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No Americans Need Apply
Victor G. Sommers writes "Daniel Soong, who lost his programming job to Indian offshore companies, is willing to relocate to India. 'It would be really interesting to work in Bangalore,' he says. 'But I was told, "Daniel, it is against the law for you to work here. You can come here on vacation, but you can't work here."' Indian officials have told him they don't hire Americans." An article in ComputerWorld talks about the possibility of getting more than you bargained for in outsourced code.
Well, duh... As a dutchman it's also not possible for me to relocate to the USA. Unless I prove that there's no way my skills can be found in the States.
That's common in many countries all around the world. As long as you aren't a citizien it is rather hard to get a job - not just because of possible prejudices but also simply because you are not allowed to!
In Mozilla, I got a Sprint ad in a huge box which overlaid the story text, making it impossible to read. I tried hovering over and such to see if it had a 'click to hide' option, but nothing. I'm not clicking the ad itself.
Is this some new advertising tactic to force people to visit ad sites to view the article, or is this just a page design problem?
I mean theres even some native Indians that live down the street from me. We came here back in 1492 remember?
This article is a bunch of hyped nonsense. There are plenty of Americans and other nationals working in Bangalore. Maybe they don't hire people who suck
The laws are probably similar to the US:
You can't immigrate to work unless you can prove that you can do a job that no one else in the country can do.
If it wasn't for this law, the US would be flooded (more so than now) with techs and doctors from all over asia.
alias uptime="echo '5:33pm up 22342352324 days, 6:28, 2124315623 users, load average: 2432.40, 12312.31, 123123.19'"
USA is also a sovereign country. Let's do the same. It's about time we stop issuing visas to people who steal native born Americans' jobs.
Before some slashbot calls me a racist, let me tell you that I don't care if you are a black, white, hindu, christian, jew or a muslim. If you're American, I've got nothing against you. But if you think you should be able to just waltz in and have a job or study at one of our universities, think again.
Americans can't move overseas and take jobs away from locals? What is this world coming to?
I mean we let people from all over come here and work. Ummmmm, except we don't.
You can get a tourist visa to visit most any place in the world. I went to China earlier this year. But those visas don't allow you to work.
Why is this even a story? It's the way things are.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
As in, the link will be Slashdotted in under 5 minutes? Typical second rate contractors...promising more for less.
Anybody get a mirror?
"Life's funny sometimes." "And sometimes it isn't." --Cat's Cradle
India sounds like a rather nice place. I mean, there's the constant omnipresent poverty and the not-quite-up-to-american-standards utility and government services, but there are worse things than that.
Anyone want to disagree?
Of course, lots of people moving INTO one of the most populated countries in the world may not work all that well..
Afraid that they'll blow out a couple more candles on that cake you call New York?
of the two is the malware threat. Most countries have labor restrictions (when i went to an improv festival in Toronto, Canadian officials wanted to be certain I wasn't there to make $25 or so performing somewhere some night). But the risk of getting a little extra code in your outsourced project is something about which execs ought to be aware.
Terrycloth Lobster
Seriously: typical wage for Indian IT graduate: $200/month. Equivalent for US graduate: 10--20 times more.
It is almost redundant to say that Indian firms won't be hiring many Americans.
Curiously, my little firm is now subcontracting for Indian firms, so perhaps the rules can be bent a little for genius Belgians. C'est genial!
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Could this be slightly more buzzword compliant?
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
With the exception of places like the EU, it is not unusual for foreigners to just pack up and grab a job someplace else. I doubt people will be surprised by this, considering that what happened three years ago today reminded people to tighten Visa restrictions. Who knows, it may have been much easier five years ago, but today that's just the way it is. Here in Ireland there are immigrants who are qualified doctors, but because they aren't allowed to work here as anything other than a fast food counter-person, their skills are totally wasted. It's not discrimination, it's just the way the world works.
Yup...
hey :)
They should let Americans work at Indian conveinence stores!
That way, no matter where it is in the world, it'll be fucking impossible to get a big gulp and a chilli dog.
India is like every other third world country... its looking out for itself. It really doesn't need a bunch of people to come. They already have more than enough. So really what is this guy offering that the locals can't supply? Not much in their minds.
Hidden malware in offshore products raises concerns
Story by Mark Willoughby
SEPTEMBER 11, 2003 ( COMPUTERWORLD ) - "You've go to be a little paranoid to survive in this business." -- Andrew S. Grove, chairman and founder, Intel Corp., ca. 1980
The extreme difficulty in discovering a back door hidden deep within a complex application, buried among numerous modules developed offshore in a global software marketplace, is forcing those assigned to protect sensitive national security information to take defensive actions.
The threat of hidden Trojan horses and back doors surfaced this summer when the governments of the U.S. and China announced plans to strengthen national security policies covering information processed by applications written in the global software marketplace. The private sector joined the fray with the August announcement of the File Signature Database, which will use hash values to protect software integrity from malicious additions (see story).
The National Security Agency's information assurance director, Daniel Wolf, in testimony before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security's cybersecurity subcommittee in July, called for a federal lab that would "find malicious software routines that are designed to morph and burrow into critical applications." Separately, the State Council of the People's Republic of China in August directed all government ministries to buy only Chinese software in the next upgrade cycle in an effort to encourage the development of local software companies but also to protect sensitive government data.
Mark Willoughby, CISSP, is a 20-year IT industry veteran and journalist with degrees in computer science and journalism. For the past seven years, he has tracked security and risk management start-ups and is a managing consultant at MessagingGroup, a Denver-based content development specialist.
Steps taken so far
The simmering global paranoia is rooted in the realization that no simple solution exists today, experts say. It is virtually impossible to find unauthorized malware hidden deep within a sophisticated multitiered application with data normalization, messaging middleware and other modules originating from labs in a half-dozen countries.
Robert Lentz, the U.S. Defense Department's director of information assurance, said in a written statement, "The DoD currently is studying several aspects of software assurance. The DoD has a current software acquisition policy. The group studying software assurance is looking to supplement that policy with strengthened mechanisms to increase our confidence in the security of both foreign and domestic software products."
Input, a Chantilly, Va.- based technology research firm, says federal government spending on IT products and services will grow 8.5% yearly from 2003 to 2008, from $45.4 billion to $68.2 billion. Approximately half of that spending will be in areas in which the government would like to see stronger information assurance.
Incidents of back doors compromising sensitive national security information may never be known. That's not so in the private sector.
"There have been a number of cases where software was found with intentionally planted back doors," said Shawn Hernan, team leader for vulnerability handling at the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University. "Most of these were for providing support, although no such support option was given to commercial customers. It's happened in both proprietary and open-sourced software."
Hernan said discovering hidden malware is one of the most difficult tasks facing an assurance investigator. CERT doesn't track vulnerabilities by country of origin, he added.
Software engineering processes are only now beginning to focus on providing traceability in security code. Traceability, which would allow a given line of code or a software module to be tracked back to the developer, is viewed as the Holy Grail in combating hidden malware. Traceability is also an effectiv
I need to go to the US to finish a contract I have with a US company. I only need to be there 3 days. Guess what, just for that, we need to fill in tons of paperwork to get a visa and the whole thing is likely going to cost more than anything else in the contract... What a good way to help the US companies/economy!
Not that I want a job there but just wanted to know if other countries were exempt.
Unlike the US, India, being a developing nation, with a very large economy has always had a dirth of jobs. There are a few hundred people to fill up a single job vacancy. Thus, India has *never* felt the need for foreign employees.
However, I know for a fact that a large number of Americans/Europeans (and even Russians in defense companies) regularly work on contract basis. I had a Russian neighbor long back, working in India on a 2 year contract with a defense company.
So people, before you start flaming, ponder over the fact that a law for hiring outside employees doesn't exist because there hasn't ever been a need for it. Now with the outsourcing, it may not be too long before the government comes up with an H-1 like plan.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Sheez, put down your book that you got all those buzzwords from and write an interesting comment. Maybe it was just the thrill of a first post. resistance is futile...
OK, I had accepted the fact that H1B's killed the IT job market for Americans. Competition and all that. That's just fine. Shit happens. But if Americans can't work in India, then let's kick the damn H1B's out of this country. I had NO IDEA that Americans couldn't get an Indian job. If that really is true (although no real good source was cited), I say fuck 'em and give 'em the boot until India wants to open up it's doors to American workers.
Well, being an ex-doctor myself and now being active in the biotech area: If you just plan to be a humble practitioner treating patients you might get around all that IP stuff, but life sciences and medicine are that plastered with patents that IT looks like paradise in comparison. So it might be worth reconsidering.
I guess with the big tech bust and investors very edgy on Tech stocks, Some companies are looking to make a major comeback by outsourcing for cheaper labor. 10% return on your investment isn't good enough anymore, that's if they are making that.
Look at Nike and Rebook. They make millions by paying children 50 cents a day and adulterer basketball players millions to endorse thier products!
Our company is getting ready to send someone over to India to head up some outsourcing. He's British, but that should not be any significant difference. I haven't heard of any barrier for foreigners working in India. Anyone care to cite some relevant Indian law, rather than a few words at the tail end of an article?
I really don't see why this should have surprised him.
Small businesses tend to want to hire locals. It all comes down to the fact that small biz can't and won't put up with the beaurocratic overhead needed to outsource offshore.
They also tend to be more resistant to the hiring freezes and layoffs of large corporations durring recessions.
Sure I will be dealing with patented tools and medicines, but I won't be the one patenting the stuff.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
When it's Americans being forbidden to work in a foreign country, it's that country's right to do so.
But if it were the other way around, and Indian people coming to this country were suddenly forbidden to work here, imagine the uproar that would cause among Slashdotters!
Even if you are going to be wrong, at least be consistent!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
SEPTEMBER 11, 2003 ( COMPUTERWORLD ) - "You've go to be a little paranoid to survive in this business." -- Andrew S. Grove, chairman and founder, Intel Corp., ca. 1980
The extreme difficulty in discovering a back door hidden deep within a complex application, buried among numerous modules developed offshore in a global software marketplace, is forcing those assigned to protect sensitive national security information to take defensive actions.
The threat of hidden Trojan horses and back doors surfaced this summer when the governments of the U.S. and China announced plans to strengthen national security policies covering information processed by applications written in the global software marketplace. The private sector joined the fray with the August announcement of the File Signature Database, which will use hash values to protect software integrity from malicious additions (see story).
The National Security Agency's information assurance director, Daniel Wolf, in testimony before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security's cybersecurity subcommittee in July, called for a federal lab that would "find malicious software routines that are designed to morph and burrow into critical applications." Separately, the State Council of the People's Republic of China in August directed all government ministries to buy only Chinese software in the next upgrade cycle in an effort to encourage the development of local software companies but also to protect sensitive government data.
Mark Willoughby, CISSP, is a 20-year IT industry veteran and journalist with degrees in computer science and journalism. For the past seven years, he has tracked security and risk management start-ups and is a managing consultant at MessagingGroup, a Denver-based content development specialist.
Steps taken so far
The simmering global paranoia is rooted in the realization that no simple solution exists today, experts say. It is virtually impossible to find unauthorized malware hidden deep within a sophisticated multitiered application with data normalization, messaging middleware and other modules originating from labs in a half-dozen countries.
Robert Lentz, the U.S. Defense Department's director of information assurance, said in a written statement, "The DoD currently is studying several aspects of software assurance. The DoD has a current software acquisition policy. The group studying software assurance is looking to supplement that policy with strengthened mechanisms to increase our confidence in the security of both foreign and domestic software products."
Input, a Chantilly, Va.- based technology research firm, says federal government spending on IT products and services will grow 8.5% yearly from 2003 to 2008, from $45.4 billion to $68.2 billion. Approximately half of that spending will be in areas in which the government would like to see stronger information assurance.
Incidents of back doors compromising sensitive national security information may never be known. That's not so in the private sector.
"There have been a number of cases where software was found with intentionally planted back doors," said Shawn Hernan, team leader for vulnerability handling at the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University. "Most of these were for providing support, although no such support option was given to commercial customers. It's happened in both proprietary and open-sourced software."
Hernan said discovering hidden malware is one of the most difficult tasks facing an assurance investigator. CERT doesn't track vulnerabilities by country of origin, he added.
Software engineering processes are only now beginning to focus on providing traceability in security code. Traceability, which would allow a given line of code or a software module to be tracked back to the developer, is viewed as the Holy Grail in combating hidden malware. Traceability is also an effective tool for discovering software defects that expose an application to a myriad of exploit
My division, in one of the big (probably the biggest other than microsoft) tech companies has been shutting down our site and moving the jobs to India.
Of course, we are all offered positions within the company before we are kicked out of the door, and we are supposed to be able to apply anywhere in the company.
One individual here, who really wanted to move to India, (and accept the reduced pay, etc) is an exceptional candidate. The managers in Bangalore (same comapny here) WILL NOT CALL HIM BACK. It flies in the face of all of the companies published policies, but of course, nothing happens.
I have to inject dull ol' reality into another 'The Indians Are Coming!' flap, but why exactly is it surprising that he can go to India on holiday and can't work there? Does he have a work visa for India? Are Indians allowed to work in the US with no visa?
I always figured the general pattern was that to work in country A, you need to be a citizen of country A or have a work permit issued by country A. Did this suddenly stop applying in the case of Americans wanting to work in India?
Other than that, well, it's a competitive marketplace. If other people are selling the same skills -- or what are percieved as the same skills -- cheaper, then he's got to change something.
Incidentally, I've known some terrible experiences with outsourcing to cheap countries and I think it's generally a false economy. But on the other hand, I think I'd rather have a disoriented and inexperienced Indian working for me than listen to this guy's whining.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
You don't want to work in India. If you want to get back at those H1 people by going to India to work, you're a fool. You can "steal" the jobs back from them in the US just as easily, all you have to do is work for a wage that you will find ridiculously low.
hmm and becoming a citizen might be harder in India than in the USA because they are highly overpopulated and the USA isn't...
It might explain why he can't get a work Visa OR become a citizen. Depleted scarce resource: citizenship in the fastest-growing population in the world. The fact that they need to import money to feed all those people is probably explained somewhere in macroeconomics.
Since the USA's richess comes from a lot of things, but mostly not from natural resources, they tend to export money(IANAMEBIWMAOIAJ: I am not a macroeconomist, but I would moonlight as one in a jiffy).
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Such is the world comming to :(
The headline and entire viewpoint of this posting come from just 2 sentences at the very end of the article (which is just an aside)
But what about the taxis?
However, the SEI is introducing Team Process Software (TPS), which brings traceability of specific code modules to individual programmers, said Humphrey, a former IBM software engineering executive. Indian software companies and a few U.S. developers, notably Microsoft Corp., are aggressively implementing TPS.
To which my immediate reply was, "Did you remember to include the right cover on your TPS report?" :-)
120 character sigs suck. Make it 250.
Yep. Dealing with malpractice issues and byzantine procedure reimbursement rules sure sounds a lot more relaxing.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Grow up. Sanjay won't let me play with his toy train so I am not going to play with him ever again. India has 1 Billion people to employ. The last thing they need is Americans coming in and taking quality jobs.
Oh...wait a minute, there was no IT union. This computer outsourcing reminds me of the blame that's placed on unions for the factory jobs leaving the country.
No computer union, and the companies outsourced anyway.
look at it this way. India produces more engineers than any country in the world. The problem is there is no work for these people in India. The unemployment rate is higher and a population nearing more than a billion there is not enough space to live in cities. At least you have the *option* to work in stores here in the US. now i am not saying every one should do that but its still an option viable or not its upto the individual to decide.
the level of difficulty one has immigrating to the USA, even on the H1 visa program.
..don't panic
What I don't get from all theses articles/posts about India-stealing-jobs-from-US, is why they use the word stealing. All India is doing is improving its economy. India is not stealing any jobs, and the reason why US is outsourcing to India is simply because its cheaper. That's India's "strength" :people and lots of it. So what are Indian companies supposed to say when US companies ask them for outsourcing: Hey we can't take your jobs. We are really worreid about your economy but not ours.
"However, the SEI is introducing Team Process Software (TPS), which brings traceability of specific code modules to individual programmers, said Humphrey, a former IBM software engineering executive. Indian software companies and a few U.S. developers, notably Microsoft Corp., are aggressively implementing TPS."
Does life imitate are or what?! I never thought I'd actually see TPS reports, but now I expect my next boss will be named Lumberg...
wurst sig evr.
However, the SEI is introducing Team Process Software (TPS), which brings traceability of specific code modules to individual programmers, said Humphrey, a former IBM software engineering executive. Indian software companies and a few U.S. developers, notably Microsoft Corp., are aggressively implementing TPS.
The guys at Microsoft better make sure they put a cover on those TPS reports!
IE is the buggy browser, not Moz. If something works in IE and not in Moz that's because people are writing faulty code.
My web designer uses IE exclusively. Well, one of my pages that he laid out for me broke in Moz Firebird, because the column widths were even so slightly different... There's standards, folks, use them! I would have preferred to use <NOBR myself.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
The whole point of the article is that while the US allowed qualified Indians to come into the US to work, India has no such reciprocation. Indians have all the advantages while Americans have no advantages, ie. H1B takes jobs from Americans but then when Americans want to go to India to work, the Indian government won't let them.
All it is highlighting is that the H1B was a way for American corporations to screw over American citizens to help shore up their bottom line. Now, when they want to squeeze out even more profits, they will offshore everything, not caring about the American citizens at all, and screwing up the entire IT industry... and the government is letting them do it!
This is why you can never trust corporations to "Do The Right Thing" for their country. They have no loyalty to their citizens or employees, they only have loyalty to the senior executives and the shareholders and will do anything and screw over anybody to make money... Once public policy gets dictated by corporations, which it already does, then the entire country is going to go tits up, because a country should be governed with the welfare of the people in mind, not with money in mind.
Here is a prime example of one of the main problems of free trade. Corporations are free to trade jobs off to some developing nation where wages are minimal but people are not allowed to move to where the jobs are. Perhaps someday we will negotiate trade agreements which guarantee a fair living standard for workers reguardless of where they live.
Get used to it. US workers cannot get jobs in Canada, Europe, Australia, etc. without first applying, and getting necessary work visas. To get a work visa, you must have an employer who has applied to get you in, and has demonstrated that there isn't local talent who could do the job you're being hired for.
Funny enough, that's pretty much the situation here (except for the illegal immigrants that is.) If you really want to work overseas, start applying for foreign citizenship/work permits.
Come on you crazy libbies. Where are those protests taking place?
Factual errors in your post:
-- US companies invited people to work in the US with the H1B program
-- It is argued that H1B visa program actually created more jobs and allowed citizens to climb up the value chain. It did not reduce the jobs in a holistic sense.
-- A visitor's visa does not allow you to work. This is true for any country.
If there is enough pressure put by companies moving offices to India to allow alien workers, such legislation will get enacted. Ask your nearest Indian to write to her/his MP.
Okay, so Daniel Soong can't get a job in India? The Indian gov't must not be very smart considering that Daniel's great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Dr. Noonien Soong, will invent the first sentient artificial lifeform. But now that I've posted this comment I've polluted the time-space continuum and Data may not be created. And without Data, how will Picard convince Q and various other omnipotent alien entities that the human race is worth preserving!
Oh No! I've ruined EVERYTHINGGG!!!!
"Anyway, long story short... is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling...." - Abraham Simpson
How is this different from American requirements? As a Canadian, I needed to get proper approval/documents to work in the USA: if the US government decided that engineering jobs were limited or scarce, I'm sure they'd have taken those papers away from me. Every country has the right to decide who they will/won't let into their country, and on what terms.
Now if the US would only apply this to hispanics...
=U= "Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you"
The real question is if you cast your dollar vote for HP again or someone else this time. And even more importantly, if you researched the printer company's support locations before you bought that one.
"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru
...you might want to smell the coffee now.
American coders and IT workers of all stripes, you are a commodity and you always have been. You used to be a valuable one, now you are expendable and replaceable. If you want to keep coding or doing IT work, you need to take responsibility for yourself and work to find a job. If you can't find a job in IT that pays enough, no matter how hard and long you work, you have a hard choice. Either stick with it because that's what you love and deal with the hard times, or take the hard choice and find a different career where people are hiring.
No one outside your country is going to want you to come and take jobs away from their citizens, even if your country is more than willing to take jobs away from it's own citizens. No amount of complaining is going to get you a good IT job. We all laughed at those who were having trouble when we were riding sky high. Now it's our turn to eat some humble pie.
sorry 'bout the typo
Having relocated to the US 2 monthes ago to be with my wife while she pursues her PhD at Colorado State and still waiting for a reply on my application for a work permit, I can't really sympathize with Mr. Soong. I certainly understand that any country should protect their own work force but it's only fair it should work both ways...
This from August: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=38 760&site=lightreading
Seems "Greed" is a universal known throughout the world, anybody will try to screw anybody given the chance.
May i recommed that you contact the nearest indian embassy and find out about the Employment Visa as found on the indian government webpage.
I am sure there is a provision. While living in india i have seen many foreigners, mostly russian working in the nuclear facilities at BARC. It shouldnt be more difficult than it is to receive work permit in the US.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
If you know how to spell, use proper English, and can recognize that two stories are duplicates, you could probably be the editor of some tech news blog.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Oh, and I'm sure that the unemployed masses have the funds to sue corporations for giving preference to H1s.
"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru
1) I used to work writing gambling software (ethically, I knew it was going to fold). There is a rather attractive woman who lives in Marin and is rather wealthy who owns/runs a set of gambling web sites. Her dev team is in India. She's young, beautiful and rich.
2) I use Macromedia Director extensively on a mac. I have since 1987. I even worked on Director for about 4 years at Macromedia. Director MX for the mac was ported by a company in India. IT SUCKS ASS. A vast majority of "details" that make software great are gone. It is now just "usable" and annoying. I will saddly admit that the windoes version of Director MX is much more usable than the mac version. Whomever ported it, just doesn't get it. What really sucks is that this crappy ass port is what I have to use every day. Yeah. Woo. shoot me.
3) I used to contract for McGraw Hill in Carlsbad. We took a major project that was about to fail, developed and released the 4 CD set on time and budget for McGraw-Hill. After I left, under financial pressure, one of my co workers told me that things were about to change. This biz guy from a software firm in India come in to talk to the biz guys at McGraw-Hill and states "my programmers can write 1000 lines of code in a hour and they are pennies on the dollar." WHAT MORON measures productivity in "lines of code per hour?" Obviously, the business guys who don't understand programming. Last I hard, a lot of Glencoe/McGraw-Hill's development moved offshore to India.
Leaves alot to think about.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
They just want to make sure they don't hire any SCO employees. Not hiring americans is just their way of making sure none of them get through.
...i want you out of my country, and I want my bison back.
Stop crying, or acting racist, there are plenty of good reasons why you shouldnt be cribbing...If you like working for us $150 a month, I've got a job for you in India... as a linux sys administrator/DBA/Perl programmer/C++ (all skills required)...
whats with these India stories? India is just doing what others have been doing till date, ireland is an example...Capitalism goes around the world, seeking low price points to use as advantages in manufacturing, and the surplus comes back to the US, as profits, maybe the last time you worked you should have had a greater say in the company, or a greater stake in its profits... get the law makers to pass a bill that prohibits companies from making use of these advantages, and lets see how many comapnies close shop and move out...
Now you know what you feel when you couldnt get a work visa in the states.
