangling, but a significant advantage for the company. Of course, not everyone's from mainland China...
If it works for you, godspeed.
I don't understand the indian thing either.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
$2200 a semester? Do they have transfer papers on the web? :)
See my other two replies to the replies for this message and see me being idiotically apolegetic. (the original act, not the apologies, are the idiotic part) Although what you did for college requires a lot of dedication, it makes a CS degree look very possible with zero funding.
That said, when I was 18, I wouldn't have been able to handle that kind of responsibility. Then again, having the money for a high-priced college got me out of that problem. And one would argue greatly over which is preferrable - a college education, or a solid brain with the ability to maturely handle a lot of responsibility. (usually the second isn't necessarily included with the first)
ok well:
I am in the US. Northwestern PA in fact living in the triangle between Cleveland, Pittsburgh, & buffalo.
1) My resume is on Monster.com as well as my website & some other job databases.
2) My first college didn't bother with certifications, so as is I'm working on aquiring some but that takes money which as I said I don't have much of right now. And my field (networking) doesn't leave much to be up-to-date in.
Frankly I have talked to a few companies about working elsewhere, but they don't want the expense of moving me more than a 1000 miles or so and no one closer wants to bother with helping me move...
Like I said I seem to be in a no-win situation that could take me years to change around... Who wants to wait years in an industry that may not have years to get the same benefits? If that's the case I'll just stay here and wait for technology to catch up to this pit...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Let anybody who can get here stay here. Give them a social security number, and start collecting taxes from them. You are only eligible for welfare after you have been here for three years. Eliminate minimum wage laws. Let competition rule.
I don't care where they came from. I want them all to be Americans. I want the bright ones. I want the dumb ones. I want them all to look at people better than themselves, and think "I can get there..."
This situation holds no anxiety for me. I might have to learn a different language, get used to co-workers who have a different culture. None of this changes the fact that if I am good at what I do then I will be employed. If I am not, then I won't be.
Oh, well, sorry for the fantasy, folks. I have a touch of the Reganomics. I will take my Prozac now...
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
Hey, me too.
F*****g hard it was too.
Amen to that.
Not bitter because we was too stupid to get in are we?
Possibly, or maybe he/she was trolling. Or believed the media hype about Laura Spence. There's a nice take on that incident here.
One of the American physicists at Churchill who did her MPhil here said that the US system was broader but less in depth, FWIW (this was largely in reference to the level of mathematics in the Cambridge course).
I can second this I went to colelge for 3 years and have a debt of over $40k (I think 45k actually) while my parents tried to help and gained over 10k in debt themsleves (which eventually forced them to file for bankrupcy or theyed loose their house, car, etc.).
I worked for crappy money when I got to college because my parents couldn't afford to help me out anymore than they already were and I needed to eat after all. But they didn't want anyone who couldn't work over 30 hrs./week so my studies suffered. Well eventually I went to work for my school at their netowrk/helpdesk but guess what? My school wanted cheap ass labor with at least 30 hrs./week put in to... Gee sounds great huh?
My parents ended up filing for bankrupcy like I mentioned before I finished college (2 semesters to go) & without their help I didn't have the money anymore to continue with school. So that was my end of ever gettign a four year degree. No local college will transfer more than a handful of credits (enough for a semester or maybe 2). So I just gained all that debt and spent all that time for bloody well nothing...
Makes you feel great about the oppurtunities this country provides for a middle class family (my parents made ~50k a year between them during my colelge years), huh?
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
I doubt that's the case, though it might be what you're told.
I'm in a hiring and firing position myself, and when I have to make the tough choices, it's based simply on who fits in best around the workplace.
Literally, I once kept one guy because the other guy didn't go to company picnics. They were both equally qualified and had similar tenure; the difference was that the guy who went to company picnics had a better attitude about both the company and his co-workers. Going to company parties and stuff is very often symbolic of someone who both likes the company and the people that they spend 40+ hours a week with.
I say that if there are national or emigrant citizens that can do the job (or are willing to learn), they should get hired first.As a Canadian citizen who yearns to emigrate to the United States, I agree fully with you. This is great problem with Canada, and it is symptomatic of one of the many problems that makes me fed up with sending 50%+ of my income to Ottawa with nothing to show in return for my tax monies invested.
However, I think I may be accused of being a little bit more moderate than you are:
If there are more jobs, fine hire foreigners. But don't put a citizen in the unemployment line so you can hire a foreigner, that costing the nation more in the end (unemployment, welfare, low moral, crime...) even if your company sees a short term gain.Not true. The population of the United States or Canada isn't growing fast enough on its own to maintain the same rate of economic growth as we're used to. Therefore, immigrants are necessary to be new employees and therefore new consumers.
Immigrants start 18% of all new businesses in Canada; I'm sure the numbers are similar in the US. They're also more likely to attend post-secondary education.
My problem with immigration is the quality of the immigrants that Canada is allowing in. First off, I know a husband and wife pair who are both British doctors, and they can't immigrate to Canada, because they're not from a "downtrodden" enough country. Canada currently has a shortage of medical professionals (mostly because they complete school, subsidized by the government, then immediately head off to the warmer, freer and greener pastures south of the border). The immigrants that Canada lets in - in fact, embraces with open arms and settlement bonuses ($$) are from all-nature of third-world lands with no employable skills or capability in either of Canada's official languages. Eventually, they get jobs as gas station attendants, hotel chambermaids or convenience store clerks. And yet a pair of British doctors can't get in.
I'm all for immigration, but I want them to learn the official languages of Canada. I want them to integrate into Canadian society. And I want the preference to be given to those with useable skills prior to those allowed in because they're from third-world countries.
I assure you, when I move to the United States, it will be with the goal (and responsibility) of Citizenship in mind; not coming in, taking advantage of and culturally diluting the American way of life.
Hiring foreign help should be a stop gap measure until the nation's population can catch up to the demand, NOT general practice to lower the bottom line or to keep Uncle Joe in the country.Without immigration, the economy will not grow, and recession will be the result. Unless everybody starts having lots and lots of children.
Just choose the immigrants wisely.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
At least where I went to school, the CS program had a horrible attrition rate for the faculty. We all major'ed in computer engineering instead (more emphasis on broad engineering topics, less on real application). I had to learn everything practical on my own...
If domestic companies keep up with this eventually the problem will not just be the not enough US Trained people but what will happen is that the US people will start to leave. Americans in general tend to think that we are immune to the sort of "Brain Drain" that other countries go through, because we're America and who wouldn't want to live/work here. With that attitude in mind companies pay their workers less with not as good benefits all while convincing their employees that they are better off for it.
"Freedom of speech has always been the abstract red-headed stepchild of the Constitution"
"Freedom of speech has always been the abstract red-headed stepchild of the Constitution"
-Suck
I did have one recruitment company ask me around a dozen questions over the telephone to test my knowledge. The recruitment was for a huge company, but the questions were just plain stupid.
Examples - "Whats the significance of memory address #F0000000". "Whats the difference between Windows and UNIX PCI cards". I failed the test, and therefore wasn't interviewed, because I had no idea what they were asking for, and clearly the person who had set the questions didn't know either. A pity, as I could have gone a long way at that place.
I also had a long discussion at one interview that indicated that the interviewer knew a bit about RAID and asked me a question on that, as he'd obviously read somethig on it recently. Oh dear! Another failed interview where I failed technically, due to knowing more than the interviewer.
Hey, this is turning into uk.jobs.d, where I join in the comunal moaning on a weekly basis. And I havn't yet mentioned the 100+ mile trip for an interview that lasted 10 seconds.
The rest of my team started to leave, so I had to also deal with all the other calls as well. Eventually I left as well. I've not fully recovered since.
The same thing is happening at the new place. I test trading systems, and the people who write the software ask me why the thing isn't working. Arrgghhh! I don't have the time to do anything else!
I just want a nice sysadmin role somewhere, where I'm in charge.
Back in colonial times firm would pay the costs of immigration; in return the person would be be payed somewhat less than market wages for a period of time. The situation is the same today, except the costs of immigration aren't transit-- they are legal. So, the institution more bogus now than it was then--even if the actual conditions of the workers are better.
The solution, as others have pointed out is fewer H1-Bs and more green cards.
-Tupper
Am I a conservative or a liberal? I forget...but I seek justice.
So regulate all that if you must regulate something. Put caps on specific countries if you must. Regulate contracting companies - they DO tend to abusive to EVERYONE, even americans. I have several co-workers that are contractors (they are americans). They cost a small fortune to the client, the contractor himself is not getting rich ($50,000) and they have no choice because they signed contracts that would force them to not work for a competing company for 2 years.
It sound that the problem you're describing are isolated to a certain type of business. Regulate them, but leave everyone else alone. Must everyone suffer because of a few? There are a lot of legitimate company that need H1Bs, and treat their worker (foreign or otherwise) just fine.
They could make IT companies hire and/or keep older workers, no more getting turned out to field when you don't know the lastest language (even though you could learn it in a month).
What makes this a good thing? Honestly this would hurt the economy of the US in the long term. Limiting competition doesn't make the work force, economy stronger; it makes it weaker. If someone else can do my job as well for cheaper, then they deserve the job. Free market principle.
Surely you don't believe that the government should limit the number of japanese cars coming to the country just because GM can't compete with them? Look what the Japanese imports did to the automobile industry in the 70s and 80s. It vastly improved the American automobile thru competition--a good thing(tm).
Something to think about, someday you may not want to work a 70 hour week, you may have a family, you may grey hair or be balding, do you want to be replaced by an undercutting youngster or foreigner?
Although I think this is an extreme example, I will respond anyway. If this is your sitution it looks like you should look for a new job. If someone else is willing to do a job that you aren't willing to do--by all means let them do it. Nobody is forcing anyone to work 70 hours a week. If it is too much then resigning sounds like a good option--I probably would.
-k
"Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi"
I was burning out on college and was offered a job from a company that was desperate to have me come on board (and later when I left them, they were even trying to re-recruit me to come back, and later when my former boss from there took another job, he tried to get me to come join him at his new company). Since then I've gone on to 2 jobs actually at major universities (still no degree) and now I am on my 6th job since college and making more than the CEO here is.
/. readers don't resemble that remark).
/. and include a link to your resume in your signature. Do similar elsewhere. Do that in addition to the traditional job search functions. Most companies either won't need your skills or won't know how to recognize them. But some do, and you want to match up with them. Don't worry about the others.
I learn on the job. I learn online. I learn on the ceramic throne. I would say that some college education is important and can be useful. Much of it was useful in working with people and understanding out other stuff works (for example I took a couple courses in EE and it helped me understand the scope of hardware problems I run into).
If you are the creative person who doesn't need college to be able to develop cool stuff, you might be good hiring material (especially with some experience). If you are a mindless drone with a CS degree, you might as well move along (but most
I think you could get a job at one of those companies. The problem is that the HR mill tends to get in the way. What I would recommend is posting well thought out and intelligent comments on
Knowledge growth in a company is what you make of it. Managers generally want stuff done; they are not going to "offer" it to you; They don't pay you to learn stuff; they want it to already be known. Find out what the technological edge your company is exploring is, and go learn more about it, and volunteer to do some extra stuff related to it. One day they just might have you do that.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You are, of course, entitled to your oppinion. In a well run business, it is not necessary to work 12-16 hours a day 360 days a year. If I did that to my employees, I'd expect them to leave, and be disappointed if they didn't.
The best employee is going to be one that looks out for "#1". That includes doing a good job for a company that will recognize such a job, and accepting responsiblity for their own career and life.
David Corbin Promote Freedom - American Liberty Foundation
drat. Her salary function should ACTUALLY read:
salary + benefits + pot. US citizenship + (percieved effort in getting to where she is in the process)
The company, then, has every incentive to move the process quickly at first, get to an advanced stage, then start dragging their feet.
Think, THEN post.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Am I a conservative or a liberal? I forget...but I seek justice.
People WORKING in North America.... That mostly did not study there......
Stop looking at me.
You've hit the nail on the head ..
No it was not an as hominem...I never played a sport, neither did I ever state that I received any scholarships (just academic grants). I think you are falling for the big cases that you see on the news and TV.
"99.9% of the rest of the metriculating students?....lowering of standards?" *Sigh*
My school and thousands others have minimum high school GPA and SAT scores...anyone (including athletes) who wants to consider enrollment has to meet those standards.
"Who said no sports in higher education?"
You did, sir! And I quoteth. "The fact that it's actually a drain on our Education dollars removes any justification whatsoever."SOURCE
Good Day now...no more to hear here.
Sig it.
Unfortunately no, another payment cause she wants her own bike :)
nerdfarm.org
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
So does anyone in Boston need a junior programmer? I also do Linux administration? (grin)
Jeff (anomaly@voicenet.com)
I'm not sure where you look at, but when I post for a new contract I get on average 20-30 recruiters a day calling me all offering my rate and usually higher. Course it's the silicon valley, and reality is warped beyond all form of recognition here.
nerdfarm.org
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
I've got 6 open posiitions right now, and based on past trends I'll be lucky to get 2 of those filled this year. I don't care what country they are from or how old they are. They just have to be competent. Maybe my standards are way too high. But I don't think so. I'll hire someone who's never been to college and had very limited experience if I am impressed with them in an interview.
Anyone who says there isn't a shortage is either lazy, incompetent, or needs to move to a city with a demand for workers.
As to unions, I hate them. Especially when they have closed shops and you have to join the union to work (happened when I did construction work during college). When I consider a job, it is me interviewing the company, not them interviewing me. And I've got the competence to feel that way. I've been working in IT for 8 years and have never sent out a resume once.
> If you do useful work, your employer (unless he's stupid) will continue to keep you on.
Doh! Well, no. It's the pension. Companies talk employees out of most of their lives by promising that they will be taken care of in their old age -- by a pension. Then they fire older employees to avoid making good on the deal. Canning your older employees can do wonders for funding those 6 martini lunches. It also lets you give millions to politicians to pass tax incentives for companies that slash their workers' salaries (let's hear it for the CEO write-off! woo-hoo!); and from that windfall, they can give millions to politicians to arrange for more H1-B visas to kick the bottom out of the IT market; etc. etc. etc.
You'd best spend more time studying the history of labor in America.
It is just too damn difficult for a working person to decide they want to become an engineer or programmer.
I just can't agree with this viewpoint. While it's true that there are some courses in the typical CS/IS curriculum that end up weeding out potential candidates from the program, it's not fair to blame the program for demanding excellence from it's students.
If you're working your way through school, it's going to take longer; that's just the way it is. If you've got a hard course, you can take a lighter load that semester to compensate.
A C++ class that has 20 hours per week of work does sound a bit excessive, but even so, it's going to produce students who are well versed in the use of the language.
Dedicated students should be rewarded with better grades. In my own experience, I worked full time, and went to school for about 12 hours a week (4 courses). I spent every night during the week studying and half of my weekend (every weekend) doing schoolwork. You get out what you put into your education. It's unfortunate that those of us who have to pay for it ourselves are at a slight disadvantage, but the hard work does pay off.
(Further diatribe omitted to save bandwidth.)
Perhaps I am a moron; however, your reply to my posting did absolutely nothing to convince me that you're right and I'm wrong.
I'm not sure where Indian chip fab people come into things. Where, in my original posting, did it refer to them?
Your complete and utter lack of any ability to divide your thoughts into separate and distinct paragraphs makes me question, in approximate order, your intelligence, the clarity of your thought processes and finally your capability with the English language.
Perhaps you replied to the wrong message?
Ignore my brilliance only at your own peril.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
BTW, if you are so concerned about the welfare of those foreign workers who want jobs here, why aren't you agitating to make it easier for them to change jobs once they come in on an H-1B visa?
I am. Well, not directly, but I'm an active member of the Libertarian Party, which advocates open borders and opposes work restrictions on foreigners. I would much prefer to have a completely open immigration policy in which foreign workers could work wherever they like without asking the government's permission.
Heheh... Well, my native accent is an Ottawa-area accent, so I sound just like Peter Jennings.
I spend a lot of time in southeastern Michigan and Western New York since I have large numbers of friends in both those places. Since I hate looking (or sounding) like a tourist wherever I go, I've adopted the general "midwestern" accent to the point that people I meet from there are surprised to find out that I'm from the Toronto area.
It makes things so much better in restaurants, especially:
Q: What's the difference between a Canadian and a canoe?
A: A canoe tips.
Sounding Canadian can mean your soup is served cold.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
The NYT article says: Companies could train older programmers in less time than it takes to process visas for cheaper foreign workers.
This is silly. There is a huge difference between waiting for a visa to be processed, and spending my time training someone. If I had time to train someone who didn't have the skills to do the job, I could use that time to do the job myself! How about if the "older programmers" go learn up-to-date skills on their own instead of waiting for others to train them?
As you'd indicated earlier in your posting, you were from an Eastern European country.
For one thing, your command of the English language is excellent; you write better than most people for whom English is a first language.
However, what you say is only partially true. In your case, yes, this was the routine. Obviously, you came from one of the more "civilized" of the Eastern European countries: Poland or the Czech/Slovak republics, etc., as opposed to having been from someplace like Albania.
The majority of Canada's new immigrants last year were from China. Human rights issues in China really don't concern me beyond the fact that Canada shouldn't be trading with China if we find their government's behavior reprehensible. Instead, the Canada continues to trade with China, and rather than making the Chinese government bear the costs of their unacceptable human rights infractions, the Canadian government makes me bear them by allowing huge numbers of unqualified Chinese people in, and then giving most of them settlement bonuses. Now, I have no quarrels with the Chinese people: they're human beings, and they see opportunity that they wouldn't have in China. My problem is that more than 50% of my income goes to taxes to fund humanitarian projects that can better be operated in other ways.
Essentially, the Canadian government makes me pay for the ineptitude and abuses of the governments of countries that I really don't care about.
As a young Canadian taxpayer who sees my quality of life eroded by the day through stupid socialist policies that pander to everyone but the taxpayer, I'm enraged.
I'm forced to invest more than 50% of my earnings every pay cycle into the government at all levels, and I have nothing to show for it. I have bad roads, bad schools, bad water, bad health care and the biggest farce of a military this side of Iraq. But, it's reassuring to know that my government spends money instead on schizophrenic foreign policies ("China, you're bad, but we'll still buy stuff from you."), the CRTC which ensures that 40% of everything broadcast by a Canadian radio station is a Tragically Hip song that they've already played three times that day, and giving two airlines permission to become a monopoly and then being surprised when quality of service suffers.
My government couldn't find its own asshole with both hands and a flashlight. They don't represent me, they don't represent my views, they don't even provide the services that they claim to when they tax me. Now I know what it is to feel raped.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I live and work in Pittsburgh, PA and we have a large pool of H1-B visa holders here. I lived in an apartment complex known as "Little India" because of the high percentage of Indian workers there and I got to know many of them very well. These Indian people that I knew were extremely intelligent and hard working. These are the graduates of excelent technical schools and they learn a product inside out. They will buy technical books and read them cover to cover. They study their subjects on nights and weekends while we are out having fun. They live in apartments with almost no furniture because they can find themselves suddenly deported on very short notice where they will have to sell anything they can't pack.
I worked as a consultant for a consulting company that would simply never give salary reviews to Indians. If you were an American, you would get a review every year. They had the Indians over a barrel and they knew it. They did it (they probably still do, I quit working for them) because consulting companies are scum and they can get away with it. Word to the wise: If you are using consultants and your account representative wants to raise the dollar per hour that they charge you for the consultant, know that the consultant himself (or herself) will probably not see a penny of the raise. In fact, they will probably not even be told anything about it. Most consultants have no idea of what their own billing rate is.
It's not the foreign workers who are making out in this situation, it's consulting companies run by Americans. Account representatives are the ones who are driving the fancy cars and living in huge houses. Ask your account representative what neighborhood they live in and you will see. Foreign workers are simply tools to the consulting companies, they use them because they can pay them less, treat them like garbage, deny them benefits, never give them a raise, and kick them out of the country if they dare to complain about it.
You overrate the US NEWS college rankings; If they get a bad rating there, the good schools will still be full, and the bottom half of the academic population will STILL go to the bad schools, because they get their degree, which is more necessary than air to most people, at least in the US's job market. I'm not talking about the geek kids who hack linux kernels at age 13 and can get an IT job without a degree, I'm talking about the other 99% of the population that majors in Liberal Arts so they can get a job selling insurance.
However, I do agree with you that the shortage of labor is a mirage. It is created by industry, but it is supported by the gummint, because if the companies were forced to pay IT people what the market demands, it would drive up inflation and really give Alan Greenspan a headache, not to mention, destroy the US economy as we know it today. (might not be a bad thing).
On the other hand, lead programmer on one product team in my company just retired. 42. Stock options made it possible. In other words, they paid him TOO MUCH. Where's that happy medium?
Jedi Vacquero: We don't need to show you any steenkin' boches!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Knowledge growth in a company is what you make of it. Managers generally want stuff done; they are not going to "offer" it to you;
I completely agree with this. Every job I've taken so far has been for more menial tasks, and I've worked to create a new job description that far exceeds what I was originally hired for. The problem here is getting the raises you deserve. :)
Thanks for the response, it is good to see others who have forged their own way like I have, and are doing a good job of doing it. I'll take your advice on make my resume more visable.
V
Dude those questions are just plain unanswerable except maybe in multiple choice format.
You know what would be an awesome interview? If they left you in a room with a computer, internet access and told you to complete some task. Set up the domain, install some hardware, update the logon scripts for this user, etc. Now, that would be an interview. No arcane questions and even if they asked you to do something you didn't know how to do, you could get the answer off the net and complete the task.
You seem pretty unconcerned now
I'm not the least bit unconcerned. I understand that bad things happen to people, and I can certainly sympathize with their plight. But we weren't talking about the fact that it sucks to have cancer. We were talking about why companies fire old people and hire young ones. And my point is that it's unreasonable to require that an employer take care of employees out of the goodness of their hearts. If they do, great. A compassionate employer is an added job benefit.
But I don't see why a job should necessarily be considered a welfare program. Your employer agrees to pay you money in exchange for labor. It might be nice to have him take care of you when you're sick, but I see no reason we should assume that that's the function of an employer, any more than it's the function of a mechanic or a grocer.
The issue is not whether compassion is a good thing. I think it is. The issue is whether paying someone to do work makes him legally or morally responsible for his health and welfare. I don't think it should.
Businesses are tools for efficient production. They do this extremely well. I think they should stay that way, and that charitable functions should be performed by other elements of society-- family, church, charity, etc. Businesses are there to turn a profit, and that's what they should do.
great points!
Exactly; explain to the average Joe, why discovering the Higgs Boson is important, in a way that is more entertaining (=ad revenue generating) than a football game (to him), without being innacurate or blowing potential benefits out of proportion, or jumping the gun (to get the scoop) on the peer-review process.
And you begin to see the problem, and the fact that there's not really much anyone can do about it. (other than state-controlled press, and a scientist-controlled state).
Jedi Vacquero: We don't need to show you any steenkin' boches!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
there is nothing wrong with unions. in fact - I am starting one myself, already have 6 members.
Dues are 2% of your options as they vest, 2% of your annual income - plus you must agree to provide 20 hours of work per year toward contracts that the union takes on but does not pay you for.
We "convince" people to use our union services and workers much in the same way that the traditional unions do - like the dock workers union. If you do not abide by their rules, they break your knees with bats - ruin your produce carts and other equipment etc..
Anytime we find groups that are not quite as excited about using our union staff - we just create incentive to use use through such means as corrupting your databases, taking down your websites, accidentally spilling our coffee on your precious servers etc. In fact, these tactics work quite well as it creates more work for us as we can charge our fair rates of $295.00/hour.
The best thing we have found is that the old style unions of the docks and trucking industries would destroy/hijack goods etc... but these were scare tacktics that gave little return on the efforts.
Our model allows for better ROI in that anything we take down - allows for the opportunity of the "client" to "willingly" hire us on to resolve whatever mysterious systems issues they may be having.
If you are interested in becoming a member of our team just send an email to family@packet-crafters.com
Serious applicants only.
Lower pay wasn't an option. I had pushed myself to come back to work early because other employees were donating their vacation time since the company didn't have sick leave. Came in one morning and by noon I was gone. No warning, no severence, no nothin'.
You have my sympathy. It sounds like your employer was a jerk, and he probably lost a valuable employee and will be hurt financially for it. If you're right that your replacement was useless, then this is the sort of poor choice that gets punished by market forces-- your employer will discover in a few weeks that your replacement is inept, and will have to go out and pay someone else more money to do the job you already were doing.
Unless you wear a cape and the wind blows through your hair (if you still have some - hair, not wind) it gets harder to land on your feet.
Why is that? Is it just that you are used to doing whatever you already did, and it's harder to learn new skills? Is it that you don't have time to keep up with the latest? Is it that you're just not as productive as you used to be?
If employers hire on the basis of skill (and although I'm sure there are exceptions, I think a lot do) then you will be able to find a job as long as you are able to do useful work. If employers do not hire on the basis of skill, then I'd be interested to know what criteria they use and why.
If, on the other hand, you are not as skilled or productive as the fresh-out-of-school set, then I don't see why you should expect to make any more than them. You are paid to do useful work, after all. I don't see why the simple fact that you are older entitles you to a bigger paycheck.
The solution is clear. We must extend the INS's authority, and require all out-of-state nationals who want to work in California to apply for C1-B visas. Then we must set quotas for each state. We might allow say, 1000 Idaho programmers each year to enter California to work. Of course, they can only work for companies that sponsor them, and when their employment ends, we must truck them back to Idaho. We've got to protect California programmer's jobs, keep our salaries high, and protect our standard of living. It's insane to allow open borders between California and these low-wage states. Stop the insanity and close California's borders!
As I'm a network admin as well, I would have to disagree. A Cisco cert will go a long way to improve your money making abilities. Linux certs or even the venerable MCSE can help as well.
I've worked for hellhole companies and decent ones. It sounds like you are at the former. Be aware that the lack of time to update skills is often management planned to keep you there. Don't give in
Good luck,
DB
The fact is, the practicesation you describe are already being done now, except it's by the employers who have an interest in maximizing profits at the expense of employee and consumer.
