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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."
Clearly time to trot out Dr Matloff again
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.html
there is no `tech boom', never was (not since 70s at least); it's a ploy to generate cheap labour, the H1-1 campaigns part of that
Why don't we just make sure the competent folks get/keep their jobs instead of worrying about someone's country of origin? Heaven knows there are enough incompentent American programmers who are still employed....
What is your Slash Rating?
I've perused the listings at monster and dice and most seem to be head hunters looking for somebody that is proficient in everything from ADA to VB or somebody with 3+ years of professional .NET experience or 10 years of Java. Could the problem be that the people doing the hiring don't even know what they want so they let positions go unfilled?
I don't think it's racism - I just think we need to reverse the trend of bringing in more and more people to do jobs that aren't there. Nobody is saying that we need to "throw anybody out", just limit the number of visas coming in. Remember when companies like Microsoft were bitching that there weren't enough tech workers in the U.S., so they had the number of visas increased?? Well, we don't need to keep that high number anymore. I didn't take that as a racist post at all.
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!
You're using her as bait, Master!
... is not the competition, you have to just deal with that. The problem is for the HB1 workers... it's practically indentured servitude. It's difficult to leave the company you are supposed to work for. The company gains a level of control over the persons personal life that is anathema to the basic freedoms modern workers should expect.
-pyrrho
Yes, why argue the facts when you can "jump" to conclusions. Did you buy one of those mats that guy in Office Space invented and just use it prior to making this post? Because I think you did.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
their inability to find work even when they hold advanced degrees and are skilled in Java or C++, the programming languages most in demand.
What about those foreigners who hold advanced degrees and are skilled in Java or C++ and can't get work because their own countries are poor and lack industry and they arn't allowed to work in the US? They have just as much right to work as anyone else and they and the companies who hire them shouldn't be punished by protectionist policies. This is the same mentality that lead to exorbiant tariffs on BC lumber (causing massive unemployment and immense damage to BC's economy). Protectionism just doesn't work and all the US will do is harm an already hurting tech industry.
I stole this Sig
Allowing a reasonable number of well trained foreigners into the US is a very smart idea. Just think about how much it costs the US government to educate a single citizen. People are a cost on society until they are at least 18. Via H1B programs you can get people that another country has paid for to come and contribute.
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.
It probably does make some impact on salaries in the short term, but the benefit is that by getting bright people into the US it helps keep the US as the world's leading developer of technology. So I'd argue that the overall effect is positive on salaries. There are, of course, abuses, as there is in any scheme, but overall the program is a good idea.
It is interesting to note that a number of European countries, Germany especially, have picked up on the idea that H1B like visas are a good idea. I'm totally annoyed that my home country is notoriously difficult for educated people to emigrate to. Personally, it's one of the US's great strengths and more countries should behave in this way.
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.
You either bring Adit over here on an H1B, or send the software to India to be written by his company in Bangalore.
Either way, it's supply and demand, chumpolas - the service economy runs on Mexicans and other south american immigrants, mostly illegal.
Why would software be any different?
It's a global market, folks - if you want to keep your jobs and their 80K salaries, you've got to be better at something than your international competition, just like a steel manufacturer or anybody else who competes in the global economy.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
So, who's being the racist here?
You paint these displaced american workers as the racists, but that's not accurate (in most cases). I do think that there's racism here, but it's on the part of large corporations who exploit foreign labor because they can get away with paying ridiculously low wages.
When I was a subcontractor for IBM, I worked on the same floor as IBM India. IBM sponsored provided H1B sponsorship so that the IBM India developers could work in the US. I was shocked to learn that while I was being billed out at $100/hour, my equally-trained, equally-capable counterparts were being billed out at $20/hour. Keep in mind that we were all taking home a *fraction* of what we were billed out for (I was getting around $25/hour, I shudder to think of what IBM India contractors were making). Sure, you could quit, but then you've lost your H1B visa and are deported. In essence, it was endentured servitude.