It's not like I'm shocked that there's now a heated debate about Indian labor law among the various IANAIndianLaborLs here -- that's why we're here, right? -- but you may want to wait for someone in possession of even a single real fact to come along before drawing a conclusion.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The case isn't that NO Americans (or British/European/Whatever) can't get jobs in India, it is just that they have EXACTLY the same basis for their employement/immigration laws, in that people will only be granted visas for jobs that no other people in the country can do. This is what happened in the US in the 90's - people filling the lower level tech jobs for which there was not enough native US workers to fill.
I know a few people happily working in India and have had no problems re: visas, but all of these people are working in management positions of tech firms.
It is simply likly that this person was refused a visa as he was applying for a low-ish coding jobl, for which Indians can easily fill natively.
A Study (instead of innuendo) finds that: "in 2001, the latest data available, H-1B workers with bachelor's degrees were paid more, on average, than U.S. citizens with bachelor's degrees. It would seem, then, that H-1B competition was actually putting upward pressure on wages."
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
from that website :
These are the requirements for an Employment Visa
EMPLOYMENT VISA: An appointment letter, contract letter, applicant's resume and proof that the organization is registered in India are required. Duration of visa would depend on the period of the contract.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
I'm imagining it
business as usual ...
utter silence ensues .....
Heck, I'm on an EU passport, and *I* don't have the right to work in the USA. This is perfectly normal practice worldwide - I'm not saying it's right, just commonplace.
So why does this bit of humour get a + insightfull moderation?
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
you can move jobs here or there, but the work force cannot follow.
perhaps we need a redefinition of free trade as a condition in which you can put lots of people out of work in one location and then not allow those people to move to where the jobs are so that we can destroy the middle class.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
the last thing we need in America are for Indians coming in and taking quality jobs also.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Most countries don't just let people move there to work without lengthy immigration procedures. Certainly not the good 'ole USA. Perhaps if Americans didn't work so hard to keep foreigners out this would be noteworthy, but then we probably wouldn't have an outsourcing 'problem' anyway.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
About 40 posts so far, and not one person has understood the problem.
Being denied a work visa and being denied work because of being an American are 2 different things.
Last time I checked, America is still employing H1B visa workers... Maybe America should cancel all those H1B/A work visas. Seems only fair.
Some people have no sense of humor, or just don't get it.
A simple web search will show that you can get a working visa for India:
Employment Visa are initially issued for one year stay subject to fulfillment of certain conditions. This can be extended by Foreigners Regional Registration Office in India, if the job contract continues. Spouses and children will get coterminus Visa.
Looks like just about anywhere else in the world.
So you want to take away the existing Workers visa's? That sounds like a raw deal to me. The US is an Empire. If we want people to follow our lead we need to have foreigners learning and working in the US. This helps spread our influence throught the globe. Every succesful Empire has done this.
Look how bad the working conditions are there!
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
This situation did not come about until the institution of the H1-B and L-1 visa program. This program should be scrapped for the following reasons. 1.) Labor Shortage: The stated purpose of these programs was to fill a temporary shortage of american tech talent obviously this is no longer a shortage of American geeks to fill these jobs. 2.) Anti-Competitive: The way the H-1/L-1 visas are written the sponsored geek is can only be employed by the sponsoring corporation. If he/she is forbidden by law seek other employment employers do not have to compete for talented labor or worry about retention once these guys have been trained. This creates a type of indentured servitude and an artificially depreciated labor market. 3.) Lack Of Parity: There are no similar programs in the countries who are the major sources of imported labor. We should not open American labor markets while foriegn labor markets are protected. 4.) Tax Drain: The maximum time an H1/L1 visa holder can work in the US is 6 years. They have been assured by the Bush administration that they will still recieve Social Security benefits even though the current law says you must contribute for 10 years to be eligible.
Is bitching the Indian Government...
They should focus more towards those that are handing out these jobs to India...
The only thing those employers are interested in is maximalization of profit, even their families are less important...
Mass exodus to Hungary!
-Ansel.
G=C800:5
There's plenty of us "ragheads" in the EU. Why don't you pick on someone your own size for once? In other words, bring it on...
...he isn't allowed to work in India. The article leaves that as the last line with no explanation. Sounds a little too convenient for me. I would guess this is a weird pairing of anti-equal opportunity employment folks and people who would NOW turn to the government for assistance in getting the system to work for them. Chances are that a lot of people in this boat would have been completely opposed to government intervention before.
Un-news
H1Bs have a limited impact on the U.S. Tech worker
The boarder guard looking insulted and spat back, "What do YOU have to teach Americans???"
Even though he had all his documentation, (it was an American company that requested his visit/expertise), we were promptly turned back to our country. I have never even considered going to the States again.
Too bad too, I've met plenty of nice Yanks when they vacation up here...
we should have stopped globalization in the first place. Its globalization is not bad but it worth is not much when compared to the problem it makes.
Every day Soong makes the rounds of employment agencies. When he is lucky he gets a temporary job answering phones or testing video games, nothing that ever pays more than $10 an hour. Most days he doesn't work. "I've been able to pay my bills at the end of the month," he said in early June, "although this month may be a little tough." Two weeks later, Soong canceled his cell phone and e-mail accounts.
I haven't found it to be nearly so bad out there. Especially considering this guy is willing to hop about the country to work. There are jobs there, the IT unemployment rate is 4%, while the national rate is 5%. Actually better off than the rest.
I guess he's looking for a salary noone wants to pay.
Even if he couldn't find an IT job, then go find another job - do something else.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
That post is from a book review:J vVkKaMQJ: bookworms.org/aws.cgi/mode_books/search_Outsource% 2520Services+%22Internet+infrastructure+and+its+ab ility+to+perform+flawlessly%22&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie =UTF-8
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:vtB
Team Process Software? TPS"?
It's too contrived of a name for it to be a mere coincidence.
...anactofgod...
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
I suppose that the story is not really surprising, so much as sad. Americans seem to cry foul only when things finally happen to them, like getting laid off. We were content to benefit from tapping the world's intellectual resources and leaving others behind -- now it's a taste of our own medicine, at the hands of those who can do it cheaper/faster, with no dental plan required.
It's time to realize that the market has no qualms about putting YOU out of work -- a capitalistic/competitive system (which is very successful at what it does) can cause very great instability in people's lives.
Some people mock the social employment systems in Europe, where you can't fire government/private workers without huge amounts of effort. They don't advance as fast (economically), which is why they lagged behind the IT boom. But also, people there don't have to change jobs every 6 months.
In 2 years, take a look at India again, and let's see where their jobs have gone. China? Estonia? Every one gets their turn in this game.
Read the article more carefully. The guy tried to get a job with Tata Consulting, an Indian-owned firm operating in the USA that places staff at USA-based clients. They apparently refused to hire him for this work in the USA because they do not hire Americans.
I very much doubt this is legal.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
You can get a working visa for India. I have a friend that works there. It's just like anywhere else in the world in that respect.
I expect this guy just got a tourist visa and turned up in India expecting to get employed, and the person told him he couldn't legally employ him, which would be true because he had the wrong type of visa.
Is there anywhere in the world where you can just turn up without a working visa and legally work? Not that I know.
I wish the Slashdot editors would just spend five minutes googling to check the validity of this type of thing before posting.
Why can't software developers unionize? It worked to secure blue collar workers their jobs, why not for white collar workers?
1 Billion people, and at some point in their lives 1/2 of them will use the street as a bathroom.
Disclaimers: I was born in India. However, my family moved to USA since I was 14. I consider myself American.
Fact #1: Americans (and others) can work in India
Fact #2: Lots of Americans (and others) do work in India
Fact #3: A Visitors visa is different from a Work visa (just like USA)
Fact #4: If you travel on visitors visa, you cannot change it to work visa unless you leave the country first. Basically you cannot transfer visas without changing your port of entry (guess what? just like the good ol' USA)
Fact #5: This guy traveled to India on a work visa and applied for a job
Fact #6: Following fact #4, he got denied a visa.
BTW, all these facts are responses to USA's visa policies. India has a repuation for treating citizen of outher countries the same way other countries treats it's citizens. For example, USA charges a fee for each applicant of a visa (may it be student, work or travel) to people from India. Guess what India does? They charge a fee to Americans who want a visa to India too. Nepal doesn't charge a fee for Indian citizens. So, India doesn't charge a fee to Nepalese citizens. So, that is it guys: tit-for-tat.
However, moving tech jobs offshore is bad, and so are H1B visas in todays economy. They were good during the boom days when we couldn't hire enough people.
now supporting:
cmdrTaco for president '04
michael for oval office intern summer '05
The last thing we need in America is an increase in whining from the unmotivated. Follow the laws of supply and demand and the cream will rise to the top.
So because a company wants to pay less, they send their work overseas. Great! Just what the economy needs!
Companies like this make me fucking sick.
Poor guy, he will just have to take another job in the US and settle for clean drinking water and a high standard of living...
Then how do you describe discrimination?
You're the reason the world sucks. "Accept it, that's just the way it is." No wonder Ireland is like a 3rd world country. Pathetic alcoholics, have a guiness for breakfast when you're 9, it won't cause any problems.
My cousin, a British citizen, is currently working in India. So I know for a fact that the Indian government has proper laws in place to have employees of foreign origin. Contract or otherwise.
Having said that, I think the article is sensationalist to say "Indian Officials". What is probably true is that the Indian consulting co.s are refusing to hire Americans, and are interview Americans just to comply to EOE.
There's plenty of us "ragheads" in the EU. Why don't you pick on someone your own size for once?
Like who? Germany? Japan? Russia?
Been there. Done that. Hell, there's practically no one our own size LEFT, 'cept China and India, and they're way too smart for that shit.
I'm just waiting for Indonesia to get too big for its britches. Old Glory flying over Jakarta. Mmm. What a beautiful day that will be.
In other words, bring it on...
Huh. Typical idiot. You're confused about the proper use of the "bring it on" phrase. When faced with a threat, the proper response is "bring it on," meaning that you are ready and eager to respond to action against you.
It's utterly meaningless for an EUian to say "bring it on," because nobody's threatened you with anything. Why? Because you guys just don't matter any more. The world has moved on. EU doesn't stand for anything. Everything from Lisbon to Athens is just one bland smear of failed socialism and ineffectual liberalism. No industry, no culture, no innovation, no might.
EU: Yawn.
Sounds about what I sign away every time I
enter the US (mostly to partake in ANSI J3
meetings - the Fortran Standardization
Committee) - my right to go look for
*paid* work (as opposed to voluntary labor
in an ANSI committee).
Toon Moene (GNU Fortran maintainer).
That's the way the economy works. In 10 years india will be a super power and jobs will move to another country. What will happen of USA, India and Europe is yet to be seen.
-- Leeeter than leet
I think the real issue is the greed of corporations, and a global marketplace that is getting more and more competitive. If you've been to India, you'll realize, that they are now struggling with increasing salaries; eventually the cost savings won't be there, so these corporations will be moving on. Tomorrow you will be bashing Chinese or Romanians. The best we in North American can hope for is to create new markets, and technology. The world our parents grew up in is no more, now is a world of eternal vigilance to stay one step ahead of other countries. If workers in China, because of low salaries can outperform us in the cost of developing products, then we should be saying is it possible to develop machinery or automation technology to keep it as competitive, thus the skills and money get transferred instead to developing the machinery.
But if Americans can't work in India, then let's kick the damn H1B's out of this country.
You can get a working visa for India. The guy in the story must have asked the wrong person or something.
because you lost your job to an Indian... don't blame them for it. They work cheaper and are as qualified as you. Now it is time for you to take up some more education while you have some free time and then try to land a job that will pay 100x what your Indian friend is making. Standard of living in India is under $100 a month I believe (take into consideration that India is also much bigger than America). I would recommend reading "The Choice" by Robert Russel.
This doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
The reason why companies are going elsewhere is cost of development. They think, "Why pay a programmer $45,000 a year when we can pay someone from India $12 an hour?" (or whatever the going rate is)
If people in India can't even find decent jobs and need to find work from American companies where they will get paid peanuts, what makes Americans think they'll get lucky and find a good paying job there?
You'll get paid as much, if not LESS, than what the Indian residents could get. At that rate you might as well take a paycut and go work IN-HOUSE for the company who's willing to pay less for someone from India.
Employment increases, companies won't have to shell out as much (greedy asses), and everyone's happy! Right?
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
listening to Americans bitch and moan about how unfairly they are treated.
Have you any idea what your foreign policies are like? Have you any idea why and how indians are allowed to 'take your jobs'?
Your governments mantra is: Free trade and free exchange of labour! And with a whisper they add (As long as it benefits US corporations)
Here's a newsflash for you. What benefits American corporations benefits the American government, but not necessarily the general US populace.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I sympathize with the Americans that lost their jobs and wish that India would freely open its borders to people who want to work there. That's more likely to benefit people from Bangladesh and Nepal, than the U.S., but you should all be welcome to live and work where you choose.
Unfortunately, for the forseeable future, three trends will continue in the U.S. (and Europe)
a) Emigration of jobs
b) Competition with immigrants for remaining jobs.
c) Lower pay scales and standards of living
Banning or allowing immigration will only change the emphasis between trends.
I say we should kick you out, you xenophobic fuck. Wanting to punish all Indians because of their government policies (when most of the h1b's want to become US citizens anyway) isn't any diffrent then Al-Quada wanting to punsh all Americans for the actions of our government.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
India doesn't really need to import workers, they've got 1 BILLION FREAKING PEOPLE already.
why would you want to work in India? You should *retire* in India. A few years of working in the U.S. should be enough for you to save up enough money to live a good 20 years in India easilly. You'll even be able to afford servants. Don't worry about language, in the big cities, most people speak English.
If you plan to live in one of the populated areas of India, be prepared for incredibly bad polution. Also, one of the advantages is that you can piss in the streets or anywhere in fact. No more having to find a bathroom or worrying about cops arrested you just for taking a leak. Hell, you can take a dump on the side of the road, and no one will even look at you funny. On a related note, be prepared for some serious diarrhea. Diarrhea is common there, that its typical to respond to "how are you doing?" with "I have diarrhea."
If you're rich enough (a small U.S. fortune will do), you can build a huge castle on a huge plot of land, and have servants cook you food using vegetables grown on your own land. They will clean the entire place every day. I've seen this myself with someone who moved here for a few years, made some money, and then moved back to India.
This applies to people in other rich countries besides the U.S that have a high currency value.
--Drunk as in Beer
OK.
The weavers who were put out of jobs by the development of the Spinning Jenny weren't too happy either.
The typists in the typing pool who were put out of work when their boss got a word processor were hardly chuffed.
The textile workers who found that Americans were more than happy to buy stuff from India or China probably didn't feel great.
Work will always move to the place where it can be done most cheaply. That is called free market "global" capitalism. That is what got you the Lexus or the Toyota in your garage. That is why the memory in your PC is probably made by Winbond or Samsung. That is why your Hi-Fi is probably made by Sony or MEI.
I want code written, I can ask anyone in the world to write it. Really. That is my right.
How dare anyone say I cannot ask an Indian in Bangalore to write it? How dare you say I must pay for an American?
If you want to live in a country where foreign goods and services are banned try Bhutan.
You violate my rights (while almost certainly demonstrating a revealed preference for Japanese consumer electronics) when you deny me the ability to hire who I want in whatever country I want to do my work.
Sorry this is turning into a rant. But...
Would you ban books by Indian authors because they put American authors out of work?
--- My dad's political betting
These executives won't be happy until they finally get rid of the American middle class and the only thing left are the extremely rich and extremely poor. Then they will finally know why offshoring is a bad idea.
No, you fucking leech.
I'm a Finn. I graduated with an MSc (HUT, Physics) in 4 years and got my PhD in 5 years. I've got a wife, a job and a child on the way and I didn't even break a sweat (scratch that on the child thing ;-).
And now you expect me to pay for your drinking and debauchery so that you can waste 7-8 years on your graduate degree? Because "that's how student life should be"? What are you? A fucking moron?
I'm sure you'll be of the same opinion when you graduate and by a miracle manage to get a job and - thanks to our Ministry of Education - practically anyone can walk in and start studying with the same benefits you enjoyed.
Ever taken a look at the status of our health care system? State's mental health care for children ran out of funds last summer? Huh? Does that make you think? No? Well, keep on drinking and partying then. Fucking asshole.
Who Rules America?
The Alien Grip on Our News and Entertainment Media Must Be Broken
By the Research Staff of National Vanguard Books
P.O. Box 330 Hillsboro West Virginia 24946 USA
There is no greater power in the world today than that wielded by the manipulators of public opinion in America. No king or pope of old, no conquering general or high priest ever disposed of a power even remotely approaching that of the few dozen men who control America's mass media of news and entertainment.
Their power is not distant and impersonal; it reaches into every home in America, and it works its will during nearly every waking hour. It is the power that shapes and molds the mind of virtually every citizen, young or old, rich or poor, simple or sophisticated.
The mass media form for us our image of the world and then tell us what to think about that image. Essentially everything we know -- or think we know -- about events outside our own neighborhood or circle of acquaintances comes to us via our daily newspaper, our weekly news magazine, our radio, or our television.
It is not just the heavy-handed suppression of certain news stories from our newspapers or the blatant propagandizing of history-distorting TV "docudramas" that characterizes the opinion-manipulating techniques of the media masters. They exercise both subtlety and thoroughness in their management of the news and the entertainment that they present to us.
For example, the way in which the news is covered: which items are emphasized and which are played down; the reporter's choice of words, tone of voice, and facial expressions; the wording of headlines; the choice of illustrations -- all of these things subliminally and yet profoundly affect the way in which we interpret what we see or hear.
On top of this, of course, the columnists and editors remove any remaining doubt from our minds as to just what we are to think about it all. Employing carefully developed psychological techniques, they guide our thought and opinion so that we can be in tune with the "in" crowd, the "beautiful people," the "smart money." They let us know exactly what our attitudes should be toward various types of people and behavior by placing those people or that behavior in the context of a TV drama or situation comedy and having the other TV characters react in the Politically Correct way.
Molding American Minds
For example, a racially mixed couple will be respected, liked, and socially sought after by other characters, as will a "take charge" Black scholar or businessman, or a sensitive and talented homosexual, or a poor but honest and hardworking illegal alien from Mexico. On the other hand, a White racist -- that is, any racially conscious White person who looks askance at miscegenation or at the rapidly darkening racial situation in America -- is portrayed, at best, as a despicable bigot who is reviled by the other characters, or, at worst, as a dangerous psychopath who is fascinated by firearms and is a menace to all law-abiding citizens. The White racist "gun nut," in fact, has become a familiar stereotype on TV shows.
The average American, of whose daily life TV-watching takes such an unhealthy portion, distinguishes between these fictional situations and reality only with difficulty, if at all. He responds to the televised actions, statements, and attitudes of TV actors much as he does to his own peers in real life. For all too many Americans the real world has been replaced by the false reality of the TV environment, and it is to this false reality that his urge to conform responds. Thus, when a TV scriptwriter expresses approval of some ideas and actions through the TV characters for whom he is writing, and disapproval of others, he exerts a powerful pressure on millions of viewers toward conformity with his own views.
And as it is with TV entertainment, so it is also with the news, whether televised or printed. The insidious thing about this form of thought control is that even when we rea
No, the laws are not the same. Here, in US, we have 35 year old "college students" with student visas who "supplement" their income by working 9 to 5. (they attend classes at night)
And don't get me started with H-1B and L-1 loopholes. L-1 is far worse because companies don't even have to pay $1,000 to train American workers when companies "transfer" their workers from India, China, etc.
http://www.h1b.info/
I had two teachers in the last 6 months at my college who had the credentials and were supposed to be "experts in their field" Well, these two fucks didn't know anything and just read from the book to us. They had NO teaching skills and had horrible accents. An English teacher could have done better teaching these tech classes.
I did well in class but not because of the lectures.
As far as the guy who blew his brains out is concerned...he should have done us a favor and taken his replacement and managment who approved it with him. His replacement is probably still working, laughing his ass off because some poor schmuck didn't have the balls to stand up for his rights.
For me, that hard time was 2001 - I lost my programming job like a lot of people. I travelled. I liked Brazil, knew a girl there I met in europe. I had a toursim visa. I found a job - heard no a lot, but eventually I heard yes. Falling thru the cracks is indeed possible in the third world, especially if the talent matches. Eventually I got married, but it wasn't to work - I proved I could anyways.
My point? Be creative, have perserverence, and make some friends. Doesn't that cover just about anything?
iksrazal
It's called global trade. Go back to school and learn whatever the other guy knows (that you don't know)
It cost a LOT of money for a company to get an H1B. Do you really think they spend all that money for fun? Yet, it's only a 3 years visa.
2. For jobs that require somebody on-site in the States, companies are going big for H1-B's, at the same time as laying off people. As I understand it, this is supposed to be illegal, but INS is not being real aggressive about enforcement.
3. India is being more aggressive about enforcing their work visa laws than we are.
I get the feeling that as long as a company is laying off people, it should be disallowed from hiring H1-B's, since companies are finding ways to scoot around the laws already in place and/or the laws are not being vigorously enforced.
I think this is going to be a hot issue for the upcoming election year.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Is there a place where we can get an informative matrix as to where each presidential candidate stands on issues such as H1B visa's and the like that are of interest to the /. community? So far, I have liked Dean, but AFAICT, his site is a leetle vague on H1B's specifically.
Where do you get *your* entropy?
The US had it really easy after WWII: Europe was in ruins and much of the rest of the world was saddled with inefficient economic systems. Investments in many places other than the US were viewed as very risky. That's all changing now. As countries like China and India are becoming more efficient and more competitive, US workers may well have to work harder to maintain their standard of living, or accept making do with less. And US unemployment, still low compared with many other nations, will probably equilibrate with other nations. Whining about it won't help, and protectionism and closing borders would probably just make things worse for the US.
The most difficult thing about this issue is that most of the "solutions" are not concrete -- I mean they don't involve the regulation of physical goods or people crossing the border, as it used to be in the pre-internet economy.
How do you regulate a company using a phone line to outsource accounting work to India, for example? Do you say that they're not allowed to make calls over there? Or mandate that they hire a certain number of American accountants? It used to be more straightforward when the people were coming from overseas to do work here. You could see who was employing whom and what was being done where. Now we just send the work over the internet. Regulations address things that companies do, not things they don't do, such as not hire workers from the US>
This is going to take a new approach in the regulation of global trade if the issue is really to be addressed properly. Governments cannot keep on operating as if the internet age is an extension of global business. It has fundamentally changed the routes of labor and materials (even the definitions of those things).
Maybe this has been said before, but it seems worth thinking about. Enjoy.
"Most of these were for providing support, ..."
Yeah; I usually do this. Any program more than a few dozen lines, and I start adding debugging hooks.
They're never "hidden", though. I always document them. Of course, I can't force users to read the documentation.
And I don't remove the debug hooks for a "release" version. When it's out at some customer's site and they call you asking what's wrong is when you REALLY need those hooks.
It's really handy to be able to be able to tell a user "Just add the following line to the config file, wait a bit, and tell me what it says."
I've worked on several projects where we added an HTTP interface, with the app listening on some port. All configurable, of course, but usually turned on by default. Then when a user called with a problem, if they are on the Net, we can ftp to that port, start typing GET commands, and learn about its state. This is a real back door, very easy to implement, and incredibly helpful when there are problems.
Of course, you do want to document them, so that the user can't accuse you of sneaking something in on them. And make sure there's a simple way to turn them on and off. If the app has a config file, a line like "HTTP-Port: N" does the job, with N=0 to disable the back door.