Sure, and it's bad for the economy just as it is when workers do it. But it only works with government help. Without aid from the government, cartels tend to fall apart. The real danger is that the government will step in and institutionalize the cartels (as it has with unions, as well as cable companies, phone companies, pharmaceuticals, etc) and force everyone to respect them. At that point, the cartels become harmful to the economy.
The same is true of an IT cartel-- initially it might be beneficial in standardizing working conditions and whatnot, but it would be likely to then start lobbying for those standards to be written into law, which in the long run would be bad for everyone.
The fact that businesses form coercive cartels doesn't mean that labor should do likewise. Two wrongs don't make a right. And the rhetoric of "us versus them" is highly misleading-- cartels don't just hurt the customers, it also hurts those who are forcibly excluded from the market. In the case of labor, unions exclude new entrants from the labor market, creating artificial poverty. Unions harm both workers outside an industry and employers at the expense of the workers in the industry.
Damn straight! You tell 'im Percey!
Whose turn is it to be president this time?
Jedi Vacquero: We don't need to show you any steenkin' boches!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
My problem with immigration is the quality of the immigrants that Canada is allowing in.
I'm all for immigration, but I want them to learn the official languages of Canada.
I have firsthand experience about immigrating in Canada from an Est-European country. The process takes a year. It starts with an appraisal of your and your spouse's abilities: job experience, education level, fluency in both English and French. It takes a couple of interviews at the Canadian Embassy (surprise in English and French) until you get the approval.
embraces with open arms and settlement bonuses ($$)
Actually when you land in Canada you have to pay a landing fee of about $1000 per adult and (I guess here) $200 for children. Also you have to prove that you have enough money to support yourself and the family for six months - for a family of three this means a little over $10,000.
Yeah, but if you read slashdot at 2 like I do (who the hell has time to read all this crap at 1?) then you never see the "This is a TROLL" message, because they start at 1 or get modded down as offtopic, etc.
Besides, this whole topic is a troll.
In fact, if you think about it, the whole point of slashdot is trolling.
Jedi Vacquero: We don't need to show you any steenkin' boches!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If IT workers unionized, maybe we'd FINALLY have some pull with the Democratic party.
Government Subsidized MSCE training for everyone!
Jedi Vacquero: We don't need to show you any steenkin' boches!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Nah, what I was hoping for was something less formal than "trainer" type courses and fancy slides. Brownbagging while learning a few little tricks. Sometimes just how to solve a particular problem, which could lead to a more elegant way to do the same thing, which could lead to a related problem. IT folks who aren't natural "trainers" can wax quite eloquently on a topic near to their hearts. I'd rather learn in small chunks from people who are actually doing the work, in our shared environment, so we have a common context in which to trade these ideas. It would be a TRUE lifelong learning opportunity, instead of some business park MBA/MSIS in a box.
The other thing is, the "young kids" are MUCH more likely to stay until 9, or come in on Saturdays, to help a project stay on schedule (whose fault is the schedule, really?), while the balding guy has a family, other responsibilities, and NEEDS more money. Comes in at 9, leaves at 5. Never stays later. Never reads up on Java or C# on his own time in the evenings, he's working on his 69 Camaro in the garage, or reading to his kids.
What's more attractive to an employer?
Jedi Vacquero: We don't need to show you any steenkin' boches!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
American and French citizens have a right to decide immigration policy.
If that's what you were trying to say, you should have said that in the first place, instead of going off on this wierd-ass tangent about "taxpayers" and "building this country."
Well no one does Cisco certification around here... I'd have to travel a good ways to get it, & right now that's not an option... I am working on my MCSE & I had one of the alternative to red hat linux certs but they seem to have gone out of business...
Where I live is pretty devoid of technology for all that I live a few miles from the 3rd largest city in my state & it's over half the size of say pittsburgh & over twice the size of Harrisburg (the capitol & place that ignores the welfare of us here to serve their own needs). People here still insist their old 8088 machines should be fine to handle all their spreadsheet needs and wonder why it can't just be networked to the 'new' pentium 150's in the offices... (that was an exageration, but not by much)
If their were non-hellhole companies here I'd be sucking whatever ass I had to until I got in... But their aren't... & so I'm stuck liek I said til I can pay my own way out...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
People WORKING in North America.... That mostly did not study there......
The United States attracts the best talent, both in faculty and in it's graduate schools. Those Nodel Laureates also provide a powerful incentive for the best to come here to study.
You don't have to resign first and then look for another job. If an H-I employee is not happy with his current pay, he can find a new job and get a new H-1 and then leave his present job. No problem with that. The problem comes only if he decides to apply for a green card. During the whole process, he cannot change jobs.
There's got to be more to the story than what you say.
No there doesn't. You just have to read what I said. The pertinent part was Associates in Electronic Engineering Technologies. That's a two year degree, versus your bachelor, a four year degree.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
They aren't selling anything. You're selling your labor and the companies are buying. You're just going to have to trust me on this, Supply and Demand still works in this case. If the IT workers unionized and H!-B's stayed at their current levels, I'd bet wages would go up 15-25%. Just think what unskilled factory jobs are paying these days and there isn't anywhere near the shortage in those workers. The reason: unions
you couldn't live in a shoebox eating shit in Silicon Valley for $50k/yr.
Jedi Vacquero: We don't need to show you any steenkin' boches!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Last time I was in Mountain View, all everyone was talking about was how expensive a house was.
I hear prices like a million for a run-down 900 sq-ft one bedroom house. With an hour's commute (fairly nearby, but we're talking about the most conjested freeways on the planet).
I heard one guy saying he was going to buy a house in Gilroy, because he couldn't afford a house in Mountain View. I drove home on hwy 101 that day, at 5pm, Gilroy was 3 hours.
People have to be fucking insane to live there.
Jedi Vacquero: We don't need to show you any steenkin' boches!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Then I have to wonder how they determine the prevailing wage. I work with a whole bunch of H1-B folks, mostly from China and the Indian subcontinent, and they are consistently paid 75% or less of what their skills are worth. One trick that seems to be involved in skirting the INS rules is hiring people with senior-engineer skills into junior-engineer jobs and paying them junior-engineer salaries.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
I don't disagree with you; I am opposed to unions, however...
I've found that usenix/sage does not, in any way, tend to 'prefer' it's members. What do I get out of my usenix/sage membership? I get a common point of reference, and I get to know what other admins make, what issues they deal with, and it gives me some more solid ground to stand on when negotiating.
I do *not* expect them to 'go to bat' for me in any way at all (like unions do). I don't expect them to DO things for me, other than to continue to bring together admins from all over. In this way, we all share our experiences and knoweldge, without actually dictating who does what.
I don't disagree with you; I am opposed to unions, however...
I've found that usenix/sage does not, in any way, tend to 'prefer' it's members. What do I get out of my usenix/sage membership? I get a common point of reference, and I get to know what other admins make, what issues they deal with, and it gives me some more solid ground to stand on when negotiating.
I do *not* expect them to 'go to bat' for me in any way at all (like unions do). I don't expect them to DO things for me, other than to continue to bring together admins from all over. In this way, we all share our experiences and knoweldge, without actually dictating who does what.
One major problem with IT workers is that they simply don' tknow what is reasonable and what is not. They do not communicate enough with each other. THIS is what is needed. Not a labor union.
When I'm gray and balding, I would *expect* to be replaced if someone younger, who wants longer hours and will work for less can do my job!
By the time I'm gray and balding (well, I'm balding already..) I plan to be working in a job such that nobody without the experience I have could DO my job. So the only replacement I would fear is from an equal.
Replacement by younger workers is what happens when you become complacent and sit on your ass.
All I can say is that
I am a 29 year old Unix sysadmin in Silicon Valley, a US Citizen, with less than 3 years work experience, making over $80K a year..., but I make less than some H1B's. :-(
One thing you might ask yourself (and I may just get flamed here) is why are you older and not yet in a senior management role?
/. - do you REALLY think he is a floater because he hasn't advanced to senior management? Or is the answer that he has continued to contribute because he has found a job where he can do what he wants.
Consider yourself completely flamed.
I have never seen worse than what you have written here. The truth is that technical aptitude and interests determine who is suited for a senior management role, and who is not. A programmer may be one of the best in the world, yet be totally unsuited for a supervisory or management role. Look at Albert Einstein, for example - acknowledged as one of the greatest men of the century, but totally unsuited for any sort of management position. Forcing such people into management roles is one of the greatest sins that a company can commit. You, as an employer are serving your company poorly indeed if you really have these attitudes.
Fortunately there are more mature companies that recognize the value of true technical excellence, and the fact that it doesn't come at age 22. The IBM's and Xeroxes of the world have dual ladders where individuals can advance their career either through gaining technical or management skills. I am sure that once the technical field of computing matures they will see the advantage of what REAL companies do to keep their best and brightest working in the way that benefits both the comapany and the indvidual most.
Look at the recent interview with Brian Kernighan on
You (an I think a lot of the high-tech industry as well) have a LOT to learn when it comes to evaluating people.
I mean, face it, nothing in America compares to Grenoble or Cambridge in mathemathics, physics and such scientific stuff that has no potential revenue at all.
Total baloney. Over the last 30 years 80% of Nobel Prizes have been awarded to people working in North America.
My first /. comment. Hope I have something worthwhile to say.
Anyway, I'm a bit older than most /. participants. Also a bit sharper (look up the word polymath) and a bit more energetic (finished the Marine Corps Marathon in 1996 -- thinking of doing another marathon).
Anyway, enough of the introductions. On to the substance of the matter.
We have an increasing problem in the US with control freaks who are completely out of control. A year ago I bailed out of the aerospace industry. For the first half of the 20th century, aerospace was characterized by a government agency (NACA, look it up) that worked _with_ the independent companies building airplanes to create a vibrant aeronautical industry that took humanity from biplanes to the first commercial jet transports (e.g., Boeing 707s). Then an authoritarian regime took over in the cold war. This agency (NASA, I'm sure you've heard of it) reduced these same companies to selling various things (spacecraft, software, etc.) to NASA. While some progress has been made (the field still remains attractive), things have slowed a bit. How many of you can buy a ticket to low earth orbit, for example? My college student father could buy a ticket from Chigago to NYC back in the 30s. Like I say, things have slowed down in the aerospace field...
There is much talk in the computer industry (hardware, software, etc.) about working long hours to "get the job done." We're professionals, aren't we? Dedicated to getting that software out to serve the Customer?
A fair amount of research shows a dramatic slowing of productivity after 40 hrs/week. People get tired (even marathoners). People need to do something else (especially polymaths, but also everyone else). By 60 hrs/week, any productivity gains come to halt. By 80 hours (is this really the Microsoft standard?) you might as well be working for your competitors. Mistakes are that prevalent.
Think of it this way. Everyone has 168 hours/week (whether you are Bill Gates or a welfare mother). You need 8 hours (+ or -) (but a hell of a lot more than 2 or even 5) of sleep per day. To take care of nutrition needs, you need another 2 (perhaps more). And then there is exercise (figure approximately 90 minutes, including changing, showering, etc.)(trust me, I'm an expert). Then, unless your somebody like Bill Clinton, at least 30 minutes (more likely an hour or more) just to get from home to work. You've just spent half your time just on personal maintenance -- without doing any work or taking care of family, friends, etc. The 40 hour week (if you can still work that little) leaves you with 3-4 hours/day Monday to Friday plus Saturday and Sunday for such things as housecleaning, lovemaking, social activities, etc. The 60 hour week leaves you with about 1 hour/day six days/week (plus one "free" day) for same activities. The 80 hour week -- forget anything except work. Other figures are left as an exercise to the reader (if any).
What kind of organizations demand all their members' time? Authoritarian cults, for example. Can't have the victims being exposed to the unhealthy influences of people who haven't bought into the cult...
Enough. I'm tired (yeah, even real marathoners get tired). I also don't care if /. moderates this at -1000. More later if I've got the time.
Bye for now,
Chuck Divine
(my real name, all you Anonymous Cowards)
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- B. Franklin
There you go, looking at California, and calling that the USA.
First of all, if you have a problem with the food, it means you haven't tried. We consider ourselves a melting pot of all cultures, which means you can get food from just about any culture. You have to look though, the best restaruants are small mom and pop operations, and they don't have an advertising budget other then word of mouth. Often the store looks dirty, but the food is wonderful. There are many good Mexican restaruants around, even in Minnesota I can find a couple, but if you head to Taco Bell you won't find it, even though Taco bell is the dominate player in the Mexican resteraunt buisness.
Don't forget too that you can cook your own. Supermarkets in the US are unrivialed with anything in the world. Some do better then others, but for most of your staples (rice, flour, etc) they can't be beat. Small specialtiy stores (meat markets, etc) make up the difference where they exist. Learn to cook your own food! American cooks tend to love tinkering with the old world recipies, and the ingreadiants to do so are avaiable, if you just try.
That said...
A company (very large and well known) that I worked at as a consultant simply loved to use overseas consultants and to hire these consultants as full time workers when possible. I attribute this mostly to large corporations viewing each IT worker the same. That is, if developer A demands $70K/year and developer B demands $40K/year, get developer B. Since (in their mind) every programmer is the same, the only relevant difference is salary.
For this reason, they adored the overseas consultants. They farmed out a web based app to an overseas firm (app written in Java and none of the overseas consultants had ever used Java). The reason -- spending $20/hr/consultant versus $120/hr/consultant. This, of course, backfired since they were left with a product that didn't work, required several domestic consultants to fix and many more overseas consultants to write in the first place.
How about this scenario:
You've just had surgery for cancer and are finishing treatment. Your productivity is lower than pre-cancer, but improving weekly as your strength returns. The company is small and is taking a pretty hard hit on group insurance because two of their employees are undergoing cancer treatment. They do a little fishing and find someone (freshly trained) who will work for half and has the energy to get twice as much done (quality doesn't enter the picture somehow).
It took me nine months to find something new. Half that time I was still undergoing treatment.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
H-1B visas are great short-term solutions. Currently we have a great deal of demand for skilled tech workers and currently we don't have enough supply of these workers to satisfy companies. What washington needs to do is to tax the visas, $20,000-40,000 each. This revenue should be used for American worker training. The revenue would be more than a $billion per year, a good start for a fund for re-educating un("tech")skilled workers. We also need for scholarships for CS majors in college. A few years down the road we will see tons of qualified American workers and companies will have the dilema whether to pay an huge fee to hire from abroad or employ tremendously qualified American Labor. The answer will be obvious.
Well that's the French for you.
unions are totally unnecessary. if you are working for a company that is abusing you then leave it and find a better job. that is your way of fighting back. it's not like there are 500 of us at most companies, and the closing of one office is going to ruin a whole town. i am from and still live in michigan, so i know all about the auto workers and blah blah blah..
anyway, no, unionizing is not necessary. if your job sucks, leave it and find one that doesn't.
that's what i did, now my biggest gripe with my job is i get bored a lot.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
While I would tend to agree with most of your sentiments, I collapsed laughing when I read your opening sentence. As a contractor working at a major company (which has a 3-letter acronym), I find myself getting paid overtime, while their employees sign on for a 40-hour week, are expected to put in 44 hours (or they dont get promoted), and are once in a while told to put in overtime taking their weekly hours from anywhere from 50 to 60 hours. They dont get paid overtime.
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
1. Theorem. For any given number of computers, placed in any organisation, there is always at least one rational reason for buying more. The same thing happens with IT workers. They are providing job for each other.
2. Nobody knows and there are no means to determine, how many IT workers (or any kind of other people or things) counry actually needs.
3. Many US companies attracting foreign workers suffers from overqualification. When they needs regular coder, they find out that they can hire analyst for the same money. But good analyst can be bad coder.
4. It is impossible to grow programmers in few months, but it is possible to print more dollars, and then force others to use it with help of army, navy and politics.
5. We in USSR had similar experience. We has had one of the best intelligence services in the world. So some stupid guys in government decided that it is easier to steal designs of electronic chips than to spend money on inventing them. They stole thousands of designs. But the whole industry could not evolve beyond 80286.
The key is that they WILL NOT pay a US tech what they need to survive.. $50K to start? Hell yes, that is the low end... you try and raise a family on $50K. These "little" shops try and shovel a Pittance like $35K at the Tech and wonder why they walk away.
Start paying them enough to live and eat, then you might get employees.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Just because someone has the requisite technical skills for IT does not mean that they have the people skills needed to manage others. In fact, my experience is that the majority do not. There are exceptions of course.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
There's nothing as good as a US education. Sure, India and other places have people who are just as bright as those here in the US, but they are hamstrung by a lack of resources. I've worked with plenty of these folks. Most work very hard to avoid having to go back home! Their backgrounds are hit and miss. Some are beter than others, but few are as good as their US counterparts.
A reliance on these folks by the US software giants will ruin them. Slave labor does not work well in crafts and proffesional environments.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If a company has an entry level position they want to fill, they are not going to shell out over twice the salary to get an experienced, older worker to fill that role. That would be absolutely stupid. They will try to find an entry level worker, either domestically, or a foreign national.
And in my area, entry level is somehow defined as 2-3 years experience. It took me almost a year to find another job, and I ended up working in the exact same subsection of the field I was in before.
I know someone with two degrees, and the best job he can find is at a copy center. Something is very wrong when that happens. And, yes, we have a ton of H1-B's in the area.
NecroPuppy
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
personally, i want stability. i don't like switching jobs all the time, i'm sick of it.
getting paid more and being able to work on your own terms is nice, though. hopefully you can be contracted so that either you get the benefits of the company you're working for, or the IS firm you're contracted through gives you some.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
Excellent points. There is definately two sides to this, and I'm glad you made the points you did, saves me from repeating them.
That said, the implication others have posted that the main corporate interest here is in importing foreigners who are willing to work cheap by our standards has the ring of truth to me to. It's not my experience that there really is any shortage of qualified people here - the trouble is most of the qualified people want more pay, or more control over their contracts, free time, etc. than the PHBs like to give. So the corps invent a shortage for their own purposes. They call scarcity (a permanent situation, which can never be solved) "shortage" instead, and that is telling a falsehood.
The Indians in particular are great for this, many of them are *excellent* programmers, and the dollar is so strong in India that they can support extended families on what amounts to table scraps if they can get a work permit here. So they are usually highly motivated to stay here, and do whatever the PHB wants. Turning them away is unfair to them, but I can't say I don't have some reservations about the effects of letting them in either.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
For your information, part of the H1-B visa process requires the employer to prove to INS that the compensation package for the employee is around the average for that position in the industry. This hardly means that the "huge influx" of foreign tech labor is having a negative effect on US salaries.
The people coming to the USA to take IT positions are not the same people who come to this country illegally to pick fruit, sweep streets or work in sweat shops. The images of foreign workers jammed into cramped living conditions, slaving away for all hours at low pay may be correct for illegal immigrants but the legal immigrants are guaranteed a much different lifestyle.
It is true that visa restictions do not give foreign workers the ability to switch jobs as frequently as seems fashionable in the tech industry these days, but changing jobs is not impossible. If one company has successfully petitioned the INS for a visa for someone then the chances are good that another company will be able to do the same. While it is a pain in the ass for the employee to change jobs it hardly makes him/her an indentured servant to the company. If a foreign worker is smart enough to be working in IT then he/she is smart enough to understand their visa and its restrictions.
Lastly, I find it curious to read the irate responses posted here. Are the posters concerned about the plight of the poor foreign worker who is being exploited by these monsterous american comapnies (sarcasm)? Or are they irate that they have to actually compete to find work?
Solaristrum: One who has spent way too long staring at the Sun
NTLug's one of the largest LUGs in the world. In Dallas, you probably can throw a rock in any direction and hit a Linux user of some sort. Many don't think their home tinkering is applicable in the workforce- traditionally, it isn't. So, they usually don't mention it on their resume (I always do so. I know it- why can't I mention it? Just because I didn't have formal training in college or at a training firm? HMPH! I learned more outside of my classes than in them!) Combine that with the fact that Bynari probably didn't do an advertising blitz or go with any major placement agencies that would have gave the positions they were trying to fill exposure. Not that I blame them for that- it's ferociously expensive to do just that. I only find a problem when they complain that there's a lack of skilled Linux developers. If they were using this as an excuse for getting H1-B visa employees; I'd be livid about it.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Cripes, did you even READ the content of the post? One word and you ignore the entire point (Which was quite good).
One of the reasons America has so many shortages of professionals is the high cost of education!
Lets compare...
A year in American University: 30,000+ US Dollars
A year in Australian University: 4,000 Australian Dollars (2,500 - 3000 US dollars)
Not only that, but here the government has a loan scheme, where they pay for you to goto University, and you pay them back later, NO INTEREST!
Factor in how fast the IT industory is expanding and ofcourse there are shortages!
BIG SHORTAGES!
Another factor is that accreditation.
I am very capable with most aspects of IT, yet because I have not yet finished my degree, I can't get a good job, yet, with these shortages, I should have no prob! Employers are also too stubborn!
Next take in the 'resistance' factor, where many businesses refuse to grow with the rest of the IT world, how many businesses do you know running Linux?? That atleast have a Linux computer in a dark corner so they can atleast SEE the tech before they reject it?? Not many!
There are so many factors contributing, and no-one will take any responsibility and no-one is trying to fix the problem.
Only this year have they finally started integrating the courses here with the industory, to help knockout the transition period (from student to employee) because the change is big!
- There is no work, there is no work...
- Damn, it worked for Neo!
-
They're filled with posts because HR people don't clean them up once they're filled, they advertise positions they don't intend to fill, and they cross-post extensively. Not to mention the use of multiple headhunters advertising what is the same position.
I don't think you know exactly what an H1-B Visa means: -The "employee" can only work at the company sponsoring their visa -There is little to no chance that they can get citizenship any quicker than just applying themselves -A company can decide at any point that if they don't want the H1-B that they can send them back This has the effect that these people are not given any real opportunity and are scared to ask for raises etc, because they can be sent back to their country at any time with no job. That is why some people call it slave labor. I don't think anyone would complain if these people were granted citizenship and did not live in a state of fear. The new citizen would feel empowered enough to be paid his/her fair worth and would not be undercutting others out of fear.
Fact: Only two types of people benefit from H-1B visas... Outsourcing (Subcontracting) firms and aliens (non-residents, not little green men).
I have been a Programmer/DBA/System archetect for a very long time. I work with many forein contractors on a regular basis. They are grotesquely overrated. For the most part (generalization here) their technology skill set is outdated or completely M$ based (i.e. Access or FoxPro and Visual Basic).
Has this affected me? YES! I now find it almost impossible to find contracting positions that pay a damn thing, even though my skillset far outpases any foreign contractor I have ever met. I can find permanent positions by the bucketfull, but I bore easily with corporate squatter jobs. So my take on the whole thing, as one of those MOST affected by allowing more into this country, is that it is a bad idea.
I really wish that the mother f*#$ing goverment would stop micro-managing the economy. If they could do it worth a damn then I might not be so ticked, but everything they touch they screw up.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
well done my boy, that's the spirit.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
For one thing, dope, it may have escaped your notice, but it is, in fact, possible to get a job and get rich without having gone to Oxford. Indeed, some people have achieved it without a university degree at all!
And on the other hand, you might want to do a web search on the subject of "alumni preferences" before you assume that having generations of forebears at the same school doesn't matter in the American meritocracy. Three words: George Dubya Bush.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Urm, Cambridge, England? Everyone knows that you go to US Universities (colleges?) if you can't get into British ones. Even going to one of the top ten British Universities is better than staying in the US at MIT.
Unfortunately, most states in the U.S. have set up labour laws such that it's an "at-will" employment; you can leave the company with two weeks notice for any reason, and the company can terminate you for any reason.
Unless you're in a union shop.
Some discrimination practices can be successfully sued against, but it's difficult in an "at-will" employment state.
Ni bhionn an rath achx mar a mbionn an smacht (There is no Luck without Discipline)
And if it's true that unions are cartels that simply restrict the availability of labor, I wouldn't worry about it too much. After all, I can think of a million things I would rather do than work for my company...and if my company is prevented from selling their hideously overpriced and useless widgets for a few days to people who really don't need them, well, I don't think that's gonna cripple the economy.
-in a fast german car im amazed that i survived... an airbag saved my life!-
maybe you should read some of the posts people made in the thread saying why his points aren't worthless. I didn't see any valid, well-supported points detailing why this man's ideas are those of an ignoramus.
true some podunk hick universities value sports over academics but what do you expect out of rednecks?
Very open-minded of you. Thanks. Maybe it's because I'm a damn yankee, but I don't see many podunk hick universities around here.
I addressed the main points of the post in question in another post on this thread, but it basically comes down to the fact that our country rewards things other than scientific research and academic prowess. I'm not saying that this is an earth-shaking problem, it's probably not that much of a problem at all. Sports keep the mindless masses happy, eh?
Moller
Dartmouth College.
I went to grad school there.
As you say, whenever their football team beats Harvard, donations go up. (They make more in donations than tuition, and that is saying something.) The education provided is quite good, but behind the scenes people are aware which side the bread is buttered on.
Of course they are not very open about it. I understand that a lot of schools who are really known for their football teams are truly a lot worse. But coming from a Canadian school the contrast struck me.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
The imported workers, most of whom come from India, are said to be needed because American schools do not graduate enough young people with science and math skills.
I read your "fucking post". A supposed lack of competent trainees it the whole reson for this BS. There's never enough competent workers in any field. Making it seem worse than it is is just how these people would like to fuck all of us.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Our government is helping them at our expense. This is surprising?
Actually, Linus Torvalds is 30. His birthday is December 28, 1969.
--
Technology workers are... a group of working class people who are foolishly squandering their powerful position in the labor market by not unionizing.
Bullshit. If there is a labor shortage, then that means I can get up and leave if I'm being mistreated and have antoher job like *that*. <snaps fingers> Unions were necessary in the past; today they are nothing more than an old boy's club which drives up the prices on automobiles, aggravates our school systems and generally causes havoc wherever it goes. Unions (in their current form) should be illegal.