It all comes down to supply & demand. US Corporations are increasing the supply of IT professionals in order to drive down the wage they can commmand. However, they are doing this through questionable (if not downright unethical) means. You end up with one group of exploited developers, and another group of displaced developers.
In short, legally and logically, it would be a very rare case where a local worker would lose his job to a H1 worker. H1 workers are hired only if the companies involved are not able to find qualified local candidates.
The job shortages in today's market is due to the prevailing bad economic climate. Let us not try to find scapegoats.
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The reality is, two years ago, you couldn't get enough US workers at even remotely sensible salaries, so H1Bs became a way to make US businesses viable in a global market. Now the recession's hit and companies can find US employees, the number of H1Bs are down 75% (160k-40k from the article). Those figures alone indicate that while there are some abuses (there will be in any system), by and large, H1Bs have worked as intended - to provide extra labour when labour is short.
The main problem with the IT industry is that a million and one idiots joined the industry on the promise of massive salaries. They didn't care about what they were doing, put relatively little effort in to getting more than the basic skills and just came for the money.
Once the economy tanked and layoffs started, some of them remained, filling the positions the "good" engineers should be taking. End result, a lot of "good" engineers can't find work because a lot of "bad" ones are still in the remaining jobs. This is settling out over time, but it's still an issue.
The same happens in whatever the boom industry is right before a recession. Look what happened to accountants and stock brokers at the end of the 80s. In time, it rights itself as the gold diggers leave in search of the next boom and the "good" people filter back in to the roles.
So, perhaps rather than go for the ultranationalistic, easy knee-jerk of "damn them immigrants!", which, granted, most societies tend to do during hard times, maybe looking closer to home makes more sense.
We still have MicroSkills and Laptop Training Solutions advertising all over the radio here (CA) about how IT is a growth industry and if you just do a six month course, you're entitled to a $60k job at the end of it. I'd imagine they're dumping vastly more than 20,000 extra workers in to an industry that they shouldn't be in.
And going back to the whole industries people shouldn't be in... It's been said by almost every expert on the dot.com economy that the recession was the best thing that could have happened as it's driving out those who shouldn't be in it. Yes, it's painful while those of us who should be in it wait for them to go and can't find work ourselves. Ultimately, though, the lean period's strengthening the industry, not harming it.
And, yes, I have been through it. Ten months out of work with a near dream resume behind me. Yet even after that, I still stand by the fact that the problems we're facing are a good thing. We were a bloated industry that needed to be forced to justify its existence. Blaming those sneaky foreigners really doesn't help things.
One final thought: Which would you prefer, "Half my office are foreigners on H1Bs rather than Americans" or "My office shut down and moved to India because we couldn't compete without a few H1Bs"?
This type of activity is pretty clueless. Two years ago the US was screaming out for every engineer it go lay its hands on.
Pandering to populist pressure might sound good tactics to politicians but it is a pretty short term gain. The intended beneficiaries are not going to thank you for it and the naturalized citizens are going to hate you for it.
Making it harder to hire non-US workers will simply force US companies to be even more aggressive in outsourcing programing overseas. The IEEE group was also complaining about that but guess what? There is absolutely nothing Congress can do to stop it, unless they want to start a huge trade war.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Then stop wearing clothes manufactured in poorer countries, and stop free trade and globalization in general.
All of slashdot was for globalization and outsourcing until it hits home that YOU can be the next disposable profession to hit the trash can. Welcome to macro-ecomomic reality. You aren't economically viable anymore.
If you destroy this program, H-1 do you see more US companies willing to pay twice as much for the same amount of work, or do you see the company move their IT departments to another country all together? As long as their is competent, skilled, cheap labor outside of the country, why should people hire you? Sympathy?
Bye!
My point is that it isn't as simple as saying "If we kick out all the foreigners we will all have jobs again". That is a racist attitude. I am fortunate to come from a country with a similar - if not better standard of living to the US, however those that are advocating "kicking out" H1B workers should remember that they were invited here, and in many cases they will be forced to return to countries with extremely poor standards of living.