Then you can say "Well, I can't see what's wrong, because the HTTP port is turned off. Yes, I understand your security concerns. But I can't help you if your security won't let me talk to the program."
Usually this isn't much of a problem, since new users rarely notice that stuff, and leave the back door enabled. When their security folks discover it, it's really handy to be able to point to the fact that it's all documented in the manual and the sample config file. Then they say "Oh, yeah." turn it off, and don't bug you.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Just a guess....? Like Canadians getting a visa for UK. Unless I'm wrong, I though/read that it's easier.
-- Leeeter than leet
When I was working in India, our company always used to have some Americans working in the company. Just as in the US, you need a work permit ( see this advice ). We also had quite a few non-citizens of Indian origin working in our company, who also needed work permits. Unlike H1B, your company doesn't need to prove that a person with your skills can't be hired locally.
The problem really is one of money. Why would anyone want to work in India for fraction of the money you can get anywhere else ?
Considering how easy movement of professions helps Indian S/W industries, I'm sure the govt. will be willing to introduce temporary work permits too if need be. Infact, they had mooted GATS guidelines on visas, work permits. I don't know the status now.
For those who don't know, India has a huge illigal immigrants problem. The immigrants are mostly from Bangladesh. In the 80's and 90's there was a very militant movement against illegal immigrants in the state of Assam. See this article.
Opposition to H1B in the US now is understandable. Infact, if INS is even now giving out H1B visas in this economy, it is absurd.
.
karma : former act as leading to inevitable results
There is a great book called The New Tolerance by Josh McDowell about this very subject. It's heavily religious but the principles apply here very well.
The beef hot dogs over in India are actually made of beef!
Issue is that of Temporary Work Visas that where not designed to lock the person into your local economy. Those are the ones used to train the foriener to do your work.
Second is this was enevitable, issue is not that the work went there it is did the Research go there? When the Research and Development goes over seas guess what you do not have local and no potential of building. Also remember it was bound to happen with those Countries investment in their human capital.
Look here, North America and particular United States puts the burdon on the individual to educate and train them selves. This is done with support from business but the problem is, what happens when the total cost of the worker is more then the investment? Will Companies invest any more? Can we blame them? If you want Hi-Tech Work you must invest in it. What is the point of self education when I do not get a return on the investent?
Summary is you must invest in the total economy. Do not do cost shifting, this does not help at all. Key is to have an economy that will maximize everyones ability to survive, from the Individual to the Corporation.
Answer to those out there. Go get an Education Degree and go over seas to another cheeper country to China/India and take the jobs from them. Can't work in India, try working in Ethiopia.
No more than a few snippets of code! That whirring noise is my 128K +2 spinning in its grave. You could do a darn site more than that with a Sinclair.
Please visit the following link to see an employment visa is being offered by the Indian government.
e .h tm
http://www.indianembassy.org/consular/visa_guid
Getting a visa might be a different matter altogether.
Posts like "if India doesnt allow then we shouldnt allow" are precisely the reasons why Indians have been successful in getting jobs in USA.
Spending 5 minutes googling will get you that link.
This lack of application & industriuosness is what is causing the downfall.
THey always make sure the fences are good and strong.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Anyone notice that white dot right below the banner ad at the top of the main /. page?? What is it??? Is it a secret message from an alien race?
Grammar good that.
Would you be willing to move there, go through a convoluted visa process, and if you're lucky, get a 10-hour-a-day job for $700/month?
You are wrong about this. There are a lot more
H1B visas issued than you might think.
Very often what happens is that an offer is made
that is much lower than what engineers in the USA
would accept. Americans who do apply usually are
turned down on bogus reasons. An unemployed person
can't afford to sue anyone, specially not a
possible employer as no one would ever consider
your resume after that.
We have several people on H1B visa where I work
and they earn a lot less than what I earn. There
is a fear among many of us that we will eventually
be replaced by H1B visa holders.
It is time to put someone like Howard Dean or
Gephart in the white house to clean this stupid mess.
What can we in the West do about this injustice?
Here are the facts.
What we, along with David Soong, should do is the following.
In the short term, both "outsourcing" and "H-1B" employment will deprive Americans of jobs to the same degree. However, in the long term, "outsourcing" has many benefits. It will stop the growth of ethnic communities that do not wish to assimilate. Further, "outsourcing" will actually increase the number of jobs in the long term. How? The American nation is a huge market, and there are many economic advantages to building a company within the market in which you wish to target. First, the company employees and the customers of the company speak the same language: English. Second, the design time of the product is reduced because the time for the path of consumer_needs->marketing_department->engineering_ department is reduced. This reason is the prime reason that many Japanese companies like Toyota have set up shop in the USA. When the market share of a company exceeds a critical threshold, the company will be compelled to setup operations in the country where the market is located.
When we shut off the H-1B faucet, American companies established in the USA will hire exclusively Americans during economic upturns. Now, in the era of the H-1B faucet gushing with H-1B applicants, unethical American companies like Intel hire hordes of H-1B folks, so the total jobs available to Americans during the economic upturn is less.
Let us in the Slashdot community start a campaign to terminate the H-1B program immediately. Simultaneously, we support outsourcing. It sounds counter-intuitive, but in the long run, outsourcing will help to maintain the quality of life in the USA and t
Indians have all the advantages while Americans have no advantages
Yeah, all those damn Indians get all the breaks - like getting to live in squalor - 85% of the population makes less than $100 a month.. What more do they want?!?!
So true. That's why you see so many quotes from the Simpsons, Futurama, Monty Python, etc. Most moderators don't recognize humor unless it comes from a source "officially" known to be funny. Making up an original joke will just get you modded down.
Letting twelve year old semi-literate shut-ins moderate posts of people three times their age is just not such a hot idea.
sorry to disapoint you, I'm not finish ! and no I don't get money from state, since I'm from a south country !!!! life is not goot to all ppl. So don't worry with me !
...
As for the "that's life" I mean you could get your independence, and start, easily, living with no help from parents. But of course, I guess you only looked at the partys and get drunk part. I guess that's a trauma you have, maybe alchool to expensive, and sold in strange ways. I don't know.
And if you're interested I always finised my studies on the minimum possible time, and was working as investigator to do my master. Of course I did had a lot of parties, and so on. You know, it's possible to do all... if you don't close yousefl at home.
PS: if you look I didn't need to insult you in a basic way, like calling names
America is already dead. It died of corruption, bribery, and the executive class. Only the rotting shell of it is still moving around, waiting for the final collapse.
Things won't change until at long last a revolution, bloody or not, happens. There are starting to be more and more unemployed people with no hope and a lot of time on their hands...
Anyone can browse these posts and discover for themselves what seems to be a frequent trend on Slashdot; most people go ahead and comment without reading the freaking articles that the posts refer to. They read the headline, they read the (frequently misinformed or mis-stated) summary of the submission and then they fire off myriad comments.
These postings are riddled with "Why is this even on here?" and "Is this even a story?" These people didn't read the article. Or, they're idiots. Possibly both.
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
why is this troll modded up? the dot com crash and the terrible economy killed the IT job market. H1B visas aren't killing it and even if they were this issue is being addressed: H1B visa cut to hit infotech industry
it's almost impossbile to get a job over here without at least a masters degree and honestly if companies can get a masters student for half the price your average american BS grad will accept who can blame them. Do we have the right to be employed at a high salary just because we were born here?
Another apologist for our poorer trading partners who grow by taking advantage of the U.S. The fact remains that America has an asymetric economic and trade relationship with the rest of the world and it and the American worker suffers. You don't care about the worker? You think he retrain and find a new job? Maybe so. But these people are citizens and have a vote. Over the long term large numbers of these people will force government policies to shift radically, to everyone's disadvantage. To prevent such upheaval it would be polically expedient for our government to get rid of H-1B's during the economic downturn.
an ill wind that blows no good
Yeah and while you're at it, get back to your cavern and don't forget your fur outfit.
A few years ago, I worked for a company which wanted to outsource sofware development work to a group of Pakistani programmers in Indonesia. I was assigned the responsibility of getting them accustomed to our development environment. Due to the language differences, it was quite difficult. In the end, my company scaled down the expectations for the consultants. This illustrated a couple of points: 1) Outsourcing development adds the obstacles of distance and possibly language differences to the task of training developers. 2) Not only are you now dealing with getting requirements right with the client who wants the software, you have to clearly communicate requirements with your second 'client' - the outsourced developers. The above difficulties, I believe, reduce a project's chances to succeed. Add to this the possibility of bad code, back doors, etc deliberately placed into the code and you have some convincing reasons why outsourcing software development to groups outside the US is not a good idea.
...the right of the people to keep and arm bears shall not be infringed.
I wish that the coders would realize that working for somebody else enables them to call the shots. If you do not like it, then build your own company. For technical americans, let me suggest that you consider using the knowledge that you have. Consider the case of our network patch cables. Most are made overseas. Why not design and build an automated machine that will build these using Cat 6? Or if that is difficult, then consider how the wire could be easily manufactued so that end conenctors could easily be added. America (and Europe) lost much of their manufactuering jobs over the last 60 years. So now is the time to automate it. It is much easier to do than it appears. /month on electricity? So lower the energy needs of the highest energy consumption.
Another example is Claw/Nut Crackers.
How about automating manufactuering flatware/silverware?
How about creation of led-based xmas lights?
One thing I am working on is doing Linux into niche markets that have few programs that control that industry (multi-billion). By making several of the programs work on wine, and then doing the others on Linux (they are actually trivial programs being sold at outlandish prices).
Likewise, I am working on hardware that I think will be where the future is. It is easy to see if you open your eyes and see.
Look around. Now that we are deregulating power generation and how a few companies can merge and monopolize, you can bet that electricity is going to get very expensive (think of the cable or defense industries). How many ppl can afford to pay 200-300
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Who is this guy anyway ?
You get double-taxed when you work outside the country. You pay the taxes of the nation your work in, AND if you opt to retain your US citizenship, you STILL pay US federal taxes, too.
The US government would love to have citizens working outside the country...because then they aren't providing you with roads, with infrastructure, and army protection, and yet you're still funneling them a hefty cut of your paycheck...which is entirely in funds from another country. You have just brought in income without costing the US a dime. They would love to ship out US workers to Bangalore more than anything.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Who cares about the last part of the clip, everyone knows that it's a pain in the ass to get a job in another country, unless your an executive or you live in the EU. (My personal experience alone with this is endless.)
The point is the first part. And I don't want to collectively diss the /. population, but if you guys would read BusinessWeek, The Economist, etc., in addition to all your damn computer magazines, then you'd be enlightened already about how the H1 visa problem is growing so fast in the States.
There are countless stories at countless firms about people who've been forced to train their outsourced replacements. It is a really big problem in this country.
I really don't give a f*ck if you want to outsource a job to India. But all that bullsh*t with Tata is a gross exploitation of a labor-law loophole. Generally, the law states that you can't lay someone off and replace that exact position within "X" amount of time (it varies by State, I believe, here in Illinois it's 1 year). So companies get around it by creating whole new departments and positions for companies like Tata to come in and rape your office space, replacing you with an H1-er.
Start reading other magazines, and you guys might actually be motivated to care about this instead of giving supposedly righteous comments about how obvious it is that it's difficult to obtain work visas in other countries.
Focus on the important stuff. Like the BEGINNING of the clip.
"All techies should be forced to take at least 12 credits of business in college."
-SD
Even worse, the joke's not original at all! It's from "Austin Powers in Goldmember", a movie even mom's-basement-geeks, I would expect, have seen.
http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/11/news/economy/visa
First few lines are:
Visas vs. jobs
While many U.S. tech workers hate the H-1B program, studies suggest its impact is limited.
September 11, 2003: 12:14 PM EDT
By Mark Gongloff, CNN/Money Staff Writer
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A U.S. visa program that allows aliens to temporarily work in technology and other high-paying industries is often blamed for taking American jobs and pushing wages lower. But two recent studies suggest this program might not be as awful as some critics think.
Let me also point out that Toyota does build some cars in North America, so not all the money leaves for Asia.
Face it - until everyone expects the same standard of living, jobs will continue to migrate to the cheapest labor market.
Get off my launchpad!
It might not be so bad
In the second half of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series, a new law is enacted, the Trade Reform Act. The law is really simple, it allows the president to pick a country with unfair trade laws and mirror them. They want to inspect every car that arrives at the dock? Sure, we'll do the same. They won't hire americans to work at their code shops? Ok, we'll do the same. This of couse triggers two wars in the series, but the core concept of the law was pretty solid.
I am well aware of the economics of outsourcing to India, my previous employer spent at least 6 months being courted by a half dozen code shops in India. They were complete professionals and very flexible. The skillset was in place, the language skills were better than what we want to believe and the price advantage was good. *That* I can live with.
What it is bothering me is this statement that it is illegal for an american to work in India. I mean, the only thing they had to do was say suuuure, come work for us, but you will get an indian salary commesurate with your skills and experience, we cannot pay you a US salary just because you are an american. That would be fair for everyone involved.
Or somebody in the government should wake up and see all these american going out of work because their jobs are going overseas. This of course sounds horribly naive on my part, but what is going to happen with defense sensitive software development? Are we going to outsource it too?
Some kind of trade reform act would be a great way to wake up India, China and Japan about the real meaning of trade. They can't expect to continue flooding us with cheap products and labor and then taking their profits and spending them elsewhere.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Okay - so the point of H1B's is to provide workers for a growing economy when we can't train our own people fast enough, right? (No local talent).
So when there IS an abundance of local talent (evidenced by the posting volume of /. posts) why aren't H1B's sent home? I have no problem with international workers being here, if they are filling a need that can't be filled locally.
To give an example of the way I think the H1B system is getting worked, the last job I worked at was an Informix 4GL shop. If you don't know what this is, it's the most insanely brain-dead programming language ever made. No features, no objects, hell you can't even pass arrays to functions. So what does this company do? Hires chinese H1B's who don't really know anything, for pennies. These guys were working REALLY cheap (like $8/hr) and the company had no intention of hiring any Americans because they wouldn't work for $8/hr. They had some scam running where a few of the american employees did work that cheap "officially" but got kickbacks for supporting the H1B program. I came into this company from a merger, and left shortly thereafter.
My current company is outsourcing to an Indian development firm who supposedly has 30 employees assigned to us. Our entire dev team here in the US is like 5 people, and we're doing the lion's share of the work!
So my opinion of outsourced and H1B employees is rather low, although I'll be the first to admit that there are probably lots of great foreign computer folks out there too. I just haven't seen any :)
The philosophy of market fundamentalism--the mantra of Fox, Wired, Rush, Gilder, Friedman and every zealous conservative and libertarian pundit--is doing an excellent job of encouraging business to turn its back on US employees. We'll see much, much more job flight in the short term until the brakes are applied to this savage anti-social approach.
Plainly this is what happens when you shatter the social contract and replace it with an ideology of dog-eat-dog. When times are good, it's nice to be able to bark, "Hands off my bone!" Not so nice, is it, when times are bad... Then, living under dog ideology isn't all it's cracked up to be, and you may come to see that millions and millions of your fellow Americans have been given the same raw deal.
For America, reeling under the destructiveness of this philosophy, a reordering of priorities is necessary. Increasing shareholder wealth may be the highest goal of a company; but it should never be the highest goal of a nation.
Above all, as you see jobs go to India, or elsewhere, and worry that it might be yours next, remember whose advice and guidance led you to this low hour. Remember also who made historically high profits from your labor in the 1990s, but now pleads the inability to continue your employment. And ask yourself if you can afford to subscribe to the politics of plutocrats who don't care if you and your family sink or swim.
"She's young, beautiful and rich."
I hope you did. But I suspect she is spoiled because she has it so good, so don't hang around for breakfast.
Tell me about the "demonstrated that there isn't local talent who could do the job" part, again?
Because that certainly doesn't seem to be how the H-1B program is working here in the U.S.!
Companies are laying off long-time skilled workers, because they can save some money by bringing people from overseas. Of course, none of these companies seem to realize that if they all lay off workers, they're not just losing workers, they're losing customers, because a large portion of those wages leaves the local economy.
Here's a tip for all those executives: You cannot lay off enough people to dig your way out of a recession. You get out of a recession by HIRING people, so they have money to spend.
!Sig
Why do we just accept the fact that the H1B is hurting american workers? H1B was a great policy when companies could not find employees. American workers had jobs, Indian workers had job, companies filled the positions they needed filled; everyone was happy. Now the economy is much different; companies aren't hiring, Americans are out of work, Indians still have many of the positions in the US and they have many opportunities in for work in India (work that used to be in the US). While I don't think that the current H1B workers should be kicked out it is beyond me why we are still accepting more. There were 150,000+ H1B visas granted this year! So this leaves American workers out of work, costing us the taxpayers in Unemployement and hurts the economy because unemployed people can't buy as much.
I don't hold anything against H1B workers; they've just taken advantage of a situation that is great for them. I blame this on goverment policy and the companies that choose to screw US employees to make a couple more bucks.
As far as I know, American companies, led by American managers, controlled by American dhareholders, are relocatting your jobs to places where they can have the same service for less money. Go complain with them. Or with your Congress. The Indian workers do not need nor care to become a citizen of your country. The jobs are being offered in India...
I say we give the death penalty to all the CIOs/CEOs who import these dirty, smelly, ass-backwards towelheads who come over here and pollute our country.
While we're at it, let's nuke the shit out of the middle east and put an end to the H1B/L1 visa problem by taking out the populace.
DEATH to ALL the FUCKING towelheads! Death TO all THE fucking TOWELHEADS!
However, abusing the H-1B laws is easy. Silicon Valley has 8% engineering unemployment, yet unethical American companies like Intel insist that they cannot find American workers to hire. In fact, they have asked Congress to maintain or increase the H-1B quota.
Join with us in the Slashdot community. Support outsourcing but stop the H-1B program. Please read "Oppose H-1Bs but Support Outsourcing".
The part the gets me is all the people saying that they will "only" get $700/month in India. What I would like to know is what is the cost of living in India, I bet that $700/month would easily pay your bills and give you a nice hefty chunk left to go out to eat.
This is like people getting upset over "sweatshops" people getting payed $10/day to work 12 hours, when their rent/mortgage and such comes out to be $10/month, leaving them a hefty amount of money for the 5 cent loafs of bread and the chicken at $2 per recently butchered whole chicken? Where is the injustice in this?
The cost of living is high here in the US, and we pay the price. When gas prices hit $1.70 per gallon, we bitch and moan, AS we are filling up our SUVs.
Welcome to globalization!
Globalisation means free travel of products not free travel of workers.
Free travel of people doesn't apply if the people are under-developed...
Z.
Research Guide to the Palestinian-Israeli Co
Great. Now they can come over here on speculation without even having a job offer, and then apply for jobs that are advertised domestically.
/ co mp/articleshow?msid=133722
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html
I can't speak to the not hiring Americans in America situation, but as for getting jobs overseas sometimes it really depends on the trade treaties in place between the two countries. In North America for example you have the NAFTA visa-Americans are eligible for work in Canada and Mexico and vice versa.
So, um, tell me sir, where are all these low-paying IT jobs? I haven't seen any advertised. Since some folks are making $0, they might be interested.
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
You need to get an employment visa sponsored by your employer. Source
A non-citizen can't just come waltzing in to the US to take a job, they need to go through the H1B process. It costs money, it takes time, and there's a limit on how many. How do you know India doesn't have a similar law? This guy is steamed because he thought paperwork shouldn't apply to him?
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
Do have the faintest idea of the difficult it is for any foreigner to get a green card? Nothing prevents the USA from imposing any barriers they want for foreign workers, and they do. If your Congress bought the "IT shortage" speech from the industry leaders, it is your problem, not the rest of the world's.
And by the way, Americans are not flooding elsewhere looking for work, so "no one will hire Americans" is something at least unclear...
I also work with people from Tata, and they do employ American citizens, to fill much the same sort of job responsibilities that my firm does.
[
Sometimes, I almost feel like we should send the Statue of Liberty back to France, and say "Thanks - but we're pretty much done with it now. Why don't you use it now?"
Of course, the country was "built by immigrants". It's pretty tough to develop a formerly undeveloped nation without bringing some people in from other places.
After everything is in place and sufficient people are citizens to get everything done that needs doing - I think it's time to re-examine the immigration policies and start tightening things up.
Despite being very much a Libertarian, this is probably the one area where I'm not sure I can quite agree with their philosophy. Libertarians seem to be very big on "open borders" and allowing unlimited immigration. The idea could work, but only on a level playing field, which much of the rest of the world is nowhere near ready to do.
In the current world economy, it's economic suicide for the U.S. to allow all of these H1B Visas. Yes, people in many other countries would love to come over here and improve their lives. But no, we can't just let them do so at our own citizen's expense.
The USA may have become great from welcoming immigrants, but there's also such a thing as having "too much of a good thing". Companies complaining that there aren't enough Americans with the skills and training they require should be funding education and training in the U.S. - instead of outsourcing the jobs.
If you know how to spell, use proper English, and can recognize that two stories are duplicates, you could probably be the editor of some tech news blog.
Holy shit! When did spelling become a prerequisite?
from Indian government Visa Guidelines:
These are the requirements for an Employment Visa
EMPLOYMENT VISA: An appointment letter, contract letter, applicant's resume and proof that the organization is registered in India are required. Duration of visa would depend on the period of the contract.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
Growing up in South Florida, I've spent 30 years watching the influx of immigrants, both legal and illegal, spread and increase. The ratio of those of foreign origin to native origin in the southern portion of the state has boomed, with areas such as Miami now being nearly evenly split, if not more foreign. I watched news stories begin in a small trickle, then a river, and nowadays a flood where people lose their jobs to those willing to work for a cheaper labor rate. Often (not always, but often) they lose their jobs to foreigners who don't expect fair wages (perhaps out of gratitude for living in the US, or out of fear of being reported for being illegal). It's nothing new in South Florida.
How often have we seen the same problem in areas of the Southwest, where the large exodus of illegal aliens from Mexico has led to a changeover of jobs from native born workers to those of foreign origin? Most of the time, these foreigners are being exploited by the employers because of their status, which is a problem in and of itself.
Now we're seeing the 21st century version of this same problem, where employers are outsourcing vital job opportunities to foreign businesses or individuals. This is a decade where businesses fail at any moment because of the ripple effect felt by lack of consumer confidence, unsteady stock prices, and often unethical & illegal corporate business practices. In order to survive, these businesses will try to cut to the bone wherever they can, and rather than pay the average rate to an American employee, they will go where they can to save what they can.
Will laws help solve the problem? Probably not. They may stop the flow for awhile, but it won't succeed in the long run. We already have corporations move their corporate headquarters offshore in order to escape tax brackets and regulations. We have auto companies move major manufacturing plants to Mexico so that they can hire lower cost labor and make a higher margin on their vehicle sales. If states such as California pass some law that restricts the hiring of foreign employees, the only result I can foresee for the future is an exodus of companies from California to states that allow it, or to countries other than the US.
It almost makes me glad that I abandoned Computer Science in college in favor of Education. I don't have to compete with foreign labor for cheaper wage rates - as a teacher cheap wage rates are already built into the system!
Londovir
Londovir
I'd call you a troll but with so many people saying the same thing it must be an actual viewpoint a lot of dumbasses have.
Do you think a secretary or a security guard has the same mortgage payments you do? They have accepted their jobs pay X a month and have learned to live within their means.
Your job no longer commands the salary it once did. Deal with it. Don't whine about not being able to make mortgage payments, move to a smaller place! If your phone bill is too expensive, use the damn phone less!