Three people from my year at school went to Oxford, even though the school was just a standard state school and their parents were merely ordinary middle-class types. Don't talk about cluelessness and then make a statement like that. Many, many people from ordinary backgrounds get to go to Oxford and Cambridge based on their academic brilliance, and not how much money their parents have - can you say the same for Harvard or Princeton.
I think we ought to drop the border with Mexico. There'd be a readjustment period until wages in Mexico acheived parity with US wages, then things would settle down. Let Mexico guard their southern border! :)
<sarcasm>We need more imported CEO's, too! You should see what the cost of labor is to get one. It is ridiculous, and an obvious sign that the specialized training required to be a CEO is just not being taught in schools. My own company has only 5 executive VP's out of its 15 employees. Our product just won't ship until we get more 'players' with leadership, moxie and backseat driving.</sarcasm>
Sarcasm aside, there are a few other things that the NYT didn't mention. First, the surplus they talk about was early on a product of the crash in biotech, who they lump as 'science guys'; later, it includes the recession, too (which hit middle management harder than any of us). Second, there is a big problem getting good coders.
They are treated terribly by their school peers and the media. In a previous job I occasionally dealt with reporters, and they are universally either Old Media snobs who see computer people as the dork stereotype, or New Media snobs who actively look down on 'mere techies' as mere servants (ignorant of the true nature of lit crit) who maintain the Internet they built.
And high schools do suck. They insist on mandating 4 years of gym and English. They move everyone in lock step through the grades, grading you more on attendence than performance. If you do try to learn, you are ridiculed by your fellow students. And if you learn past the all-important Lesson Plan, you are ridiculed by the teacher, too. Teachers are more worried with telling you what heroes they are and complaining about their pay than they are with actually teaching you something. I know this isn't true everywhere, but ask yourself what percentage of classes fit this stereotype. Mine is about 75-80%-- but your mileage may vary. Anything over 25% should be an emergency-- but the big argument right now is if anything needs to be done at all.
</rant>
so report the "gross misuse" to the INS and stop bitching. If the employer lied on the application he broke the law and will be punished accordingly.
I am sure there is misuse, just like there are people marrying americans just for the green card. So, if there is a problem with the H1B situation at all, it might be with the enforcement.
I for one, refuse to judge an entire program based on the few that abuse it...
One thing that would definitly help is to have professors that can speak English worth a damn. A requirement to teach at an American University is a firm grasp of English and the ability to speak it coherently.
I also grow tired of being looked down on by profs (and others in the tech field, btw) because I am American. It makes me want to smack them upside the head and shout "Hey! I know more about computers than most Asian imports do, listen to me!" I am very tired of being trodden on because I am a white male.
Free as in speech, free as in beer, or free as in lunch?
and secondly, that
sorry, his points are that of an ignoramus.
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
I've got news for you. $50k is the median salary for a family in the U.S. That's right, if you have two children and earning $50k/year (sometimes that's with two earners together bring in that much, with latchkey kids who come home with no one to greet them or supervise them after school), you are very squarely in the middle class in the United States. Statistically, 50% of the families will be earning more than you, and 50% of the families will be earning less.
Comments about how $50,000 as a starting salary is "not enough for a US tech to survive" is the sort of things which cause the rest of the country to regard us as spoiled brats. And you know, perhaps they're right.
The New York Times did a case study of 4 "middle-class" families and how they worked to make ends meet, and what their dreams and aspirations were. It was entitled "The American Middle, Just Getting By", and it was published on August 1, 1999 (front page of section 3). I strongly recommend that techies either download it from the NY Times web page (for $2.50), or go to the library and look at it in the archives (which is better 'cause it's free and the NY Times archives doesn't have the color pictures that went with the story). It's guaranteed to give you a better perspective about how the rest of the country lives. Non U.S. techies I suspect will; also find it revealing.
The following two links give interesting insight into the perceived labor shortage:
l
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html
http://www.urban.org/TESTIMON/lerman4-23-98.htm
Basically, the claims made by the testimony from the above links indicate that the labor shortage is due to a corporate reluctance to train their employees. Employers are looking for people with very specific skill sets. So even people with 20 years of programming experience may be passed over for a job because they haven't used the latest and greatest version of an SDK. Or, an experienced networking engineer may be passed over because they haven't used a specific router model. Training these people doesn't seem to be an optoin.
The enrollment in CS programs rose dramatically in the late 90's, maybe in response to all of the labor shortage claims. Many of these graduates will find themselves unemployable.
Follow the links, read the information and decide for yourself.
Your mind looks a little cramped. Why don't you stretch it a little?
OK, you might want to hire people with huge degrees but for what I saw, even as a Prof, I learnt most of my job on the fly, where it was the most challenging and valuable.
I had an interview with an American company, last year, andthe guys kept asking me theoretical questions which I *do* hate.
When working with another american company I got classified amongst the "experts" so, it just depends on who leads the interview as it works when you get interviewed by somebody who has the same culture as you but not in another case.
We are quite different, not especially better or worse than one another, you know ?
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
INS requires that the employer pays at least 90% of prevailing wages for the position. So there definetely is NO sweatshop conditions here. You are in no way required to live in employer-provided housing (in fact, I don't know any employer that even offers housing!) and as far as being kicked out of the country when the visa expire, that is the whole point of being a temporary non-immigrant worker isn't it? So I really don't know what your point is.
Are there contracting companies abusing the H1B laws? Probably. But they are breaking the law (feel free to report them) and in now way represent the majority of the H1B workers. I understand it is tempting to look at some abuse and say H1B is bad, but you should know better.
As far as shortage of IT workers, well, you can argue that there is no such thing. But I would reply to you that there is a shortage of qualified IT workers. That's right. This field is fast changing. You have to keep your skills up to date.
Lastly, I'll just say this: slashdot is not a US-only website. People from all around the world read this stuff. And the biggoted comments you and others have been writing on here are disgusting. Should I judge all americans based on your one comment (like you seem to judge all H1Bs based on a few)?
Can I have that job?
(UK Software engineer)
Here you have Slashdotters who get all outraged about the DMCA et al. yet are quite happy to trample on us poor filthy stinkin' rotten furrriners (as they say around here). What an incredible double-standard.
Firstly, I'm in the gunsights of most of this group. Not only am I just a young puke, but I'm a foreign one at that, in the USA, on a visa (L-1 not H1-B, but that's not the point).
In the company I work for, I do not see any of the problems that everyone alludes to. Firstly, my company MUST, by law, pay me the going rate. They cannot pay me less than an equivalent US worker. (In fact, with my International Service Allowance, I am paid more that my immediate co-workers with the same experience). Where I work, I have seen no evidence that foreigners are treated any different to their US-born (not US-indigenous - we only have ONE so-called "native Indian" working here, and she's only half-native) counterparts.
Some complaints about foreign workers are somewhat valid - I wish some of my fellow foreigners spoke better English - but I'm willing to give and take, work with them, and understand them. For someone who can understand C++, Perl, Java, Linux, and the Windoze NT GINA module, it really *isn't* that hard to do. I don't complain about it. After all: how many Americans speak foreign languages that well? I have met very few US citizens who can speak any foreign language (and Spanish would be useful down here). It's like the old joke:
What do you call someone who speaks many languages? Multilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks only one language? American!
What I see here is mainly thinly veiled prejudice. I dare any one of you people whineing about foreigners/young people (and even worse!) young foreigners to actually say all this to my face. In the anonymity of a Slashdot comment, it's easy to slag off your fellow HUMANS.
That's right -- the immigration process *is* dehumanizing. Here I am, being called an "alien". I don't in fact come from somewhere in the vicinity of Alioth, I come from planet Earth. Strip off the skin - whether it's white, yellow, black or brown - and we are all exactly the same underneath.
Can't people understand that the United States is *built* on immigration? The cultural mix is what made America what she is today. Friends back home - in fact, I used to say this myself - say that the US has no culture. In the time I've been here I have learned that the US has an incredibly rich culture. Most of the world is represented here!
I don't intend to stay in the US forever but it's certainly given me a new (and much more positive) opinion of people who immigrated to MY home country.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
If the shortage is so critical and we need these people so badly, why not make them citizens straight-away? Is there any reason to believe they won't make good citizens? What are we going to do if we decide we don't need them anymore? Eject them like Germany was trying to do with the Turks? Auslander Raus?
Labor costs are the misery-index of the rich and established.
There's a little thing called US NEWS College Rankings that colleges strive for. If they don't make the grade and get a poor ranking, they will get a poor turnout, and thereby go out of business.
:-) Who's popular or respected for being valedictorian? Who's popular or respected for being on a state-championship football team?
That reasoning doesn't totally work.
1. The majority of american highschool students couldn't get into any of the top 20 (or maybe even top 30) schools if their life depended on it.
2. Caltech was #1 last year, and we didn't have a huge influx of applicants. Princeton is #1 this year, and I doubt they will have a large influx of applicants.
3. What's Michigan State ranked on the US News and World Rankings? How do their sports do and how many students do they have? Same question for (I think) UTexas. Both those schools have near 40,000 people, and where are they in the rankings?
Sure, call Dan Hayes a troll. He may be exaggerating slightly, but he has a point. Sports players get more recognition than scientists. This isn't a problem that starts in college, it starts way before that.
There are academic colleges and there are sports colleges (and there are some that do both). If there is a problem (which is debatable), it doesn't lie with the colleges, it's just one of those societal quirks we have.
Moller
Maybe I better start looking for a different job, then. Hmmmm. Where does a guy look to find typical pay scales? Where did you get these numbers?
Constitutionally Correct
OK, I'm a Canadian IT worker. I'm currently looking at job offers from the states. I've got 5 yrs of experience. The offers I'm getting start at about 80K, for companies with names like Electronic Arts, among others.
My observations:
1) The US is a great place to look for work *after* you have some cool experience to your name. You need to have done something if you want the good offers, because there's so many people that if you don't have the experience getting the interesting projects that intice other employers to give you the cash is hard.
2) They like to see someone who has been tinkering before they started getting paid for it. Geeks who were in it since they were 10 are more interesting then people who became geeks after reading about how much money there is in computers.
3) There are jobs out there for >30s, they're just different ones. I didn't get one of them and someone came to me afterwards and said "frankly we liked you, we thought you were great technically but we really want someone over 30". They're just different. More planning and leadership, less "what's the second byte in this TCP packet mean?".
4) It really helps to have a cool project under your belt. Something every second interviewee hasn't done.
I did this 2 yrs ago as well, best offer was 45k. What a difference a couple of years of experience makes.
Also it should be noted that it is much more of a pain in the butt for a US company to hire a forien (even Canadian) worker. I know I compete at a disadvantage vs US workers for this reason.
Just thoughts for what they're worth.
----
Remove the rocks from my head to send email
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
This isn't about crap employers
then...
Managers are appalled at the cost of IT staff and don't want to pay us what we're worth
you just described a crap employer.
i rest my case.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
Yes, unions do get higher wages and better working conditions for their members, that is absolutely true, and that's why you loved the union. But unions accomplish this feat by
Anticipating your response: no, the higher prices charged by union workers do not get made up in higher productivity. If that were true, we wouldn't need strikes and laws to protect unions because every employer would want to employ them, or the employers that did would win in a competitive market.
In an economy with unions, yes, try to get in one: it's legalized robbery, and you get to keep the loot. But in the voting booth, vote against them.
and over-compensated, so what?
the guy's point was we have no good academic universities and all american schools care about is sports. that is stupid.
you are also, apparently, stupid. i read all the posts, and most of them are stupid as well.
sorry, but, it has been explained to you enough, i am not repeating myself any more.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
I both a little amused and a little dismayed when I see attitudes like this from Americans. The United States is the most powerful, prosperous nation on earth, and almost all of that is down to it's immigration policies throughout history. The US has always encouraged ambitious, hard-working people to join it, and then it has stepped back and given them the freedom they need to build their lives, raise their families, and produce economic value.
There are countless stories of immigrants arriving in the US and going on to achieve world renown, winning Nobel prizes for example, which may not have been possible in their own countries, but which have enriched their new homes in prestige, in knowledge, and in standard of living.
For anyone descended from immigrants, who owes everything they have to a nation that permitted their parent/grandparents/ancestors to live in it to criticize today's immigration policy is hypocritical, naive and reckless. The US works *because* it is the great melting pot, where people with diverse experiences can learn from one another, making everyone stronger. This is what makes it unique, and without it, eventual decline is inevitable.
(Disclosure: I am a UK citizen employed by a multinational, and the US is one of the places I have worked).
I have to dissagree.
First, draining India's best brains does not do much for India or the wages of those who stay there. Money sent back home can help, but nothing helps India more than people who work to improve things there first hand.
Second, everyone should look after their best interests without infringing on the rights of others. Companies are importing these people as SLAVE LABOR. They noticed that they can press them into situations that violate US labor laws out of fear of deportation. This should not be tollerated.
Third, people notice when they are steped on. Garbage in Garbage out. You don't think these folks really give a damn about their oppressors, do you?
That said, unions do suck. Enforcement of current laws should be adequate.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The H1-B need is one of the biggest frauds perpetuated by corporate America.
I'm not questioning a shortage of IT workers with specific skills, what I question is the desire of Corporate America to supply itself with guest workers.
One of the PRIMARY principals of the capitalist economic model is supply and demand. When demand is high and supplies shrink, COST is supposed to increase. In other words, if business decides that computer skills are important and the pool of skilled workers shrinks, the COST of those workers is supposed to increase until the wages paid for those workers is high enough to attract more workers into the field.
Unfortunately our friends on Wall Street only want to play the capitalism game with their customers, and not with their suppliers. Instead of pushing wages higher, offering paid training to non-IT workers interested in a high-wage job or other things that involve dollar costs they've decided to skip capitalism and instead import guest workers.
Meanwhile, they're extremely eager to get Congress to enact all kinds of trade restrictions the MINUTE foreign businesses want to export products or services to the US or they start to hurt local profit margins.
If US businesses want more computer workers and they're so important to their business processes, THEN TREAT THEM THAT WAY. Pay huge salaries. Bonuses. Stock Options. Cars. Window Offices. Secretaries. Free training programs to get "obsolete" IT workers or even other intelligent people into the IT field and up to speed on the tech that their business needs.
In other words, throw money and prestige at IT people the SAME WAY YOU'VE BEEN DOING IT FOR MARKETING DROIDS FOR YEARS! Part of the problem is that many businesses are controlled by marketing dorks who think that marketing is the most important thing in the whole world and that they need to protect their own. Unfortunately the business world has decided that technology is also critical, and they need to start sharing the wealth/power/privilege with the IT class.
The social problems with immigration I think are also great. If you move US workers into high-paid IT jobs you move US workers out of less-well-paid jobs, which creates demand and opporunity for people working further down on the food chain. In other words, you end up creating opportunity for the underemployed and underprivileged.
By allowing immigrants to take skilled jobs you prevent that opportunity movement, AND you create opportunities for the new workers to become permanent residents, who then bring in family members who compete for low-skilled jobs with the same people who would have otherwise move up.
Actually, those ads are probably for positions that they already have an H1B guy filling. They are required to advertise the position so they can "prove" that there's no one there to take the job. They put the long list of requirements in to increase the chance that no one will respond to the ad, because they want to keep the H1B guy.
Of course, if they set the salary too low they risk losing the H1B--there are restrictions on that in order to prevent the effect of lowering salaries by bringing in people who are willing to work for less. The deal is supposed to be that you can't pay H1B people less than the average salary for that job in that geographical area.
--
Liberty uber alles.
Are you serious? "Hard Working Americans", with the exception of the Native Americans that my rather dishonorable and shameful ancestors here hunted down, are all descended from IMMIGRANTS. Yep, every last one of us. (again, except the N.A.s) Do you remember hearing about America "The Melting Pot" in grade school? Or how about the statue of Liberty-- "Bring us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses" (please forgive me if I misquote!). That is how this country is built. As an american, I say let 'em all in, dammit! Anybody who wants in! Make this country really FREE again! And let it work the other way, too-- because with all the stupid laws here, I'm thinking about leaving.
I may be a descendant of a lot of conquering buttheads, but I am most certainly descended from immigrant stock. And so are you. (Assuming you're not a native american)
Is there a person in your office who always seems to be able to get the hardware/software to do what (s)he wants? Someone that all questions percolate towards when no one else can figure it out? Someone who is good at "researching issues"?
That person doesn't possess any special magical powers, they are simply competent. By contrast, the other people are what? Incompetent, yes.
No... The person who knows everything is the guru. And one person doesn't necessarily know everything in a given shop.
At my old job, I was one of the gurus. It didn't stop me from being fired by a manager whose rear I didn't kiss, unlike the other programmers in his group (whose noses were quite brown).
Having one person being asked all the questions can also indicate a fairly new group with only one 'old-timer' around. That person automatically becomes the guru.
NecroPuppy
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Capt. Ron
crazy dynamite monkey
the only people that benefit is the executives, more $ for them. Less for everybody else.
That's just not true. A larger and more diverse labor force is good for the economy, because it allows more specialization of labor and therefore greater overall productivity. A worker who is willing to work for lower wages is essentially putting more into the economy and taking less out of it.
Does this benefit accrue entirely to the employee's company? Perhaps initially, but that's where competition comes in. If just one company got cheaper labor, he'd probably keep his prices the same and take the difference in profit. But if the whole industry has cheaper labor, competition will drive down prices, which directly benefits consumers.
In addition, lower wages make feasible projects that would otherwise be infeasible. The more programmers there are, the more software that can be written.
Yea, great, we support the world, give them jobs, and they take they're money back to their country.
Again, this is economically nonsense. The workers come over here and do useful work for people in this country, and in return they get money that entitles them to a share of US production. How are we harmed by this? Money is just a little rectangle of paper. What makes it valuable is the goods and services that back them up. It's just a trade: the immigrant gives us some labor, and we give him some goods and services. It's no different than when a US worker does the same.
This chest beating about "stealing our jobs" and "buy American" is racist nonsense. It doesn't benefit me any more when an American gets a given job than when a foreigner does. And protectionism harms consumers more than anyone-- businesses just pass their higher costs on to consumers. By "buying American" and imposing restrictions on foreign labor, we are only narrowing our potential workforce and driving up prices for our own workers. It benefits no one and harms everyone.
cheaper salaries
Why are they cheaper? If it's because they are less qualified, then that makes perfect sense. If it's because you are over-paid, you'll get no sympathy from me. You're paid to do a job, not to warm a chair. If you keep your skills current, you should have no trouble getting paid well. If you stop learning new skills, you shouldn't expect to get paid any better than a college student.
Nothing better than seeing a father of 2 at age 45 out of work, hey, no skin off your nose.
Why is he out of work? Can he do the same job as a college grad? Then he should be able to get the same pay as a college grad. And probably more, since he's got 20 years of experience. If he got fired because he hasn't kept his skills current and is relying on his seniority to keep him in a job, then I have little sympathy. I'm 20. If I can do the same job as you, I expect to be paid the same as you, regardless of how long you've been warming a chair. If you are more qualified than me, then you should (and will) be paid more.
I know for a fact that many companies do not use the H1-B correctly. Just because the INS "requires" proper compensation, doesn't mean it happens. Several jobs back, I had an employer that was trading stock options for decent salaries- and it looked like a good deal, up until they blew their IPO all to hell. This company also had several H1-B visa employees. I don't think all of them had stock options (though they were appropriately entitled to them...). One of my good friends left as soon as he had his green card to work in a better work environment for dramatically more pay. Don't believe everything that the people are telling you about it. There's no real shortage of workers- just that the companies whining about a shortage have unrealistic expectations (Such as number of years of experience that imply a lack of understanding of how long something has been in existance, etc.) and can't fill the positions because of the same.
I'm not against H1-B, only it's gross misuse- which, is what is going on here!
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
And the HB-1b who has a tenuous grasp over the
English language working the phones in tech
support, interacting with a generally frustrated
and/or poorly computer versed customer base would
be your definition of a competent IT worker?
Did I say that? No I did not.
vr
If you don't let the cheap labour come to the companies, the companies will go to the cheap labour.
I think this is already happening with manufacturing in America with jobs going ofshore to places with cheaper and better trained (plus more 'manageable' ) labour.
Isn't globalization great?
-------------------------------------------------
Recently I realised that at 30, I was quickly turning into an "older worker". sometimes in the bid to save money, the older workers are looked upon as a drag on the budget. they take more vacation, more insurance, more pay, and generaly don't take as much crap as younger workers looking to make a good impression. Anyone who works in a large corporation knows that skill set is not a top priority for upper management. Not having those skills themselves makes them un-qualified to recognise ability in someone else. why not fire the 10yr vet, before he can retire, and hire some fresh faced MCSE out of school, at half the pay, then find out 6 months later that he is full of shit. It happens. Believe it. Keeping your skills curent is not that hard, but the level of ass kissing required to maintain your position, not to mention climb, is unbearable.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
You confuse H1-B's with immigration. These people didn't apply for citizenship, and aren't granted citizenship. They are not immigrants, they are parasites. If they want a job here they should apply for and wait untill they are granted citizenship, pack their shit up, and move to the country.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
As a graduate student, I got even closer.
Most of my peers from India were just as I described: hobbled by their primary educational institutions. I've met CS students who had never sat at a working terminal for more than 20 minutes at a time, BS in Physics who were week on diff eq. But hey, my university does not alway attract the best of the best.
As a non Indian, you are in the minority of H1B workers.
Accuratly relating my experience does not make me a bigot. Judging you by it would. I prefer to judge you by your own words, AC.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Especially when Americans are laid off because, "If the foreigner gets laid off, he will have to leave the country!" I was actually told that when I was laid off! (even though I had more time with the company and an equivolent education)
I say that if there are national or emigrant citizens that can do the job (or are willing to learn), they should get hired first. If there are more jobs, fine hire foreigners. But don't put a citizen in the unemployment line so you can hire a foreigner, that costing the nation more in the end (unemployment, welfare, low moral, crime...) even if your company sees a short term gain. Hiring foreign help should be a stop gap measure until the nation's population can catch up to the demand, NOT general practice to lower the bottom line or to keep Uncle Joe in the country.
Since America is in fact a landmass and the United States of America does not cover all of it (or even most of it), the term USia is a more accurate usage of language than the typically arrogant "America". A citizen of this nation is "unitedstatsian" or a USian.
of 24 yr olds with 15 yrs experience in a technology 3 yrs old...
Reminds me of an add I saw a while back...
"Applicatant must have 5 years experiance in Visual Basic 6.0..."
NecroPuppy
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Please stop throwing around the word freedom. Have we not the freedom to close our borders? The constitution guarentees freedom and rights to our citizens, it's scope is strictly national.
THe US has never been a meritocracy. Skills are important, but so is lifting up our own poor and giving them the skills to earn a living before we start emptying Calcutta's slums.
The West Coast median salary for experienced software engineers was $71,100 in 1999, up only 10 percent (in constant dollars) from 1990. This pay growth of about 1 percent a year suggests no labor shortage.
I don't think that suggest that there are not much "imported" workers. I mean, lets face it, I live in Canada and I am making MUCH less money than that. And that's withouth counting that I actually make Canadian $$ as opposed to US$$.
That's how the US based company can bring outsiders working for them. So I don't think that this argument stands.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
I find that the number of IT Professionals is inversly proportional to my current pay rate.
Just a thought.
--
you are not what you own
it's a sig, wtf?
you could give reasons instead of just dismissing them out of hand.
Exactly. I make 60 grand Canadian a year, and I support a wife and two kids with that. However, I live in Toronto. If I lived ANYWHERE ELSE in Canada, with the possible exception of Vancouver, I'd be considered upper class. In Toronto, I'm considered 'just above the poverty line.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
On graduating I had two choices, go into industry and get payed fairly well or stick around for graduate studies. I opted for the latter and as a graduate student around 30 bucks an hour and got a free ride. Again, I wasn't alone here.
Sorry, I have no sympathy for people who complain that they can't make money as an engineer or in another technical field. I've almost always found that these same people may have a degree in the field but there is no way on earth I'd personally hire them. There are exceptions of course, maybe you're one, but having a degree doesn't entitle you to high wages. Having the degree, an interest in the job and talent entitles you to high wages.
As a former member of a union (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; Local 1362), I think that there are a lot of misperceptions on both sides about unions. Most union members are very hard working and truely earn their money. There are a few, however, figure out exactly how little work that they can do and not be fired. Since there is no raise to work harder for, no stock options to work harder for, no individual bonuses, there is no reason to do any more than the minimum necessary. And as long as you don't break any rules, the company can't touch you.
Now, that is the worst side of collective bargaining. The best side is that for un-skilled and semi-skilled workers, they are more likely to get a living wage and benefits. Many of the benefits that are taken for granted by most people were gained through collective bargaining: Paid Vacation, 40(ish) hour work week, medical insurance, etc. And the one that is being discussed here: seniority. As more years are spent at a company, a person should be more valuable. There should be enough internal and encouraged external training to keep up to date on the latest tech to make someone who also knows why the new is better and is also able to bring in experience of where the old was better, should be a more valuable and the last to go. It encourages (but does not demand) company loyalty.
The reason I left the union is I moved to an un-unionized engineering position. Another reason that I had considered quiting was all the money in dues that was going to Democrats; not necessarily the best person for the job from a worker point of view. Don't get me wrong, Democrats were often the best person, just not always and my union always backed democrats.
Amen! You described my situation perfectly. It must be just a case of bad timing.
/. drone away about "you over 30 guys should quit bitching and keep up with the technology". <crotchety grandpa mode> I have Forgotten more languages and technologies than you will ever learn, Sonny </crotchety grandpa mode>
God knows I am getting REALLY tired of hearing some of the younger folks on
The ugly truth for many in the over 30 tech crowd is that the things that should make us very valuable to employers are driving them away: experience with learning new technologies, many successful and failed projects under our belt (never underestimate the educational value of a failure), a history with the technology, a love of technology apart from (or in spite of) the payoff, and a keen sense of what will and will not work.
Why they don't like us:
- we tell them their half-assed ideas really ARE half-assed and cite specific historical examples to back it up
- we do value our families and "off" time. Why the heck else are we working? To line a CEO's pocket and to get that ever so infrequent "attaboy"?
- we love the technology and have been into it since before it was "cool" to be a techie. We were the weirdos they couldn't understand and couldn't get along with in high school, and still can't.