I am really saddened by the response to this story here, I honestly thought that the geek community was above this kind of bigotry.
I am and engineer. I hire and manage engineers. When I'm reviewing candidates, some of factors by which I differentiate between them are (in no particular order):
- skills
- education
- experience
- expected pay
- evidence of dedication
- etc.
Simply saying "I'm an American, I should have priority" doesn't work, and, unfortunately for you, the "import" and "export" of engineering jobs means that the willingess of foreing workers to work at a particular rate very much impacts your situation.I'm not saying "the economy sucks, live with it." Certainly, the government has some duty to look out for it's own, but in the post dot-pocalypse world, I still routinely come across engineers expecting their 1990s-era inflated salaries who cannot differentiate themselves from foreign nationals, willing to work for much less, other than by saying "I'm an American. I should be first."
As an aside, the most vocal opponents of illegial immigrant labor in the produce industry are the American produce workers. Unfortunately, if we were to simlply toss out all the illegal workers, produce costs would rise so much that the american laborers would be unable to afford to put food on the table.
First, the math:
If somebody wrote an article asserting that 235,000 members of the National Council of Teachers of English had sent a letter to Congress I'd have just let it pass. You can depend upon English teachers to never split an infinitive, but numbers sometimes escape them. Engineers, on the other hand, have no excuse: this was not 235,000 EE's, it was the US trade association to which they belong.
Second, the subject is moot
Despite the fact that Congress authorized up to 160,000 H-1B visas per year, the Globe article points out that only 40,000 were used last year, and only half of those were for IT jobs. Look at the job sites: again, and again, and again you will see "We will|do|can not sponsor H-1B applicants." Petitioning Congress to limit the number of H-1B visas when they're not being used is kind of beside the point.
Third, they're whining
C'mon--unemployment of 5.7%? That's hardly a catastrophe--and the numbers are deeply suspect. First, not every EE is a programmer (or works in IT). Second, not every programmer is an EE--and in point of fact a lot of EEs have little business attempting to program. Much like Computer Science curricula, EE programs focused on IT tend to focus on skills that aren't in demand--and ignore skills that are important to a lot of commercial programming. Databases don't fall within the purview of a EE program--but database programming is a big part of the IT job market. If a company brings in somebody from the Indian subcontinent on an H-1B visa to write stored procedures on Oracle, does an EE lose a job? Post hoc ergo propter hoc (logical fallacy of false cause).
Fourth, what solution do they propose?
Bleating to Congress is a lovely thing for the association's executives to do, in order to demonstrate to their members that the execs deserve to be paid. But what exactly do they propose? That we track down all of these people on H-1B visas and ship them home? With their husbands or wives, with their children? Even if those children, born in the U.S.A., are U.S. citizens?
A Word from the English Teachers:
Stand up, clear your throat, and recite with me:
Good troll.
Just about when the arse started falling out of the dotcom thing, I saw inteviews with people saying "No fair, I studied two years to get a job in IT now there aren't any". To you (if this is for real) and to them, I would like to a present a quick "buck you, fuddy" and say that I would, indeed, like fries with that.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
I oppose H1Bs because they're less than you deserve.
You should just be able to come here and work. No deportations, no time limits, no bullshit.
Your company shouldn't be able to hold over you if you want something better when you're here. That should be your choice.
Of course, I'm a fan of totally open immigration as well...
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Myths:
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.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Great... let's kick out the intligent, hard-workiking, law-abiding H1B workers, and yet do NOTHING about the stupid, lazy and criminal types that we give 'asylum' or 'student visas' to.
Note: it wasen't H1B visa holders hijacking planes on the 11th, and I haven't seen a H1B holder at the food-bank or getting a welfare check.
What we need to allow, it the open selling of US citizenship rights by US citizens to anybody who wants it. Out H1B friends could buy the citizenship from a willing seller for cash - there whould be a bunch of crack-whores lined up to sell their citizenship for a few bucks.