But what about the liability issue - you contract with an Indian firm, and when the project goes into production, it doesn't work.
So what do you do? The programmers, consultants, and your money are all overseas, out of reach of US law. You can sue, maybe, but good luck collecting a judgement.
Quite frankly, I've heard horror stories about outsourcing. You know, the projects that didn't integrate correctly, didn't work, and the worst of it was that the company had to bring in local consultants to fix it. Of course the consultants charged much more than the project would have cost in the first place had it been done in house.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
However, there are varying degrees of "not allowed to". Permanent residents in the United States of America (USA) have almost the same privileges as citizens. Even IBM treats permanent residents (i.e. folks with just a "green card") identically to citizens. Permanent residents can get a job just as easily as citizens in the USA.
Of course, a person who has neither permanent residence nor American citizenship has a relative easy time looking for work in the USA. A person of the same status would have a mucher harder time in Japan, for example. This ease is the source of abuse in the H-1B laws. Folks, we in the Slashdot community must wake up! Silicon Valley now has 8% engineering unemployment, yet unethical American companies like Intel insist that they cannot find American workers to hire. In fact, they have asked Congress to maintain or increase the H-1B quota.
Join with us in the Slashdot community. Support outsourcing but stop the H-1B program. Please read "Oppose H-1Bs but Support Outsourcing".
There are plenty of unemployed Americans in the computer industry right now. Lets give the jobs to them first. It's only fair.
Hi all,
I haven't read all the responses and some of them may have covered what I am writing.
I know of several people of non-Indian citizenship working in India.
One company for which we developed MIS located in the heart of Delhi had a British (white man, not an Indian of British nationality) head.
The last company I worked for in India had an American head.
Also, do you remember the Bhopal Gas Disaster of 1984? There were some technicians of American nationality working in Union Carbide plant in Bhopal even in those days.
Long ago (I think 1993, 94)Microsoft India had an American national of Indian origin handling their affairs in Delhi.
An acquaintance works in Cathay Pacific and their bosses working in Delhi are British or nationals of some country from East Asia.
Last year at the height of India-Pak military standoff, it was reported that there were 60,000 individuals of American nationality working in India.
The guys who are creating the city of New Auroville in India are totally American.
Hence it is not true that non-Indians cannot work in India. They can do so, can do so legally and also remit dollars to America or Canada. This according to a FERA - Foreign Exchange Regulation Act - consultant who I know and who deals with such matters routinely.
(Also, there are hundreds of thousands of illegal Bangladeshis living in Delhi and other parts of India, earning money and sending some back to their relatives in BD).
Fortunately, one of the business groups at the company didn't like this idea and were able to negotiate a local engineer for their needs - thus putting my job on life support. How long this will last is anyone's guess.
I now consider the IT field dead and once I lose my job for good I am moving back to Europe (my wife and kids are German passport holders) where I can find some meaningless job, non-computer related. Then I can go back to computers being my hobby, maybe at that time I can actually enjoy them as I once did because now they are only a source of heartache.
By the way, I know this isn't only a problem here in the U.S. I have many tech-worker friends back in Germany and they are reporting the same trend going on there as well. I don't know how companies can feel good about their technology and infrastructure being in the hands of a near 3rd world nation halfway around the globe nieghboring countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. Got a feeling it will bite them in the ass later (one could only hope).
Any government that is more concerned about their citizen's well-being than about corporation's well-being will block non-citizens from working.
;)
Any government that is more concerned about corporation's well-being than about their citizen's well-being will allow companies to hire non-citizens to their heart's content.
I think that's pretty cut and dried. I am certain someone will correct me shortly.
I was working on a project a couple years ago where it was decided necessary to hire outside help. I provided the skillset requirements and let others handle the hiring. As a result we hired (temporarily) a fellow from Bangladesh, through a consultant organization.
I can't remember the particulars of his situation, but the place he worked for really had some strick rules. In order for him to work in the US, he needed someone to sponsor his visa (as others have suggested). He wanted a job here, permanently, but in order to do so had to have someone sponsor him through the process.
His family (a wife and a newborn) came over later on. I think it was a condition of his contract that he work several months away from them. I might have that wrong. But there was definitely something time related to the job, either he'd have to work for them for X number years or something simliar.
As I recall the contract fee was cheap, $25k or so over several months. So I can only imagine what he was actually paid. At any moment as well, I belive they could fire/let-him-go and without a visa he'd have to return to Bangladesh. What's more, a lot of the expenses related to the job he had to cover himself (apartment, transportation, travel, etc.).
Eventually I think he was considering moving to Canada because the immigration process would be faster (6 or 7 years!). But this was before the attacks on the World Trade Center so one can only imagine that it's even longer now.
I'm not saying I agree with the whole "ship everything out of the country cuz its cheaper" idea. But opposing H1Bs doesn't solve anything either. Ultimately we're all people who are trying to do the best for either ourselves or our families. Folks in other countries have just as much right to find work as we do. As others have suggested, I don't find it too surprising that they'd indicated no Americans could apply. When the consultant I worked with tried to find work elsewhere, as I recall, some places couldn't hire him because they weren't able to sponsor his visa (or didn't want to), one was a state (wisconsin) funded agency.
I've already worked on two contracts where the company outsourced development, and it was horrible code. So they brought it back in house to "fix" (translation, rewrite).
Not to say that foreign developers aren't quality coders, there are plenty that are outstanding. It just seemed to me that you get what you pay for. There were probably unreasonable deadlines to be met and bad code was stuffed in to hit them. On the back end, these two companies were unable to collect from the foreign companies. So they simply stopped outsourcing.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
I can't believe the parent to this was modded +5 Insightful. Insightful my ass - more like +5 Isolationist. First off, the H1B is hardly about India - it is used by people from all countries, including Canada, Britain and Australia, to name a few.
But the real question is this: As an american, would you really WANT to live and work in India?
I just returned from vacation in India, and I stayed in Bangalore for a week.
Americans are mostly used to a much higher standard of living that what you'll experience in Bangalore. As mentioned above, the average IT guy will make less than 18000 rupees a month, which roughly equates to about $400USD. It's true the cost of living is less, but you'll have to get used to: frequent power outages, lack of clean, potable water, extremely crowded city with often unsanitary conditions, etc. Bangalore has awful air quality. Although it is the "garden city", they have no emissions controls, and practically anything with wheels and a motor is allowed on the roads. I think just being on the street there must be equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes everyday!
There are ZILLIONS of Indian computer programmers who are vying for that job. Why would they give it to an American citizen? These guys are goofy to think they can try to relocate to India.
Instead of whining about it they should get some new skills and make themselves more valuable in the marketplace. You have to be flexible and change with the times, not just complain when your job skills become outdated.
Director has ALWAYS sucked ass. The idea that a port of it could actually make it a more annoying and buggy product than it already was is unfathomable.
The idea of this disgusts me. If our corporations are to be allowed to outsource highpaying, high technology jobs, they should be required to do so only to corporations that are willing to balance that favor with ethics that are not hypocritical.
I am not prejudiced, but I have seen this happen with Indians in the Silicon Valley as well. Once they become hiring managers, they hire only other Indians. And the quality of work is really second rate. Americans tend to hire on merit. Indians, as I have witnessed, on blood (and caste). IMHO, of course.
India got a nice boost in wages, but already I've seen articles that they're losing jobs to other countries that are even cheaper. Expect this process to continue.
(Who cares about that wetback gringo...)
There's hidden backdoors put into non-outsourced code. Is it really so much more prevalent a case with outsource code that outsourcing should be avoided?
Can the perp really get away with it with a source revision control system in place, and the proper contract (And a properly designed network/system infrastructure)?
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
I would like to know. The US is losing its manufacturing jobs. Have you heard of any factory workers say they want to go work in china?
The living standards will probably make you flee in a week or a month. Workers do not have health insurance, the language is a big problem etc.
A while back, I read that a few well known Indian companies were looking for very experienced(8-10+ years) business managers who take charge of the software development units.
Many Indian companies are getting contracts but they are usually below 50 million $. The big contracts still go to Accenture, IBM etc.
These Indian companies were willing to pay 60,000 $(all inclusive) for these kinds of managers.
And still there is a shortage. This is because the software business there has taken off only in the last few years. Prior to that nobody did big business there so that meant that there were not many experienced people to manage large and complex projects.
People with that kind of experience earn atleast 150k in the US. So if you have the above skills, Indian companies would probably be interested in you. They have no need for pure coders. There are tons of them there. If you don't have any special skills to differentiate yourself, you're probably going to be run over.
Also, companies outsource because they can!
If there was a law against outsourcing, would companies do it.
In the same vein, if US companies could avoid paying tax, many would do so.
Don't expect companies to listen to you.
Outsourcing is done because its possible.
Business is tight. Wall Street is a wolf.
Everybody wants a piece of the pie.
Ask your representative in congress for answers.
Bush is on fire and its not good for my lungs.
Immigration policies generally are worked out between governments, and follow a kind of we'll treat you like like you treat us approach.If a US makes difficult to get a visa for citizens from a country, that country (often more symbolically than anything) does the same to american citizens.
I'm absolutely sure that if he had a company willing to sponsor his visa application into india he would have had no problems.
Some times two nations are able to negotiate special terms for their citizens allowing a greater degree of freedom of movement between them. Good examples being the US and canada, australia and new zealand, and the european union.But usually there has to be a good reason to enter a country to work, you have special skills, a company is sponsoring you or your filthy rich.
If anything america has some of the strictest policies, and by far the rudest and most arrogant immigration staff around, (from talks with many international students, and post doctoral workers in the US and my own personal experience).
I have a feeling the guy didn't do anything more than call the indian embassy and ask to enter india to find work, and of course he got rebuked. An indian would have to lucky even to get through to the US emabassy on the phone in India, let alone hope to be allowed to enter the US on the vague hope of finding work.
Missionaries in India have been working there since 1st century (or zeroth?) since the times of St. Thomas who is considered the patron Saint of India.
They regularly come to India in droves and work there to harvest lost souls.
It's no fun being an illegal alien
Snuck into India to ply my trade
found a cool job, thought I had it made
didn't wear a turban and had pasty-faced skin
got caught real fast before my first paycheque came in.
It's no fun being an illegal alien...
-- Fill "subroutine" Callin's
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
A friend I worked with has gone the other way and moved from India to Belgium. A very very well trained and capable man, btw.
He told me that a very good reason to outsource to India is project stability. Your programmers will stick to you from start to finish.
With the extra overhead, communications issues and exchange of people in both teams ("here" and "there") - that is, if you care about implementing a setup that gets you good code and usable programs - outsourcing isn't really that cheap. But if done well, you have a stable project from start to end.
This is four years ago, when programmers jumped from one well paid job to another. Things have changed a bit but I think you can follow his reasoning.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
This is simple xenophobia. What happened to the libertarian slashdot posts during the boom? It's a bear market so kick out the foreigners? Figure out how the US was made great my friends. Also, consider how a free market works.
I've been an engineer for about 25 years now. I've been hearing the same refrain, in one form or another, for all of that time.
I've been an employee, a contractor and a consultant; sometimes all at the same time. I've done electronics design, sales, tech support, project management, tech writing, supervision, embedded controller programming and now IT programming.
My Motorola IT job is being outsourced to India. Some say this isn't patriotic. I say if programming for Motorola in India isn't patriotic then buying our cell phones in India wouldn't be patriotic either.
I don't mind being laid off. I've got three side programming jobs going on at the moment anyway. I'll just ramp up the consulting and contracting. But if I did want another full time job, there are plenty. Without even looking I found a company here locally that is adding fifty more Java programmers by the end of this year (and they don't need to know J2EE:)
Get over it. Improvise, adapt, overcome. Learn something new. Stop reading SlashDot. Start a business. Write a book. Make a movie; it's cheap now. Have some backbone. It's your life. you can whine about how unfair it is or you can get off your butt, use your head and make an opportunity for yourself.
Life is what you make of it (and other cliches).
Rob:-]
"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Gandhi
The number of 'native' people here is confined to mostly people who have property right to an 'indian' reservation. The rest of us are either from somewhere else or of people decended from somewhere else within the last 200 years. There are very few people who can claim their only lineage from the original east coast Pre-US colonies. Immigrants have brought business ideas, culture, and intelligence. A vast array of our scientists that have developed military materiel are immigrants. We tolerate them, right?
Even in our economic downturn, we still have a rather small unemployment rate. Our economy has always been cyclical, and now is no different than any other time, other than the industries most strongly affected. On an upswing companies hire as many people as they can, if they have a need for them, and they trim back when they have spent in excess of what their workforce can deliver, based on economic times. This is normal. It sucks, but as long as we allow the severe swings that we see, it'll remain this way.
When someone lives here, (s)he buys goods and services locally. This is money that isn't leaked out to foreign companies. Even the immigrant that sends money home for family ends up spending a lot here, since the cost of living is so high. I'd want to see raw figures collected by someone without a bias one way or the other before I would revise that thought.
Not all immigrants remain, but many do. Many find a much better life here than they have in other parts of the world. They see the salaries of their peers, and ultimately want that salary, or more of that lifestyle. They get addicted to pay-per-view and pizza delivery and cheap transportation. They become part of 'us'. I won't say that they all do, for many who come from countries as economically comparable per capita as the U.S. don't assimilate, but they have no reason to, either. Those from poorer countries become Americans. Their original culture doesn't disappear, but it all gets thrown in.
It's not nearly as clear of an issue as people make it out to be.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
If you know how to spell, use proper English, and can recognize that two stories are duplicates, you could probably be the editor of some tech news blog.
Which blog would that be? Not Slashdot, we know that!
we here in the USA should adopt the same policy.
Indians (people from India), should be welcome
to come here for vacation, but not to work. And
US companies should stop outsourcing their work
to India.
Before you moderate me down, know this: my
mother in a LEGAL immigrant from Eastern Europe.
I have NO problem with people coming here LEGALLY!
She had to wait, YEARS, then she came here (not
speaking ANY English) and she learned the language.
She became a VERY succesful businesswoman.
These people are NOT better than my mother, and
they should not be treated in a special manner!
I do however have a big problem with ILLEGALS
(and I ain't talking about sick birds), and I
also have a big problem with India's policy, if
it is true.
If we here in the USA did adopt their policy,
we would be labeled as racist. Pot, Kettle, Black.
India, you are racist (but I like your food)!
when you offshore your IT, how do you police who is doing the work at any time? What is to stop the company you offshore to employing any number of terrorists who can plant time-bombs in the code?
In fact, how do you know that the offshore companies themselves are not simply cover organistaions for terrorist infiltration cells?
I'm not trying to spook anyone, I was just wondering what procedures are in place. Anyone here in a position to give any answers?
All I know is the salary once payed to a US citiizen is now going to a foreigner. Who then saves his money, takes it back home with him, and then spends it in his country's economy. This causes our economy to weaken and the foreign country's to strengthen.
Now the company in the U.S. has a short term gain, but three or four quarters down the line they show a net loss because they have too much inventory sitting in their warehouses. All because the American consumer lost his job and can't buy didly squat.
I'm thankful for the job I have and hope those who don't have one, find one soon.
Alan Greenspan
How many of these companies that are outsourcing stuff to India have considered what will happen when Pakistan finally decides to take a shot at India? All of those tech jobs (and techs) go up in a nice nuclear mushroom cloud.
My fiance' is presently working in the U.S. on an H1-B Visa. A quick refresher:
i ng .jobs.market.in.the.US.
H1-B visas are only granted to persons with the equivalent of a 4-year Bachellor's degree. Part of the application process involves going through a degree equivalency comparison by an accredited lawyer. My fiance' has a Masters' in Computer Science.
H1-B visa holders have a minimum salary stipulation. I believe the last time I checked it was $35,000 US. My fiance is being paid the same salary as the person that held her position before her, which is substantially higher than minimum.
The position she was hired for was unfilled for some time as the company could not find someone with her required database/programming/java skills locally (we reside in a small midwestern community of ~150,000 population including neighboring villages and suburbs.)
The real culprit here is twofold:
1. The L-1 Visa. The L-1 has *substantially* lower pay requirements. These are the job-stealing visas.
2. Corporate greed and government inaction. CEO's just see their programming expense as a budget line item to be reduced, like finding a cheaper widget supplier. Government inaction is self-explanitory. They are closing the door too slowly.
H1-B's are typically attracting highly educated Western Europeans to the U.S. for a number of reasons. Salaries that are 1.5 to 2x higher than back home (not 5-8x as compared to India), A significant other in the states (grin) or a sense of adventure and desire to try the U.S. for a while. I find it baffling that in the wake of the articles regarding Teller's passing that we're questioning the H1-B situation. Post WWII, alot of our brainpower came from Western Europe. Highly skilled, highly educated persons who desire to become U.S. citizens and melt into the pot are what strengthens the U.S.
It.is.the.L-1.visa.that.is.killing.the.programm
PERIOD.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Please listen to an Honest Indians defence I cannot believe that C I O could publish such a stupid article !!!! IT IS NOT ILLEGAL FOR EXPATS TO WORK IN INDIA ! How do I know this , Well we set up a company makin watches in collaboration with a jap company. The jap company being the majority shareholder sends two japanese managers. All the japanese company had to do was get a WORK PERMIT, Which believe me is a piece of cake compared to the shit we go through to get a h1b or even a student visa. All major US companies and mnc's who set up base in India have a number of managers who are actually expats. In fact the CEO odf Coke India etc. etc are US citizens. In fact articles in indian business magazines have pointed out that there is a recent trend even among Indian companies to hire expat managers. And if u think that they hire only coats, That also is not true. Many Indian software comanies also hire techies although they have to be *highly specialized* However if some of u nice unemployed people want to shift to India, Think of what you are going 2 put urself through. A TechWorker in India with all the qualifications of Daniel Soong may have to work for as low as 200-300$. Believe me thats what my friends here earn! All of u who think that bannin the h1b is the answer may be sadly mistaken. Outsourcing may be a more serious problem than H1B and also realize that artificially creating hurdles rarely solves problems. The companies who are outsorcin 2 India are the ones that are doing this out of desperation alias economic recession. Note that america could not really prevent a lot of manfacturing activities 2 be shifted to bases like China, Malaysia. Banning the h1b also will not prevent the long term ousourcing phenomena.
Did anybody else notice the TPS acronym bandied about in the Computerworld article? I can hardly wait!
M'kay?
If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law;
The last thing we need is for America to become an intolerant, isolationist country again. I don't know about you but my I am not Native-American and I have descended from immigrants. I am very glad that they had the opportunity to come here and work.
I work with several individuals who were not born in this country and I can tell you that they every bit as talented (if not more so) as the people who were born here.
Take your hate rhetoric elsewhere.
Any American can work in India provided they a) have a job there b) their employer is willing to sponsor their work visa. You can talk to any Indian consulate for this. The whole process takes a week or two with all the documentations available. Last time I went to B'lore (2001) I found many Ukranians and Russians there working for the software companies. If they can do it so can you. This sort of articles with a half assed research to find a scapegoat dont bode well in terms of your own philosophies. Remember, not a single Indian arrived in the USA unless an American company sponsored them to come and work here. I liked what the CEO of Infosys said once about all these jobs moving there .. "They came to save money and stayed for quality"
Frankly I think this is an unstoppable trend and in a global economy and in the "so called" free market, this is entirely expected. Also some mentalities matter as well.
No one gave a damn when the 3rd world countries were starving in the 60s and America and Canada were dumping wheat filled ships in the atlantic. So why should anyone care what happens to their workforce now ?
In a perfect world, there should be no Bushes
Let me correct (I don't know where you learned your English):
They are not taking the jobs. American people like you are putting the jobs over sea. This is done for two reasons:
1. To increase profits, which of course is good for you, yes you, since you own shares in those companies. What you don't own shares? Then you are an american who doesn't matter.
2. The other reason is even simpler: To stop people from complaining too much. High unemployment is good for business; it means the workers can't make demands for fear of being replaced.
So don't blame India, blame your own people. Blame the people who said unions are commie ideas. Blame those who said that business can best be trusted to look after the economy.
Oh and of course this is not typical America. It is just that good or bad America leads the world. So this will soon be happening in the rest of the world in the not so distant future.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Foreigners can work in India, they just need a work permit. I am from Bangalore and I see a lot of foreigners who live and work in India. They tend to be senior managers or executives but they do get a work permit and thus they can work.
Get a work permit and then apply for a job in India. Tell the company you have a work permit.
In this age's global economy, the reality is that the US economic model is growing beyond the US's borders. Multi-national corportations are shopping around for the best deal. Particularly when the US economy is struggling, many of these companies will define 'best' deal as the cheapest. Other posters have pointed out that you get what you pay for. Maybe eventually the companies that outsource will realize that their savings on paper are costing them more than they realize.
In the meantime, technical folks that lived large during the boom times have to realize that people offshore have also realized there's money to be made in technology. Their price is lower, so the jobs go offshore. Those of us here in the US have to either lower our prices or convince employers that we provide more value than the cheaper offshore workers.
In other news, blue-collar workers have been arguing for years that we need to close our borders to foreign products, or tarrif the hell out of them. Now, suddenly, white collar jobs are being lost as well & people are shouting "Close the borders!" "Get rid of the H1-B's!" "Save MY job!"
Sorry, dude. Thats the way it works. Change careers. Develop new skills. Start your own business that hires only 3+ generation Americans. But if you choose to drive a foreign car, or watch an off-shore made television, or insert example here of products built outside the US that were/are more expensive when built here, you're living a double-standard. It can't work both ways. Pick your economic system: protectionism or a free market.
There are plenty of low paying jobs both IT and not but it is sometimes hard for people with a lot of experience to get them. If you were a VP making $120,000 at your last job and you are applying for a Help Desk job at $40,000 I can tell you that no one is going to hire you because they know you will be gone in a heartbeat when the market improves. They would much rather hire somebody with little to no experience and train them because they know that they will have some loyalty.
This isn't hypothetical by the way. It is exactly the scenario my friend is going through for the last two years. Go out to Monster and do a search on Help Desk.
The US should look into it.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
The US is one of the most nepotic countries. Just look at the President. Americans hire on merit. You're funny!
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
For an American applying for a NAFTA visa in Canada, an employer does not need to demonstrate a lack of local talent. All you need is a job offer, a letter describing why you are qualified (degrees, experience, and how they relate to the open position), and to be part of the list of qualified professions. In fact, it is possible to qualify for the equivalent of a green card in Canada (called Landed Immigrant status) right off the bat.
Sadly, you are likely not to find very many jobs. Go to monster.ca or workopolis.ca and see how many tech jobs there are (e.g. type in "computer science" or "electrical engineering"), then go to monster.com and see the difference. If you think US immigration and naturalization policies are "loose" you obviously haven't been to Canada. Salaries are so low here and jobs so scarce so as to be ridiculous. In fact, many Indians and Chinese immigrate to Canada first, then apply for TN visas in the US and then for H-1Bs.
Cab driver?
Don't get angry. Get justice. Join with us in the Slashdot community. Support outsourcing but stop the H-1B program. Please read "Oppose H-1Bs but Support Outsourcing".
We in the West often make the innocent but stupid mistake of extrapolating our experiences in the West to other societies. The morals of people in non-Western societies like India are radically different from the morals of people in the West. To us, allowing an H-1B worker to be employed in the United States of America (USA) but preventing an American worker from working in India is wrong and unfair. To the Indians, such a situation is fair. Radically different sense of right and wrong.