- we do complain when we find out that some kid fresh out of a tech school, with no real problem solving skills, no real people skills, no real understanding of the foundations of the technology, and no knowledge of the problem domain come in and make MORE than we do!
I could go on and on, but just read the other "hey we are over 30" posts and you will get the idea. The above poster got it right: for most of us older tech worker the biggest problem is our timing; we were born on the wrong side of the boom... the boom we helped create.
Sigh!
IV
"These laws they're passing won't even compile anymore, let alone execute." - anon
opening up a branch office overseas? Foreign telecommuters?
So what? I wasn't talking about any constitution.
If you're in a life-boat holding a stick you have the power to keep out people in the water. You can even call it the freedom to keep 'em out, 'cause you wrote down that it's OK on a piece of paper and you call that the 'constitution' of the life-boat.
That doesn't make it any more ethical, though.
And don't tell me the life-boat is full -- what is being said here is that you have enough people to row the boat, and that you don't want any competition for your cosy seat.
Again: so what? I'm not criticising the USA in particular, all countries do this (although some have formed groups within which you can freely move).
Your own poor? I fail to see the distinction. Poor is poor, whatever country you happen to be born in.
I turn 21 in five months.(big deal, I can die for my country, but cant goto a bar.. whats up with that). Ive been using computers since around 90/91, been really into them since 91/92(got my own)..
;)
I can program in C/Perl/Shell/php/sql/html/python used asp(evil)java/C++ a little.. Ive been using Linux since about end of 94, got into the BSDs a year later.. then when Sun started the free solaris for devel thing I JUMPED on that.. learned it.. (also know windows, but i dont count that..). I can setup/configure/maintain just about any system to do anything..
but since I dont have any "professional experince" it doenst count.. (why not). I get calls all the time for interviews, but when I goto them(if they dont ask about "professional exp") they act as ya right.. this kid knows nothing.. I am getting sick and tired of it. I know more than the fsck'n interviews but yet still I have all the skills needed and more. I would work for less just to get the job.. to get a chance.. but no, they never call back. I ask why, its because I dont have any "professional exp".. so? it seems I have been wasting my life for the past oh..say.. 8-10 years. I would get so pissed off that I would flat out tell them and ask them now, are you interested. very few have been once they find out. luckly I got on with a startup doing sysadmin/perl coding..(maybe it wasnt a waste)
but my point is that most places if you dont have any "professional experience" or a college degree then your screwed.
Most US schools are quite a bit cheaper than 30K per year. Especially, if one starts at a junior college and transfers to a four year university. When I was at Wright State University (back in 1990), the cost was US $90 per credit hour, which makes 3 quarters of 18 credit hours something like 5k (books and dorm not included). However cheap that might be, I dropped out and only finished a two year degree from Sinclair Community College where the tuition for in county residents was $30 per credit hour.
Typically only private schools charge those figures over 10k. Also, most (not all) of the big name schools in the states are state universities which means that residents of that state will pay little for the education while folks from other states will pay through the nose, so in those instances you might have someone paying big bucks for a sheep-skin, but when you consider they could have moved to the state, worked for a year to get residence status and saved tens of thousands, I'm not very sympathetic.
Think about why though.
:-)
Q.Who enjoy's sports?
A. Average Joe Sixpack
Q. Who covers the Sports that Joe likes?
A. National news agencies who need money from people like Joe.
I agree with you. It's a societal quirk that we most likely have to live with, because I doubt that it is going to change soon, and we will probably do better directing our efforts towards other areas since it really isn't damaging anyone. My main point was that there are academic institutions, and there are sports schools, the two don't intersect that often. You referenced the college rankings, and I didn't see many of the schools in the top 50 as being schools with large athletic programs. (we'll ignore Stanford for this argument).
I agree with what you just said, I was disagreeing with what you said before
Q. "Who's popular or respected for being valedictorian?"
A. Ironically ours (at a VERY respected private school), later became a "Professional Wrestler"
Ha! That's awesome. (what private school? I only know of TAMS, IMSA, and Bishops.)
Silly boy, it's not corporate interests that stop the educational system from getting fixed, it's union interests. The Dems are so in hock to the NEA that they are willing to condemn millions of mostly minority inner city children to the new plantation of 'would you like fries with that' McJobs.
There's quite a bit of corporate support for charter schools/private schools and I haven't heard of any corporate opponents to vouchers or other innovative education initiatives. Care to provide evidence for your point of view?
DB
I completely agree with T .y. Tso here. Being myself an H1B worker here in the US. Although I know that not all the H1B guys are really skilled people. I have worked at several companies and I have yet to find someone (a native US employee) who really knows his stuff and just doesn't like to talk about cool buzzwords. Also, things like MCSE certs have flooded the market with wannabe who don't know a RJ45 from a RJ11. As tytso said, most of them have "on the surface" knowledge of things but they don't hesitate to call themselves skilled workers. I think the reason is that most of them have not gone through the process of education a 4 yr. college degree imparts on you. Its like trying to read shakespear without first learning the language properly. While all of the H1B workers are college grads, most of them from engineering streams.
:)
I am not trying to defend H1B and guys like me, but this notion, that the shortage of (skilled) IT workers in US is artificial, is completely false. There are a lot of morons out there and I meet with them everyday. You need someone to do the work
Thanks for listening.
Just thought I'd start a whole thread for the discussion of the advantages of collective bargaining versus the disadvantages of the union stereotype which seems to be rampant here. Does the libertarian value the right of people to organize or not? How many union members are out there to defend their status?
The H-1B (and more recently abused J-1) were not
meant to be immigration channels, although
both employers and employees are
using about 90% of them as such. This leads to
abuses of immigrants, employers, and competing
Americans all around. Recognize reality,
and treat it appropiately.
Try to simply think things out from the perspective of a pointy haired boss that has a budget and gets a pat on the head for cutting costs, while spewing excuses for a work schedule that's running behind...
PrimalChrome
Try instead: ...but a shortage of inexpensive IT workers.
You're right about that, but that's just because all the incompetent IT workers demand too much money, and are actually paid too much money thanks to incompetent management (which there is also a shortage of, as mentioned in another post).
vr
When I look at people like Linus Torvalds and Abigail (Perl programmer) I am reminded that what built the USA was the willingness to accept the best and brightest from everywhere else.
Now here is my proposal:
Before people say I am crazy, think about it. Under this plan hiring an immigrant costs more. You have to pay a salary that competes with other employers, and you have to pay immigration fees as well as a sunk cost.
Your willingness to pay is sufficient proof that the person is good and you truly cannot be fill it with an American. As long as jobs go begging, the US is willing to skim the cream of the crop. Very little bureaucracy required. It just works...
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
$50K isn't that great if you have to live in an area with a high cost of living, which happens to be where many of the tech jobs are. I could make substantially more money in New York City or Silicon Valley, but my standard of living would decrease.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
H-1B visas are... a way to create a class of workers who don't have the same constitutional rights (or what's left of them) as the average American citizen and will be beholden to the companies that hire them not only for their job but for their continued residence in the US.
Before I start I guess I should proclaim that I am a student on an F-1 visa and if I do end up wotking here it will be on an H-1B visa.
Now here goes. There are several indicators that there is a labor shortage in IT for competent developers.
- There is a perception that the IT pool of workers has increased but this is primarily due to the fact that a ever since the 'net boom there has been an increasing pool of unskilled/semi-skilled workers (HTML jockeys, Javascript whizzes, SQL lords with no DBA knowledge, Visual Basic dukes) while the supply of
- real developers has remained stagnant or dropped. Skim the resumes on Monster.com or Geekfinder or any of those other sites and the amount of people with the aforementioned trivial skills is large but those with experience in writing C/C++/Java, DBAing Oracle/DB2/Sybase, creating distributed components in COM/CORBA/EJB, etc is relatively small.
From my experience most of the foreigners being hired usually have M.Sc's,Ph.D's or years of experience doing serious development before being hired in the U.S. This means they usually make more money than the trivial skillset IT workers (HTML/Javascript kiddies) and this is beginning to create a xenophobic cult in the IT industry who feel they should unionize, save their precious jobs and get the foreigners out.By establishing common standards, a guild system could be of benefit to foreign and domestic workers, as well as the public at large and employers who are willing to pay for the excellent service they receive.
In principle this might be true. In practice this isn't how these things work. Unions and guilds tend to promote the self-interest of their current members. That self-interest lies in restricting the supply of workers.
You can see this in the ferocious opposition of Unions to immigration, free trade, and the consistent preference for measures that would restrict the supply of workers in their field. This is a big reason they support restrictive liscencing laws, many times unrelated to the actual job at hand. It's why they support minimum wage laws, to keep unskilled workers from competing for jobs.
An IT guild would probably work to restrict access to the IT field. If it were a strictly voluntary organization, I might support it, but the history of that sort of thing is clear. The AMA restricts the supply of doctors, for example. In the long run, it's bad for the industry, because it politicizes the workplace and makes things unnecessarily rigid. In principle a guild could be a good thing,but I don't think it would be in practice.
in this thread did a good job of that already, read their posts.
true some podunk hick universities value sports over academics but what do you expect out of rednecks?
the fact is there are a
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
I guess I'm confused as to what the issue is with older "balding" workers having it so tough. Why would an employer want to fire his most experienced employees for a kid?
Why indeed! Yet they do, all the time. It's real simple - they can pay you less, so there's more in the kitty for the manager to take home. After all, if you can't do the job in the time allotted because it was optimistic by a factor of 3 you'll probably work all night. I'll say mangement didn't listen to our estimates and go home. Except in rare cases, you'll find that nice manager home in bed while you're still debugging his greatest project victory.
They can also pump you up with promises about the groovy new stuff you'll learn, projects you'll do etc., and not knowing any better you'll believe them. That hype becomes part of your pay. When you're around a bit longer, you realize how many of those promises are empty and stop working 60 hr weeks. They don't like older workers for the same reason the Army doesn't want 30 yr old recruits - the older guy will question their orders instead of blindly obey.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I disagree with your claim that this is a non-sequitur. He might not be very detailed in his reasoning for his solution, but this is not a non sequitur. Non Sequiturs occur when writers fail to show clear connections between their premise (starting point) and conclusion. This has nothing to do with his solution to a given problem.
As I'm sure your aware Non sequitur literally means "it does not follow." It refers to a conclusion that does not grow logically from the evidence.
If he were to say that students in the US are not interested in becoming scientists and thus the us education system is the reason we have so few scientists, the I would agree that it is a Non sequitur. However I do not believe that is his premise.
[*] and Ross Perot wondered what that giant sucking sound was... let me tell you about that giant sucking sound - of my graduating class of 300 engineers, over 200 are in the US right now, either in grad school or employed and making thousands in worthless paper options. Life - don't talk to me about life.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
facist.
WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Hey, you went to the University of Minnesota too? No wonder I failed Calc twice.
>One thing that would definitly help is to have professors that can speak English worth a damn. A requirement to teach at an American University is a firm grasp of English and the ability to speak it coherently.
I'm working with an H1B colleague who changed jobs and told me he didn't have much trouble doing it. He just found the new job first, got the paperwork rolling and then gave two weeks notice on his old job. This isn't rocket science.
DB
You must stay on top of the latest languages, software and hardware or, as I have witnessed, you will get stuck working in a room with no windows and poor ventilation with a bunch of H1-Bs programming and servicing out-of-date systems. As my career progressed, I have learned a progression of different systems and languages. This is basically the rough order: Netware, AIX, NT, C++, Linux, Perl, BSD, Java, Solaris. I don't like or dislike particular systems irregardless of the manufacturer, I will work with whatever pays the bills. Do not limit yourself to only working with particular systems and languages otherwise you will reduce you value and put yourself in the low-end labor pool with the H1-Bs.
Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
There *are* guidelines of what is expected of a professional engineer. In fact, there is an entire designation for it. It's called a Professional Engineer's license, and it's available from each state. The requirements are basically:
When you have completed all of this, you then get to stick the P.E. designation on your business cards.
This designation needs to create a field for software engineers, however. Right now, it doesn't really cover any fields (via testing) that have sprung up in the last 20 years.
Regards,
Stephen
Until the industry recognises that it requires a certain amount of unteachable skills to become a skilled programmer, then, the education system will always be flawed.
No one could teach me to play the violin because I am tone deaf.
I am too cack handed to ever be a sculptor.
Most people do not have the basic pattern recognition and logic skills to become any good at programming.
When I started there was very little formal CS education. Instead you were given a set of aptitude tests, if you passed you got the job.
My old boss used to say "Not everybody who passed the apptitude test became a good programmer, but, nobody who failed the test was ever any good!".
So.
Identify the people with the potential to be skilled programmers and designers, then, concentrate on training them. Point the rest at law school where a lack of logical though procesess is a positive advantage.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
Conversely I've heard of banks who are bypassing the cost of UK IT professionals by recruiting in India, accomodating staff, flying them to India and back once a month and paying them £8.50 an hour, which still amounts to a small fortune for a smart twentysomething from Bangalore.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
To quote the Giant, 'you keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means.'
alien adj. 1. foreign; strange 2. of aliens n. 1. a foreigner 2. a foreign-born resident who is not naturalized 3. a hypothetical being from outer space It appears we have yet another victim of the Hollywoodization of US culture.
Yes I know what the dictionary definition of "alien" is for heaven's sake! I was just trying to add a little humor to my rant. I guess I failed, but then again no-one has ever accused me of being a comedian!
The point still stands: the INS process alienates us and makes us feel somewhat "worthless". Especially the "guilty until proven innocent" bits they put on the forms.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
so there's more in the kitty for the manager to take home.
The management's compensation is decided by the board, NOT the manager. Don't emote about these observations, research them and get the facts. Managers get a bad rap because being a good manager is very difficult. Not to say that there aren't some Dilbert-esque managers out there -- there are.
If you believe that the manager gets to pocket the amount of money saved by hiring workers willing to work for less, attend a board meeting and ask about the manager's compensation criteria. If you are unwilling to attend and/or research this information, please hold your tongue.
The interests of foreign workers ARE irrelevant. If life in India or wherever is a low-wage hell, stay home and fix India.
More to the point, it'll benefit the rest of society because prices for IT services will be cheaper.
Hey! So would slavery, are you interested in that?
The economic crime here is the LABOR is supposed to be about supply and demand, like everything else. When the demand increases and the supply shrinks, prices go up. Cheating this by diluting the supply pool is of course the behavior we've come to expect from companies that also demand protective tarrifs when their profit margins are threatened by foreign products.
This malarky about keeping wages low is the most laughable argument I've ever heard - where I work, most H1-B holders make more than the US programmers, and all are paid $70k at a minimum - no one is living on Ramen in this biz folks.
Its pretty simple - if there is no shortage, why are Monster.com and Dice.com filled with unfilled posts? Either the older tech employees aren't interested in taking these jobs, or they aren't qualified. Either way, we need to go outside the US to fill these positions.
Oh, and before you piss all over Indians and other immigrants, remember that these folks are running half the silicon valley comapnies now - they aren't just at the bottom rung. Jobs for Americans (or whoever else is qualified) are being created by these people you are naively pissing all over.
I did my undergraduate (Math / Computer Science) in The States back in 1981, and just finished a Masters in Quantitative Finance at a University here in London.
How do the two systems compare? IMHO, education is a lot more rigorous here in the UK than back in The States.
The kids I went to night school with were far more focused and capable than what I remember from University in the late 70's, even accounting for the fact I'm comparing the Undergraduate / Postgraduate levels.
And one of my professors here is American, taught most recently at CMU in The States, and one day we got on the subject of US vs UK schools.
When he started at the University he was told that unlike The States, people can and do fail graduate school.
And he told me that the Universitys administration was most concerned about grade inflation.
I can vouch for that; on a scale of 0 to 100, I never in two years of school saw anyone get a grade above 80.
A message from our sponsor
provided you fit one of the preferred groups that they are currently admitting.
I believe MIT is now 50/50 in terms of male/female ratio, while they were 65/35 3 years ago when I applied, and was wait-listed, then rejected.
MIT is overjoyed because they had so many "qualified, interested female candidates." Bullshit.
At the same time a visiting professor from Harvard slams Caltech, saying that we have no right to be ranked the #1 school in America (last year) because we have no African-Americans in the freshmen class.
I'm at Caltech because of my academic skills. My parents went to state schools and we're not rich. I couldn't get into MIT or Harvard because I'm a white male.
And don't flame me for saying that, it's true, and it annoys me.
Moller
Well speaking as somone who just got turned down for a job because they wanted someone over 30 (landed another job in the same unit though, because they liked my techincal chops) I find this hard to buy.
:)
Admitably the jobs you get over 30 are different, (more planning and social skills, less hitting head against computer keyboard, is this a *bad* thing?) but they are out there. If you're not getting them offered to you, maybe you should go take a course or two in planning/project mangment.
You don't get paper delivery jobs offred to you etiher you know
----
Remove the rocks from my head to send email
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
"Diversity" is nothing more than another load of PC garbage. The fact that the people who built this country into what it is today (in the economic sense, anyway) has nothing to do with the fact that they came from different countries, had different skin pigmentation, or spoke different languages. It has to do with the fact that people who will discard their security, leave their (extended) family and friends, and travel to a new country which largely wishes they'd stay home, are inherently strong people. These are the people who build strong nations, and we're damn lucky they're coming here rather than going somewhere else.
I couldn't care less whether your skin is white, yellow, black or brown, to quote the original poster. The fact you'll leave your life behind to try to make a better one here impresses me.
Um actually, I'm totally self taught. I learned what I know from the net. I taught myself unix by voleteering with a freenet.
And the jobs I'm applying on in the states all have full medical coverage, why would I need to lean on the Canadian system?
----
Remove the rocks from my head to send email
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Do yourself a favor: buy a ticket and go for one week OUTSIDE - learn how to eat and how to enjoy. Then you will see that italian pizza from N/Y is not the best and that donuts are not crossants.
and over-compensated, so what?
It means that following that path seems better to kids as they're growing up. At that age popularity is a very important factor, and by praising atheletic prowess over things like intelligence and hard work it gives out the message that it's not worth bothering about work. Which USian children seem to have taken to heart.
the guy's point was we have no good academic universities and all american schools care about is sports. that is stupid.
No, I was talking in general, there are always going to be exceptions. Do you have any real arguments against it or are you just flaming for wont of a brain? None of your posts in this article seem particularly clueful.
you are also, apparently, stupid. i read all the posts, and most of them are stupid as well.
Aaah, it seems as though you are 14. That explains a lot. "I don't agree with it, it's stupid!" is obviously the argument of choice in debates across the world.
Thanks for playing, but please try again.
Salary offers to new college graduates in computer science averaged $39,000 in 1986 and had declined by 1994 to $33,000 (in constant dollars). The trend reversed only in the late 1990's.
The West Coast median salary for experienced software engineers was $71,100 in 1999, up only 10 percent (in constant dollars) from 1990. This pay growth of about 1 percent a year suggests no labor shortage.
Looks current enough to me, and it does indicate that there's no real shortage.
The article then goes on, rightly, to claim that imported workers keep wages down and discourage US citezens to go into the field.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Unions don't have to be corrupt, they are simply a way for people to group together for a common goal. There are good unions and bad unions, a union is just a political organization designed to serve a group of workers.
The leader's of the industries, in groups like the BSA, RIAA, MPAA certainly have no problem banding together for common goals, why should the worker's feel they are better served by not organizing?
In the American system, people are more powerful when they are organized into lobbies and special interest groups, and I've yet to see a way to change it. Even campaign finance reform can't alter these groups ability to influence the votes of their members. (I'm a political realist, campaign finance reform is probably not going to happen, anyway.)
A union is like a political party, whether it is good or bad depends on what kind of leaders are voted in. The right to have a union, like the right to be part of a political party, is a good thing. In fact, it is part of our constitutional freedom of assembly.
When the recording artists got the "work for hire" clause that the RIAA foisted on them repealed, they did it by unionizing, even if they didn't call it that. How will tech workers affect things like DMCA without organizing?
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
A requirement to teach at an American University is a firm grasp of English and the ability to speak it coherently.
It is most certainly not a requirement. I graduated last year from a state university with a degree in CS. While most of my professors were very proficient in English (some had heavy accents, but that doesn't mean they weren't coherent), very few of my TAs were.
Say what you like about whether or not a TA (usually a graduate student) ought to be teaching intro level programming/algorithm classes, but it's happening. Why? Money. Native english speakers find better work for more money then schools offer teaching assistants. English proficiency programs exist, but they're mostly a joke.
If memory serves me correctly, Linus is either 30 or 31.
Now, he was well under the age of thirty when he wrote the first Linux kernel....
My, how time flies....
Unions are a good thing if you belong to one. However if you are unemployed or a consumer they are the worst kind of evil. Every one is employable at the market wage. Unions destroy the market wage by artificially inflating it. Higher wages mean higher prices which hurts the consumer (read: non union workers). If you don't like your job, leave. If you don't make enough money, get another job or learn a new trade. I am 23 years old and I have had almost 20 jobs. Learning something new is easy. The last 10 jobs I've had have paid over $10 an hour the last 5 jobs have paid over $15 an hour and the job I have now pays $30 an hour.. in the next 6 months I'll double that. Being in a union is as bad as collecting welfare! When I worked in a paper mill for a while (non-union) the union guys were lazy, bitchy and ungrateful. Myself and 5 other non-union guys were threatened with bodily harm daily and worked harder than anyone else.
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
Oh please, indeed. I make very good money being an over-30, highly qualified, very experienced IT worker. I have been a manager and have payed very good money for highly qualified, experienced IT workers (regardless of age and including H1B holders).
The reason that competent IT workers get paid so well is that there are so very few of them. I have seen dangerous system admins (by that I mean that they will do more harm to the systems than good) get $70K from unwitting employers. There is a lack of supply coupled with a high demand, meaning that prices are high (good for me, not good for my clients).
There need to be more H1Bs granted because it will allow more IT work to be done better. Even though that's bad for me in the short term (lowers my rates) it's good for me in the long term (strengthens the industry).
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
The article in question misses something key in my experience, both as a TA/lab assistant and an IT worker/manager
You can't "make" an IT person. You can't take some random smart person and teach them programming. It does not work that way. The truly good (programers, sysadmins, etc) have soemthing. They have an intrinsic grasp of how things work that cannot be taught in my experience. If you've ever taught programming you'll know what I mean. I was a TA for 2 years for a first year programming class. I could tell within 5 minutes after sitting down with someone in the lab for the first day weather they would excell or not. And it didn't matter how much time myself, the prof or anyone else spent with the student, if they didn't "get it", they weren't going to. We might be able to get them to a passing grade, but they would never be someone who could go out into the work force and be an independant worker. Some of these people I've since bumped into in the field and they are doing web page design with Front Page.
So it's not simply a matter of saying "oh gee, well we need to bring more people into first year computer science" there is a deeper personality issue. We need to encourage this personality trait. And frankly the people who have it *have* to use it. They are the people who did volenteer projects before it became profitable to be an IT worker.
For what it's worth, those are my thoughts.
----
Remove the rocks from my head to send email
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
After about 90 hours(at a 3.2 GPA, I didn't exactly flunk out) I took my first sysadmin job and eventually got into programming. I haven't gone back to finish my CS degree. From my experiences, I can see how our universities are contributing to the labor shortage. It is just too damn difficult for a working person to decide they want to become an engineer or programmer. And that's a shame because I think there are lots of people who only find this out later in life.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
- You should emphasize the words cheap here. Otherwise you almost flamebaited me.
A few points:Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
USia suffers from a strange dichotomy in that on one hand it has a lot of scientific research done there and a lot of Nobel prize winners, yet on the other hand it seems to produce fewer scientists per head than many other nations. If you look at Nobel prizes for USian scientists, how many of them were born and educated there, and how many were lured there by a higher wage?
The USian education system is geared more towards sports than education in many cases. How can you take a nation seriously that provides college scholarships for people whose only talent is throwing a ball whilst wearing enough padding to keep them safe in the event of a car crash? But it seems that colleges think that their importance is measured by the success of their football team rather than by the success of their graduates.
I think that USia needs a lot more H1-Bs to make up for this lack of homegrown talent. And indeed, as more and more people find that they don't want to work in an industry which demands they devote their life to their job, foreign labor will be the only way to get workers.
Well, this is exactly the kind of thinking I'm protesting against. What your ancestors did earns you no rights. You've got to earn those for yourself, or you have them because you're human, just like anyone else.
I know that's not the way it works. The way it works sucks.
To give you a similar example from somewhere else: I myself am a completely native European, my ancestors have lived in and built up my country to the very high standard of living it enjoys today, and probably fought in countless wars, both just and unjust, for too many generations to count.
So what? That doesn't give me the right to live off their work and kick out anybody else.
You dudes go and put this on me. I live in Scotland, and it has always been my dream to have a tech job in the US, but now you come and tell me this! BTW, if anyone has a job going, you can get me at lazzurs@(the domain name above)
Unfortionatly, what they are looking for is cheap, experienced, freshoutacollege-but-an-expert, competent individuals. Unfortionatly, no matter what I do, I *cannot* make a buncha negative numbers add up to one no matter *WHAT* I do.. Hrm, maybee that imaginary number thing.. ;-P
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Dr. Norman Matloff's web site, giving a great deal of information and opinion on the matter, is here, at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.rea l.html.
As a manager, if you can find someone to do the job at 10% less than whatever rate gets stated, that's competitive advantage over all your competitors working in the same industry.
If you also get veto power over their presence in the US, I suspect that gets you tremendous leverage over salary negotiations in the future. This keeps costs down, and raises the possibility that you can get more work out of them.
I suspect noone would assume a given level of competence for H1Bs (as an aggregate), but would suggest that the company's interest isn't necessarily for labor, but more inexpensive laborers that they can more easily control.
As the level of expertise is likely similar, it creates problems for experienced people who have become interested in quality of life issues (having a life outside the office). Period.
It's not a racial/immigration issue, it's an issue affecting the marketplace for labor.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
I work in Investment Banking IT, and am within sight of the big 50 myself. My advise to anyone working in IT, no matter what your firms line of business is to diversify your skills.