We'd get rid of a pest, and gain a good citizen.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I decided I liked it here so I decided to start the road to naturalization. First step was to trade the TN visa (1 year renewable forever) for an H1-B visa (6 year) since TN is not supposed to be used for people who want to immegrate.
And suddenly now I'm the evil one, bent on destroying the american economy or something. Man, I should have stayed on the TN...
BTW, it's not the H1-B that "locks" people into their company like a slave; it's the Labour Certification that you need for a green card. If you change jobs and your new job isn't exactly the same as your old one, you have to restart the LC process from scratch. Here in California, it looks like it will take 3-4 years to get my LC complete. That's in addition to the 3 years it takes to get the green card once you have the LC...
Just in case anyone isn't aware of the individual implications of being a visa worker in the US,
You pay FICA, Social Security & all the other taxes, but are not allowed to collect unemployment or medicare or welfare.
If you lose your job, you have 60 days (15 officially) to get your stuff together and get out of the country unless you find a new job. Kind of hard in today's anti-immegrant climate.
In many ways, illegal immegrants have more rights than legal ones do.
Finally, it's funny how you never see anyone railing about all the immegrants from central and south america who work on the farms to help bring you cheap groceries...
Do You drive an American made car?
Are you wearing American made clothing?
Do You look for the "Made in USA" Label before making a purchase?
Are You willing to pay more money for a product if it's made in America?
Are You willing to settle for a lower quality product if it means buying American?
If you answered "No" to any of these questions, then you are just as "guilty" of costing "Real Americans" their job as any company that hires an H1B, and the people that you "put out of work" don't have any reason to give a damn that you are now unemployed.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Thats too bad. I've been doing unix since middle school both professionally and as a hobby.
On the other hand, Currently i do the vast majority of my work work in VB6, VB.NET, and SQL.
I worry that on my resume, if i mention that im a competant VB/COM/ASP/VB.NET developer, they wouldn't take me seriously for a unix/c admin or programming job (even though thats where my roots are)
People that have never used something like tcsh or bash for their day-to-day one-off scripts are really missing something.
Similarly, people that have never used something like VB6 or VB.NET to write a fully fledged deployable app in just a matter of a few days are also missing something.
The best programmers and admins love technology. They don't care who makes it, who its targeted at, or about any theology behind it. They evaluate it for what it can help them do.
People that snub their nose at VB are generally irritating theologians. People that bitch about commandline scripting are just as bad, if not worse.
My advice - learn everything you can about everything you can. Even if you have 10% knowledge across 10 different subjects, in the vast majority of positions, thats going to be much better than having 100% knowledge in _one_ subject. You can always add depth when you need it, where you need it. But getting exposure to the different paradigms and mindsets from all these different toolsets is beyond beneficial.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
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.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Yes there is being a country and managed the flow of knowledge and jobs.
Let me give you a VERY CLEAR example of how this works. In the early 20th century the car industry was owned and dominated by the US. But then years passed. Now the car industry is owned by the Europeans, namely the German, French and Japanese. On a global and local level add up where the cars come from and about 66% of all cars will come from those countries. The Americans have only two car makers left Ford and GM and one of them looks very unhealthy indeed (GM).
Sure the car makers have car building plants in the US, but only if the conditions are good. If the conditions are not good then the car makers pick up and move production elsewhere. However, the one place where the car makers will always build cars is in their home country, which is Germany, France and Japan.
My point is that in this global world having backassed imigration policies hurts the country in the long run. And this is where the problem is. Immigration is a long term issue, but politics are short term based.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Matloff implicitly assumes that there is some fixed number of US jobs and that the US has some say in the matter who gets them. But those programming jobs don't belong to the US. The foreign programmers are not going to take up knitting if they can't work in the US. They will either work for the same company in a different country, or they will end up competing against the US company, having much lower salaries and overhead.