Don't get angry. Get justice. Join with us in the Slashdot community. Support outsourcing but stop the H-1B program. Please read "Oppose H-1Bs but Support Outsourcing". Petition the American government immediately to stop the H-1B program. Do not sit on your ass. Move it.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/Free_Trade/H1-B_V isas_Shaft_U_S__Workers/h1-b_visas_shaft_u_s__work ers.html
Now, even if you are just flying through the USA airport system, you will need a visa.
Man, if the rest of the world did this, my passport would be full of visas and stamps.
"We recently suspended the Transit Without Visa program, for example, when we received information that indicated terrorists might exploit that system to cause Americans harm. The important point is that when we got intelligence that we could act upon, we acted upon it..." - Tom Ridge
It's not just tech support and software development anymore. Enough technology and service industry jobs are moving offshore to seriously threaten the middle-class of America. Check out www.insourceamerica.org.
Get used to it. US workers cannot get jobs in Canada, Europe, Australia, etc. without first applying, and getting necessary work visas. To get a work visa, you must have an employer who has applied to get you in, and has demonstrated that there isn't local talent who could do the job you're being hired for.
It seems that these standards are near impossible to apply, and it goes both ways. When I was stationed in Germany my wife (a US citizen) got a job working for a German photographer. It was basicly light office work...hardly anything that native workers couldn't do. She had to get a SOFA stamp on her passport (Status of Forces Agreement), and her employer had to file some paperwork claiming that no German citizen would/could do the job. For the money he was paying, it's not suprising that no German would take the job.
I think you could solve the problem both here and in Germany by simply requiring employers that hire foreign citizens to pay them MORE than citizens working in the same job recieve. If their skills are so important, pay shouldn't be an issue right?
It seems to me that globalization is making Americans more wealthy to the tune of $500 billion a year.
A Trade Deficit means we continue to import more than we export, that is, spend more than we produce.
This is a cycle most of you are more familiar referring to as DEBT, in this case, foreign debt. The cycle is hard to stop once it gets rolling, and once foreign debtors no longer believe us credit-worthy, they can refuse us credit and cripple our economy.
Read this for a better understanding of the situation. Economists have been warning about this for years, and now that our core software industries are packing up for India, things look even more bleak. Considering how every government official in America has chosen to ignore this problem, including every president since Reagan, I can't see us addressing it in time to really help.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
He should have done some more checks before applying at that company. Yes, TATA's are biggest company but they are known for not being ethical, even handed in the business. You should have tried at better companies who do hire foreigners with special skills on contract. He will need to show other specialised skills on top of what he has to get one. There are lot of people with C, C++, Java, Oracle and ABAP skills in India. #
However, I noted that Indian companies are building on these small projects, much the way that any start-up takes small steps before landing the "big" clients. In time, Indian workers will have significant knowledge of North American & European standards, procedures, and business cultures, as well as a proven track record. Then, Indian companies will be able to take on essentially any work that "developed" countries do.
My professor agreed, but said we could take comfort in that we would all be retired in 20 years. But I'll only be 49, and what about future generations? He said the answer was to climb to the top of the "skills" food chain. Bioinformatics and biotech were 2 of his examples.
So, that being said, what are our options, here in the so-called developed world? What are the next big skilled areas? Instead of fighting to keep jobs in our countries, what can we do to stake out competitive advantages? What can we learn to do before anyone else can jump in? How do we stay ahead of the curve?
And, perhaps more importantly, what options do people who just aren't university material have?
-- SYS 64738 --
between a good economy and a need for immigrants.
I will post this AC just because ..... you don't need to know who I am and where I work. But I am an American ... Indeed My family has been here from before this was the USA. I type this on a TATA owned laptop. So as you can see ... American can and DO work for TATA.
> They can do that with impunitity. I have no problem with that.
Why is it they can do this "with impunitity"? Are not my services a product? Does not "Free Trade" demand unfettered access to markets?
Oh, I SEE. "Free Trade" was really a hidden, pro-Asian, agenda all along.
This is really disgusting.
I am posting this from the Indian state of Bihar and
.
would like to bring a few facts to your notice.
Big IT is limited to a few cities like Banglore,
Hyderabad,Delhi,Pune,Bombay etc.Very miniscule portion
of the Indian population of 1 billion is involved in IT.
Perspective Indian IT exports 10 billion USD Microsoft sales 50 Billion USD
99% of IT wok done in India is outsourced work from
US,Europe,Japan etc.No original product development
or ground breaking software science here.
There is no major contribution from India to any
Open Source Software project.On the hardware front
India does not have a decent semiconductor manufacturing
facility.
The great "Call Center" story is turning sour.There is
40% rate of attrition.According to a recent article people
working at these centers develop physical/physiogical
problems.Nothing is great about being Sam with a "American accent"
at night and being Swaminathan during the day.Identity Crises
Education is pathetic.Original thinking is not promoted.
Learn by text books and vomit in exams.
Regarding the IITs in a population of 1 billion you can
statistically always find 10k people who are exceptionally
brilliant.The untainted/rigirous selection process ensures
that these people get selected into the IITs.India has not produced a
single Noble prize winner since Independence.Those Indians who have
won the Noble prize are settled and working out of India.If the Noble
is an benchmark for original thinking you can see where India stands
No development in basic sciences as all bright students go to IT.
Corruption in India extremely high and prevelant in all walks of life.
Bush and his colleagues would look like saints when compared to Indian politicians.
Pollution is high in cities and you can see squalor in most areas.BTW Bombay has the largest
slums in asia.
Because of its lowest "code monkey" cost India is today on everyone's
radar screen.When some other country takes that title India will
be forgotten just like a couple of years before.
All in all not a great place to be in.....
It's worse than that. Don't forget the age discrimmination that occured as well.
A couple of things for people to research:
1-Who started us onto the path of Globalization (follow the money)?
2-Who does Globalization actually benefit (follow the money)?
BTW A true test would be if we move all the corporate HQs overseas. See if they can survive in the environments they created.
A good book to read on the subject.
Here is a CREDITABLE story of a french citizen to made it big in India. The holy frenchman
Another viewpoint of H1 visas. Visas vs. jobs
The article has got the 'working in India' part completely wrong, or maybe thought it sounds more interesting this way. I'm a manager at an Indian software company. I'd rather not enter the moral debate here, but here are some facts: - We have American and British citizens working at my company. - The last company I worked in had American citizens working. - I know of several others working at other companies I know. - Several of these people are not transferred by American companies to work in India, but applied for (and got) positions in India companies.
In order to work in India, you need a work permit. Not knowing exactly the procedure for obtaining a work permit in India, I can only speculate that one will normally be issued only for jobs/diciplines for which there is no qualified native applicants.
That's the same way it works in the USA. In order for foreigners to get a work permit (a H1-B visa), the prospective employer must:
The H1-B visa is temporary (expires after 3 years, can be renewed for a grand total of 6 years). This is kind of unique - not many other countries have this restriction.
Finally, a H1-B visa is tied to a particular employer (which some other countries do, but not all), so the holder cannot change jobs without going through this process again.
Given these restrictions, only a small percentage of American companies (usually mid-size companies that otherwise have troubles finding qualified personel) are willing to sponsor H1-B visas for foreign workers.
In a country of ~250 million people, an influx of 150-200 thousand legal (H1-B) immigrant workers per year is nothing - indeed, a much lower percentage than other western countries (including my native Norway).
Of course, illegal immigration is much larger, and a different problem alltogether. Too bad some of the less intelligent elements of this society is unable to distinguish the (modest) number of legal immigrants from the (huge) number of illegal immigrants.
The process of getting a permanent residency ("green card") -- remember, the H1-B is only temporary -- is even harder, and many more steps are involved (including INS, the department of labor, and a handful of other agencies -- all of which are understaffed and overwhelmed).
I was personally on a H1-B visa for nearly the allowed 6 years -- it took me that long to apply for (and receive) a green card. I am in a field where there is still a lot of demand for labor, and I am from a country for which parts of the application/qualification process goes quicker than for most. (Yes, the processing time of one of the agencies involved in the serialized green card application process depends on where you are from).
Re: Outsourcing to India in general, I can only say: Tough. The USA is getting what it asked for - a more globalized economy. If the US gets easier access to foreign markets, then foreign countries get easier access to the US market as well. Indian-produced goods and services (whether managed by US companies or not) can enter the US market more freely, just like US goods and services have already entered other markets more freely.
The bad news for industrialized countries is that this will level the global playing field w.r.t. salaries, standards of living, etc. The good news for the developing word is the same. All the same, it means further concentration of power an money in the hands of large, multinational corporations, whether they be incorporated in the USA or elsewhere.
Please, you should read before you open your mouth. The US sponsors only 65,000 H1B visas a year, which is a tiny percent of the overall market. I agree it may make the market more competitive, but as the only superpower you should concern about having the BEST people, regardless of background. If you want a job, get more education or something. Now, the salary makes easier to hire immigrants, since we usually take a lot less than Americans. Do not blame us; blame the American society which is always trying to maximize profits. Besides, at current US birth rate you will require immigrates to work here to support your retirement benefits. So please do not speak so loosely. This is not an easy issue and I if were American I would probably think as most of you do. It is well known that you need cheaper workers for agriculture and such and American hire them to maximize profit. What make that good and this bad?
Heh what we ought to do is outsource all of the cokehead, WAY overpaid executives in this country. Especially record company executives, and attorneys...oh please let's outsource the attorneys. That should go over well and very quickly our corporations will be hiring Americans again. But then again, given the insanity of California, there won't be any Americans left.
(Not aimed at the parent article)
Funny how people support the "dog-eat-dog" philosophy until it hurts them, then it is unfair. Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
For those who may have forgotten...this Tata Consultancy Services is a subsidiary of the very same Tata that took over the website www.bodacious-tatas.com in the landmark cybersquatting case.
That is one big bad Tata!
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Only mom's-basement geeks without taste or a sense of humor would pick that movie for their semi-monthly foray in to the Overworld.
Read the damn article you imbreads. It says he sent his RESUME overseas not himself.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3094780.stm
Damn.. Patriot Act, Homeland Security, you figure that some foriegn national would be barred from working on any governement IT work. And since Oracle .
Since Oracle Employs many of these monkeys we should not use Oracle.
Not all countries, but at least 3 years ago the only requirement for working in Spain was you couldn't live there for more than 3 months at a time. Practicly that ment anyone wanting to work in Spain needs travel somewhere to get their pasport stamped every 3 months. With the EU that isn't as easy as you might think, France rarely even as someone at the border who could stamp your passport if you are comming in from Spain.
Laws change all the time, the above was current 3 years ago, but might or might not be now.
[Original post being replied to]
"India has 1 Billion people to employ. The last thing they need is Americans coming in and taking quality jobs."
[Reply to Post]
"the last thing we need in America are for Indians coming in and taking quality jobs also."
To the moron moderator who doesn't get it. It's the original statement with "Indians" substituted for "Americans". If the reply is flamebait, then the original is too.
If you STILL don't get it then:
"India [America] has 1 Billion people [Whatever the US population is] to employ. The last thing they need is Americans [Indians] coming in and taking quality jobs."
And you know that H-1B != Permanent residency?
Then please tell me what exactly your post was supposed to mean.....
applying for a Help Desk job at $40,000
A help desk job at $40,000? WHERE! I want that.
I'm doing real programming and have a CS degree. All I can seem to get is about $30,000.
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
India I believe is still majority an agricultural country. Granted, Bangalore is consider the fastest technology growing city in Asia. However, if you google for Bangalore and select a few links, you will see that Bangalore is also becoming the urban city of the west where it is dealing with a massive population explosion, every form of polution problem known to man, i.e. ranging from air to water. And you also have the urban ghettos and slumbs in the country side where the malnutrition is also a big problem. This article describes some of these urban ghetto problems. So before you make a permanent change of address, you may want to take a second look and perhaps listen to the final words from an old rap song from Naughty by Nature...
If you ain't ever been to the ghetto
Don't ever come to the ghetto
'Cause you ain't understand the ghetto
And stay the f*ck out of the ghetto
Two wrongs do not make a right. Don't get angry. Get justice. Join with us in the Slashdot community. Support outsourcing but stop both the H-1B program and the L-1 program. Please read "Oppose H-1Bs but Support Outsourcing".
If an unethical American company wants to hire H-1B workers at a time of 8% unemployment, they should go overseas and setup shop there.
Well, as an immigrant I must say that perhaps you should consider the elimination of the green card lottery first (50,000 each year, 64000 H1B). In the H1B market at least there is some competition. Whith the lottery who knows who is coming to America. Unfortunately the trend of moving jobs overseas will continue while such a big difference in salaries exists.
This is globalization in practise. Lovely when it benefits you, not so nice when it doesn't. US trade and competition policies are destroying many things, but only when they affect you do you whine. Uninformed whiney little bitches.
That's not true. If you are employed by a consulting organization *outside* the US, you can work in the US but get paid in your country of employment. I did an almost year long stint in Sweden working for a US consulting firm and certainly did not pay Swedish income taxes. I also did a 6 month project in Canada and did not pay Canadian income tax. If an Indian consultant works in the US but is employed in India, they also would not pay US income tax.
This depends on the specific tax treaty between US and the country you are going to work for. But why am I arguing here? The American Worker has risen and the target is India. The message, "open your country to our goods, but don't compete with us". Farm subsidies, enough to drown the world in a sea of maize; steel subsidies propping up inefficient mills in Pittsburg, (which incidentally hurt downstream industry in America, but I guess Detroit needs to exercise its first amendment rights more vigorously) and now more protection for java (substitute your favorite language) coders.
I am posting this from the Indian state of Bihar and would like to bring a few facts to your notice. Big IT is limited to a few cities like Banglore, Hyderabad,Delhi,Pune,Bombay etc.Very miniscule portion of the Indian population of 1 billion is involved in IT. Perspective Indian IT exports 10 billion USD Microsoft sales 50 Billion USD 99% of IT wok done in India is outsourced work from US,Europe,Japan etc.No original product development or ground breaking software science here. There is no major contribution from India to any Open Source Software project.On the hardware front India does not have a decent semiconductor manufacturing facility. The great "Call Center" story is turning sour.There is 40% rate of attrition.According to a recent article people working at these centers develop physical/physiogical problems.Nothing is great about being Sam with a "American accent" at night and being Swaminathan during the day.Identity Crises Education is pathetic.Original thinking is not promoted. Learn by text books and vomit in exams. Regarding the IITs in a population of 1 billion you can statistically always find 10k people who are exceptionally brilliant.The untainted/rigirous selection process ensures that these people get selected into the IITs.India has not produced a single Noble prize winner since Independence.Those Indians who have won the Noble prize are settled and working out of India.If the Noble is an benchmark for original thinking you can see where India stands . No development in basic sciences as all bright students go to IT. Corruption in India extremely high and prevelant in all walks of life. Bush and his colleagues would look like saints when compared to Indian politicians. Pollution is high in cities and you can see squalor in most areas.BTW Bombay has the largest slums in asia. Because of its lowest "code monkey" cost India is today on everyone's radar screen.When some other country takes that title India will be forgotten just like a couple of years before. All in all not a great place to be in.....
I found through Google about Congress and Outsourcing revealed this interesting article on IndianExpress.com
Here is also a Petition site attempting to Abolish the H-1B program entirely: Zazona.com
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Also bad is the potential for confidential company information to be stolen. E.g., Ernst and Young has moved their basic accounting operations to India. The other big 4 firms may do the same in the future. I don't know if their clients are aware that non-American citizens have all of their accounting details in a foreign country...
Uhhhhh, yeah. I'm going to have to ask you to come in on Saturday. And the next day too.
I am posting this from the Indian state of Bihar and
.
would like to bring a few facts to your notice.
Big IT is limited to a few cities like Banglore,
Hyderabad,Delhi,Pune,Bombay etc.Very miniscule portion
of the Indian population of 1 billion is involved in IT.
Perspective Indian IT exports 10 billion USD Microsoft sales 50 Billion USD
99% of IT wok done in India is outsourced work from
US,Europe,Japan etc.No original product development
or ground breaking software science here.
There is no major contribution from India to any
Open Source Software project.On the hardware front
India does not have a decent semiconductor manufacturing
facility.
The great "Call Center" story is turning sour.There is
40% rate of attrition.According to a recent article people
working at these centers develop physical/physiogical
problems.Nothing is great about being Sam with a "American accent"
at night and being Swaminathan during the day.Identity Crises
Education is pathetic.Original thinking is not promoted.
Learn by text books and vomit in exams.
Regarding the IITs in a population of 1 billion you can
statistically always find 10k people who are exceptionally
brilliant.The untainted/rigirous selection process ensures
that these people get selected into the IITs.India has not produced a
single Noble prize winner since Independence.Those Indians who have
won the Noble prize are settled and working out of India.If the Noble
is an benchmark for original thinking you can see where India stands
No development in basic sciences as all bright students go to IT.
Corruption in India extremely high and prevelant in all walks of life.
Bush and his colleagues would look like saints when compared to Indian politicians.
Pollution is high in cities and you can see squalor in most areas.BTW Bombay has the largest
slums in asia.
Because of its lowest "code monkey" cost India is today on everyone's
radar screen.When some other country takes that title India will
be forgotten just like a couple of years before.
All in all not a great place to be in.....
You just summed up the problem with ALL Libertarian tenets. There are no level playing fields.
IANAEconomist, but this is my intuition about the situation (if anyone here actually knows what they are talking about, please feel free to correct me - I am very curious about the validity of this theory): This is a situation that benefits the parties that are in control of the situation, thus it will be perpetuated as long as possible. Both US corporations (and therefor the present administration) and foreign governments would like to perpetuate. US Corporations get cheaper labor and increased profitability in the short term (short term being just fine for a CEO who plans on making enough cash in the short term to last himself a lifetime). The foreign participants in the H1B program gain for their citizens wages that are excellent by local standards. This situation exists because there is an economic "potential difference" between the US and countries like India, an economic gap that is protected from the "invisible hand" and not allowed to close. US workers are not allowed to compete for jobs in places like India; nor are US consumers are not allowed to buy products at Indian prices (DVD region encoding, etc.) However, US corporations ARE allowed to compete for cheaper workers and production costs on the global market. This sets up some kind of "economic pump" that, for the time being, enriches US Corporate executives and foreign workers at the expense of the US economy. Yet it sells both the foreign workers and US workers short in the end, as the foreign workers cannot compete for jobs that have the benefit of operating under labor-laws, and US workers cannot extend their buying power on the global market the same way that the corporation can.
This make any sense?
What a terrible turn of events...and this travesty through the use of outsourcing, H1B and L1 is considered "legal". Let's not even get into all of the unskilled illegal immigration going on...
Check this out, from the Indian government website:
Well, Soong we are waiting to hear you take up employment in Bangalore, India.
If you want to take up some business, get the right type of visa
Want to study there? Then get this:
This from the guys that brought you NSA_KEY and the secret printer. OK, that last one I'm not sure about, I had an extra printer that only appeared in dev studio, and wouldn't give any feedback when I sent it something. I just assumed it was a backdoor that somehow got exposed to that app by my particular combination of tools and OS version, so I printed a quick nastygram to it :-) Sounds like those guys have experience in that area from the article.
In India non-citizens can be easily shafted!
While, here in the good ole USA -- guess what? -- non-citizens can be easily shafted!
I don't think citizens of the U.S. have much of leg to stand on until we get our own house in order.
That would include all the nudging and winking about hiring illegal immigrants and not cracking down harder on those U.S. employers abusing their non-citizen employees.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
If you have ever reviewed the classified adds of local newspapers in various outsourcing countries you see a number of labor practices reflected that would be unacceptable in this country. For example it is not uncommon to see adds which specify both a sex and age (i.e. "female age 25-30 to fill programming job").
This really sucks.... BIG TIME. Indian programmers come over here and work for half our wages for big Phat cat companies under an H1A visa. Usually, they don't last long, so seek work for other companies, taking away OUR jobs.
I guess few people know that the Bush administration increased the H1A visa quota 5 times what it was before.
Indian's are buch better trained programmers then we could ever hope to be.
I lived in Mumbai and Goa for a period of time, and everywhere I go, I see huge ass billboards touting "Learn C++ Enroll today".
Indian's get subsidized scholerships to these special trade schools and "diploma mills". Americans have to pay FULL PRICE, usually involving about $5k.
How many Indian programmers are working at YOUR company?
While in India, I learned how this works. In Bangalore (Indian's answer to Silicon valley), American programmer houses started to spring up. Indian's just out of school would work there, getting "real world" experience. Only problem was keeping them. Most Indians would prefer to work and live in US, and they have a large network of American firms eager to snap them up. In most cases, American recruiters are in cahoots with these Indian programmer havens.
Jobs that open up in American companies are never even put on the USA job market. Indian recruiters get them first. Often these spaces are filled long before they would even be known over here.
So, if you're a programmer out of work, you have little chance of landing that ideal job.
This is MY experience with India, programmers, and the insane Bush administration claiming to do something about getting us jobs.
And now this? Americans can't even go to India looking for work? This really sucks.
Seriously.
I am a high school graduate with no certs or college to speak of, and I have to turn down job offers.
I am something of a jack of all trades, capable of programming, web development and networking ( to name a few ). Further, my experience only spans a few years ( 4 ).
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Facts don't make money, page hits do.
The time to have been concerned was before importing the world to acquire the technology of the West.
Seastead this.
Please read "Oppose H-1Bs but Support Outsourcing".
Duh!
I've always found it curious that it is considered morally wrong to discriminate against someone based on their race, gender, or sexual preference, but perfectly fine based on their place of origin. In fact, there are entire government agencies in place whose sole purpose is to discriminate against non-citizens.
People don't exactly get to choose where they get born or grow up, you know.
(Yes, I am a foreigner in the US, and yes, I'm just a tad bitter.)
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
Although the cost of living in India is insanely low - I was living on $3/Day in Goa, and had a very comfortable place.
But I doubt of Americans would want to live there. Especially during the monsoon season. Best times are after November until April.
Besides, you'll just LOVE the traditional Indian toilets (if you can even call it that).
Watch what you eat, watch what you drink... you might get luckey and not get horribly sick. And then there is that very hot tropical climate you have to deal with.
All in all, it was quite an experience....
Anyhow, we in the Slashdot community need to stop this nonsense called the "H-1B program" and the "L-1" program immediately. Let us petition the American government, today, to terminate both programs.
I read this in the September 2003 Issue of Business 2.0 Magazine
Forget those grim unemployment numbers. Demographic forces are about to put a squeeze on the labor supply that will make it feel like 1999 all over again. - The Coming Job Boom
The bad news for industrialized countries is that this will level the global playing field w.r.t. salaries, standards of living, etc.
I welcome you all to the future where 99.5% of us live errily similar lives while the wealthy run them.
You are the Robot, welcome to death.
Let's ask the Mexicans who 'owns' California? Is what is happening now any different from what happened to them when the Americans up and waged war on them to take their land away? C'mon.
It's payback time. That's all. Get scared now because in 20 years (in your lifetime), YOU will be part of the minority.
"H1-B's are typically attracting highly educated Western Europeans to the U.S. for a number of reasons. Salaries that are 1.5 to 2x higher than back home (not 5-8x as compared to India), A significant other in the states (grin) or a sense of adventure and desire to try the U.S. for a while. I find it baffling that in the wake of the articles regarding Teller's passing that we're questioning the H1-B situation. Post WWII, alot of our brainpower came from Western Europe. Highly skilled, highly educated persons who desire to become U.S. citizens and melt into the pot are what strengthens the U.S."