Learn all you can about the business! I have twenty years experience as a Software Engineer, with firms ranging from AT&T Bell Labs to Dow Jones but even so I just finshed a Masters in Quantitative Finance.
Two years at night school sure sucked big time, but if my employer kicks me out the door tomorrow I'm not too worried about finding another job.
Adding a business side qualification to a track record in programming really helps strengthen your position. And when push comes to shove and bodies are flying out the door its all about setting yourself apart from the rest of the crowd.
Think in basic terms - how useful you are to your employer? How many hats you can wear? Are they all "cut from the same cloth" - that is, do you only have strong tech skills, but lack management, presentation or analytic skills?
In the end, no matter how good or shitty the economy, or how many H1B visas are being offered this year or next its all up to you.
A message from our sponsor
better than his articles?
You Decide!
Sig it.
This is great for the Huge bulk of people that do not live and work in the Tech fields. $50K will not get you anything in the overpriced Tech lands. (Most of us have to live 2-3 hours away from work to afford housing) Gee In Silicon valley land, a loaf of bread costs $3.00! While back in michigan it costs $1.00. This is price gouging of the "techies" because we'll pay it instead of driving 2 hours to go to a grocery store that doesn't rob people. How about paying $1500.00 a month for a 1 room 600 Square foot studio apartment? That money in 90% of the rest of america get's you a HOUSE or a nice apartment/condo.
If you force us to live in Expensive land, you have to pay us to live there. Otherwise, quit bitching about not getting people to hire at the pittance you offer.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Raising the quota is necessary to bring new talent into the country.
Antidisestablishmentarianism would lose its point if it were hyphenated
The visa issue has gotten way out of control, and only serves to undercut our nation's ability to train and improve upon its existing workforce.
The problem? Too many hiring managers and headhunters focus on keywords instead of skills such as the ABILITY to learn new languages and techniques. I was an HP3000 programmer who was lucky enough to find a job in an AS/400 shop because the manager realized that the job functions were similar, the business relationships (working with app users) were similar, and that learning a new OS and developing language skills was something I had already done in the past, so learning their system wouldn't be difficult.
Technical skills can be learned. The ability to work effectively within an organization, and the ability to learn new skills as they are needed, are just as important, if not more so, than x years of VB/C++/Java experience.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I had a thought:
What if the influx of programmers increases the total employment base of programmers, thus allowing companies to employ more programmers, at lower salaries, so that individual employees do not have to work such disgusting hours. Then the older programmers could stay in the field and still maintain a family lifestyle. Given the current economic boom, I think the salaries of programmers is somewhat inelastic, meaning that an increase in supply will not affect the salary in a direct proportion. Total salary across the industry rises, and college students see opportunities in an industry that has become a stable working environment. True, some people like the 80-hour work weeks in companies that pay little but offer stock options that could be worth nothing or millions, depending on the luck of the draw, but I suspect that as programming becomes a more mainstream profession, and loses some of its mystique as the public becomes more computer literate, that we might actually get an increased interest in the field by "normal" people who don't want to risk their house and their marriage on their career.
As with most economic theories, the timing is everything, so this could fail miserably, but I think there is some chance of this having a positive long-term effect. I just hope the experts looked at the details, instead of just bowing in to short-term demands from companies with a strong lobbying influence.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
But you have to consider the advantages that a unionized IT labor force would have. Perhaps union is to loaded a word, how about a professional giuld of IT workers.
They could impose hiring restrictions on who the companies could hire, no more hiring cheap foreign nationals to avoid paying for someone's experience.
They could make IT companies hire and/or keep older workers, no more getting turned out to field when you don't know the lastest language (even though you could learn it in a month).
They could give worker's a decent working day, nothing wrong with the occasional clock wrapper, but 70 hour weeks are insane and exploitive.
They could use a guild structure to offer an employment path that doesn't go through college, but instead focuses on on the job training, which many geeks prefer to dry textbook learning.
Something to think about, someday you may not want to work a 70 hour week, you may have a family, you may grey hair or be balding, do you want to be replaced by an undercutting youngster or foreigner?
No, no, no. There is NO shortage of incompetent management ;-}
-- More Smoke! The mirrors aren't working!!!
This is not what is happening. The H1B visa ties you to the company you're working for. You're here specifically to work for them. When they're finished with you, they send you home. When you decide you want to be paid the prevailing wage, or want to look for a better job, they no longer have a reason to keep you and you're shipped off back home.
Sure, I'll compete on skills. I'd rather not compete on price when it's legal to force workers to work for well below the prevailing wage. Really, think about this. If you work for me and I can deport you whenever I choose, you'll work for whatever rate I tell you to if you want to stay. Fix the H1B so it's not a license to screw the visa holder and restore *their* freedom and the system will be better off.
I was a Unix system administrator who had the freedom to explore new technologies and thus got into Web development in August of 1993. Being there during the buildup, and of the many years of experience sense, have given me a much better understanding and deeper background of how the Web operates than the vast majority of people in the field.
I have administered four different types of Web servers, can tell you several things wrong with any Web site, have done CGI programming (rolling my own since frameworks were not yet available), worked with WebObjects and StoryServer, and done project management, including being a team leader.
My current personal work is with Cascading Style Sheets, XML, and XSL Transformations. Heck, two weeks ago I found a fundamental bug in how opera 4.02 handles style sheets.
Despite this, I have been unable to find a job here in Washington D.C. for the past year. Why? Seems I do not have the exact experience people are looking for. Despite my vast experience with many other Web servers is seems to be a strike against me when I do not have experience specifically with IIS, for example.
I also do not fit into their current categories easily, having both front-end and back-end experience and interests.
I would also suggest that part of the problem is that these places do not know how bad their Web efforts are. They don't care that they are generating invalid HTML, that their site is difficult to use, and they are not not paying attention to the user errors in their Web logs, and many other things.
-Robert
My friend, you have obviously never worked a day of hard labor in your life.
I worked as a concrete layer for two years, after I dropped out of school. Being part of a Union, I was entitled to work everyday (or not, I got between 15 and 30 dollars an hour.. I didn't really HAVE to work everyday), be tought the ropes by people who were not only in the business for a long time, but were accomplished teachers. Also, I had the opportunity to go to conferences on advanced techniques (like coloring concrete, making it look like marble and other stones, patterning, generally artistic stuff) and meet new people all over the world.
Unions are a GOOD thing. They protect the employees and help the employers get good, qualified employees.
Next time, keep your trap shut when you don't know what the hell you are talking about.
Rami
--
rJames.org - illustration
"Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi"
Well, I disagree with this argument. Every citizen or alien contractor I have ever worked with HAS been paid hourly overtime. I have always felt slighted because as a full-time employee, I have to work unpaid overtime alongside contractors who are raking in the dough for their extra hours.
Also, even though the contractors themselves (the alien ones) are probably not getting that much, the companies that are using them are usually paying quite a high rate to their agency. I'd say that $65 / hr is very common in my part of the country, although I'd guess that the person actually doing the work usually gets $30 or less.
Tim
Workers with experience (regardless of age) are more valuable (and thus worth more money) at any position, including an entry level one. Any competent manager knows that. With experience (and just to piss off the kiddies, I'll be very explicit and say WORK experience) comes (for most) a wealth of knowledge and wisdom that doesn't translate to a resume.
The average 40 year old with 15 years of experience is worth more than the average 21 year old if their technical knowledge is equal. Problem is that the 40 yo probably knows his rights and can't be molded into a 70 hour week serf.
The fact is that in the US discrimination in hiring policies based on factors such as age, race, etc. is ILLEGAL, as are mandatory 70 hour work weeks. The point isn't well you can go get another job. Sure, we all can, there's always an unfortunate few who don't know better who'll fill the gap. The rest of us need to take a stand because they cannot.
My grandfather died at 59 from lung cancer, after working in coal mines for years. His union didn't take 30 minute smoke breaks. They worked long and hard for what wasn't much of a wage, even at the time. Most of us here spend what he earned at starbucks. That union fought to get the workers protection and health coverage because their jobs were killing workers. Strikes give the unions a bad image, but they are a necessary evil given the overwhelming evil embodied in large corporations.
Are we for corporations or against them? I know the union's stereotypes, and some are deserved, but if it's them or the corps., I'll take the unions.
No one has yet mentioned that women are still underrepresented in the computer field and lots of other technical fields. The shortage--if there is one--could probably be eased a lot if young girls could be encouraged to look more at technology and if women in the field got equal recognition with men. Discrimination against women, discrimination against the middle-aged, discrimination against foreigners--lots of people in all three groups think all these things exist; how they interact is hard to say.
I didn't say the person knew everything, clearly knowledge is an asset. I said someone who can "figure it out".
Let me give you an example: We had some new computers set up that needed to get out our (Microsoft) proxy server and check POP3 mail on the Internet. I heard a lot of talk over the wall about how they couldn't get it working--about 3 hours worth. When I went into the server room, I saw the tech rebooting the server and calling the consultant who set things up.
I went to one of the client machines: DNS server wrong, default gateway wrong, browser proxy settings wrong. Fixed those and we are good to go.
I'm just a programmer with only the most basic knowledge of networking, yet I fixed this problem in less than 10 minutes because I'm competent.
Having someone around who can answer all questions is an asset. Having people around who depend on that asset long-term is a liability. Especially so if the Answer Man is supposed to be, say, programming, but can't find time to do it between all the tech support calls.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Let's face it. Things in Silicon Valley are so tight that if people are competant, they can get a great job at another firm paying them a living wage just by snapping their fingers. If they're not competant, then they're stuck. But with the number of technology firms which need to have more people than they can hire, I've not found anybody who's that good who's making $50k in the Valley. It just doesn't happen.
I think that there's a huge disconnect here (myself falling into that trap) between people working in corporate IT (who may be getting hosed by their employers) and people working for development firms (who are in extremely short supply).
My only function these days is to serve as the attack dog and flame artist for the troll bunds -- without that slight ability, I'd most likely be kicked off the troll sids.
It's quite sad really.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
There is another problem though. Let's say we do make it easier for good people to come here. What about all the racists and xenophobes that are here? I think all people should be treated fairly, but in some areas there are quite a few people that feel otherwise. One thing that the U.S. needs is to be better educated about other countries. At this point in time, I do think that the U.S. is the best place for me to live, but as things are changing and this country is going further downhill, I have researched other places that I can potentially move to such as Canada, Germany, etc. I think more Americans need to see how other places in the world function. I feel that you can learn something from anyone if you look hard enough. Eg., I may not like France very much, but, they do have their eating habits down correct. Fresh food is a novelty in the U.S., so we eat all the chemicals and crap and we get fat and sick. On the other hand, I do see a lot of hatred towards the U.S. that is uninformed also. It seems that some people base their opinion of the U.S. on what TV shows and movies come from here. We are not a bunch of fatass cowboy redneck idiots that are intolerant towards the rest of the world and too concerned with sports and religion to know our elbows from our asses. A lot of us do speak more than English to a certain extent, they usually teach Spanish starting in Kindergarten or the 1st grade. In high school, I had the options to learn Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Italian, and Sign Language (ok, so it's not a spoken language and it technically is English but it still counts for something). To get into college you have to have passed some foreign language classes. Yes, there is a problem with the U.S. education system, but that boils down to the biggest problem that we have in the U.S. -- $Money$. There is too much greed on the upper class of society so the middle class is being wiped out, which includes teachers and other skills that are essential.
Unfortunately for the immigrants that come to the U.S., they usually come to live in poverty. It's the way it has almost always been, because they are exploited by greedy people. It's nothing new and happens all over the world. The sweatshops that Nike owns are allowed by the governments in those countries because they get money.
Anyways I am going into a rant off the subject, but I do think that the U.S. should make it easier for people to come here to live, after all, we are supposedly a melting pot of the best people of the world...let's make that a reality.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
The two issues that get intermixed here are the IT labor shortage and the temporary workers H1-B visas.
:-(? My company is, and has been since at least 1994 (when I started). Our customers seem to be generally understaffed in the IT department. I have been getting unsolicited job offers since at least 1996.
I believe the labor shortage is real - look around and tell me how many of your companies are not hiring constantly (Novell excluded
H1-B visas are not specifically for IT workers. They are also used for all other kinds of skilled workers (most requiring a college degree), including models (obviously not requiring a college degree:-). While H1-B holders can only work for the employer who petitioned for their visa (including multiple employers), changing employers is not hard - the new employer can get a transfer H1B, which is not subject to the yearly cap, and it takes about 2 months to get it. Many H1-B holders change employers within the first or second year of their employment.
I believe that solving the shortage with H1-B visas is the wrong approach. The only reason H1-B visas are used for this is because of the inefficiency of the INS and the Labor department in processing employment based permanent residency applications (close to 6 years in many places, which is also the time limit of the H1-B visas). This is also the chain which holds many foreign workers with the same employer, not the H1-B visas. There should be a fast-track way for companies, who have shown constant need for qualified people, to get permanent residency for foreign workers. The current requirements for employment based green cards are good (they include provisions like the company must not have laid off workers recently, etc.) but the time it takes can be easily cut down to 6 months.
Some of the bills currently in congress and in the senate try to deal with these issues - go read about them at this site.
Actually, this goes for _all_ the countries in the world. Open the borders!
Bah, who am I kidding... It's not like a stupid /. post is going to change anything anyway.
--
Pokéthulhu
Gotta catch you all!
No I judge American employers, not employees of any nationality, stripe, citizenship or residency. I couldn't care less who does the work - really. H1B, Americans or mental patients hammering away randomly. The point is, if anyone wants to actually know, and stop taking offense at the facts, is that:
Many 'contractors' abuse or outright break the law. The fact that there is so much pressure to open the floodgates is a good indicator that the difference is much more than 90% and there is no enforcement. And why is that? because employers are making out like bandits and employees are scared of being booted. Remember, there are 10 guys waiting for everyone who is here.
Employers want something for nothing and see this as a way to get it.
Employers have absurdly unrealistic expectations because:
a They don't know what they're doing
b They are trying to compress the work of several people into the hiring of one
c They merely mouth the customers' statement of requirements w/o thinking if it's possible
d Do in fact discriminate against people not fresh out of school.
That's my point. Not that we should bar all or some H1B's - because again I couldn't care less who does the work if it's quality work. No - the point is that the justification that all of the suits parade up to Congress as reasons for expanding H1B are absolutely completely fucking bogus.
Did any of you people work in IT in the NY Metro Area say between 1984 & 1994? Well if you did you were one of the lucky ones because in that time 30,000 IT people lost their jobs or were 're-jobbed' at significantly lower salaries. Why do you think last year's total bill for Y2K was so high? Because all of those COBOL jocks went into Y2K remediation contracting at 3x what their employers felt was equitable to pay them.
Stop taking offence when someone points out that there is no real labor shortage. Because there isn't. There isn't unfulfilled demand for 347,000 tech jobs or whatever today's agreed upon statement is.
No No No.
There is a shortage of people willing to be treated like shit. There is a shortage of people who will stand up for their rights and tell an employer, 'well no really - it really sounds like a shitty offer no matter how many options you give me'. There is a shortage of people who will work under uncertain conditions.
Now sure, all of you can crow about; whining about skills about whatever the fuck you want. More power to you. IF you think that you will always get the best job or the best assignment and command whatever rate you whimsy up just because you feel you have the best skills you are delusional plain and simple. This is a generation of people who have seen nothing but boom times since they learned to jerk off and their response to everything is to pound their chest and scream about how fucking smart they are.
On the one hand you have a bunch of people trying to force the issue and get H1B opened up because they want the opportunity. Great. That's a noble goal and as a second generation child of immigrants I applaud.
On the other hand you have a bunch of people who place themselves at the top of the food chain and dare anyone to knock them off.
Now think about this very very carefully. Isn't that divide and conquer? Do you think employers aren't laughing their asses off looking at a very group of very highly paid people working with a much larger group of low paid people. Where's the risk to the employer? Well I'll tell you it's not with them. It's with you. And you. And you.
Not exactly, its simply a matter of how many others saw the same quote and also sent in their CVs, then it would be simply a matter of how your CV rated to the others they received.
Antidisestablishmentarianism would lose its point if it were hyphenated
Sorry, but as long as you can find another company which will sponsor you (and transferring is MUCH easier for a company than getting a fresh H1-B), you can transfer to any company. H1-Bs are most certainly transferrable.
It has moreover been my experience that most hiring managers wouldn't know one of these people if they bit them on the ass. Not that that would particularly endear you to your interviewer mind you. And since they never invented a test for hacker nature, this situation will probably not improve.
So if you have hacker nature (And you know who you are,) the chances of you working on a team with anyone else who has hacker nature are pretty slim. The chances of you taking over from anyone who actually knew anything about programming are even slimmer. The chances that you're taking over from someone who was bluffing and bailed out before the shit hit the fan are pretty good.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
True, but that's just the common starting salary for techies. I've heard stories of people with only a 4-year MIT Undergraduate degree getting six-figure ($100,000+) salaries in Silicon Valley --- fresh out of school with no experience! People who complain that techies aren't getting paid enough don't get much sympathy from me, when compared against what the rest of the country is earning. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I'm very grateful that what I happen to love doing happens to be something which is in high demand, and so therefore I can command a somewhat higher salary than friends of mine who work just as hard, and who have more years of education than I, but whose vocation happens to be in music or theatre. Most musicians I know would be thrilled to earn as much as $50,000/year, even if they had to live in New York City. It's imporant to keep a sense of perspective in these things.
but much higher taxes. if you're lucky, you'll make 50-60k CDN(30-40k US), and then get taxed quite nicely on that. It's very hard for a Canadian to find a good paying job in Canada. And to work in the states _legally_ requires a degree. :/
The way most managers want to end the year is a little over budget and with his superiors quite happy. That way he gets a bigger budget next year (which is how managers measure the size of their manhood).
That's probably easier to do with experienced, higher-paid workers than with wet-behind-the-ears recent college grads.
Of course, some managers are just plain stoopid.
What's a sig?
login: barney_rubble0
passwd: bedrock
--
The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
.. but a shortage of competent IT workers.
This is actually a fairly simple issue. The lawyers and MBAs are waging war on the techies. Our society does not value technical work in the least, despite all the recent geek chic and all the lip service paid to technical work. That is why lawmakers have reduced it to the level of migrant fruit picking. There can be no labor shortages in America, because our economy is brutally efficient. If demand outstrips supply, price will rise, which will attract more supply. Obviously all engineering positions can be filled by Americans if corporations are willing to pay enough. But engineering salaries have risen to a STAGERRING AVERAGE $60,000/yr, so the government, all lawyers, will keep them uppity engineers in their place by replacing exensive american engineers with cheap foreign ones. And surprise surprise... smart young American college students see that the profession has been ghettoized and avoid it like the plague. The cycle begins anew.
The interesting aspect of our predicament is that engineers are such sheep to allow this to happen in the first place. Other professions, notably law and medicine, have achieved "guild status". For instance, health care costs are once again spiraling out of control (roughly 20%/yr right now). And yet the notion of importing 200,000 indian M.D.s (for $50,000/yr each) would seem laughable. Why? The answer is simple-- the AMA. Doctors pay into the AMA, and the AMA protects its members from the lawyers, who would otherwise replace the doctors with migrant fruit pickers, under pressure from the CEOs of health management conglomerates. Engineers have never been smart enough to handle the societal aspects of their profession.
This is not simply a financial issue. Many purists in slashdot-land will ignore my rant, preferring instead to concentrate on their craft. But the organizational issues surrounding the engineering career tend to destabilize the profession in our country. You notice that there are very few practicing software engineers in America over 40. Yet in my experience, the profession could dramatically benefit from more attention to experience and learned process, especially in the area of quality. American software, while supposedly innovative, is very low quality compared with other commercial engineering products (japanese cars, swiss watches, airplanes). I think that once the current mania surrounding "internet time" fades, much software engineering that currently takes place in America will instead move to countries that produce higher quality engineering products because engineering is accorded a guild status and people see it as a lifelong career, rather than a stepping stone to management like in America. Anyone interested in further exploring this subject might want to look at: http://www.programmersguild.org
Slashdot hosted a similar debate in March.
I still believe it is about the folks who brought us DCMA using their muscle to get more cheap labour, with which they can produce more software, for which we can pay more money, with which they can spend more money lobbying, to import more foreign cheap labour - aaargh. My brain just exploded.
Yeah, I would love to work in the states too. Just don't let me get old, or forget to learn (insert cool new technology here) in time to get my next gig.
It's all very well in practice, but it will never work in theory.
Did you even get past the name on the post? Whether he believes it or not, it's the truth.
of 24 yr olds with 15 yrs experience in a technology 3 yrs old & willing to move 3,000 miles away to work 90hrs/week to earn 67K @ a company with a 50-50 chance of being in business in 6 months! The truth is, is that as soon as they understand you're over 30 they start to cough and mumble about "well this probably isn't a real good fit for you..."
It's not about skills or availability. It's about power and control. It's about exporting your development risk and the hell with the people. It's about bringing a bunch of guys over from India, cramming them 10 to a house, paying them shit and kicking them out when the visa expires because at any payrate they're getting paid better here than there. So what if your code is shit. By then the "contractor" has moved on to another customer who's thrilled to get work done at apparently half the rate of anyone else's bid.
Bob Lewis of InfoWorld has a good column on this topic at: http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/09/04/ 000904oplewis.xml
Basically, it says that if you are an older worker and complaining that you can't find a job - look for the problem in the mirror.
You're forgetting something. The median salary is an aggregate of all Americans. That includes rural areas as well as urban areas.
A salary of $25,000 is a nice amount of money in many rural areas. A nice, 3-bedroom house only costs $40-50,000. Heck, you can take the family out to dinner for $20 in a rural area.
Now an urban area is a whole different story. $50,000 is a just-getting-by salary. Home prices where I live (outside of Detroit), start at $120,000. And that's for a 1000 sq. ft. place. Dinner for the family? $120. Day care costs $300 a week!
Being someone in the US on an H1-b... and also Indian... it is dissappointing to read the opinions of people on a site like slashdot. I agree that a lot of things mentioned against the H1-b program are true... but not in entirety.
... the IIT.. I know of the kind of salaries that are offered to certain groups of people. Salaries (we are talking 100k+) that suddenly turn the whole idea of CHEAP labor on its head. That is not to say that there aren't companies that don't hire people who can't communicate, program or think... and put them 10 in a room ... take away their passports ... the list goes on and on... But it is wrong to generalize. FYI Linus Torvalds (who I'm sure ranks amongst the Gods on slashdot) works on an H1-b.
... as it knew that it meant they would suffer losses. All this goes under the misunderstood term called "Globalisation of markets". Well why this hyposcrisy of goods market v/s labor market
... having worked in England for a few months ... I came to the realization that a lot of indians speak better english than the british and americans.
... and they need to be punished severely... to set precedents... They are the phoney companies that often go by the name of "consulting companies" (they are called "body shoppers" in india). They are the companies which get people on H1-b's then put 10 people in a house, make them sign phoney documents... take away passports ... prepare false resumes of people .... the list goes on. These are the people who need to be taught a lesson. They are the ones who misuse the H1-B program.
There are 2 sides to every fact presented so far...
1) US companies hire indians for cheap labor.
Yes... a lot of them do... BUT a lot of them don't. Coming from one of the best know Indian Universities (in the US)
2) It is sheer hypocrisy to argue that CHEAP LABOR is bad... For years the United States (and the G-8) has been forcing developing countries (called third world countries here) including India, into opening up their markets so that they could flood the indian markets with cheaper and better goods. Goods that the Indian public wanted but were too expensive coming from indian manufacturers and sometimes just not available. The local industry cried foul
I know one can't equate goods and people but I'm just making a point.
3) Amusing that someone said that Indians can't communicate in english... on the contrary
4) Workers on H1-B are tied to their employers for their visa! I'll agree that it is true for some of the immigrant workers, but not at all for the smart ones. One of the biggest concerns that companies sponsoring H1-b's have, is that the employee could find another job in the US and the company would have spent money on his visa. The H1-B is transferable, i.e. if I find another better paying company (which generally has no problem getting the H1-b transferred) then I'll move. So no employer can pay a good immigrant worker below industry rates and get away with it.
Well if everything is as I have said... what is the problem... well there are a lot of black sheep out there
I do hope that people of the US realise that immigrants are what built this country what it is. The reason the US is so powerful a nation is because the most ambitious, hard working people endured many hardships to come here and build this nation what it is over the centuries.
so don't live there. $50k is a VERY good in the midwest U.S. where I live, where 80K buys a very nice house. There are tech jobs everywhere. I work at a startup, with stock options, casual environment, exciting work, etc...
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
There should be almost no restrictions on people who immigrate to this country becoming citizens. My wife is Thai, the process we have had to go through to get her her temporary green card was a nightmare, and she still isn't a citizen.
So, I'm very much in favor of an increase in immigration and especially an increase in naturalization, I would just like to see it tied to the possibility of citizenship. (My wife's cousin is getting in on an H-1B herself.)
It is true that people (including people in unions) can be duped into believing that increased immigration is bad for workers. That doesn't mean unions are by their nature anti-immigrant, it simply means that propaganda has worked.
As an IT worker, I'm a bit tired of a lot of these obnoxious new laws that are passed, like the DMCA or UCITA, whereas tech workers seem powerless to influence the legal system. If tech workers organized, they could change that.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
BTW, she chased the CEO of HP down a hall but he wouldn't talk to her!
is the oldest trick in the books.
Really, if you disagree with someone, don't try to debate their points, instead attack them personally, perhaps calling them a hated member of the society.
I guess if enough people do that, we'll all post on a harmonious, dissension free, doubleplusgood Slashdot.
I never expected to hear so many racist remarks, coming from the so-called "enlightened, hi-tech" crowd. I'm completely an utterly disgusted.
Let me clear up a few points. I live in Silicon Valley, and I'm on H1B, so I know exactly what the issues are. Firstly, there truly is a skilled labor shortage. It's real, and I'm being paid handsomely because of it. In fact, I'm ready for my yearly review, and I'm going to ask (demand) they raise my pay by $20,000, otherwise, I'll move to another company. I can do this on H1B, it'll take 3 months, but because my present company needs my skills, there's nothing they can do, even if I told them to their face I was going to move on. Sounds like I'm being taken advantage of? The other thing is that it is ILLEGAL to pay UNDER-MARKET-LEVEL-WAGES to H1Bs.
