235,000 Software Engineers Can't Be Wrong, Right?

jgeelan writes "The Boston Globe has carried a report on how 235,000 engineers and computer scientistsl are calling on Congress to study the impact of the country's H1-B visa program, the recession, and the outsourcing of jobs overseas on the unemployment rate of engineers and other information technology professionals. It's an issue that's bubbling on discussion sites all over America too, though in one case developers (Java developers in this instance) seem completely unable to agree on whether H1-B is really a contributing factor or not."

Comments

hold on a second

[Lord Omlette]

235,000 software engineers got together and slashdot didn't cover it? Who dropped the fucking ball here?!

IEEE-USA? Well bully for them! Did all 235,000 members send in their support or did a majority vote on this or did the publicity arm send this out on behalf of those people who are members?

They're whining about 4.8-5.3% unemployment!?!

[Robber Baron]

Sheesh! Any economist will tell you that frictional unemployment is 6%! What that means is if you have 100 workers and 100 jobs, at any given moment 6 of them will be unemployed (going to school, bumming around Europe, dropping a kid, "finding themselves", or just jerking off). Anything less than 6% indicates a shortage of workers!

Re:H1B's are GOOD for America

[ronfar]

Foreigners have made considerable contributions to technology in the US. The Manhattan project team had large numbers of refugees in it. Important parts of the team that put man on the moon came from the German rocket program. Andy Grove and a number of other high tech pioneers came from outside the US. Bringing in foreigners is smart.

This is true, I'm completely in favor of allowing in new immigrants. However, H1Bs are not immigrants. H1Bs are sojourners, as you will find out when your H1B period ends.

The correct way to handle H1B visas is to make them into real greencards and eliminate them as sojourner visas. Hey, I don't want my cousin-in-law to be forced to go back to Thailand when her H1B visa ends.

Your other quote just points out another problem with the H1B process:

Finally, the US government even makes a profit on H1B processing. To get an H1B processed costs $1125. I've heard that the average processing time is in the order of fractions of an hour.

This will actually distort the process, since government officials tend not to want to eliminate revenue whatever the source. (However, I wouldn't object to it as much if H1Bs were brought in as real immigrants and not sojourners.)

One last thing, your quote:

There are, of course, abuses, as there is in any scheme, but overall the program is a good idea.

We shouldn't just accept abuses, we should take care of them however we can. One way would be to fast track H1Bs to real greencards. In this way, we would eliminate certain deficiencies in the program that allow for abuses.

So much BS about H1-B

[Alioth]

There's too many myths about H1-B. Being a former H1-B (and prior to that, L1) worker, I've seen it for myself. I've now moved back home instead of doing the green card thing because (a) the INS dehumanization process is too humiliating, and living in the United States is just not worth going through that bullshit, and (b) the Isle of Man is just much nicer than Houston :-) and (c) the quality of life is much better for workers here - 4 weeks vacation when you're hired and a 37 hour work week instead of ungodly hours and 2 weeks vacation if you're lucky.

Myths:

• H1-B workers are paid less than U.S. workers. This is in fact illegal. I was actually paid more than my co-workers. Also the company had to go through the expense of the H1 process, which is bureaucratic, officious and generally a pain in the arse.
• H1-B workers are hired in preference to U.S. workers. I never did see any evidence of this. U.S. workers who got let go (I was in the U.S. during the boom years) were let go because they didn't make the grade - simple as that.
• H1-B workers are now being hired in preference to U.S. workers. According to other posters, most job ads now are specifying U.S. citizens or permanent residents only. H1-B workers are locked out of these jobs.

It seems that the article is more sour grapes than anything else. Don't get me wrong - I don't dislike the United States, but I feel it's a better place to go on vacation than to actually live. Especially with the post-9/11 restrictions on the freedoms that actually made the country attractive in the first place.

H1-B "Problem" is self-correcting

[Scot Seese]

My fiance' moved to the US from Sweden about five months ago. With a Masters' degree from one of Europe's most prestigious CompSci/Engineering universities, a Sun java certification, and several years' proven experience with some of Europe's largest IT consulting firms doing SQL programming, PHP/ASP scripting, Java & Linux development - We had one hell of a time finding an employer in the US to sponsor her.

Nearly all of the firms with listings in our area flatly stated that they would not sponsor. Most of them print this in their ads. The reasons are simple:

1. $1,000 sponsorship fee, paid to US Government
2. $1,000 15-day H1B premium processing fee, payable by employee. If you don't chose this option, paperwork takes 3-5 months.
3. $130 filing fee.
4. An absolute blizzard of paperwork. We were unable to find an immigration attorney in our city that even understood the process. (South Bend, Indiana) - We ended up retaining a high-caliber immigration specialist from Houston TX. Their fee? $1,750.

It's safe to say that none but the Fortune 1000 are willing to tackle the expense or have the expertise in handling the daunting forms.

We finally found a local company willing to sponsor her, a local health care facility. They were very excited to get her, offered to hire her on the spot and reimbursed half her expenses. Why? *drumroll* - The position went unfilled for nearly five months as they were unable to find a qualified person locally.

She is most certainly not being taken advantage of, having been offered a salary very much in line with her duties and educational background.

Say what you will about the H1-B, but we can certainly tell you - It's alot harder to get sponsored than you think.

Re:H1B's = Lack of Jobs for US Citizens

[Preposterous Coward]

The government has one purpose, and that's to serve the people it represents. If it allows companies to hire foreign workers at the expense of American citizens, that's a problem.

Right, and the people it represents include business owners, managers, shareholders, and consumers in addition to employees. If Sun can hire an immigrant engineer for half the price of an equally qualified American -- or someone who will do twice as much at the same price -- as a Sun customer I would be happy to benefit from that. (Note that the H1B program is actually supposed to require comparable pay, though from what I can tell that's routinely flouted.)

And actually, if I really wanted to be cynical, I'd repeat something my high-school U.S. history teacher once said: government has a single purpose, and that single purpose is to perpetuate its own existence (on an individual level, to get re-elected).

Re:work goes to BS-artists, not best techy

[Stu Charlton]

"I have not met too many people who I think are good at both. There is only so much CPU power to go around in the head."

While I agree there aren't too many that are good at both, that doesn't mean that one shouldn't aspire to it. :)