You answered your own question. The word is "citizens". Not visitors, or any such, but "citizens". When H1-B's contribute like "citizens", then a lot of problems disappear. But they don't, and to add to it, most send there money back(1). There was a story awhile back that pointed out that Mexico gets more money from it's transient citizens, than it gets from tourism. Were are the transient Americans sending money back to the US?
(1) Nothing immoral, unethical or anything like that, but that's money not spent in our economy.
Anyone else still believe that Globalization is good for anyone but large corporation multi-national corporations? Or is the (1st) world populous still unconvinced?
As for IT workers & outsourcing, I think the solution here is two fold:
1. Domestic IT workers have to keep on the leading edge. The logic here is that there is a significant lag in the time it takes for new knowledge and skills to propagate to the 2nd/3rd world countries. This means specialize in new software development areas such as wireless, do research oriented work etc. The days of getting paid 60-70k/yr for lemming C++/C, SAP coding are fast coming to a close I'm afraid.
2. Perhaps it's time for some larger groups of programmers and developers (read: Microsoft, IBM, Oracle etc) to organize into trade unions to help protect jobs and hold governments accountable for the decisions they make, and provide some counter lobbying to the corporate lobbyists.
In anycase, you unemployed American techies out there don't get too depressed. I'm sure the wall feel like they are falling in right now, but once that monster of an economy you guys have gets rolling again I bet you'll be in alot better shape.
Rich...
You can inspect the code all you want if it's been cleaned first.
As a proof for my thesis I wrote a patch for a compiler that added a backdoor to code at compile time. The source was always clean, but the code was compromised.
If I were the Chinese I'd ask for the rights to compile the code, not just review the source.
This is why I trust open source more that object code. I can inspect the code then compile it and be fairly sure that as long as I trust my compiler I can have a good system
Sooooo...because the immigrants go to states where the economy is strongest, they are the cause of the strong economy?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Obviously there are a few people equally or more foolish than you, as I see you have been modded up.
Blar.
Umm, can you back that statement up with some facts?
I can't say I agree with this at all.
The Libertarian party is basically formed along the lines of what the founding fathers (especially Thomas Jefferson) believed, when they were helping put together the Constitution.
What about Jefferson's beliefs and values do you feel is only valid in a world where there's a "level playing field"?
As I said, about the only concept the LP seems to endorse which I have trouble with is the idea on keeping borders completely open. During the founding of the U.S. - this policy had much more validity than it has in today's world. So perhaps this just stems from Libertarians lifting the ideas straight from the writings of these political leaders - without considering how much has changed in the last 200 years?
Geez. About 90% of the posts show no one read the actual article.
His beef is all US tech workers are being replaced by H1-B workers or the jobs are going overseas, and those of us Americans with lenghty education and employment/job skills are unable to find jobs in our own country, let alone other countries.
Are you sure it's not because you're an incompetent hack?
Many people are sure - because their company hires a bunch of H1Bs, uses their higher-paid US workers to TRAIN them to do jobs equivalent to the US workers', then fires the US workers.
Happens all the time in Silicon Valley - both in big and small companies. Occasionally a large company (Sun was one) gets so blatant about it - dumping whole departments - that they get sued.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Obviously things are different depending on where you live. In NY $40,000 is reasonable for someone with experience but of course the cost of living is much higher. To give a comparison - I made more than $30K fresh out of college and that was over 8 years ago.
Read the article more carefully. The guy tried to get a job with Tata Consulting, an Indian-owned firm operating in the USA that places staff at USA-based clients. They apparently refused to hire him for this work in the USA because they do not hire Americans
This is the absolute wrong conclusion one can get from the article. I especially like the part "they do not hire americans". The conclusion from the article you can make is "Tata didnt hire him" and not "they do not hire americans". As far as working in India goes, this dolt obviously did not follow the proper procedures and is complaining about it. Do any of you guys know about foreigners working in India? I dont think so. So please dont make general sweeping statements.
The article is like one that comes out of a Aryan Nation propaganda machine, except that only its blindly directed against H1b workers (though they pay taxes inclusive of social security and medicare + unemployment without any possible way of getting benifits from any of those programs).
Not being able to secure work is a mysery and can be empathized with. But making sweeping false accusitions against a class or category is deplorable.
You really didn't understand the article from the SBA website, did you? IAAE (I Am An Economist), and it boils down to this -- what can a foreigner do with a US dollar? The only thing that he or she can do is buy US-produced goods and services. When he or she does that, it increases demand for US production which stimulates the US economy and causes the GDP to rise.
Foreigners putting their dollars into dollar-denominated investments only puts off the problem. At some point, the foreigner must use the dollars to buy US-produced goods and services. Doing anything else means that US consumers have gotten a whole lot of real goods and services for the price of printing a bunch of green paper or transferring a few electrons.
A trade imbalance is not like your PERSONAL debt. It doesn't mean the same thing, so don't try to apply your intuition about personal debts to a trade deficit.
--Paul
Since the Social Security Administration is a Federal agency, I doubt that the State of California has the ability to hand out Social Security cards.
There are two separate issues here which both affect US jobs. One is H1B visa holders taking jobs from citizens. That is a legitimate complaint, but even if the rules were enforced, that isn't going to stop the problem this article is about, which is jobs leaving for another country.
I have heard anecdotal evidence that the largest private employer in my State is doing the development for their next chip in Bangalore. For evey job they eliminate here, they create one there for half the price. In that particular case, I heard a manager who was relocating had 50 job openings for Americans who wanted to relocate to Bangalore, more or less permanently, and earn Bangalore wages.
Daniel Song doesn't even have that choice. His job is leaving and he can't follow it.
A different article I read this week said a study had concluded that most of the millions of manufacturing jobs that have been lost in the last 2 years are not going to come back when the economy recovers. Those jobs didn't just temporarily subside because of reduced demand, they moved to another country. After NAFTA was passed, many manufacturing jobs moved to Mexico. Now those jobs have left Mexico and gone to China where they are done even cheaper.
My point is that we are facing a much larger employment problem that H1B visa rules are not going to effect.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
What do you think, you are American, therefore any compay in the world can just hire you, no questions asked? That you are somehow exempt from the immigration laws that affect the other few billion people on the planet?
Of COURSE you can't just "go work" for a company in India.. and if India has enough programmers to fill the jobs, they should not be accepting foreigners.
Just as, say, a Canadian like me can't just go get hired at any American company... there are things like Work Visas and whatnot you have to apply for.
If the company in question doesn't have a problem filling it's positions locally, why would it want to go to all the extra expense and paperwork of hiring foreign nationals?
Wait for India and Pakistan to let the nukes fly.
The bad news for industrialized countries is that this will level the global playing field w.r.t. salaries, standards of living, etc. The good news for the developing word is the same.
/. story on outsourcing jobs leaving India for even cheaper places.
And for countries like India which fall in the middle, they just grab their ankles. See an earlier
Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) a citizen of a NAFTA country may work in a professional occupation in another NAFTA country if the applicant meet certain requirements.
American professionals may easily work in Canada, for example, and vice versa.Anybody want a peanut?
San Francisco...When he is lucky he gets a temporary job answering phones or testing video games, nothing that ever pays more than $10 an hour
c'mon, if this is the case, he's just slacking. i'm up in silicon valley every month or so, and i constantly see signs at fast food joints looking to hire at more than $10/hr.
Tell me about it. I tried to get a job with this "Taliban" company in afghanistan, working as a pilot with this new airline they wanted to start, and they wouldn't hire me at all. Just as well, I didn't want to go to New York anyways.
Didn't you read the comments?
It is POSSIBLE FOR FOREIGNERS to work in India.
You need a WORK PERMIT.
You can REMIT DOLLARS back to America.
You can check with appropriate departments with the Government of India.
You can check with the thousands of Americans working in India.
You can call American Embassy in Delhi and talk to them.
H-1 Work Visa is a business deal. Just because I sold a car to you doesn't mean I'm obligated to buy a car from you. Moreover, the reason why I sold you a car in the first place is because you wanted one.
In the 1700's and 1800's England forced India to import English railway equipment (engines, etc.) to boost the English "hi-tech" sector even though India was producing better machines locally. Whoa! How'd they do that? Well, ahem, anyhow, if Indians weren't inferior, they wouldn't have let Europeans invade in the first place! Yeah. Similarly it was Manifest Destiny that the palefaces eradicate the native Americans and get all the goodies. And of course there's the astronomically gargantuan evil of slavery, which England and it's I'm-independent-I'm-not-like-you-Daddy colony promoted, defended, participated in, and profited from to the max. Is this attitude barbaric and backward, or what? Sure -- but it's the colonial mindset. And the imperial mindset. And of course the Indians weren't allowed to import their railroad equipment into England.
:)
So now we have protectionism working the other way, and the world's supposed to be outraged.
Small wonder that American principles of freedom, justice, and democracy have great credence in the world, but the USA doesn't, simply because it caves in on those principles whenever it's expedient to do so.
Every culture has it's "we're better than everyone else, somehow" mythology -- Americans, Indians, Japanese, Swedes; big cultures, little cultures, liberals, conservatives, pagans, Christians, Jews, Moslems; we all think we're more divine than the next person -- and it's a yawning bore every time it comes up. Life's better when you stop trying to be right, and stop being a victim, and just appreciate it. (And if you agree with this post, then you're extra-special too!
Only in the U.S. will this be tolerated
You haven't seen bizarre immigration rules/enforcement until you've lived in Canada.
In Canada you can show up at the border without any documents and claim refugee status. Not only will you gain entry after filing out forms for about 45 minutes, but you will be legally allowed to work until your hearing.
Of course nobody bothers to even show up for the hearing since there is no deportation enforcement. At most you will receive a letter in the mail telling you that you must leave the country. Nobody will contact you to find out if you actually do leave the country.
Then there are the cases where the "refugee" decides to make a living via B&E, armed robbery, etc., despite being able to work legally. Even if they are caught, their lack of compliance to basic laws of society cannot be used against them in the hearing that they will not attend that produces results that nobody pays attention to.
Why not have reciprocity? If Americans can't work in India(for example) then Indians can't work in America.
Alright, boy! Calm down. Did you know that H1B-s are not only Indians but other nationals too? So just because India doesn't allow US workers, according to you we need to "boot" all the rest that we don't even know their nations' laws, huh? Have you ever applied for an H-1B in the US? Do you know what it takes to get one? Waiting, patience and strong nerves is involved in this business, something that the average american has never experienced. I am sure if you are put under the same bureaucracy you'll be the first one to give up. Therefore, don't ever assume that all H-1Bs are just sittiing here and having fun - I will tell you from my own experience - they are the slaves in the american employment system because if your boss doesn't like you and fires you you have nothing left but to pack your bags and go back home. Read more about what H1B's are then we can talk.
Ok, so you don't have to like the Dutch, but understanding the outsourcing orgs themselves is important. I worked for an Indian outsourcing company that implemented Oracle and other ERP systems. You would be surprised at the loopholes they used to get cheap labor over here. They would improperly fill out the reason the person was coming over for and using B1 visas rather than H1's. They needed a few people form the local market to bring to client sites mostly for show it seemed and also to make sure that culturally they were able to fit in. It was a lot cheaper to use the B1 since they were only supposed to be here for training and not working at client sites. This is something many of these offshore company's do to manage their costs. Even further, they would shack all of these B1 engineers in one house sometime 15 people in one 3 bedroom house. They were treated more like slave labor than anything else. I have since moved on from that company to better industry. After that experience, I would probably never consider working for another Indian company again.
"We're already the first generation in history to be worse off than our parents were."
Usually the studies that say this are done by people with an agenda.
You are most certainly better off than your parents; you just are comparing your financial status at 21 to their financial status at 50, and there's frankly no comparison.
So lets stop this nonsensical talk based on nonsense.
1. Before you start beating up on Indians, remember that it's American managers that do the outsourcing, and the ones that benefit the most.
2. If the Tata company didn't hire him in US because he was American, he could (and should) take legal recourse.
3. You can work in India as an American. Thousands of other Americans do, even in high tech jobs. You need to :
a. Get a job in an Indian company. Like Intel
b. Apply for a 'business visa for employment at your local Indian embassy/consulate
And go.
The economy sucks, but that doesn't mean you put the blame on other people who like you are trying to work for a living.
...namely, our front-line help desk. So, when the users call 800-HELPME or whatever, it's picked up by some guy in India. This, of course, was done as a cost-saving measure.
I don't think it's going to last terribly long. Basically, the English-language skills of the phone workers there aren't quite as good as the company made them out to be. As a result, the end-users spend far more time on the phone with them trying to get their problem explained. Multiply that by 50k, and that's a hell of a lot of lost time, and I'm sure it's one hell of a phone bill.
The smarter end-users have taken to calling 2nd & 3rd level support folks like me directly, even though they're not supposed to. I let the nice ones get away with it...the nasty ones...back to the India call-queue for them.
It seems like our company is starting to chalk this India oursourcing thing up as a failed experiment. As the economy slowly recovers, more and more positions are coming back to the US.
We need to live with a reduced set of expectations if we're going to open up our trade to the world. Corporations will naturally migrate to the lowest cost areas, all else being equal. The suffering is spread across the board -- imagine how the poor CEO who has to pay upkeep on his "expensive wife" must feel having to make do with only $25 Million or so in severance bonusses. Or who has to make do with only one house larger than most city blocks. Imagine the poor politician who has to make do with only $25,000 in campaign contributions from any given company! Who are we, then, to complain if we can't find a job and end up having to move back in with our parents? You don't see them complaining about having to have 27 people living in a one room apartemnt in other countries, so why should we be any different? It's pure arrogance, I tell you!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I've already explained this to you in an earlier post. He was trying to f*ck her, and that's why he put up with bullsh*t like that.
I mean, guys put up with anything to get laid. Take Brittany Spears. Annoying as all get-out. But because she has a great ass (and she does), and some nice t*ts, then guys put up with music that sucks, and a brain the size of a walnut in that head-thing of hers.
The beauty of getting to your 40's is as a guy, the hormones tone down a little, and while I still enjoy sex, I'm no longer willing to put up with mindless nonsense from a chick just to get a blow job or some p*ssy. Frankly, ugly chicks usually f*ck better than good looking ones anyway, because they really *try* to give you a good time. Good lookers mostly think they're doing a favor just putting your d*ck in one of their holes (and always just the one).
You may find this little diatribe hard to take, but I'm telling you the dead-honest truth. That is a gift to treasure, my friend.
I read constantly about stories like this, and the older thread about about how a secret memo shows that IBM are planning to move huge quantities of their best jobs out of the US and into India over the next few years.
The central issue for me that links these stories is not so much the relocation of manufacturing and productive jobs from the core of an empire to peripheral client states. This has happened before (Roman Empire, United Kingdom, and so on) and will happen again.
No, for me the real issue is one of freedom of movement for labour versus freedom of movement for capital. Because of their many advantages, corporations are "gaming" the international political system to produce labour arbitrage. They have lobbied hard for their right to move capital between countries at will. What we have now is globalization that serves corporations, not globalization that serves people.
This is the fundamental ideological underpinning of this discourse. Corporations and politicians have structured a political system that implicitly and irrevocably favours the movement of capital over labour. Why should this be so? Could it be different? These are questions that need to be addressed. Different political movements are examining them in different ways.
Meanwhile, for ordinary people who, for the most part, have no greater or more fundamental asset to offer than their labour, their options are a lot more restricted. US companies send jobs south into Mexico with minimal regulation because of NAFTA, but Mexican people are not equally free to move their bodies north into the US. This unequal treatment creates the exploitative arbitrage that the corporations milk for profits.
This also explains a fundamental difference between the USA, NAFTA, and the European Union project. I've noticed most Americans really don't "get" the EU because their expectations are constrained by NAFTA and the halting of the US expansion within North America.
At its core the EU project is very simple, but very powerful. It holds out the promise of regional improvement by granting freedom of access to a unified market for both capital and labour. As it expands, relentlessly it seems, it allows poorer countries to join, once they restructure their political, legal, and social systems to bring them into some degree of harmony with the EU consensus. In return for this social transformation, all the citizens of member countries can enjoy free and unfettered movement throughout all other EU countries (admittedly and annoyingly, several EU countries impose different temporary restrictions on some new member country citizens). In essence it's very similar to the freedom of movement that US citizens enjoy throughout all 50 States.
This is a powerful lure. For all the talk of "old Europe" and "new Europe", the former Soviet Bloc countries are not clamouring to create bilateral trade agreements with the US... they are fighting tooth and nail to join the EU, and so submit their trade relations with non-EU countries to the fiat of Brussels. This yearning for EU membership has produced and is producing massive social and political change across eastern Europe.
However, it seems that the US project has stalled at its current borders. I don't see the US engaged in a determined effort to expand south, to create a distributed American citizenship that would be a beacon for social progress and political aspirations throughout the Americas and the world. Immigration isn't any sort of answer: it's tedious, socially disruptive, and over-regulated. Try opening the floodgates, as the EU has done for its member countries, and within a few decades the improvements in both old and new member States will be enormous and unprecedented.
But that's a fantasy. People today in the poorer countries of Central America, so close to the US, nonetheless know explicitly that their relation to the US and the member States within can never be based on equality and access, but will instead be permanently structured as clientist an
Da Blog
I was answering the AC statement above, specially "If they want a job so bad, move here, become a citizen, and get a job. Don't take someone else's away.".
My main point is that it is not India's or Tailand's or Hong Kong's problem if your companies choose to send your jobs there. The Indian guy may or may not want to become an American citizen, but his wishes are completely irrelevant in this context, as the jobs are being offered in India. He has the same need to become an American citizen to take a job in India as an American has to become an Indian citizen to take a job in the United States. None.
And if you look at it from his point of view, he is not taking anyone's job. He probably thinks his American counterparts are all being given fancier jobs like the next version of Windows, the next Mars missions or the next smart bomb software and wish he could do that instead of VB COM components to print pretty payroll reports.
So, CIO may well be talking to American CIOs, but it is pretty useless talk while American companies need to compete among themselves for Wall Street praise in a quarter by quarter basis. And as the whole world knows, Wall Street couldn't care less about who has which job or even if anyone has any job, as long as those quarter results keep going up.
I heard a discussion of agricultrual subsidies in the industrialized
countries, by Robert Reich last night on NPR. Stay with me, I'll get
to the point.
It is far cheaper to grow grain in developing countries than in the
industrialized countries. It is the best way for those countries to
make money. Yet they cannot afford to compete with the US, Europe and
Japan because of subsidies. Why are there subisidies? Because
agribusiness is politically powerful.
In all the discussion of offshoring that I've seen on slashdot, I've
never seen this point discussed. In fact, I haven't seen the point
raised anywhere. I'm definitely not in favor of ag subsidies, and I'm
probably against any subsidies. I just find it curious that the
subject of subsidized software development has not come up at all.
In order for foreigners to get a work permit
(a H1-B visa), the prospective employer must:
But in fact no check is performed in many, if not most, cases. A local state university is an example: the university's H1-B specialist told me that no check for U.S. citizens is performed in academic positions. Whomever (the specific named person) is requested is the only person accepted for such positions.
So I do not really agree with the original post about being that difficult being sent over to India to work.
Unemployment in Bangalore is 10% source
A more recent source (thehindu.com) gives 10.5% for "urban youth" for Mar 2003, so I figure its still about the same. I can't find the engineering unemployment rate.
So what do they blame? Globalization
Funny how lack of barriers and "protections" are always perceived as the cause for unemployment, no matter which side of the barrier you are on. It's always the other guy's fault. If you want to stop H-1B's, please replace it with an increase in the quotas for citizens. I'd rather have those programmers and doctors as Americans, thank you.
You seriously have no clue. He said nothing about what you are blabbering.
I'm glad someone else sees Dick for what he is.
Retired from software... maybe. Sort of.
I used to work for a company who started doing technical support for Microsoft around the time Win98 came out. They hired 300+ workers at the same time to support Win98, and as time went on we got more contracts from Microsoft. I was eventually put into the Multimedia and Games support. We got the contract to do email support, that was going good, until a company in India somehow got the contract and we lost it. The next big move was the 2nd lvl support (which I was doing at the time). About 20 of us in 2nd lvl support were laid off last year, all those jobs went to India. This year was the worst. That building that held 300+ (probably around 450 employees at its peak) is now empty. Every single one of the contracts we had with Microsoft now is being handled by companies in India. Since then I haven't been able to find any sort of tech job, closest I can find is working in a call center taking orders from people for clothes. I currently work as a cook, making less then half what I used to make.. Why hire an american work force, when you can get one in India for a tenth the price?
its great to see the effects of free markets on the world - open up IT and we get a drift of jobs to areas that will provide the resource for cheaper - brilliantly simple economics! now as i see it IT is just a start - soon we can have other areas of business transfered overseas where costs are lower - so lets hope the directors/board members of these companies see sense in their logic and resign in favour of cheaper developing world labour. surely their share holders deserve it ;-)
There was no/little displacement of american workers. The H1-B program (ostensibly) is to get people whose skills cannot be found in the US.
So, the H1-B program helped the American economy and was one of the factors for the Internet boom.
We've processed several software engineers through the H1-B program. Simply put, when you hire a really good software engineer and he tells you he has a collegue that is really good and is willing to relocate his family but needs an H1-B visa, it's all too tempting to go that route. The other option is to advertise and hope you get someone good.
There is a requirement to advertise the position in the US before you can get an H1-B but it doesn't really make a difference.
Now personally, I can't tell the difference between the people we've hired locally and those who've immigrated. They're all good people.
I'd rather have companies help immigrate good, hard working foreigners than have our government tell me I have to hire some slob just because he lives here.
I do agree than any company that exploits a 3rd world cheap labor force without following labor practices like we have here is guilty of a crime.
M
This is simply because the US doesn't have reciprocal work visa arrangements with anyone. As a British citizen, I can get work visas in many countries pretty easily, and others like me from those countries can do the same in the UK. This is in addition to the complete free movement of labour within the EU. So, while I can get an Australian work visa from the travel agents, I don't have a hope of getting a US one according to their rules.
Personally, I like The Economist's idea: free movement of labour between all countries of comparable wealth.
Is it really patriotic for a corporation to put Americans out of work so they can get cheaper labor, inadvertently funding terrorism in the process?
I'm just sorry I don't have mod points to save your comment from troll status. I used to live in a town that was devastated by the loss of textile jobs, same deal...different scope.
You should really lose the idea that poorer means dumber.
Some countries and some kinds of workers are willing to cope with less regulation in order to attract the jobs being outsourced. For the time being, at least. Other countries, like Brazil, are not deregulating and lifting worker protection, considering the damage would be greater than the economic benefit (but the debate continues).
But rest assured the whole world has smart union leaders, economists, planners and politicians, all well aware of the benefits and liabilities of this trend.
errr... American doesn't make computers, ethernet cars or manufacture much of anything anymore. Been to a WalMart lately?
Hi friends , I can empathize the feeling of jobless americans..Can you guys empathize millions of homeless people whose next target is to find food for the day ?Have you americans know such people exist in poor and developing countries like india? I have seen so many people toiling in hot sun just to eat and save their children. Why should such vast economic disparity exist ? Guys , u sure can survive in america .Ofcourse you might really be frustrated that your high salary life till recent is going down.
Change is inevitable.Eventually the money will reach the poor if not in entirety.Being humanitarian is one step ahead of being patriotic.
STOP WASTING MONEY:
I have seen americans wasting money like anything .I can really tell you indians save money a lot better.Very few indians have debts on their cards.