Secondly, you nerds will be surprised to hear that most people actually DON'T LIKE TO WORK WITH COMPUTERS. Yes, that's right, can you believe it? They find them hard to understand, and boring as all hell. This is what is causing the labor shortage: lack of interest. They hear that working with computers pays well, and they look into it, but it actually requires hard work and a lot of technical expertise to actually be useful. It's hard to work in IT. It has to be in your blood, otherwise you will hate working in it. All you nerds, how would you feel if all of a sudden you had to start working as salesmen, with monthly quotas, and go driving around from customer site to customer site, sucking up to the CIO all the time? It would make you blow your brains out, wouldn't it? Well, this is how most people think about computers. Even if they know there are jobs in IT, it would literally kill them emotionally to have to deal with computers day-in and day-out. This is a reality.
The other issue is the older worker. Let's face it. Most older workers simply do not have the enthusiasm and fire that they used to. In my company, I have actually seen a few highly skilled, highly energized older workers, and that is truly great. But we recently hired an older man, and all he does is sit in his office, go to the washroom, go home. Compare this to the 22-year-old Berkeley graduate we also hired at the same time. She is buzzing with excitement. She devoured the manuals, she works 10-12 hours a day coding. She LOVES working here. She's happy, and you can feel the electricity around her. Now to the hiring manager, who would you rather have? The older, more experienced worker, who treats this job only like a job, or the young kid that actually shows excitement and enthusiasm? If it were me, I would rather have a whole bunch of people working here that actually LOVE working here, than a bunch of skilled people that work only the prescribed 8 hours a day and treat this like a necessary evil.
I assure you, money is NOT the issue. What we're dealing with is a matter of difference of maybe $50,000 max, and most of the difference will be cut down in the next 3 years. To a multi-billion dollar software company, $50K is nothing. We need to have our products ready by every deadline, and we need our products looked after by competent people. We are willing to pay the difference if necessary.
There are other pros and cons, too, though. Older workers tend to stay at a job longer than younger workers (I expect the Berkely grad to be gone in 1 to 1.5 years, unfortunately), so they offer a great deal of stability, something that is lost to Silicon Valley companies.
I know a lot of open-minded, hard-working white Americans. This is not to you. To you racists: Fuck you. How many of you white, middle-class Americans actually feel anger because you see a person of color working beside you? All the whining I hear about those guys that can't speak English, they smell, whatever. Fuck you. This whole country was built on immigration, and this includes your God-forsaken parents, too. 1 in 4 companies here in the Silicon Valley were created by IMMIGRANTS, you bastards.
Why do people come here? Because America is the greatest country in the world, and because their country sucks cock, that's why. Be it China, India, whatever, life sucks in that country. That is why they're here. Why don't you show them some fucking sympathy you fucking Nazis. What, you want IT jobs to be white-only, too? In my complex, there are 6 Indians living together in a 2 bedroom apartment. Guess what, I don't feel angry like some of you guys, I FEEL SORRY FOR THEM. This is because the LANDLORDS are charging them $2600/month in rent, and that's the same case all over Silicon Valley. A 1 bedroom apartment is $2000/month here now. If you get a entry-level job in IT, you won't get much more than $45K salary, and you can't afford to rent a 1 bedroom apartment. You are forced to share an apartment with others. But they are sacrificing so that they can have a better life here in the US.
Some of you white KKK-wannabes somehow get the notion that these "Pakis" or "Chinks" are succeeding at the expense of you. You guys are a bunch of dumb-asses if you believe this. There enough opportunity here for anyone here who is willing to actually work hard for it. You lazy-ass Americans who look around and see other races succeeding and get jealous, it's not NOT because they are being paid slave labor wages. It's because they are WORKING HARD because if they go back home to their country, they know how terrible life is back home. You whining Americans AREN'T WILLING to put as much effort into bettering yourselves because you don't have as much incentive. You've probably never known the hunger they know, you've probably never known the suffering. This is why they are KICKING YOUR ASS, not because they are being paid slave wages. When those 6 Indians get home, they are reading every night, a new book. Remember that.
Again, I know many, many open-minded, highly intelligent, white Americans. I just haven't seen to many on this site. To all you white folks complaining about immigration, FUCK YOU. And I hope my kids become your kids' bosses, and fuck them over someday, the way you would like to fuck me over.
uhh, yes athletes are over-praised...and over-compensated, so what?
/lot/ of great academic universities, and i work at one (which also happens to be known for football, but that's just because michigan is the state of champions.)
that's the point. you're just saying, "so? it's not a problem" and he's saying "this isn't good"
I stated somewhere that he's probably overreacting. Duh.
you are also, apparently, stupid. i read all the posts, and most of them are stupid as well.
Thanks. You're basing this on what? My attempt to engage in a useful conversation on a topic instead of pointlessly flaming someone simply because I disagree with their ideas? Thank you for being close-minded.
sorry, but, it has been explained to you enough, i am not repeating myself any more
No, it hasn't been explained to me. So far on this subject you have said:
his points are that of an ignoramus
and
true some podunk hick universities value sports over academics but what do you expect out of rednecks?
the fact is there are a
I fail to see how that constitutes an explanation. You haven't given any valid points at all as to why Dan Hayes' arguments are those of an ignoramus, and yet you say that you will not repeat yourself anymore!
Moller
I haven't read thru all the comments yet, but just want to relay personal XP with the H-1B visa program - and the fraud being committed by American companies ...
First off, it is a bad thing for American workers - regardless of the "lip service" paid that there is a "labor shortage" - yada, yada, yada - it ain't true - fact is, it is about cheap labor - I have nothing against fellow brotherhood of programmers doing the best they can for themselves, but in reality, the majority of these "imported" programmers are merely indentured servants, with no control or power to switch jobs ... consequently, the notion of a "free labor market" is turned upside down ... and even if you are not affected directly, it has a downward effect on every programmer's wages and rates that they can bill out ...
The company I currently contract for (a large charge card processing company ... you can figure out which one ...) is committed to this form of "outsourcing" (or as one exec chided - it is "out-tasking", not outsourcing) - our facilities in the U.S. resemble New Delhi or Bombay ... and it is amazing how the company can be so hypocritical in its flaunting of the law - the H-1B visa workers are, to the letter of the law, only supposed to be used if "there is no American worker to fill the slot ..." - well, here is the trick - company A hires company B (which also may be a USA company, but is comprised of 80% H-1B visa programmer staff - see Syntel for a vivid example ... meanwhile, there are many talented programmers, allbeit older, that face blatant age discrimination, and either (1) go into another line of work or (2) accept lower wages ...
I urge everyone to give a read to someone who has investigated and analyzed this matter into detail - Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Labor Shortage by Dr. Matloff ...
Some points to ponder ...
Sure, if you are good you will always have work - but it still has an effect on all as the wages/rates fall with the market ... I have no objection to importing of talented professionals - but make them citizens - give them the power of a "free labor market" - funny how companies cry for deregulation and free markets but when it comes to labor, it is a different story entirely ...
AZspot
I hate this argument that companies are making that they can't get enough IT workers in the US. Boo-Hoo! It's called supply and demand. If you want qualified individuals then you have to PAY for them. Wow, what a revelation!
It's like trying to get a new porche for the price of a Yugo.
IMO there are some legitimate needs for H1-b's but the need has been vastly overstated by HR people trying to get something for nothing.
(rant off)
.my sig is waiting for it's H1-b to be approved
The job market at the moment is such that a competent IT professional who feels they are being mistreated can find another job at higher pay in less than a month in most cases. I'm all for geek solidarity but if I feel exploited I won't need a union to get satisfaction. I'll just say "Here's the root password, good luck to you all!".
This is a bowel disruptor, and you are just full of shit. - Spider Jerusalem
I agree about ageism. Sad fact is that most companies are on a strict budget and can hardly hire enough people to do the job, much less pay a premium for experienced workers. Some companies can though. Where I work we have a lot of embedded software engineers that make near or over six figures. This is at a small start up that is not yet profitable. By contrast, my brother works at a very small web design shop. His direct supervisor is about 25 yrs old and makes less then 45K yearly.
The difference: some companies know or need the value of experience others try to get by with as little as possible and make up for it in hours worked.
Peace.
http://www.crispypix.com
CrispyPix enhances images right in your browser!
Quoth Alioth:
Here I am, being called an "alien". I don't in fact come from somewhere in the vicinity of Alioth, I come from planet Earth. Strip off the skin - whether it's white, yellow, black or brown - and we are all exactly the same underneath.
To quote the Giant, 'you keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means.'
It appears we have yet another victim of the Hollywoodization of US culture.
BTW, I agree with all of your other points. Diversity is strength and the US has been built on the strength of immigrants ever since the first Europeans gave smallpox to the natives.
Oops, that's another discussion all together...
- - - - - - - -
"Never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem."
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Companies have created their own shortage with less than realistic hiring goals. How does anyone get experience without 3 years of experience? It is amazing the lengths people have gone to prove their skills. How many shareware programs were released for the purposes of being a resume?
Companies need to train, and retain their own employees. How much money does the average IT person spend every year on books and training just to stay current? There isn't an industry out there that requires the same intense level of continuting education to stay current on skills short of medical and law fields. This costs are something employers should pick up. Employers who are afraid of losing people they have just trained should make sure that these people are given opportunities to learn and use new skills. Why should any employer expect employees to only use a certain skill set.
I have known many skilled IT professionals who have spent months looking for a job. I don't buy the numbers about this at all. It is very common that you can't even get past the digital front door if you don't meet certain qualifications. I can't tell you many times I have met 11 out of 12 qualifications, but could not even apply because a certain field did not equal X number of years of experience.
Companies need to take staff retention seriously, something I think only happens in a few certain areas. Yes there are companies that let you bring your pet to work, and they are also extremely rare.
The companies that want more H1-B visas issued want them issued to cheapen the rates they pay to their workforce. After all, if they can get someone from India who will work for 60% of what someone here will work for, why not? It is not my intent to put down foreign workers. Many of these people are highly skilled, very hard working, and make significant contributions. They are also often treated terribly by their employers who have them on a golden leash. The other main reason these employees are valued is that they can be trained, and will stay where they are at. They don't have to worry about "retaining" them, their morale, or anything else. They have become the ultimate disposable employee.
From the US corporate point of view foreign workers are ideal; many come from countries where corruption is common place, so they are not likely to report it to the authorities if they see it. Even if they do report it - they can be deported before they could testify. A lot of US employers yearn for the days when it was legal to own slaves, and an emigrant on a work visa is as close as they can get; they'll work long hours without complaining - they're so afraid of losing their job they'll put up with anything the company does to them.
True, a savvy and smart programmer will always have a job but does that mean all programmers should put their heads in the sand and accept whatever crumbs are tossed their way ... I hate reading this crap - sure there are superstars (like me :)), but we don't live and work in a fishbowl ...
AZspot
try this to skip the login
circa75.com
I agree. I left my home country to come to the U.S. because of human rights issues. It's the lack of some real basics that keep many countries screwed up: democracy, education for all, human rights. The people who might be able to help aren't given a chance because of corrupt governments (no democracy) who don't have to respect human rights in order to maintain power, and because of populations for the most part who don't know any better (no education). You mentioned India and China - both have populations in the billion range. The technically literate ones are few relative to the total population, they just seem numerous to countries with 1/3 the population, like the U.S. And you can't build a big tech industry without a thriving underlying economy to employ it.
The answer? Right now, there doesn't seem to be one. It's going to take multiple generations for some of these countries to sort themselves out.
I was told that most CS styled jobs are considered, by the US government, to be intertwined with national security, and as such are not allowed to unionize. Personally I wouldn't be against a union as long as it doesn't just model itself after other unions. It does, as you mentioned, have to serve the people.
-Daniel
I questioned this in an econ class once. With so much political ado about welfare and creating jobs for "the people," why not just train "domestic" workers? I know of a few programs that train high-risk high school students, "welfare parents," etc. Why not make this the norm?
A couple of years ago when this debate came up, the IEEE-USA campaigned hard against increased visa limits, without looking at the worst aspects of the H-1B system - tying the visa to the employer, and in California taking up to 6 months to get a transfer to another employer. If I wasn't tied to my employer and could change in a couple of weeks, I would have to be paid market rates by my current employer, or they would lose me. The IEEE-USA weren't interested in this aspect of the problem, so I resigned my membership in protest and wrote a letter to the board explaining my position.
IMHO, much of the commentary in the press suffers from the same shallow thinking and short-sightedness - but most of you are smart enough to figure that out for yourselves ;-)
A big gaping hole in the IT field that other fields have right is Internships. I believe them and push them, yah that 21 year old prodigy can setup a linux box in 42 minutes with ever service you may need and locked down but can he support something like AVS or some proprietary bank ssl links over weird older networks? Prolly not.
F /...
Internships are great, you give someone a Junior title (which seems to have been forgotten to exist)... hire them for a 3 to 6 month period. You don't pay them much, they work hard because they know they are going to end up with real world experience on the resume and a good reference. And hey if they internship goes great you hire them on for a good deal more money. Either way you both win.
How many Junior Unix Admin positions have you seen open recently? We always have some open where I work, its good for them and good for the company.
---
Solaris/FreeBSD/Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
A former colleague of mine was saying the same thing about Australia. Industry (mostly IBM, apparently) lobbied the government to allow more foreign workers in to address the supposed IT skills shortage. In actual fact, there are a large number of qualified native residents, but it's cheaper for large companies to employ foreign workers (who are prepared to accept signifiantly lower salaries) than it is to employ Australians. It's therefore in the industry's interest to exaggerate the skills shortage, as it enables them to lower their payroll costs. Unethical, yes, but it makes good business sense to the bean counters...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Also, what about the tremendous proliferation of job sites and other high-tech recruiting solutions since 1996? I'd like to get some stats on that. Are Monster, Techies, etc etc etc making a dent in the hiring process at all?
Can your IM do this?
>(Boston, USA) is tough, especially if you're a
>small company. I've worked with companies that
>had 50% vacancies because they couldn't find
>people. They aren't even trying to hire college
>graduates now
>produce code. They have products they want to
>get to market but can't, because they don't have
[snip]
>I can guarantee you that small companies here
>are hurting because of the shortage.
This is incredibly true.
Speaking as an employer in the free software community from Cambridge, MA who is faced with doing everything myself (from HTML and Perl (e.g., CGI) coding, accounting, system building, etc. etc.), it is incredibly frustrating. In my situation, I just need someone to take over some of the more technical issues (like getting an optimized Debian onto my boxen or helping out with web design). Just *one* person.
A large issue right now is simply finding quality people who you can rely on to be there for you. I get resumes sent to me where someone has spent 6 months at company X, 6 months on their own ".com" project, and 6 months at their current company. He's cocky, he can't code well, he has an ego larger than Saturn, and he doesn't have any sort of training.... Would you employ him?
Your judgement weakens as you comprehend the reality of it all; you don't have anyone else applying for the job and you're already working 11 hour days just to keep afloat... You need *someone*.
What do you do?
I think this is a popular dichotomy that smaller, non-VC companies like me face every day. We can't afford to bleed money to placate itinerant employees, so we just have to run lean and efficient. This is probably also why we're still here, and will still be here in three years.
Lucas
Spindlet0p
--
Spindletop Blackbird, the GNU/Linux Cube.
... of programmers to other types of professions in the H-1B visa program is 15 to 1 in favor of programmers - not that engineers don't face similar circumstances (can't speak for engineers), but when discussing H-1B visa, it is primarly importing foreign programmers is what we are talking about ...
AZspot
As others have said, once I graduated (Summa Cum Laude, from NC State University, double major in computer and electrical engineering, minor in mathematics), I found a very different picture. Of course, that was way back in '91, and things were pretty crappy in general for the job market, but still... I ended up working as a temp for IBM for a few months, switched to a programming job at $24K/year, and then got the hell out and went to medical school.
Now I'm an MD and more or less have no worries regarding getting a job for the rest of my life. I miss working as an engineer enough to run a website, set up networks for friends and family, run a PC repair/upgrade service on the side, and in general keep my hands dirty on weekends. But I remain a trifle bitter whenever I hear this crap about shortages in the tech field.
Don't believe the hype, boys. I'm a libertarian and all that entails, but I also believe there's something bordering on a conspiracy to try and ensure that geeks and techies don't get too scarce and so keep their wages low.
One problem I have with this article is the fact that it is using 1996 data. People from that period know that even back in 1996, the economy wasn't that great and finding jobs was hard. Also, the idea back then was that the quick path to riches was through the old MBA route. The only people in CS back then were the people who really, really loved the field.
... they will grab anyone who can produce code. They have products they want to get to market but can't, because they don't have to people. Maybe Intel and Microsoft don't have as much of a problem but I can guarantee you that small companies here are hurting because of the shortage.
Things are so very different today. The MBA is out, tech is in. Enrollments are up I'm sure, because my own college is operating beyond normal capacity (lots of part-time instructors). All the money seekers are in CS, so 2000 data is very different form 1996. Starting salaries for many college graduates I know are 60k+. This is in contrast to 1997 (when I last graduated) where the lucky ones were the ones who got ~40k salaries.
From my own experience, finding good people here (Boston, USA) is tough, especially if you're a small company. I've worked with companies that had 50% vacancies because they couldn't find people. They aren't even trying to hire college graduates now
Sadest part is that they are looking for people with the 'older' skills. C, C++, HTML and basic HTTP understanding would often go far in some of these places. They are willing to train. There just aren't enough good people to go around.
I personally have had major employment difficulties over the past 2 years. I used to offer high end networking/troubleshooting for a Banyan reseller, and I was one of the best (if not the best) doing the job outside of Banyan in the UK. I had major UK companies renew significant support contracts with us just on my skills alone. Banyan's software was Unix based, so needed a lot of Unix skills.
The Banyan market collapsed (like Banyan themselves) and the company I was working for changed their tack. I left the place (for a well needed rest) and decided to look elsewhere.
In the following 2 years I've spent 9 months or more not working. No-one wants to know me, despite the fact I have the ability to learn. Is it just that I'm too old (over 30) or that my skills are not valid anymore?
One factor is that many of those doing the recruitment and interviewing shouldn't be doing so. I attended one interview with an operations section of a major company. I was interviewed by an utter moron. His only technical question was on how to count words in a file under Unix (pah!). The other questions were 'Have you heard of , where was a little used propriatory tool. The rejection letter stated I no Unix skills, despite the fact I had been working with the system for 10 years.
The recruitment agencies, who handle the majority of posts, are even worse. Most don't know their arse from their elbows.
You are exactly right. That's why I laugh (HARD) when a company has to take it up the @ss and pay a REAL programmer to come in and mop up after the cut-rate consultant firms have screwed up the job royally.
I'm always amazed that companies never learn this lesson. *shrug*
The point is that the statistics that say that the median salary for computer programmers is $50K are misleading if a large proportion of the jobs are in areas with high costs of living. Salaries can be substantially lower for computer jobs in areas with an average cost of living.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
My gf is from the USA. I work in IT. Where did we move after she finished her PhD (in Cambridge, Silicon Fen, where there are more IT jobs than people)? Yup you guessed it, 2 time zones even further away from the USA*. She didn't even want to live there!
(Note - there are (at least) _2_ "United States" in America, the USA, and The United States Of Mexico. So "US" is still ambiguous.)
Phil
* To the land of Hakkinen and Torvalds, fyi.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
$50K in the silicon valley is the poverty line. Average rent in San Jose for a 2 bedroom is $2000 a month.
$2000*12 = $24000 a year.
Now, take taxes out of $50K/year (About $1500 a month net)
$3000*12 = $36000 a year.
That only leaves $12000 a year to survive on. A thousand dollars a month, extra. Now I know my bills are well over a thousand dollars a month, and I am single (soon to be married - love ya sweety) and have a car payment, and a motorcycle payment, and a cell phone and my bills amount to about $1500.
$50K a year is a bullshit job for a family of 4 in San Jose.
nerdfarm.org
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
I think the article is dead on. Case in point:
I saw a quote from someone at Bynari Inc. whining about how they couldn't find people with Linux skills in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. So I submitted a resume. Not too impressive, 2 year Computer Science degree, 2 years tech support, 2 years Unix administration (HP-UX, AIX, SCO), 3 years using Linux almost exclusively at home. The guy was complaining about having to train kids fresh out of high school, so I figured I would be a good catch.
I never heard back from them.
Now maybe I just write a shitty resumé, but the way the guy was talking they were hiring anyone who had even heard of Unix.
I wonder how many people they have working on visas right now...
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
I read over a handful of responses, and, I have to admit, it is so amazing just how naieve people can be.
To anyone who says that companies aren't looking towards bringing in people from other countries via H1-B's just because they can get them cheap, well, my reponse would be that you must be living in a friggin' hole.
Business is about money, and, aside from making and keeping it, that's all it is about. People/workers are a commodity and really nothing more.
Sure, a company has to abide by certain rules according to payment and such in order to bring people in with an H1-B, but, for one, the computing industry is confusing enough for those of us who are in it, just imagine how confusing it can be made for INS?
As an example, consider the fact that, in order to be sponsored, the employer has to write a letter basically saying that you are the only one who can do that job. With computer related jobs, that is really an easy task by simply wording the job description in just the right way.
Want to talk about pay? I've worked at 6 different employers, and, aside from one of them, they have all leaned towards VISAs of some sort in order to get cheap labor. There.. I've said it. You may wish to live in the clouds and belive that we're too pristine of a nation to have this happen, but it does.. this is reality.
In all of the situations, I became close friends of many of the employees, and, for some of them, I got a good idea as to salary. Believe me when I say that they were, on average, getting 25% less than others because they were brought in at lower job titles with similar responsibilities.
From another angle, to those that think that companies are cowering in fear and willing to do anything to retain their current trained employees who have great experience, you have your heads in the clouds. Same goes for those who think that companies would prefer to hold on to their valuable trained (and expensive) employees rather than get a college grad or less experienced H1-B in to do the same job.
Face the facts! Training is cheap. Companies play the numbers. Business figures that it is cheaper to pay a low wage to someone who will fight to come up to speed, throw training money at them, etc., rather than pay for a well experienced person to remain on staff. Want proof? Ask anyone who is approaching 50 who is either looking for a job or in one now. I don't care just how skilled they are, it's a blatant fact that companies start looking at those employees as 'too expensive' and they start thinking 'We could bring in 2 or 3 young employees to do the same job and more!'.
Remember.. it's all about the money. We're just a stepping stone along the path towards that money.
Hey Washington. Slavery ended 150 years ago. Let's not start it up again. End this program.
As another IT immigrant in Paris, I would like to add my comments: I came to Paris due to the fact that there is a genuine shortage of skills here. I transferred from the London office of my employer and immediately took a $14,000 pay cut, and, for that priviledge, I have to jump through the same hoops as American AC, although on a slightly easier basis due to being British.
However, I know that if I were to quit, it would be hard to find someone that could do what I do, and I'm by no means the best unix/nt/mac guy out their but all the smart French techies leave to become immigrants in London or NY.
The advantage I have is that each morning, I wake up and I'm in Paris.
-- Jared Earle | "There is no spork"
I think you are mistaken. First it's really the Labor Dept that determines all this not INS - but that's just a side note because I made the same mistake in my original post.
I don't know how the numbers are computed, but they are specific to where you live. For example, I live close to Philadelphia but my employer is based in Pittsburgh (only a few hundred miles apart) - they applied with both labor departments and the numbers were different (I obviously made more than both).
While I don't remember exactly what the number was, I felt it was very realistic for where I live. It might even be a bit higher than what most people I knew in the field made - at least the people with my experience level.
And it is more than 90% of that number that the employer has to pay, unless the rules changed since 1998.
The Silicon Valley wages (and living expenses) is an entire different can of worm. I don't know why/how people (H1B or not) put up with it.
Having been in a similar situation, I can strongly sympathize with your scenario.
However, one thing I think you left out of your post is the effects of being the "answer guy" for an organization. Eventually the stress of having to know / figure out all the answers (i.e. do all the work) for your idiot cow-orkers (DNRC!) will cause burnout. Once you've burnt out, you're going to either find a new job, or run your current one into the ground (perhaps by giving wrong answers to people...). Either one will have some impact on your employer.
If you leave, then they lose your "knowledge asset", and someone else will have to get off their lazy butts and learn what you knew. Typically this takes a while... (I'm still not sure that the place I left due to this has recovered. I do know that they went through 2 managers and 2 head tech's in about 3 months...)
Even if someone else there can pick up the slack at the company, it's been my experience that desertions happen in groups, and typically the ones with clues leave together. It makes sense, especially if you figure out that the company will drop Mr A's work on you after he leaves, unless you do as well.
But, that's just my opinion...
I am dyslexia of borg - your ass will be laminated.
Well, at least when you get married you won't have to make that motorcycle payment any more.
8)
My friend, you have obviously never worked a day of hard labor in your life.
Obviously not. I didn't work construction for a couple years under a smart-as-a-tack contractor and subsequenly learn all kinds of tips and tricks and advanced techniques. I didn't work in two or three auto manufacturers assembling window assemblies (9s per part, I was faster than anyone else there and my quality was perfect). Obviously I didn't do any hard labor, union or no.
Being part of a Union, I was entitled to work everyday (or not, I got between 15 and 30 dollars an hour.. I didn't really HAVE to work everyday), be tought the ropes by people who were not only in the business for a long time, but were accomplished teachers.
So if I'm not in a union, I can't find a job in which there are intelligent, experienced workers from which I can learn? Or did you mean that the union enabled you to learn from other union members? From what I read from your post, the union got you an entry level position at a very good wage. I've never worked concrete so I can't say for certain that that is an entry level wage, but if it is, I'll tell my kids to go work concrete in the summers.
Also, I had the opportunity to go to conferences on advanced techniques (like coloring concrete, making it look like marble and other stones, patterning, generally artistic stuff) and meet new people all over the world.
All very intersting and I'm glad you were able to see and learn these things, but does my not being in a union mean I can't experience these things too? I go to 2-3 conferences a year (by choice, I don't like many conferences) where I work now and meet people from all over the world and learn from them. Hell even when I worked part time at a repair shop/backroom engineering shop I got to go to a few conferences.
Sounds like the teamsters really got to you. However, none of the things you have experienced (except perhaps the wage) were because of the union. Any company would have the same opportunities to learn from others, and any decent company would see that you were a bright and upstanding worker and want to further your education to make you more valuable. I'm not saying this with malice, although it does seem to come across with a bit of an edge. I do not like unions and I've expressed why. Your arguements for pro-union don't seem to have any teeth to them and are unpursuasive. This (tech) is a worker's market. If you're not happy where you are, go elsewhere. You don't need to stand around and take it. It's a labor shortage not a work shortage. There are 10 companies looking for someone and if who you're working for now is not treating you fairly, why do you need a union to defend you instead of defending yourself?
An aside: I witnessed my ex-girlfriend's father and cowokers turn into raving lunatics when the government-run health facility where they worked was being shut down. These are normally wonderful people whom I really like. The union called for HUGE strikes for all public sector workers. Totally unrelated fields were setting up shutdowns and strikes, all the while calling others "scabs" and being downright violent, just for the difference in opinion. They let the union get between them because some of them had had enough of this bullshit and wanted out while the others were whipped into this frenzy. What kind of idiocy is this? Are you that afraid of standing for your own rights that you'll lower yourself to this? Becoming the slobbering thugs of an organization which doesn't give a shit about you, so long as you pay your dues?
Unions are a GOOD thing. They protect the employees and help the employers get good, qualified employees.
Unions prevent employers from hiring whom they desire and impose the union's ideals, not the ideals of the company. I've seen (labor-intensive) companies shut down because the unions forced a wage increase which ultimately priced the company right out of the market. (another aside: If there were a non-union auto manufacturer I'm willing to bet we'd see the difference at the dealerships, too. We don't notice this, however, because they're all unionized.)
Next time, keep your trap shut when you don't know what the hell you are talking about.
Tow the line, tow the line...
It's not about "freedom" - I don't mind allowing foreign workers into the U.S. - just let them have the same rights to move from job to job that I have - that is something they don't get as they are the whim of the "sponsor" and have to take whatever is dished out to them ... not a FREE labor market ...
AZspot
What's happening in the IT sector is that many occupations are being downgraded and deskilled. Time was when being a "computer programmer" was a job that needed serious training. But in a society where many, many people get some kind of post-highschool training and computers are ubiquitous, it's not such a big deal to learn Java or XML anymore. A lot of people in the IT sector, dazzled by the world of stock-options and IPOs, are missing the broader trend: many programming-type jobs are rapidly becoming *relatively* low-skilled occupations. The analogy is to 19th and early 20th century clerks, who used to be the backbone of the financial and accounting sectors --- these were "black-coated workers," that is, socially respectable and basically white-collar workers, who were nevertheless low-paid, to the point where some blue-collar occupations had a much higher take-home than them. The key to this process was the way in which the position of the clerk could be rationalized, monitored and relatively "automated," in the sense that there was little craft-type skill necessary for the job. A more recent example comes from occupations that do their work over the phone: new technologies for monitoring productivity and performance make it easier for employers to rationalize the work-process and de-skill the job, to the point where wages get driven down.
The fact that companies prefer H1-Bs over American workers (who won't work the long hours given the money, benefits and job security on offer) is a strong sign that this shift is happening in the IT sector too. This is perhaps a hard fact to swallow for young IT workers who think that their all night cubicle coding marathons mean that they are programming geniuses in the dynamic new economy, instead of just replaceable wage slaves working insane hours to no purpose. :)
I mean by America the whole continent.
Here in my country, the whole school system is very influenced by the United States view of higher education. This leads to many good things like a bunch of good administrators with a lot of drive and capacity to create enterprises and stuff.
The problem comes when the same pedagogic and educational ideas try to be applied to I.T. as a whole.
Granted that some areas in the field require lots of administrative skills, but all the core technologies of any kind of I.T. require mathematics and engineering...it just needs nerds.
My roomate worked at Redmond for M$ for a while and he told me that it was very impressive to him how asians and hindus where so much more "in" to math and engineering. My friend is an American exception to the rule, he wants to become a mathematician but he knows that -even though he could easyly get a schollarship- its no good going to the United States for his phd and thats because of America's educational values. They are no good for science in general, let alone math.
So dont be surprised that the amazingly fast growing economy of the United States needs better engineers than what it's schools can provide...
I mean, face it, nothing in America compares to Grenoble or Cambridge in mathemathics, physics and such scientific stuff that has no potential revenue at all. And the point is that this scientific research -off the hands of corporations- is critical in building good schools for good engineers with great mathemathical background which is what you need to develop with quality anything that requires more than VBscript knowledge.
Alex
Stop looking at me.
H-1B visas are... a way to create a class of workers who don't have the same constitutional rights (or what's left of them) as the average American citizen and will be beholden to the companies that hire them not only for their job but for their continued residence in the US.
Technology workers are... a group of working class people who are foolishly squandering their powerful position in the labor market by not unionizing.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I work in an office that really needs my skills. However, because of a monumental array of "protective" immigration measures, it took me several months to secure the required papers, medical exams, and official approvals to even be able to work here; since she didn't already have a job with a French company, my wife isn't even allowed to do _any_ work by law (figure that Catch-22 out...) We are both well-educated and extremely capable individuals in our respective fields (I'm a computer scientist, she's a biochemist.) Yet, in the name of preserving jobs for French citizens, we're forced to either not work at all or constantly jump through administrative hoops until blue in the face. (My papers need to be renewed in one year, a process I do not look forward to.) Being an immigrant is a hard, often unrewarding process, and it takes some real guts to even think about it in the first place, much less do it.
I understand perfectly the logic behind such strict requirements for employment as a foreigner, and realize that we (Americans) use the exact same way of thinking. If a spot can be filled by a full citizen of a nation, then that citizen should have precedence to said job, right? The problem lies in the fact that the citizen isn't always the most qualified for the position; indeed, truly skilled and driven workers rarely complain about immigrants in the workplace (if anything, they thrive on the diversity it introduces.) It's the mediocre, the uninspired, the clock-puncher who worries about losing his or her job to somebody who actually wants to _work_. On that note, if there's anything they can tag to that potential replacement to discourage their hire, they'll do it. Immigrant. Woman. Kid. Dinosaur. Hispanic. This is FUD at it's purest, most base form. When faced with somebody who the weak worker _knows_ will be a better employee than themselves, the immediate reaction of that person is to find some way of discrediting or disqualifying that person. This results in bad hiring practices, discrimination, reduced productivity, and a less dynamic and exciting workplace overall.
Intelligent, capable individuals don't complain about immigrants and immigration. They understand that with immigrants come new ways of thinking, new talents and abilities, new cultural experiences, and the unique opportunity to learn a great deal about a place that they will very likely never visit in person. Weak, selfish people see immigrants as a threat to their cushy, do-nothing jobs, and as such, want nothing to do with them. It's as simple as that.
I'm only experiencing the smallest sliver of the discrimination that most immigrants go through, but it's already increased my respect for other immigrants tenfold. People who are strong enough to leave their native country, whether voluntarily or even more so as refugees, deserve a far higher degree of respect than they receive.
An American AC In Paris
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
There is a shortage of smart capital in the US, not a shortage of "IT workers".
Seastead this.
Industry spokesmen say older programmers with outdated skills would take too long to retrain.
The blame is not being laid in the right place with that statement. It is not the role of an employer to train employees in standard technologies. Many companies do, and I'd agree there is perhaps an obligation to an existing employee. I don't expect a new-hire to know everything. But I do expect them to have shown some effort to be able to evolve their skill set on their own. Even without knowing all the latest buzzwords, I'm not interested in hiring someone who isn't motivated enough to learn some new technologies on their own - not as "slave labor", but as self-improvement.
I don't care about someone's age, I care about their mentality. I want someone that loves programming. That enjoys finding new tools to solve problems with. And in today's world, someone that shift gears quickly - this means self teaching when necessary, and doing so quickly.
I'll admit that I've no experience hiring H1B employees. I'm not saying that those folks are meet all my requirements, just explaining my experiences.
I've heard it said that our industry is a meritocracy, and I think it is. Those that don't show much merit don't get jobs.
David Corbin Promote Freedom - American Liberty Foundation
You'd think if we really valued skilled immigrants, we wouldn't use the H1-B visa to subject them to the whims of their employer. Rather than all this smoke and mirrors about a labor shortage, lets remove the requirements that say an immigrant has to stay with their sponser or be deported. After all, the worker is still in the market and filling those badly need jobs, and a skilled worker should have no problem paying the fees of the immigration bureaucracy.
Out gosh, then they'd have to pay them the market wage, which of course will naturally rise in a supply shortage. Corporations want it both ways: the free market to reduce costs (and get away with shit they wouldn't otherwise), but they want a tightly regulated market (in their favor) of immigrant workers.
--Fesh
"Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
no one is living on Ramen in this biz folks.
Except by choice.....damn that stuff is good, cooked or raw...
Just to clarify this, an H1-B visa holder would never be granted citizenship directly. The first step would be to get a so-called green card, which allows permanent residence in the United States, regardless of employer. If the "alien" then lives in the U.S. for five years without committing any significant crimes, only then can s/he apply for U.S. citizenship. Pretty much anyone who applies for citizenship will get it, assuming they pass the test and basic requirements. It's getting the green card that's the hard part.
I'm truly impressed with your ability to infer someone skin color thru a few lines of text and engage in name calling.
The point is that the US economy works off the principle of supply and demand. By increasing the number of immigrants to fill a demand, the government is interfering with the supply/demand process. Further, the result is that the interference exacerbates the very problem that they are attempting to solve. The core of the problem isn't even about immigrants. It's about government interference in a supply/demand process that exacerbates the problem it's attempting to fix while harming the people that
fund it's existance.
The nice thing about freedom of speech is that it allows the fools, morons, and nutcases to indentify themselves.
Cheers,
GW
I don't think people who don't live in the Bay Area realize how bad things are out here.
A friend of mine who is a post-doc at Stanford found out that $50K/year qualifies you for SUBSIDIZED housing at Stanford. Being a lowly post-doc, my friend makes far less than $50K.
Subsidized housing, BTW, is around $1000/month for a one bed/one bath.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
How many of you graduated from college and got your current job(s) as a result of having a degree? On the other end of the stick, how many of you either chose not to take college, or dropped out and went directly into the marketplace?
I am one of the latter. Contrary to what some people have been saying here, the United States education system is NOT satisfactory. I was stuck in classes that took way to long to complete, and learning material that had little or no relevance to what I was looking for in a career.
I dropped out and went straight into the job market. Since then I have had two jobs, both of them have not payed me very well at all. I don't regret that though, because I was able to learn years worth of material in a matter of months since I was learning in the type of environment that suits me best. ie. a stress driven free-form world where you literally have to teach yourself new material or you'll drop off the face of the earth.
Now, if I had continued my education, I would just now be graduating from college with a degree. No doubt I'd snap up a job in no time, however, I doubt that I would have at my disposal all of the knowledge that I have learned, self-taught, on my own.
I am curious to know how you got where you are now. It is a complicated issue, does the education system hamper knowledge for people with right-brained intelligence patterns? No doubt, there are many things I would have learned if I had sticked with college that I do not know now. I'd have to ask myself if I'd be just as personally happy doing it that way, or the way I did. I, like I said earlier, do not have any regrets. I feel like I have accomplished something by driving myself.
The final question would be this. Given the position I am in now. What is the likelyhood of me dropping off my resume at any of of these tech companies that are hurting and scoring a job. What kind of salary should I expect? Most important to me is this last one, how many jobs out there maintain your interest? In your experience have your jobs been lackluster in freedom to grow, or have they been roomy? What is the average 'hurting tech company' going to offer me in the way of knowledge growth and creative interest?
V
I can just see an opponent of the proposal with a soundbite on TV proclaiming that this will bring hordes of foreigners in to take away US jobs and lower wages. In fact, by giving bargaining power to the foreigners it will increase their wages, and by extension those of their US citizen colleagues - but I don't expect the average TV viewer to hear or understand that point.
Thank you for your unbiased and informed post. As a recently immigrated H1B holder myself, I know first hand the trials one goes through to immigrate. You would think that a country made up of primarily 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants would be more understanding, but your post explains why they are not.
A South African in New York
Of course your great great grandparents loved the "culture" of the "new world" so much that they moved here and killed the native people owning that culture right ? They obviously didn't do it because they couldn't feed their family in the dark ages of Europe.
Your argument stinks!!
I know out here in Northern Virginia, there is a major shortage of qualified people for all of the tech jobs here. I think the last number I heard about the number of tech positions open was something like 10000 or so(I could be wrong though, so don't quote me). Regardless, companies here will hire damn near anybody to do the work, if you know what your doing. Degrees seem to matter less and less(not saying they won't help you if your are compentent). I know this personally, as I've been Unix Admin professionally for 2 years now and I'm making 70k a year, all without any sort of degree...
I'm not in I.T., I'm an engineer, but I know that compared to other engineers at my location I'm being payed very favourably. If I wasn't I'd walk out in an instant. I also know that in my company they'd never replace a senior engineer with a less expensive college grad or immigrant. Most of the engineers I work with have been here for 15 or more years.
The current way the INS is run and in turn runs things gives too much leverage to unscrupulous companies. The filing processes for permanent residancy are too long, so as a result engineers from abroad can feel that they're forced to stay at their current employer for the years it takes to get permanent residency. Unscrupulous companies can exploit this to keep good engineers onboard for peanuts.
People in that situation are in a very weak bargaining position. They can't vote, they're not citizens. They can't easily change jobs, an H1-B ties you to a particular position at a particular company.
The reason more people aren't coming out this way to Silicon Valley I believe has nothing to do with work and everything to do with the real estate and living market. The real estate market is so competetive out here I see a lot of older people moving out because its easier for them and their "families" to live in another area of the state or country. Therefore the companies are having to try and offer huge sums of cash to get people out here, and at times that still doesn't help cover the cost of living.
For a group that fancies itself to be generally libertarians and free thinkers, I'm surprised at a backlash on something that lets more skilled labor into the country. Getting the cream of the crop from the rest of the world is one of the things that has always made America great. The price is that we have to compete with them for work, but nothing in the constitution says you have a right to a job, you have to earn that. Most of these comments about the salaries of H-1B holders stem from ignorance. I work for a company that spun off from an Israeli parent, and we have ALOT of visa holders here and they pretty much make the same as I do. The law says they have to.
But even more importantly, what would Brian Boitano do?
so it just means that Mr. Hayes isn't terribly open-minded. Neither is the poster that I've been replying to.
I may disagree with what he says, or I may agree, he still has a right to say it. And whether or not I agree or disagree with his comments should not be influenced by who is making the comments.
Moller
I'm currently a college student, in computer engineering. I definetly have seen these problems first-hand. Here in the US computer schooling is defintely horrible, demand far outweighs supply. But it's even worse abroad. Over this past summer I had an internship where I worked with an indian person who was schooled there. He was not exactly the brightest crayon in the box. His computer skills are atrocious. It's a tough problem, but the solution is simply to get the teachers so our OWN people learn what we need to know!
Health is simply dying at the slowest rate possible.
Why is the solution "get scientists from elsewhere" rather than "fix the US education system"?
Because, like everything else in USia, corporate interests are involved. They are quite happy for there to be a shortage of graduates with these skills so they can import cheap labor, and so there's a distinct corporate push towards the image that science is uncool and to be avoided. Which seems to have worked, since USia seems to be the second-most anti-science nation in the world after Iran.
The American economy works so well because it is, thanks to the Constitution, one giant free trade area (which includes free movement of labor). Why shouldn't it work even better if it included the rest of the world?
There should be no limits at the borders to the free movement of labor, capital, goods, services, or ideas. Countries are prosperous only to the extent that they permit free markets INCLUDING free trade. And the more a government tries to control its economy, the more it ends up trying to control its people, to the lasting detriment of its society.
If you don't believe me take a look at the shithole Vladimir Putin is trying to run.
- Check the troll sids for announcements of trolls.
- Post your "This is a TROLL!!" message as early as possible.
- Watch everyone ignore you and post replies anyway.
- Feel worthless.
Y'see, trolls aren't there for the kind of person who reads "This is a troll" posts before replying. They're not there for the kind of person who reads anything before replying. They're there for the trigger-happy, compulsively responding types who form the overwhelming majority of slashbots.You may also be pleased to know that responses to a troll dated after the first "It's a troll" post get double troll points; you've boosted Dan's score substantially in this thread.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
This number was no more than 25,000 in 1998 due to all the backlogs.
25,000 is a tiny fraction of H1-B holders? Sounds closer to 1/3 at least. Still, are H1-Bs necesarilly supposed to lead to citizenship? The way I understand it, they are temporary work visas. If immigrants choose to take them, then they should do so with the understanding that it may not lead to citizenship and that they may not even stay the full 6 years. These things are not supposed to be permanent. They are ment to address the supposed shortage as a temporary stop-gap measure. Unfortunately, since education still sucks rather badly in this country, they may end up needing permanent workers simply because the government would rather spend it's money on corporate welfare than on helping the people of this country get a good education.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
And the fellow who immigrated to France to work is also a taxpayer--so this is a dumb argument at best.
Let me just start by saying, these are my experiences. They may or may not in any way apply to you. Please do not flame me with "I am not like that". These are just some recomendations which you can either use or ignore.
First off, when I'm looking for a junior level admin with just a few years of experience I'm going to pay that admin approprately. So if you go interview having just in the last two years picked up UNIX admin skills do not expect me to pay you for your 15 previous years of COBOL programming. Expect to be paid for the skills you are being hired for, not all the skills you have.
Secondly I've found sometimes older workers are sometimes very set in their ways to the point of arguing with the rest of the group on how something should be done and ignoring directives to do it otherwise. It is fine to let your opionion on a process known, but if the group or the group's manager decides on a course of action that's contrary to how you've done it in the past then suck it up and follow it rather than ignore or fight it.
Third, some people have a hard time accepting that their superiors may be 20-somethings fresh out of school. This is just something you will have to accept and if this is a problem you may have to go to a larger/more established company that's set up like a more traditional institution.
One thing you might ask yourself (and I may just get flamed here) is why are you older and not yet in a senior management role? The usual youth working at startups these days are highly ambitious; entry level sysadmin/programmer outa school, department head by 24, VP by 27, rich VC by 30. If you are 40 and still an entry level programmer, then its not that you're old, its that you lack ambition. Companies seek swimmers not floaters.
One thing that should _not_ be held against older employees is their family commitments. I dislike people thinking that because someone has a family that they cannont live/eat/breathe 'the company'. I'll tell you what, I don't have a family and I could never live/eat/breathe any company. Perhaps thats why I'm a contractor. I value my free time enough that if you want me to work 10 hours extra this week you are going to pay me for every minute.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
I think the attitude of "if it's cheaper and faster, grab it and kick out the other guy" is eventually turn around and bite America in the ass. Fifty years ago you saw people spending their entire working lives with one company. They were loyal to that company, and knew that they were a major part of it and felt like a part of that family and wanted to do the best they could to support that family. Those days are long gone. In today's business world, it's "I want it all and I want it now now now." The human factor no longer enters into it. It's all about the bottom line. People are bought and sold and traded just like any other commodity. That means employees AND customers. As long as a company is bringing in the bucks, they could care less about the people involved in bringing in those bucks. As long as the golden eggs keep coming, who cares if the goose that is laying them is starving to death. One day the goose will die and they will be running around wondering what happened. People are any companies most precious resource. Without people, there is no company, no business, no economy. People do their best work in an environment where they feel like they are important, where they feel they are contributing and where they feel like part of the family. Otherwise, they are just collecting a pay check and who gives a damn if the company gets screwed as long as they get their money every pay period. The individual loses and the company loses. It's kind of a Catch 22 if you think about it. Companies don't want to invest a lot of time and money into employees because they think they will just jump ship the second a better offer comes along. Employees don't invest in a company because they know that they are a commodity and that all the company cares about is the bottom line. As long as this mentality remains, companies will use up and dispose of employees at an ever increasing rate, and they quality of work will get worse and worse because no one feels motivated to do their best when they know there is no guarentee that doing your best will get you anywhere. Once companies learn to invest in their employees, feeding and pampering the goose, as it were, this kind of behavior and attitude will continue until it destroys the economy. You will eventually work in a company for 2 weeks, and then get axed for the next best, cheaper thing. People cannot live like that. Industry may be changing, but people's fundamental drives do not change that quickly. There will be a backlash. There will come a day of reckoning when people just will not take it anymore. Companies have to start thinking about long term investments instead of making as much money as they can now and who cares if the well dries up in a year as long as I'm making big bucks NOW! I want it all, and I want it NOW NOW NOW! Future? Who cares about the future? It's NOW that we all have to worry about.
"When you gotta shoot, SHOOT! Don't talk." Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez
As a European, you would cost them more than someone from India or Pakistan. Just as an American would cost the company more than you would.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Plain and simple, people from other countries are more than happy to work for about a third we do and IMHO they tend to work harder and more effectively as well. The line big business is sending Congress is obviously false. But on the other hand it is simple economics and I can't blame them. They want to be competitive so they have to run as lean as possible. Do I like it? That's a completely different story.
--
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
25: ten.knilrevlis@wkcuhc
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
We're working on it. Unfortunately, there are people who make good money stealing via government in each of these countries. These people are entrenched and difficult to disloge. It *does* help if you have cash from a US job to help counteract their own money for votes schemes.
DB
". Such shortages can be erased only by raising wages to attract those with needed skills who are now working in other fields -- or by importing low-paid workers"
I'm waiting for an H1 to come through myself. I'm certainly not low-paid. I'll be making more than the "West Coast median salary for experienced software engineers", and I'm only 25 with just a very fews of experience.
Hey, supply and demand only applies if their selling something, not buying something.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
There's not a great deal of infrastructure required to build (say) a software business, as the primary raw material is the intelligence of your employees. The average US citizen might be shocked to learn that there are about 5.75 billion people outside the US ;-), and that population has about the same intelligence distribution as the US population enjoys! In other words, there are about 23 smart people outside the US for every smart person inside. If they remain there, many of them will end up competing in intellectual businesses with US concerns and given that wages outside the US are significantly lower, they'll eventually compete very effectively. Just look at the size of the software industry in India, for example and think about the wages there.
Bringing as many of the smart people as possible to the US is the only way to mitigate the globalisation effect in the long run.
I do believe that MIT/CalTech/CMelon/Berkeley
all have better _computer_science programs than Cambridge/Waterloo.
That's true, correct?
Sure, the world doesn't revolve around the US, but it does have it's highlights.
there is no thing
what else could you want?
Yeah and Canadian Beer is good...I have one word for you buddy: SPAM.
Sig it.
I don't know where you live but I get paid 53k a year in an IT job, I have three kids, a wife who loves Wal-Mart, 3 dogs, a cat two guinea pigs, and a computer hardware/software fetish and a sushi habbit to feed and I live quite comfortably on that. In reality I'm living my current lifestyle on about 28k. Remember there are some people who still work well below even the 1k a year salary. And I'm really tired of hearing about cheap foreign labor. All of the people that I work with in my shop that have come in on visa's get paid the same as I do and some even more depending on their skills. As for older programmers about 1/3 of our programmers are over 50. We have problems in our shop finding competent labor. We have plenty of people willing to say that they have Java/AS400/C++/Cobol experience but very little of those people actually have the experience or competence that we need.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
There are a lot of companies (mine included [shameless plug]) which will, quite literally, hire any competent people it can get its hands on. We pay relocation costs for people outside our area, we look into telecommuting for people who don't want to relocate, we pay egregiously high salaries.
None of that matters, because the bodies aren't available. We will look at people who have H1-B visas, we will look at people who are not currently in the software industry, we'll look at anybody who can help us grow. The people aren't available.
I think one of the central disconnects here is the difference between software development firms (who simply need good people and can't find them) and non-software-firms (who might be doing some bad things, but I don't know).
As long as we keep the distinctions between teh two, the debate can go on. Otherwise it's ships passing in the night.
Thank you for this link its very informative on this issue (much more than most of the posts in the thread).
The point by point refutation of the industry position is both detailed and mostly very depressing. I have seen the skill escalation going on in job descriptions and agree that this is going to eventually end up with the companies losing qualified applicants who could contribute to their success.
I would like to know if anyone has refuted any of the author's points successfully or if the industry and polititians are simply trying to ignore the points the author makes in hopes that no one will notice.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
People quite naturally are dismissive of anything they can't do; "If I'm not good at it, it must not be important."
Jocks are well thought of by society because they are able to function under intense pressure.
The lessons I have learned in athletics throughout my life have been very useful to me in intellectual pursuits.
look at all the big sports schools. georgetown has one of the best law schools in the USA. duke has good law and medical schools.
Heh...just what we need; more lawyers for RIAA/MPAA
Doh!
Jared Diamond's book - Guns, Germs, and Steel - analyzes how technology developed and why the globe is the way it is today. His theory is that when a new technology is invented in an isolated society, it progresses slowly or is lost due to the small number of people using it. In contrast, when a highly interactive society develops technology, it gets passed on to other societies, gets modified and blended with other technologies and rapidly improves.
Around 1000-1400 AD, china was the world's superpower - they had everything, massive ships, gunpowder, paper, etc. But they locked up their society and refused to let any foreigners in or explore other worlds. Many historians speculate that this is why China lost its edge, as the rest of the world rapidly interacted and exchanged technology (Arab and Hindu math, Greek geometry, Roman military and legal systems.) One might say that the US is at the center of a vibrant exchange - no other country accepts so many immigrants with so many ideas and philosophies. Just note how many recent Nobel winners are foreign born US citizens.
In other words, a society that confidently relies on its own greatness and closes its doors loses its edge. This is probably why "Fortress Europe", with so many restrictions on the movement of foreign employees and companies, does not attract the kind of talent the US does.
w/m
How come people on Slashdot are all for freedom except when this subject of allowing foreigners into the US comes up?