INCREASE WORK HOURS AND QUALITY
No doubt american work quality is great.However it can improve to the very best imaginable.America is in recession , so one should not complain of long work hours.This pain is temporary but a real solution in future
BE CONTENT AND INFORMED
America is not the world.Most of the americans are very less knowledgeable abt the way things work in other country.If they learn that, they will thank god so much .This will help in being content , controlled and self satisfied.
America to me is a great country.Their work ethic ,mannerisms , quality is unparallelled.
Dont blame outsourcing.Its the way nature decides.
Hello , this is my way.
Which way is yours ?
btw there is no right way
Anyone seen this yet?
_ impact/index.htm
In response to the pressure, and in light of a lack of job growth in the broader economy, House Democrats and Republicans have proposed a bill to repeal the H-1B program.
http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/11/news/economy/visa
--bratch
Beware of the Redittor who loans you a Sharpie.
Your little pro-Immigration rant was nice, but it should have been modded off topic. The topic here is that the US does nothing to protect it's workers, while India does. This is unfair.
The US needs to do something about this. I don't mind jobs moving to other countries, I also don't mind people from other countries coming here. I do mind countries taking advantage of our near-open borders, while not extending the same openess to us.
and that name is CHUMPS!
a fr icanmigrants/
one of my best friends is a Canadian immigrant. it took him two years and about $10k to get legal immigration status here in California.
And he is a dumbass chump.
He should have just worked here illegally and then in Janary gotten himself a drivers license, which is basically all you need for a job, to register to vote, or get on an airplane.
California has much more sensible immigration policy than the right wing anti-immigration folks in the EU... who are doing everything, including shooting, at folks trying to make it into Spain from North Africa.
http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/bordercrossings/
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Concept A: H1-B people take jobs from Americans
While this is true, it is neither the fault of the H1-B foreigners who take the jobs nor the Americans who lose them. Most of the H1-B foreigners were educated an universities here in the US. Back at the beginning of the CS/IT boom, there weren't enough qualified people, so employers petitioned the government to expand visa programs so that they could hire the foreign students that were available in universities here. Once employees started leaving for start-ups employers realized that because of their visa restrictions, most H1-B employees would not or could not leave. So they petitioned Congress again to expand the program. They got what they wanted, and American workers are now paying the price.
Concept B: Outsourcing is taking jobs from Americans
While this is also true, did you expect something different? Corporations are there to make profits for their shareholders. If I tell a corporation that my company in India/China/Eastern Europe can complete the same work their in-house American IT department does for half the cost, no MBA-carrying CEO would ever turn me down. Even if I lied and it's only 2/3, that's reduced operating costs by millions or dollars, thus increasing the return for shareholders.
All of this happened decades ago in agriculture, 20-25 years ago in the textiles industry (remember the by clothes made in the USA campaigns??), 20 years to present in the manufacturing industries (auto, steel, toys, etc.), 5-10 years in semi-conductor and IC manufacturing, and 3-5 years in the call-center industry. Were you naive enough to think it wouldn't happen to us?
Concept C: Foreign workers are less-apt than Americans
This is pure ego run amuck! Since the 80's, every foreign country has been improving their educational systems (most of which are now better than ours), and churning out qualified computer scientists, electrical engineers, and computer engineers. It was only a matter of time before corporations sought to tap into that resource. Why hire a bunch of Americans from average underfunded party schools when you can hire better educated and cheaper foreigners from the best schools in India, China, Czech Republic, etc.? That's capitalism at its best.
I'm all for altruism and idealism, but the reality is that these decisions are driven by $$$, and nothing else. If we want to keep CS/IT jobs here in the USA, we need to create more value for less money. Otherwise, we WILL follow the same path as the industries I mentioned above.
Everyone from every country in the world is over here taking American jobs. Just ask the guy from India sitting next to me who is here solely on an H1-B work visa. Of course there is not another US citizen here in the country that knows how to write java. If it wasn't for the Foriegn workers we could not have enjoyed the DOT.COM bubble. :-)
Hillary Clinton is a strong advocate for foreign workers coming to America, write her a letter.
"Accounting Firms Outsource Tax Returns to India" [seattletimes.nwsource.com]
thank you.
who is going to be left in the US to buy all this merchandise that is being made in India when all the US jobs have gone overseas?
its cyclical..the jobs will have to come back once companies realize they have noone who can afford to spend money on their products.
Unfortunately, it might take a good chunk of time before that happens.
besides, the skill level in India (at least for IT jobs) is HORRENDOUS. if those people had half a brain, they'd have already been in the USA to begin with on a H1B.
Well, there's always miners. Mining jobs are among the highest-paying jobs in the country (U.S.). Support mining and miners in your community, for not only do miners provide the raw materials (avg. is 45,000lbs/year of newly mined minerals for each American) for everything from basic infrastructure, agriculture, communications, power generation, etc. to luxury goods, but the money we spend in the community, from equipment to services to goods, helps everyone. I know it isn't perfect, but you have to admit that countries with abundant natural resources are the richer nations.
I'm relatively secure in my job discovering mineral deposits, knowing that for at least the next hundred years or more, we'll still need everything from gravel to gold, and that we'll need someone to find those deposits, and mine them.
-cp-
There *is* an employment visa. You need a letter of employment, however, most employers would be reluctant to hire someone without first seeing them. Any American would be an asset to an Indian company especially as a technical liaison. Oh yeah and whichever official he talked to is full of @*%^.
l
Here are the instructions for visas to India
http://chicago.indianconsulate.com/VISAINSN.htm
Try the 'good' employers like Infosys or Wipro. Just fyi, the job market is a lot more competitive over there with a rather strong emphasis on education.
It's not like H1Bs can just come in and take jobs at pennies on the dollar.
They must legally be paid 90% (or is it 95%?) of the prevailing wage for their profession as defined by the Department of Labor.
Whether this is enforced or not is another thing entirely.
sigh. i wish i had a job writing studies. i wish i had any job. :(
I cannnot allow this to pass unchallenged.
1) India's rules regarding temproary work visas are *significantly* different than in the US or EU.
2) India is largely of a protectionist bias. India has the dubious distinction of receiving a very large number of WTO rules violtation charges.
3) US "H1-B" visas, and related visas, within the US afford much longer than 6 years residency. Our average "H1-B" visa employee has resided in the US for over 14 years. It is very common for "H1-B" visa holders to "reset" their qualification process for "Green Card" application numerous times as they change jobs.
4) Your understanding of how globalized markets work operate is so simplistic that it does not even deserve a USA-Today level of readership. Try applying a little more economic extrapolation to the subject than you learned in freshman economics.
Since the US is a net-importer, and India enjoys numerous protectionist barriers, there is a net flow of wealth from the US into India whereas global trade and commerce are concerned.
Nothing burns the biscuit more than psuedo-insightful statements which, upon closer examination, are really just political reactionims.
Yo Bros, Sonia Gandhi, born Italian could end up being the PM of INDIA (the TOP job). She is now the leader of the oppposition Congress Party owing to have been married into the Nehru-Gandhi family which ruled India for a few decades. Agreed she is a naturalised Indian citizen now, but people opposed to the possibility of her taking the top job, have found nothing in Indian law which can prevent her from becoming the PM. Can you do that in the US? Even kids born to American parents outside the US cannot run for the top job.
How can you beat that? If that is possible, techies can surely go work in Bangalore. That article is clearly a voice in the ranting against H1-Bs and outsourcing.
And to all those who are beating their chests and shouting about protecting American jobs and keeping immigrants away, remember that your ancestors probably came here from somewhere else. They not only took the jobs but worse still, killed off all those Native Americans.
I can just see the ceo and board of a company laying off 25% of the company's people in the USA and replacing them with an equivalanet number of India people.
Guess what, projects across the board are slowed down for years to come. Quality drops, customers leave. The last few US based, 'critically important to the company' people leave when they figure out that the company does not have a future for them.
How can that be good for the company in the long run?
Endless cost cutting will only demorialize your employees and hurt the company in the long run.
Taken from the official webpage for the Indian Embassy in Washington:h tm
http://www.indianembassy.org/consular/visa_guide.
EMPLOYMENT VISA: An appointment letter, contract letter, applicant's resume and proof that the organization is registered in India are required. Duration of visa would depend on the period of the contract.
This is some of the documentation you need, to apply for an employment Visa for India.
Also from the same page:
Note: Change of purpose is not permitted once you have reached India. Depending on the nature of your journey, apply for the correct visa category.
This person seems to be a rabid India hater(seems a pakistani), doesn't seem to hail from Bihar and has just created his nick so that he could post his same trollish comment 3 times on the same page. Pls take his comment with a pinch of salt.
This person seems to be a rabid India hater(seems a pakistani), doesn't seem to hail from Bihar and has just created this nick(see post history) so that he could post his same trollish comment 3 times(last time i counted) on the same page. Pls take his comments with a pinch of salt.
We'll see much, much more job flight in the short term until the brakes are applied to this savage anti-social approach.
what brakes? the reason all this is happening is that the american economy is overinflated. inside the united states are high wages and high cost, with much of the rest of the world as a relative vacuum.
don't give me the corporate greed hatespeak--you can view the income statements and balance sheets yourself for the largest corportations. things are expensive in the united states because production costs are high. production costs are high because workers demand more money. workers demand more money because cost of living is high (notice i'm not using "greedy worker" hatespeak). cost of living is high because things are expensive. the cycle goes on and pressure grows.
this cycle is protected such policies as taxing imports, fixing high prices on agriculture, and creating barriers to accessing foreign labor. these policies don't help ameri
by putting the "brakes" on, all you're doing is keeping the pressure in. i'm not saying we need to rip open the floodgates (in fact, i think that would be very dangerous), but the solution is not to just keep plugging holes. what happens when the average american is making 100 times as much as the average indian without an improved standard of living from where americans are now? what about 200 times?
you can't let the pressure grow forever. we will size up eventually, either now in a controlled manner by choice, or later in a dangerous and chaotic manner by force (when nobody else in the world will pay so much for our labor or goods, but we still want imports from them).
pardon me for ending this post with bitching, but i'm getting really tired of politicians who propose lots of great things for america when they are really just passing the cost to the next generation. it sounds great at first to protect the american workers in these ways, but america must pay in the end.
char *mySig;
New York and California may have enormous economies, but I'd be hard pressed to call them good. In fact, I hear that the big state to the far left may be voting to fire its upper management because of this exact problem.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
i caught that the moment i hit submit...so much for being taken seriously :(
oops...slashdot requires me to wait 2 minutes between posts...waiting...waiting...go
char *mySig;
Parent is an insightful, accurate comment. I don't agree with its sentiment, and I rather resent its tone...but that doesn't make it wrong. Who are the JACKASSES who modded it down? Are we more interested in promoting "patriotism," on Slashdot, than in elevated, educated debate?
No kidding. I *like* small midwestern communities. Ones with computer engineering jobs are pretty stinking rare, though. Do tell us where this magical place is located!
Pretty please?
1. Grew up in Holland, Michigan.
2. Was gradutated from Hope College (Home of the Flying Dutchmen).
3. Of all the places he could live in the world, he still chooses Holland, Michigan.
4. Blond.
MS Janani, 22, a computer science graduate, is sitting next to her telephone waiting for that special call. No, it is not from her boyfriend but from a US-based multinational IT firm for a telephonic interview. Ms Janani's fate is not rare. She is one of the thousands of computer science and engineering graduates who are unemployed. A lot of them are from tier two and three engineering colleges with specialisation in computer science or electrical and electronics engineering - EEE in short. Recently, Ms Janani applied for a job in Infosys Technologies. To her shock, she found was competing with over six lakh applicants. She tried her luck with Polaris Software. It was no better. Her application number was 78,000 plus. Frustrated, Janani started dropping her resume with all the recruitment firms. From hopes of working with firms like Infosys or Wipro four years ago, when she entered college, Janani today is willing to take any IT job coming her way. Today, getting an IT job has become tough even as a large number of engineering and computer science graduates pass out every year across the country. Infosys Technologies received 6.30 lakh resumes during 2002-03 for various posts. The number is almost equal to that of the entire software professionals employed in India. The company made about 6,200 offers. For an entry-level post, Polaris received 1.60 lakh applications for 500 positions. For a recent half-page advertisement calling for generic skills, Cognizant Technology received over 18,000 applications. Small and medium-size IT firms are also receiving a large number of resumes. Says Infosys spokesperson, the challenge for companies lie in distilling the best application. Today candidates have more choices, and recruitment is on an upswing. Organisations are willing to look at differential compensation package even as specialised technical skills are in higher demand. According to Mr R. Chandrasekaran, Senior Vice-President, Cognizant, for any generic technical skill such as Java or Mainframe, the company gets over 450 resumes, and for any senior-level position or niche skills over 100 resumes for a single post. This number excludes unsolicited resumes dropped through Cognizant's Web site and boxes. Of the total applications the "must hire" category is about 5 per cent, followed by "can be hired" 8 per cent. Cognizant recruits 60 per cent of its employees from engineering and management campuses and the remaining 40 per cent from open market. Of the 40 per cent, 65 per cent are from global consulting and technology companies and leading Indian software companies, and the remaining 35 per cent are from niche software companies. Cognizant recruited about 2,400 professionals last year, of which about 1,200 were from the open market, he said. The recruitment firms too are flooded with resumes for IT jobs. Says Ms Saundarya Rajesh, CEO of the Chennai-based Avtar Career Creators, a human resources consulting and recruitment firm, a recent advertisement attracted over 5,000 resumes from software testing engineers for 25 posts. Even for unknown IT companies, the response is in a few thousands, she says. Separating wheat from chaff To cope with the large number of applications, IT companies follow different screening and evaluation process. At Cognizant, for every 100 resumes received, at the first pre-screening level - to call candidates for interview is short-listed - 77 applications are rejected. In the next level of interviews to offer, 45 per cent of the short-listed applications are rejected, making it a net rejection rate of 87 per cent. That is, for every 100 applications received, there are only 13 candidates recruited into Cognizant. While Infosys recruited one in every 100 applicants, Cognizant's was 1.5 persons for 100 resumes received, Mr Chandrasekaran said. Says Mr R. Shekar, Senior Vice-President - Head HR, Corporate Strategy and Business Excellence, Polaris Software Lab, at the entry level, the company follows a two-step process. A written test is done to validate the analytical ability, numeric an
Instead of the US giving out money to other countries, why don't we just pass a law saying that to do bussiness in the US you have to pay workers the same amount as you would a US employee.
It would stop jobs from going overseas and/or improve conditions in other countries.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
I have experience managing outsourced projects (in our case it was China). You definitely get more skill for the buck, but only up to a certain level. In the end I think most of the money spent on the offshore programmers was wasted (it wasn't a lot of money though).
First, there is the time difference. You send an e-mail and get no reply until tomorrow. Then there is the language barrier - sometimes I think the offshore programmers used it their favor (i thought you ment this, not that, sorry). The lack of responsibility - loyalty is a two-way street, and they know that we only like them cause they're cheap; after a while you start getting the vibe that they only care about the project as much as you care about them. Worst of all, they didn't really know what "responsibility" is, as we know it (in America, or western Europe), i.e. little things dropping here or there are OK. They don't understand that the paycheck depends on their performance - for them it arrives from somewhere in the wild west where everyone is rich.
After a while we tried to improve things by sending an employee to china for several months. While he was there, we thought things were improving, but in the end not much has changed.
All this leads me to believe that the offshoring thing is going to prove a bitter disappointment for many companies, and it will also damage reputation, especially for those in the consulting business, e.g. Accenture or PWC, etc. Imagine how happy an exec at a large company will be when he finds out that the consulting firm that charged him $120/hr has a bunch of guys somewhere working for $.50, especially after it becomes apparent that what they've been writing for the past 6 months is all unusable crap?
To the unemployed out there I'd say don't worry, and keep your skills current. If you have no project - go help some big open source project, like Apache, it will look good on your resume when companies will learn their lesson and start hiring based on skill and character, not on salary.
grisha.org
I happen to be an American citizen born in America (and a Republican voter to boot), who studies in America and lives in India. So I have both angles covered here.
Let me begin by saying that I have a 10 year work permit for India and it took me all of two days and 5 bucks in postage stamps to get it.
My friends have had hell trying to get student visas, forget H1Bs. They are submitted to such embarrasment as showing bank balances to prove they can afford the entire college course (not, say 20gs for one year, but 100gs for all four!). If they don't shave or come for their interviews wearing shorts, they are often rejected for their I-20s despite having all the necessary credentials.
A friend of mine got rejected for renewal of his I-20 -- after having been in American college for two years, he was rejected when reapplying for his third. The interviewer asked him if he was planning on living in America after college, and he said no, I don't like America all that much, and so was rejected!
Another friend was rejected on the basis that his father is self-employed. The interviewer said that since you are going to take over your father's business anyway, why go to college?
Yet another of my friends decided to go to England over America because the visa officer indirectly hinted that she was going to America to look for a husband with an American passport.
I like America, and am proud to be, but the INS really is the worst, most incompetent and most impolite immigration service I have encountered yet. As an American, I throw a fit when a foreign visa office treats me badly --but look at the humiliation my own doles out. It's disgusting.
The saddest story is of a friend of mine who goes to a large state school. He got trashed one night in college and some friend of his tore out his visa from his passport. He reported it to the INS who required that he leave the country before they issued him a new one. He ended up losing a year of college and a year of fees to the INS.
Makes me sick as an American. All I can say is, power to those who endure the punishing visa process -- they desrve the bloody jobs after all that!
shooting is not too good for my enemies
I used to work at a major network hardware company. They had outsorced a large chunk of QA work to some contractors in India -- some script-writing, some regression tests, and other sundry tasks. Without necessarily making any broad generalizations about Indian contractors or foreign contracting in general, let me share my experiences and impressions with you, in the hopes that you won't make the same mistake that my company made.
1. Time zone: I was on the East Coast (EST/EDT). I beleive that India was about 12 hours away from us, give or take. This meant that basically anything you asked them to do took at least 1 full working day, since by the time I got into work, they were in bed. You can just imagine the problems this caused when deadlines or other time-critical matters were involved.
2. Language: Again, without making any broad generalizations... Their English sucked. It was nearly impossible to communicate with them on the phone and their written English was less than acceptible. Also, based on serveral very frustrating experiences with the whole group, I concluded that their comprehention of written English was equally poor. We finally found a guy there who could understand English well enough to explain things to the rest of the group, but even then, my confidence level was quite low.
3. Work Ethic/Product: Both the group in question and several other Indians I've worked with since then have had some similar issues w/r/t how they worked and what they produced. Again, not to generalize... If you give them very clear, step-by-step instructions to perform a discrete task, they generally will perform the task quite thoroughly. However, if the procedure requires any deviation from the norm or any creativity or synthesis, you're better off doing it yourself, because they'll never figure it out.
We also had problems getting them to listen to anyone other than management -- they basically ignored team lead's, including myself.
In their defense, I understand that the education system in India teaches them to work this way; it has a large focus on rote memorization and obeyance of authority. That's great, and it seems to work for them. However, that's not how we work in the US, and folks who have gone to US (or European or Chinese) schools and worked with others of the similar ilk will get very frustrated trying to mesh with thinking processes that are polar opposites of their own. Furthermore, I find this thinking process thoroughly unproductive and pretty much useless in an Engineer.
Now, I'm just waiting for someone to write back flaming me for being some kind of racist, so let me state once more that I am relating my personal experiences with certain Indians. I went to grad school with several amazingly talented Indians whom I would choose to work with in a heartbeat. I'm not trying to reinforce any sterotypes or discriminatory policies.
What I am trying to say is caveat emptor. If a thing seems too good to be true, it probably is. Sure, you can get engineering labor abroad for 10 cents on the dollar. But in many cases, you get what you pay for.
And finally, there are countless qualified engineers in AMERICA who need jobs. If a foreign individual or group has skills you can't find here, then fine, bring them here. But in the long run, you hurting yourself, your company, and your fellow Americans by trying to save a buck abroad. It ain't worth it.
Quite.
There are two factors you didn't include.
1 - tax treaties. If there are tax treaties between the US Govt and the country you are paying taxes to, often the taxes you paid, or a portion of them, are deductable from what you pay in the us. Almost ALL countries on earth work this way.
2 - exemption for non residents. If you are a US citizen but are not considered a resident of the US (in this context, resident has nothing to do wiht your right to live there, only whether or not you do live there), then you have your first $75,000 foreign income as tax exempt. So.. if you move to some little island and you only make $75,000, and you don't keep a house/car/wife/kids in the US, and don't spend too much time in the US a year, you pay no taxes to the us. When you DO pay taxes, you pay federal ones only, not state.
US Taxation is still based on citizenship. Every other country on earth taxes based on residency. A Canadian citizen living abroad does not pay tax to Canada on income not earned in Canada. Same for the UK, Sweden, Japan, and so on.
heh, you don't how right you are, not even 1 woman or a non-white american male president in 250 yrs whereas the 'non-tolerant', 'racist' India had a woman as a prime minister, had muslims, christians and dalits(supposedly the lowest caste ppl) as presidents. btw the current president of India is a muslim. All of this within 55 years(240) of Independence from the british who brought the once supposedly richest nation in the world to almost complete ruin.
This is only intended to the trolls calling India racist/backward/non-tolerant etc without doing the homework.
Instead lets all vie for stopping the greed among CEOs and demand proper compensation/benefits for WHOEVER does the work, WHEREVER.
While we rant about these, those ppl are in millions by making Americans jobless and exploiting the poor foreigners.
This Register article discusses one reason why outsourcing may be so much cheaper (although paying peanuts is probably a much bigger influence.) Seems to me that one way to address this problem may be to charge more for software to companies that outsource to countries where stealing software is endemic.
Check out this article which says that outsourcing is more beneficial to US workers than Indian workers. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/un comp/articleshow?msid=178120
Do not channel your energy into being angry. Do something about the problem. Please read "Oppose H-1Bs but Support Outsourcing".
Silicon Valley has 8% unemployment, but Intel says that it cannot find engineers to fill its ranks. Intel insists that the American government allow it to hire H-1B workers from India and China (which includes Taiwan and Hong Kong).
Fax a letter to your local Congressional representative and tell her that you want the immediate termination of the L-1 and H-1B programs. Do not wait for someone else to carry out your civic responsibility. Move your ass. Do the job.
We must do more than just terminate the H-1B program. We must also terminate the L-1 program as well. With secure video-conferencing, there is no need to rotate a foreigner into the United States of America to work for an extended period of time.
Please read "Oppose H-1Bs but Support Outsourcing".
Fax a letter to your local Congressional representative and tell her that you want the immediate termination of the L-1 and H-1B programs. Do not wait for someone else to carry out your civic responsibility. Move your ass. Do the job.
You read like a high school dropout who landed a high paying job in a stupid startup in the crazy years because you where PHP litterate and is angry because the tougher job market actually requires real skills now...
Well, no, most American workers did not "greatly appreciate" the H-1B visa program. It provided the perfect excuse for unethical companies like Intel to avoid training American workers.
Economies normally grow and shrink. There will always be periods of temporary shortage. However, over time, the shortage will disappear. All shortages are self-fixing; read any book on economics. In the particular case of labor shortage, wages will rise; higher wages will attract more labor. The shortage will disappear.
During periods of apparent shortage, there is no need to "fix" the problem by importing foreign H-1B workers like Indians or Chinese. Anyhow, we should immediately terminate both the H-1B program and the L-1 program.
Please read "Oppose H-1Bs but Support Outsourcing".
Fax a letter to your local Congressional representative and tell her that you want the immediate termination of the L-1 and H-1B programs. Do not wait for someone else to carry out your civic responsibility. Move your ass. Do the job.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" ***
But keep your damn programmers!