It would be good to see to it that people are paid reasonable wages, so that competition is fair, but (IMHO) it's unethical to prevent them from doing their job because they don't have the right passport.
Their passport is a completely irrelevant document as far as their skills are concerned.
Compete on skills, not birthrights.
Say what you will negatively about the USian education system, but at least any American with a bit a gumption can go on to college, and make a better life for themselves. You work a part time job, you take out student loands, eventually you get a degree and you get a better job and you've made something of yourself, due to your own hard work, it's the American way.
Contrast that with, say, Britain, where forget about going to someplace like Oxford unless you've been to the right public (an oxymoron, they're public if your family's been going there for a few centuries, what a grandfather clause) school and you're a landed peer.
Another hint as to why America's productivity far exceeeds the UK, we encourage strivers and self made people.
Instead of giving foreign workers H1Bs, which bind them to a company, why not give them green cards? That way, they don't have to worry about working for slave wages and companies will have to pay prevailing wage. Competition for jobs will be based on capability then, not nationality.
There's actually a petition going around supporting this, signed by luminaries including non other than Linus Torvalds himself. You can find the link at:www.immigrationreform.com.
Then again, why would the US want to import the smartest and brightest of the world's talent?
You wouldn't happen to work in Memphis, TN, would you? Around here, we don't have to worry about H1-B's. Of course, there aren't ANY kind of software development jobs here. I would welcome anyone in Memphis to prove me wrong. FredEx doesn't count.
RiotNrrd
If you run into 38 engineers who are looking for work, just send them to us.
Thanks.
A labor union is.. an additional boss, only he takes instead of gives you money.
I don't want someone telling me when I should work and when I shouldn't (strike). Telling me how much I should be paid (union-negotiated contracts), and which political party I should donate my money to (union political contributions). It all comes down to having yet another boss.
Thanks to unions in california we've got rules that say I have to work 8 hours a day 5 days a week with very little leeway. Anyone in the tech sector knows that sometimes you are struck with inspiration and work 16 hours in a day, or come in and just feel uninspired and leave after two hours. I would much rather have the ability to tell my employer "okay, I'll work 10 hours four days a week", or "I'll bust my ass the next few weeks to get the new server farm built but then I'm gonna take it easy for awhile" then to have some labor union bought legistation telling me the hours I am allowed to keep.
If you don't like your employer's policies, ask him to change them. If he doesn't go work somewhere else. If you don't have enough balls to take charge of your own life then go be an auto worker or something.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
...don't feel that I'm being exploited, overworked, or underpaid. I'm also Canadian, so I didn't feel I had to leave my country just to escape political repression :-).
And as far as my company goes, I'd have to
say there really _is_ a serious shortage of
competent people. I amazes me how many people
claim to years of computer experience (including
hacking Linux), but don't understand simple
concepts such as semaphores and mutexes, various
automated garbage collection strategies, time
order analysis, difference between disk seek/
latency/transfer rate, the role of cache, etc.
etc. etc.
Four years ago, things might've been different--
I wasn't in the US at that time. However, demand
has grown greatly over that time, but supply
has not (and can't grow really rapidly--it's
fairly inelastic, which is why rasing salaries
is at best a temporary measure, all it does is
steal competent people from other companies).
Now that I'm in, it would be to my personal
benefit to support restricting H1-B's, but the
truth is, I think the current economy could
absorb just about all the good people it could
find.
Of course this is Internet time. Who knows what
things will be like 6 months from now :-)
And, for what it's worth, I'm 36, and haven't
encountered any problem with age discrmination
(though I do feel old compared to some of those
young whippersnappers :-) )
Hope this was useful.
AC
I know I shouldn't bite, but are you really this bloody stupid?
But liberal revisionist is rampant in USia, and has been since the 60s when the liberals managed to work their way into the educational system. Their policies of guilt have been written into every "history" textbook in an attempt to suppress the truth - that your "Native Americans" are no more native to USia than we are.
Using that argument, we should also argue that humans are not native to any region of the Earth, except from a narrow strip of savanna in Africa. That is, we are all African--and arguing that anyone is "native" to Europe or Asia or whereever is as stupid as arguing that "native Americans" aren't native to America.
While there is a grain of truth to the assertion we are all African, I believe it's not unreasonable to presume that any group of people who settle a region previously uninhabited by humans, who create in relative isolation a unique culture--and who evolve physiological differences because of their environment and relative isolation--could be argued as "native" to that land.
Hense, native Americans. Hense, Arians. Hense, Asians.
As a native American, the "crime" that was committed against our people is twofold. First, significant damage was done to native American culture as foreigners who arrived in America after years of isolation did significant cultural damage, as well as killed a number of my relatives and ancestors. Second, laws were enacted which (even within my relatively short lifetime) discriminated against native Americans. (For example, my mother was not legally allowed to drink alcohol in Arizona until the late 60's, dispite being well over drinking age. Or that one policy that California batted around when creating the California Indian registration laws was to tattoo the registration number (mine is 69065) on Indian's forearms in order to expite recognition.)
I will be the first to agree that there is a lot of "liberal bullshit" out there with regards to native Americans. But this ain't it.
Indeed, evidence that white men lived in America some 10,000 years ago has been suppressed by the liberal establishment because it contradicts their position on this matter. Don't be fooled by their fables.
One skull, hotly debated as to if it looks like Jean-Luc Piccard--and this is evidence that whites were in America 10,000 years ago? What is clear is that people were here 10,000 years ago, and--white or not--they had a unique hunter-gatherer culture which was wiped out when the Spanards and later the English arrived here.
Same experience here. Nearly every job I've had over the last 20 years was obtained through a personal contact, in most cases through someone who really didn't know anything about my actual work.
agreed. That is misleading. Plus, students in areas where I live read these surveys and say "I should make $50,000 right out of school. In reality, an entry-level programming job is low/mid 30s here.
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
The IT labor shortage is very real and I have noticed. A while back I was setting up a computer for somebody to do a presentation to another company, and I was asked to tell who I was and what position I was.. when I told them I was the IT Support Professional, they were offering me jobs in Seattle. The company that I currently work for had no IT department before me (and now one other person is in it) and they had about 140 people. I have no idea how they survived.
The US has a long tradition of stealing the best and the brightest from other countries. After all, it's way cheaper for the US taxpayer to have its highly skilled labor trained by the Indian government... If America's goal is to continue this tradition, while making sure that companies don't abuse the H1B mechanism, the INS would have to be given funding to properly screen IT H1B applications. If the goal is to fill IT research positions with Americans exclusively, the schools need to make their sweatshops, I mean PhD programs more attractive to US students.
This reminds me of 'long ago', about '92 I think it was. I was getting ready to finish my first degree, an Associates in Electronic Engineering Technologies. All the professional industry magazines that I was reading kept proclaiming what a shortage of technical workers there was. I was so excited to be earning a degree in field with such a demand.
I graduated with about 20 other guys. I got lucky and landed a job in a union shop where I got about $10/hr. The best the others could find were some jobs paying $7/hr. As a point of reference, the job I had to get through school was as a security guard. I sat at a desk and had people sign a paper when they came in. I made $6/hr.
It's been said often, but never loudly enough. The shortage isn't of qualified workers. The shortage is of qualified workers who will give their services away for free.
Why isn't there a shortage of qualified CEOs for technical oriented companies? If colleges aren't putting out enough people who know how to program, how are they putting out enough who know how to manage programmers? Someone should argue before Congress that the increase in H1-B for technical workers should be tied to an increase in H1-B for management positions.
A popular mechanic was so busy that he couldn't handle all his paperwork, so he hired a secretary. She wasn't qualified to keep the books, so he had to hire an accountant. Before long, he needed an office manager. It wasn't long before the accountant noticed that the company was running in the red, so the office personel had a meeting to discuss ways to cut the budget. The first suggestion came from the office manager. "I know," he said, "let's get rid of that guy out back."
A professional guild would go a long way toward establishing guidelines for what should be expected of a professional engineer and what are acceptable working conditions. I shy away from 'union', because the term has become to be synonomous with 'racket', and very few engineers want to deal with having a second boss (I've worked in a union shop, and that is exactly what a union boils down to). The guild would set guidelines for behaviour versus negotiating contracts. You could still work 70hr weeks, but it would be understood that you were working more than what is reasonable (which it is!!).
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
One of the things which this guy's analysis leaves out is there are many different types of "I/T Workers", and what might be true for one class of techies might not be true for others. There's a big difference between someone who is a systems programmer, an SAP R/3 or Oracle Financials Business Programmer, an Oracle DBA, or a Web HTML/Code Fusion/PHP jockey.
So when we talk about there being plenty of "older programmers" in the U.S., do they have the right skill set? Are they willing to learn the latest stuff? It doesn't help if we have a lot of mainframe programmers, for example. I remember one fellow in particular who thought that $30,000 for a web server that ran on an IBM mainframe was cheap, and wasn't it cool that he could put his project web page on the mainframe? I didn't have the heart to tell him that that much money would have purchased several cheap Unix/Linux boxes for which Apache would be free.
I also think that the issue of "ageism" is a red herring. (The "I can run a web server on a mainframe guy" wasn't over 30.) There are plenty of younger programmers who don't know what the heck they are doing; there are also plenty of really smart people who happy to be fairly light in their years (take Linus Torvalds, for example; he's well under 30). Similarly, there are plenty of older folks who stuck in the mud, not willing to learn anything new beyond the Cobol of their youth, and there are also those folks who might be chronologically young, but who are always willing to learn the latest stuff, and who have the benefit of learning certain lessons the hard way, and whose hard-earned experience is extremely valuable. It works both ways.
Speaking as someone who has been on both sides of the management/technical fence, it's not so easy to find competent engineers. Sure you can pay more money, but that isn't necessarily going to do it. In the Silicon Valley, companies are paying huge amounts of money for engineers, and from what I can tell, they still have large numbers of positions going unfilled.
As for me as a purely technical engineer, I'm not particularly worried about having foreigners compete with me for jobs. There will always be a need for really good, competent engineers. The real risk comes to those who just know how to do HTML, or just know how to futz with Microsoft Front Page, and who calls him or herself "an I/T worker". When the oversupply of I/T workers hits (and it will --- give it 5 or 10 years), those folks will be out of a job, because if you're still only doing HTML jockeying when you're 45, you have rocks for brains if you think that your seniority means that you deserve more money than the someone fresh out of college who can do the same thing. Companies pay people for what their jobs are worth, not just because they've warmed the same seat in a company for 15 years. (Or at least, they should. The reason why many engineers I know dislike unions is because they haven't figured out that this seniority pay thing is abhorrent to most engineers. That concept might work for the Teamsters, but not for engineers.)
Heh. Judging by the response your suggestion has garnered thus far, I wonder how many of our happy crew of /. union-bashers put their money where their collective mouths were and worked on Labour Day for their standard rate?
Well I'm well below 50k a year where I live, hell a starting networkign job (my fortee) will earn you about 25k a year if your lucky because companies here knwo techies are desperate...
As for a family living on 50k a year... Well that's about what my parents have made in the past between 3 jobs (it will be about 40k this year for instance) & you want to know what happened when I tried going to college? I got screwed and my parents got screwed... The financial aid people said "well 50k a year they don't need much help" and so I eanded up having to pay ~$150/month (would have been more than half my incoming salary to start & I still had to have a car to get a job) of my own money if I was going to go to college. Well even though I moved a couple hundred miles away to be in a big city I couldn't find a job while in college to pay enough to live on and ~$150/month so my parents tried to help me up, by getting a 'parent loan' to cover that extra. Well to end this story quickly my parents recently had to file for bankrupcy before I could finish college and most places still wouldn't pay me enough to live on whiel paying for colelge so I got the wonderful opurtunity to get 2 semesters away from completing college and then I was forced to quit.
Wonderful what living on ~50k a year will do for you...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Yeah, that's right - if every company increases the money they pay, suddenly the Good IT workers will work for them and there won't be an IT skills shortage.
While where at it, here's how to MAKE MONEY FAST...
Increasing salaries industry-wide isn't going to increase the pool of talent or decrease the amount of work that needs to be done. Rapidly rising salaries are in fact a sign of a skills shortage, and salaries now are up to three times what they were 10 years ago, which comes to what, two to two and a half times adjusted for inflation?
Raising the salary bar is a solution that can help one company attract candidates over another company - it is not a solution to an industry-wide shortage. Basic mathematics tells you that.
The real problem is that the universities don't teach people the right things (or very few do anyway, and the ones that do don't teach people enough of it). They teach people languages and algorithms, when they should be teaching people research and problem solving skills so that people can learn new languages in no time and find the algorithms, or develop new algorithms.
It's also not so much a case of the smart person is the one who "can figure it out", although the smart person can always figure it out, but the smart person is the one who is motivated to figure it out, and treats it as their personal mission to do so - like any skill, figuring it out is something that improves with practice.
Or, in other words, thinking that you can't figure things out (that is, asking others all the time) is a self fulfilling prophecy, and dooms that person to incompetence.
I am the director of development (which means little, I program and sys admin all day) for a large, well-respected company and are responsible for the hiring of my team. I am 2 years out of school with a CS degree making well into the six figures. I make that because I know what the heck I am doing and would classify myself as a COMPETENT ENGINEER. 9 out of 10 engineers I interview state-side are not competent. So, I look abroad and have enlarged my pool of engineers. H1B's make only slightly less than their American counterparts. My office knows about the 90% rule and complies fully with it. As a matter of fact we are closer to 100%. The US has the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years. It is not my responsibility or moral obligation to hire unqualified IT personnel because their ancestors made the choice to immigrate here and a qualified candidate's ancestors did not.
I have to say that there is indeed a huge shortage of competent IT engineers in a number of different fields. One cannot lump all IT professionals together. For example, where I work we desparately need engineers with strong embedded and TCP/IP experience, people with board layout experience, and so forth. One can't take a COBAL or Visual Basic programmer and throw them onto a VxWorks embedded networking project that deals with things like PPP stacks, L2TP, PPPoE, virtual routing, and so forth. It requires specific experience and it isn't something most of us can learn overnight. By the time someone comes up to speed with networking, the project will be done.
We have had a difficult time getting resumes in Silicon Valley. So we ran some ads in a few large technology centers in India. We got 800 resumes, with at least 60 of them being quite promising. Now before someone says I'm just another person who went through the H-1 visa process, let me say that I was born and raised in what became Silicon Valley, and my family goes back to the 1850s in California.
In the networking industry (i.e. embedded development) I have found that most of the programmers are Indian, at least 90%. This goes for the last three companies I have worked at and for every one I've interviewed at. Even companies like Cisco has trouble filling positions, and the makeup there has a huge Indian population.
One of the reasons for this is that in India getting a computer engineering degree is held in the same high regard as someone over here getting a medical or law degree.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
It's pretty simple why I, a libertarian kinda dude, do not support increasing H1B visas.
The H1B system is nothing more than endentured servitude, a near-slavery system which hopefully is still covered in history classes in public school. H1B employees are forced to work for the company that brought them over or be sent back. The companies who bring them over often give them 'relocation loans' which are due back if the employee leaves. Thus the employer entices over workers for what seems like alot of money but in reality is hardly enough to survive in Silicon Valley. The employee has to work long hours in poor working conditions, and often poor living conditions (because of what they can't afford). H1B's are of course a good way for corporations to get cheap skilled labor that is easily abuseable, instead of hiring and training US citizens. I speak from experience, contracting for several Silicon Valley companies.
Sure, let forigners come here and apply for citizenship; but don't ship them in like product.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
There is another option beyond opening the borders and go fix your own country. It's expand the US. We could make out very well with a chunk of Siberia under US territorial law. Even a 100 year deal a la Hong Kong would work out well for all concerned. The US has one great feature, its laws and the system that enforces them. There's no reason that can't be exported to everybody's profit.
DB
I have to deal with many of these fresh visa computer "geeks" from outside the US. and unfortunately, that are really good at some things, but they cannot communicate worth beans. There are 3 technicians that I have to call on a regular basis and I cannot understand a word they day... Bernard, (who's name sounds like banam when he says it) is an excellent tech but cannot speak clear english to save his life, and therefore makes him a worthless telephone support tech in the USA. Yet, where do we put him? A large portion of the hirings are to get cheap labor.. Paying them less than what a seasoned US tech is worth saves them money.
I'm sorry, but if we havent employed all the US trech's whay the hell are we importing some? (I know, why do we import cars when all the US cars arent sold yet? because US cars are overpriced? Because US cars are crap compared to Forign? or is it to just get some cheap cars...)
Everything made outside the USA is cheaper than what Is made here.... the TECH's from outside the US are cheaper than "Made in the USA" techs...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And if you don't believe it, try this simple test:
Is there a person in your office who always seems to be able to get the hardware/software to do what (s)he wants? Someone that all questions percolate towards when no one else can figure it out? Someone who is good at "researching issues"?
That person doesn't possess any special magical powers, they are simply competent. By contrast, the other people are what? Incompetent, yes.
That's not to say you shouldn't ask questions for fear of looking incompetent. But if all the questions come from a large subset of your employees and go to a small subset of your employees you have a problem with competency.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
I have worked with a lot of H1 workers. Here is what I have gathered so far.
I have noticed that in general they are not hackers, in fact, 99.4 percent of them are basic non imaginative coders.
They do not always have a degree in Computer Science or IT or any computer related fields. The H1B requirement I am told is a bachelor degree plus 3 years experience or a Masters Degree. It doesn't matter if they have degree in nutritional science or botony, as long as the experience is in IT.
Their three year experience in 70 percent of the cases is fake. The INS doesn't verify that what they list on their resumes is correct. They believe what the candidate or the company submits to them.
Have you ever thought that if the united states doesn't produce more than 30,000 IT people a year, how does india produce 200,000? Yeah they have a billion people but over 70 percent of them are illiterate, That leaves 300 million educated, with not enough universities to go around for everyone. No how many genuine IT workers they produce per year? 15,000. So have you ever thought how many fake application are submitted by Indians every year to get H1 visas?
The INS and the US embassies abroad need to establish a test for IT workers, not unlike the test for P.E. in the US. Only those workers that pass the test should be allowed. Background checks are a must. A certified degree in IT field should be required, not just any bachelors or masters degree, because we can get US works with the same qualifications too.
What happens when the economy starts lagging and these H1 holders have now become green carders? They fight US citizens for the jobs that are not there any more. So lets not make them citizens or green carders, lets make them go back after their visa expires.
So yeah lets increase the quotas but lets watch who comes in and who goes out.
Importing slave labor for the sole purpose of wage control, I've got a problem with that. According to the article, average west coast IT salaries have gone, up in real terms, 1% per year since 1990. Real shortages make real wage increases. MS and others are importing these folks to abuse them in ways that are illeagal.
Show me something bigoted, dead beast.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
There's a crackhead, George Bush voter for you.
Out of all the hundreds of articles that could be posted on a daily basis, why an article with a bad picture of me? Rob, that was cruel and heartless.
( As if it wasn't bad enough *JUST* in the Times. )
If there was really a shortage, they would be teaching C++, Perl, XML, Java, Fusion or whatever during lunch to anyone who is interested in learning. Instead, they limit those "advanced" courses to employees who already are in IT jobs.
Today, anybody can learn the hottest technologies (e.g., Linux, Win32, Python, Perl, VC++, C++, UML, Java, Apache) by going to the web and doing stuff on their home computer. They can even make a name for themselves by contributing to, or leading, open source projects. That's different from the past, where learning new technologies required expensive hardware and software, and where documentation and information was scarce; in the past, the primary institutions that could provide professional training were companies.
Systems and software jobs these days require that everybody on the team has a good understanding of techniques and tools out there that are relevant to the problem. That requires that each and every one stays informed and up to date with their field. That's a hallmark of professionalism. People who apply and expect the company to figure out what they need to know and retrain them accordingly are turned down not because of the time and expense of retraining, but because the notion that the company should provide training for widely available technologies is seen as unprofessional: it suggests that the employee would lack the initiative and interest to function well in the long run.
So, what does it take to get an H-1B?
The regs are complex (which is how immigration lawyers charge firms 8-10K to process H-1B visas), but you can find them at http://www.ins.gov/
The process takes anywhere from 6 to 20 weeks depending on the state you apply in, and the number of visas that have been issued that year. It is not a simple process, and *many* employers refuse point-blank to go through such an arduous procedure.
That said, the process has been abused by a small group of employeers, called body-shoppers. The usual recruitment strategy by a body-shopper works like follows. Recruit someone in India (or another country, but India is the most common source), process an H1-B for them, and when they arrive in the US, contract their services out to another firm for substantially more than they are being paid. Another common set of abuse are Universities (actually particular labs within certain Universities) that hire post-docs at pittance wages. But the lot of all post-docs is terrible, the ones on H1-Bs just a little more so.
H1-B workers who do not work for a body-shoppers or Universities make about the same (often more) than our US counterparts.
A brief note on qualifications. Having worked in Universities in the US, and having studied in both under-graduate and graduate programs, I must say that obtainaing a PhD is neither great shakes (even at the best schools) and most definitely does not signify you will attain any success outside of academia. In fact, the skills requried to survive many graduate programs may well make you unemployable, since they include both subservience (to professor-gods) and lack of imagination (it's amazing just how mundane and boring most research is).
By the way, did you know H1-B workers are taxed without representation?
The question of re-training older workers has been adequately addressed by other posts. What I would point out is that requests for paternalism , especially when made to the state, are self-destructive. If a person who happened to be born in another country has been able to acquire skills that you don't have despite the larger set of opportunities available in the US, what right do you have to require other taxpayers to correct your inability to take an initiative?
That's quite a mouthful of facts and observations. But what do I think/believe?
First off, I believe in the open and free movement of individuals across this Earth. I believe everyone should be able to work, live, and play wherever they want without impediment from governments, as long as they have the means to sustain themselves via consensual transactions with other individuals.
I find immigration procedures demeaning, bureaucratic, racist, I could go on but why bother. Have you ever wondered what immigration officials make people who look even vaguely middle-eastern, or South American go through?
The free movement of all economic resources (including human labor) is the only way for humanity to achieve its full potential. Saying that certain opportunities should be available to individuals who happen to have been born in a particular geographic region is the same as claiming that people of a particular color, race or sex have certain rights that others don't.
And Puh-lease, the US is the last place on Earth that can lay a justly claim a right to refuse entry to anyone. After all, the theft of the North American continent from the indigenous people occured not more than 9 generations ago. Americans of course, are not the only people who have a monopoly on moral blinders, but we're talking about H1-Bs.
BTW, I work for a European bank that has operations in the US and 70 other countries. We move a lot of people around the world as project, client and market needs change. Obtaining authorization to work in European and Asian countries is often mmuch ore difficult than in the US. Which is probably what explains the great success of the US (try to look into the personal histories of senior executives/founders at Sun Microsystems, I2, Computer Associates, Hotmail, Exodus, Junglee, Cirrus Logic, Cascade Communications, I could go on but why bother, look at http://www.tie.org/ yourself). Global organizations require global work-forces, and it's better to wake up to that fact now.
-- Equity lord of the Trill Consortium
Neither are green card holders. You have to live in the U.S. for five years with a green card before you can apply for citizenship.
but they are in the minority, and most of them excel in one particular sport, not all sports, right? My understanding is Duke, Wake Forest, and UNC have good basketball teams. UNC has a good women's soccer team. Georgetown is also up there in academics, and their best sports team is basketball. My knowledge is limited, as UNC-Chapel Hill is in the top 50 academically, and I don't know if that's the main UNC campus or a satellite. In retrospect I probably should have said I didn't see many of the top 20 schools as having large athletic programs, but again, there are exceptions as Duke is ranked 8th, Stanford is ranked 6th, and Notre Dame is 19th. My point should have been that the schools that make employer's eyebrows raise when they see them on a resume typically don't have great sports teams.
Moller
Who's excluding anybody? I mentioned Siberia because we have a history of this with the Russians (Alaska) and didn't mention Canada and Mexico also for historical reasons (war, invasion, & forced territory transfers). Anybody who wants to become a territory should be allowed to apply and clear preconditions for it should be laid out.
DB
In practice, there are lots of ways around that. For example, in Silicon Valley where I work on an H-1B, it's quite common for companies to use the OLS (sp?) survey from 1998 for the North Western US region. There are at least three reasons why that fails to capture prevailing wages - it's 2 years old, the job categories in the survey are fairly broad and don't capture demand for specific skills and wages in the Valley are a lot higher than in most of the rest of the region. I suspect also that the survey doesn't take into account years of experience either (a common ommission used by HR departments to argue that they're paying you what everyone else gets paid...)
I've seen several salaries in the H-1B notice (that was required to be posted in the workplace for a few weeks during the H-1B application process) that were significantly under market rates, and yet significantly higher than the survey, and thus satisfactory to the INS.
If US citizens really care about wage pressure for foreign workers, the best thing they can do is to lobby for real enforcement (and visa portability, but that's another issue). If H-1B workers actually cost more than locals, who do you think the employer would prefer? Us H-1B slaves would also be a lot happier :-)
For the most part, there is no shortage of IT people, unless you live in Silicon Valley. Recently I graduated from a good engineering school, with a degree in comp sci, expecting to move to CA and find a job in a matter of weeks, well life changed that. I ended up moving to Atlanta and after three months of looking am still unemployed. What's the deal, I graduated with above average credentials and a lot of work experience but can't get a recruiter to talk to me. I've posted on a large number of job search engines, 12 to be exact, and on numerous corporate sites. I've suspended my goal of working for a startup and am willing to consider just about anything at this point, even flipping burgers.
So here is what I feel the real problem is, time after time I see the phrase 1-2 yrs. exp required and a link to an email address that often read hr@blahblahblah.com. Well I've talked to a couple of HR people and they have no clue what's going on, but they are all too willing to say, "we are looking for somebody with more experience." Another problem that I see is that companies are not willing to take a recent grad and give them the training they need, after all how many college students know how to program/use COM/DCOM, ATL, XML, Oracle, and on and on. Last I checked very few universities offer classes in these technologies.
"When I die, I want to go quietly, like my grandfather, in his sleep... not screaming, like the passengers in his car."