***engraved into the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty after the opening of Ellis Island
No, the H1-B visa allows for a grand total of 6 years only. (Believe me, I have first-hand experience in almost running into that limit, with no possibility of extension, before the "timely" issue of a green card).
The average person who initially gets employed on a H1-B may well reside in the US for 14 years (your assertion, not mine) - a significant percentage of H1-B visa holders eventually obtain a green card (and/or citizenship).
Personally, I came on a F-1 visa as a student + 1 year on a practial trainee program; 6 years on a H1-B VISA, and now as a permanent resident.
Sure it is simplistic - This is not exactly the type of forum where you go into the lower level details. But the bottom line is exactly as I said - the US has been pushing for free trade (even trade "subsidies" in the form of tax breaks for exporters); it follows that products and services get imported more as well as exported more.
Companies like IBM try (perhaps misguidedly) to maximize their profitablity by outsourcing functions to India, so as not to lose ground against other companies that already operate in, say, India (based there or not).
According to the CIA World Fact Book, India (just like the USA) is a net importer.
Choice B is the best choice. Outsourcing is superior to both the H-1B program and the L-1 program. Please read "Oppose H-1Bs but Support Outsourcing".
Anyhow, we must do more than just terminate both the H-1B program and the L-1 program.
Fax a letter to your local Congressional representative and tell her that you want the immediate termination of the L-1 and H-1B programs. Do not wait for someone else to carry out your civic responsibility. Move your ass. Do the job.
I am a software developer for the world's largest network of independent executive recruiters. We provide software and services which allow recruiters to share jobs, candidates, and generally network together. We are to staffing what the MLS is to real-estate.
Currently, there are 40,604 jobs in our database. Approximately 4809 are actively being recruited right now.
Of those 4809, 17 indicate the client is willing to sponsor or hire a non-us citizen.
That's about 1/3 of 1 percent.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
http://www.india-visa.com/wahington-info.htm
BUSINESS VISA: Valid for six month or one/more years with multiple entries. However, the period of stay in India (for each visit) under this category is limited to six months only. A letter from the sponsoring organization indicating nature of applicant's business, probable duration of stay, validity of visa, places and organizations to be visited and also a guarantee to meet maintenance expenses etc. should accompany the application. Business visa valid for ten years with multiple entries is available to foreign businessmen who have set up or intend to set up joint ventures in India.
EMPLOYMENT VISA: An appointment letter, contract letter, applicant's resume and proof that the organization is registered in India are required. Duration of visa would depend on the period of the contract.
STUDENT VISA: (Valid for the period of study in India). Multiple-entry Visa are given to bona fide students to pursue regular studies at recognized institutions in India. A letter confirming admission from such an institution along with evidence of financial arrangements for stay in India should accompany the application. In case of admission in medical or paramedical courses in India, a letter of Approval or No objection certificate from the Ministry of Health, Government of India, is also required. Similarly, for admission to graduate or post-graduate courses in engineering/ technical institutions in India, a letter of approval or a No objection certificate from the Ministry of Human Resources Development (Department of Education) is required.
Did you lose your job to India?
We're Pakistanis and we have something in common! You think your upset about India taking our job! They took part of our country!
Help us improve our weapon's systems, and, when reduce India to ashes for stealing Kashmir from us, you'll benefit with better wages!
This is my sig.
...I worked with an immigrant from the Phillipines. She is a fantastic Oracle DBA, very easy to work with and knowledgeable. She was hired as a contractor in the middle of the dotcom boom when tech people were scarce and then was moved to an H1-B visa to hire her fulltime. When it expired, after about 3 years, it could not be renewed because I work for a government agency and the change in the job market indicated that we could no longer justify her in lieu of a US citizen. She is still in the country as her husband has an H1-B visa and she is working on getting her own work authorization approved by the INS. I hope her position will still be unfilled by the time her work authorization comes through so that we can hire her back.
To replace her with a contractor we cannot hire someone directly, due to liability issues (read lawsuit happy culture), and HAVE to use an "approved" agency/pimp. We told them what we needed and they sent over someone completely incompetent - we dismissed them after a week during which time they completely messed up 2 of my applications with their sloppiness, setting me back 4-6 weeks in development. We now have a contractor who is atleast competent but he insists on complaining to me about how much more he is used to getting paid (to which I replied that he should negotiate with his agency since we are paying an absurd amount for him given the current market).
With the current budget crisis (I'm in CA) we are not able to fill the DBA position so we will keep the contractor for a while. Meanwhile, I miss my old DBA - she was worth every penny and I still would prefer her over anybody, US citizen or Non-US citizen, just because of what a joy she was to work with. She made my life easy.
Just my 2 cents.
Yes, that's why approximately 8,000 people in the US were fired and their jobs given to people outside the US.
-]Phreak Out[-
A: You don't want to live in India anyway. They don't have toilets, they squat and shit into holes in the ground. There are no traffic laws other than 'he who wins at chicken has right of way.' They say they got rid of their caste system, but it still is very much in existence (ever wonder why that Indian you work with is such an arrogant prick? He comes from the upper castes, and is used to acting that way back home. Also, he is taught that he is superior to you stupid Americans). Add the probability of being toasted by a Paki nuke in the near future, and you should probaby rethink your travel plans.
B: Check this bullshit out. A recruiting company in New Jersey advertising on Usenet, flatly stating that their client would PREFER a foreigner. Of course, the recruiters name is also Indian, shockingly enough!
Read this.
Me? I say: Send them ALL home.
...this stuff, but I couldn't resist.
Okay, so I dissed Sinclair computers and supported Atari 800, but I still understand what he's going through.
But for India not to hire Americans? Blatant double standard. And they don't know what they're missing. It takes so much in the way of resources to gain the info, knowledge, language, and culture of an American in India that it's near priceless. They don't even realize what they're missing in an American programmer whiling to relocate to India.
-=- Many seek good nights and lose good days.
>>>No, the H1-B visa allows for a grand total of 6 years only. (Believe me, I have first-hand experience...
Your anecdotal experiences aside, there is no rule/law that prevents indefinite extensions to H1-B visas. We employ one individual for whom our immigration attorney has just procured another H1-B extension. This gentleman has been in the US, on H1-B since 1988. He, like so many here, also started on a student visa in the mid 1980s. In fact, our immigration attorney often is able to entirely reset the "grand total" counter for visa holders through any one of numerous loopholes that exist in immigration law. One example loophole, which was recently closed, allowed for a H1-B visa holder to reset their residency by applying for the equivalent visa in Canada, then applying for a transfer of the Canadian visa back to the US, which is provided for by immigration law.
The behavior of our [actually our parent] corporation, like so many others, is the point of contention here. They are exploiting the H1-B visa holders, depressing salaries for residents--citizens and green card residents alike--and profiting from an intentional misuse of immigration law.
(By the way, there is in INS as a separate congressionally funded agency anymore. It was enveloped by the new DHS. This is actually quite a subtle, but important event, as direct administrative manipulation of immigration law is now much more complicated and politically loaded.)
>>>According to the CIA World Fact Book, India (just like the USA) is a net importer.
Yes, but the point is that the US has a bias towards fewer barriers and less protectionism. India has the opposite bias. This largely yields a flow of wealth into India from the US.
I earn 60k on an H1B and I know doctors on H1B's. I doubt they earn less than 150K.
I agree with you that L's aren't good but H1's have so many attention these days...
Lazy people who blame H1 holder doesn't help either... oh well..
If the malware is put in the USA, by American Programmers, you can get the FBI to put them in prison. Overseas, the programmer could have put that malware in at the orders of his government. You have no recourse.
This happens in the private sector as well. Read
this job listing saying H-1's are PREFERRED over American citizens!
Dude, your are chaneling your anger at the wrong people. All these poor Indian H1Bs and L1s are programmers like yourself just trying what they can to earn a living.
I'm by no means a Marxist but this is a classic devide and conquer strategy practiced by the ruling classes to keeps us fighting and bickering among ourselves while ripping the financial benifits of outsourcing/offshoring.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
I, as a PWAFB (person with a functioning brain) could see the weakness and stupidity of his argument. A dollar sure as heck can leave our economy, for good, for ever, and that's exactly what's happening now.
Outsourcing is going to be a hideous catastrophe. If IBM, Accenture, et. al, do all their actual work in India, what's too keep the prime contracts from moving to Indian companies? Remember American IT companies don't CHARGE LESS for products they develop overseas, they just raise profits that way. Why pay $1,000,000 to IBM for a system when an Indian company could do the same work for $300,000. After all a fat cat executive/member of upper management in India probably only needs $75,000 a year instead of $300,000K. "Globalization" and "free trade" (free in name only) are going to leave the world squalid and war torn. Don't believe the neocon lies!
BTW- this BS about socks costing $20 a pair if they were made in America - NOT TRUE AT ALL. As recently as a decade ago you could probably still find some clothing made in America and it certainly wasn't 10X the price. It's a question of how much profits the middlemen want to reap...not what the consumer is going to pay.
Don't.
What are they going to do, fire you?
It wasn't funny.
The funny thing is I was just interviewed by a reporter for a similar human interest type article. The reporter found an overseas worker willing to discuss the issue from his perspective - turns out the guy was my replacement when I was laid off several months ago. If the article gets published without me getting assaulted by a team of lawyers for NDA violations I'll be sure to post more info.
Hi,
I am intrigued by your statement that they ignored team leads. As an Indian working in Canada, I think it is a great opportunity for me to learn from the other side.
Those Canadians who do not do as the team lead says do so in the following manner:
1. They find an argument that says logically why they are deviating from the prescription.
2. They present it in the team meeting using poly-syllabic words.
3. If they succeed, they privately they say they're happy they didn't have to work in so and so technology because it sucked or because it was written by MS or something similar.
My understanding is that Indians don't know how to ignore in a communicative way, if you get what I mean, or they don't quite know how to do so in a diplomatic way.
But I'd still be interested in instances of ignoring of the team lead, if you will be kind enough to tell me, that is.
-An Indian
That's free trade at it's best!
Rumania anyone? http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5074725.html My fav units are dead Mavs
My fav units are dead Mavs
satyap you noob. you should read the article
India always wants things both ways... see trade liberalization agreements.
m ?s tory_id=2049618
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cf
Check out the following web sites:
http://www.hireamericancitizens.org/protphotos0
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html#tt
http://www.hireamericancitizens.org/underpay.ht
http://www.nomoreh1b.com/
http://www.cpcsguru.com/Perspectives_on_Offshor
http://www.nomoreh1b.com/BankOfAmericaSuicides.
...that raghead government in India needs to realize, that as a country who not only governs, but also occupies half the internet, I feel they should allow us to work in the country. We're the only reason their archaic country has flourished. Whatever Swami has to say about it is irrelevant because he has no right to tell us what to do with our money we're paying him to sit on his ass and generate crappy code every day. If we want to put QC agents in the companies there, we had better be able to do so to protect our investment. India, get bent.
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
Who ever heard of a rich West Virginian?
Skilled, experienced American engineers are being replaced by unskilled, unexperienced Indian immigrants with often "fake" resumes, hoping to learn how to do the job on the job...
I have been watching this trend for a while... It is not a matter of replacing something with it's equivilent at a lower price. It is about importing unskilled labor (perpetrating as skilled labor) to replace experienced skilled labor to satisfy internal corporate payroll reduction targets.
Believe me, the companies that heavily use Indian labor are SUFFERING. The market will work this out of itself, because corporations become less competitive by using these idiots.
Yes, certainly, some things are cheaper. But the examples you give; both the clothing and automotive markets were once upon a time totally fed by US manufacturers. I'm pretty sure socks didn't cost the equivalent of modern $20. Being a little bit of a car nut, I know cars have not got any cheaper since then either. According to a quick run through an inflation calculator, my 1967 Ford Thunderbird's $4500 cost new equates to $24,000 now. Try and find a semi-luxury car for $24K ... In fact, American manufacturers RAISED their prices.
You are correct in terming your statements as generalizations, for that's what they are.
India today is a boiling cauldron of problems, and yet it is moving ahead. The problems date back thousands of years, and yet solutions or workarounds are found. I must question your assertions that Indians cannot find a way and can only do a task if given explicit instructions.
What you should have said was that some of the Indians you met - for you couldn't have met all Indians and some Indians you met were quite smart, as you admitted - weren't all that good. That's no surprise. Not everyone belongs to the upper echelons in any society. Instead you chose to make generalized statement that all Indians are like that. Some decades ago, your previous generation made the statement that all blacks are inferior and Japs can only copy.
It is not even logical.
Coming back to the abundance of problems in India and Indians marching ahead. Consider this, when India became independent in 1947, there was a miniscule middle-class. Now there are 250 million of those who count themselves amongst that category. Imagine, a whole America raised from poverty to reasonable standard of life in 50 or so years.
If there were no brains, and if there was no capability to find way forward through the muck then how the hell did this happen?
Quite clearly, your inference is incorrect. It is based on insufficient data and it is prejudiced. You met both kinds of Indians, smart and otherwise and yet you chose to arrive at a conclusion that doesn't take that into account.
I end with an example. A few years ago, a British consultancy was awarded a contract to suggest ways of cleaning up the "sewer that runs through" Delhi, the river Yamuna. After a few weeks, they returned the monies they were given, packed their bags and went home. They couldn't think of a solution that would work in Indian context, you see.
We have never concluded from that Modern British are incapable of original thinking.
(BTW, respective Indian government departments are working to make the water cleaner. They haven't given up).
Why don't you read all the postings before you start muttering crap like this? Many people have already written about work permits for India, and that this guy probably did not apply in the proper manner. Also, where did you get this crap about "We're the only reason their archaic country has flourished" ?
This is indeed a very good point, since we some to be on the subject of "fairness" and all.
I am a professional member of the IEEE and volunteer member of the IEEE's Congressional Advocacy Recruitment Effort. I will give you an excerpt from a recent email about the USA Jobs Protection Act and the need to reform the visa programs:
IEEE-USA urges concerned engineers to contact their U.S. Senators and
Representatives to enlist their support for the USA Jobs Protection Act
(H.R. 2849 & S.1452) as introduced by Representative Nancy Johnson (R-CT)
and Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT). If enacted this important legislation would
plug loopholes and prevent abuses of the controversial H-1B (Specialty
Occupations) and L-1 (Intra-Company Transfer) temporary visa programs
Please contact your U.S. Senators and Representatives and ask them to
co-sponsor H.R. 2849 (in the House) and S. 1452 (in the Senate).
The USA Jobs Protection Act is sponsored by respected Republicans and
Democrats in both houses of Congress and, if enacted, will:
- Prevent employers from using the L-1 visa program to displace
American workers,
- Require employers to pay L-1 visa holders prevailing wages,
- Limit the use of blanket L-1 visa applications,
- Prohibit leasing of L-1 visa holders to secondary employers,
- Strengthen the Labor Secretary's authority to investigate abuses of
L-1 and H-1B visas,
- Keep the H-1B cap at 65,000, and
- Expand U.S. worker recruitment and retention requirements to all
employers of H-1B workers (These requirements currently only apply to
"H-1B dependent" employers).
It is a simple matter to search for your representatives and email them to let them know what you think, as well as view the status of current legislation at www.congress.org
Thanks!
Joan
A site I've looked at a little:
http://www.h1b.info/
As a dutchman it's also not possible for me to relocate to the USA. Unless I prove that there's no way my skills can be found in the States.
It is easy to manipulate the US Visa system. One approach is to put the rate of the lowest allowed programming rate: 32K per year. Few qualified citizens would apply (at least before the dot-com bust).
The second approach is to put a virtually impossible-to-match LIST of MULTIPLE skills on the application. US inspectors (what little there are) cannot verify a person's experience from India and are too stupid or overworked to verify that the listed skills are actually used on the job.
The "cannot find qualified citizen" requirement is a toothless tiger.
Citizens have actually been forced to train their H1B and L1 replacements in order to get their severence check. There was nothing in the law to protect them because they are obviously not going to apply for their own position when the visa workers are submitting applications. The law as written only mentions applications (resumes), not existing employees. Another brilliant congressional loophole.
I have an H1B co-worker, and he ADMITS that the visa system is screwed up.
Table-ized A.I.
Just make sure that you are willing to accept the consequences. Are you willing to work for $1/hour? There are no skills that you have that an immigrant cannot also learn. Just know what you are accepting. Wages will drop. Thats how it works. Supply and demand is quite real.
Also, this is not about "hate". This is not about racism or being superior. It's about self preservation. We don't owe it to these people to increase their standard of living by reducing our own. Especially when they won't even let us work in their country.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
SO lemme see if I have this right. What exactly can Americans do that foreigners can't? And please, dear God, don't say innovate because you'd just be fooling yourself. Let's just offshore everything since, clearly, there is nothing we do better.
This reminds me of the 70's. Everything Russian was better. Better musicians, better ballet, better sportsman. Oh wait, we kicked their ass in hockey. So much for that.
When I hear aholes like Larry Ellison (usually good for a few laughts) talk about how "qualified" and "hard-working" his Indian programmers are, I remember the 70's with glee. Can't wait for a decade when American's aren't down on themselves.
Why would anyone want to move to India, thats where cooties come from!
Unfortunately a degree from Cal State Sacramento is virtually worthless.
and then himself
If H-1B visas are stopped and no foriegn workers are allowed into US, students seeking MS and PhD degrees in US will stop coming unless the universities offer them funding. They will have no reason to shell out high fees for a degree that fetches no job by law. That would mean that many departments will almost close and many professors will get laid off due to shortage of graduate students. That would affect the standards of universities.
Funny thing, when you account for the cost of living in cities (and the stress, but that's another matter), taxation, etc., I wouldn't be surprised running into some wealthy West Virginian's.
For myself, moving away from the cities was a good thing (Chicago and DC). Although I make far less in terms of actual income, I live in a nicer place, spend less money for basic goods, have more luxeries, spend less time at work, spend a fraction of the time in gridlock, and generally have less stress. I've saved more in the past 2 years than in 7 some years in city life. Quality of life is up, and the public education system where I am is top notch.
I do miss going out as much as I did, then again, I can go to a movie around here without people generally yelling stuff at the screen. The lack of diverse cuisine in my area sucks, but that's an acceptable tradeoff. Of course, I still have friends living in those cities, which I visit, so it's not horrific.
To each their own I suppose. At least in West Virginia, you get to see gorgeous purple mountains and the stars--I guess that does't count for many folks.
Maybe I'm slow, but it would seem to me that if workers could chase jobs across borders, the increased supply of labor would drive wages down, not up. That's why the US doesn't open our borders to all workers who want to come here---if everyone migrated to the US, wages would plummet.
A few hundred thousand lawsuits or a class-action lawsuit with a few hundred thousand displaced workers (actually a few million if you include all the other displaced workers in industries besides tech) would get some attention -- hopefully news attention.
How about creating lists of all them thousands of companies using h1b and h1b type visas -- with real numbers of workers displaced in each company and workers hired on visas with amounts being paid.
How about hiring a PR(public relations) firm to spread the story.
How about pushing for legislation that requires companies to give foreign workers the same pay and benefits that an equivalent American worker would get for the same job -- This may sound anti-American, but think about it: The primary reason companies are going overseas for workers is because they are cheaper -- if it costs the same or more for foreign workers, no companies would waste their time with H1b type programs; and if they did, then it would actually be the case where the employee was truly needed.
Build a cheaper mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
Heres an offer, as a developer previously an L1 now on a green card, you can have my job, I am off back to somewhere more amenable to live.
From the story ...A separate report released this week by the American Immigration Law Foundation ... .
Surprise, surprise.
Immigration lawyers are for H1-B. That's 'cause
they soak H1-Bs for lots of money.
This is yet another reason to scrap the H1-B program. It's a "lawyer tax".
well put. No one wants to admit that there's flaws in our implementation of capitolism, it's much easier to blame India.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
We really don't manufacture as much in the states as we used to. If you are purchasing cheap to average priced goods you are supporting manufacturing somewhere else.
http://members.aol.com/XPUS/
If there were no other nations except the US, there would be no such thing as an H1B.
It's just that simple!
Oh Yes, I work in Mumbai at a place called SEEPZ, which is a zone exclusively set up for software and gems exporters. In my previous company, we had a bunch of Romanians working here, for about 2-3 years before they all emigrated to the US or went back to Europe.
The TCS people fed Soong some crock and he lapped it up.
One question: If the people at Slashdot, including the Editors, are such supersmartypants, then how come that they are so paranoid of immigrants? Oh yes, I know, all of you people will jump up and say "No We aint. We just want to keep our jobs!", which to me kinda sounds like the refrain of all the car manufacturers who used to urge your Congress to not allow Japanese cars because its good to "Be American, Buy American"
Tolerance is a rare thing these days. Everyone claims to be tolerant but how many really are?
A crank is a little thing that makes revolutions
>>> US workers cannot get jobs in Canada, Europe,
:{
Actually because of NAFTA the rules are the same for US citizen to work in Canada than the other way around. And many does, I worked with many Americans in all my hight-tech jobs.
One thing to be said, is that being part of the English Commonwealth (EC) Canadians have *a few* facility when applying for a working visa inside the EC (Australia, India and so on), but not much.
When I was young many friends used a special visa, you have to be a student, under 21 and a member of the EC. You could then work anywhere in the EC for the next 3 months. It was created to help students pay their summer travelling.
I also have a EU passport thanks to my dad, so I like my options. Of course I am also a lazy bastard, spending my vacation time in front of the TV, so moving to another country is not for any time soon
I do sympathize with Soong and thousands of others like him who have lost jobs. I have been through it and know how it feels. But you fail to report the other side of the story which is that for decades the US has been using its economic might and diplomatic strength to create chaos in the markets of developing and underdeveloped countries as a direct result of which, there has been widespread poverty and unemployment in other countries. The US has been during the 70s and 80s pushing for removing restrictions so that they can push American goods to new markets. They used their deep pockets to do advertising blitz and kill the local players and have the people in other countries buy American products. Much of the recent strength of the American economy is a direct result of this. Today if there is a huge disparity between the salaries of an American and say an Indian or a Chinese, it is due to this factor.
Consider Denim. Jeans became fashion in India around two decades ago. There were a number of local players and no MNCs. Once American companies like Lee and Levi's realized that there was a market in India, they launched their products with big advertisements, the likes of which Indian companies could not compete against. Indian firms who used to produce Jeans had to close down and there were job losses with sob
stories worse than that of Soong. The Levis used to tout quality and style as their USPs.
And the funny thing is that the denim used for the Jeans they produced was actually made in India. And, the different new fits that Levis brought out were very ill-suited for the Indian physique. And yet people used to keep buying these Jeans costing twice or thrice the Indian variety. Or for example take the case of softdrinks. During the 80s the govt. of India allowed no foreign players in that market. There were a number of local players who competed with each other. Enter the 90s and Pepsi entered the market (followed by Coke a few years later). The Pepsi launch in India was a mega-event with articles written on from how big the company was to charts with comparison between
Pepsi, Thums Up (The No: 1 Indian Cola drink) and Coke. When they launched the product, they ran an ad that ran for whole 60 seconds on the National Channel.
Something equivalent to the Super Bowl ads. These two between them wiped out the entire Indian Soft drink Manufacturers by either forcing them out or buying them. Equally sad story considering that thousands would have lost jobs in the process. And all this was so that they make more money, increase market share and make the 'American stockholders' happy (read richer). Did you guys at that time realize the damage you were causing to the rest of the world to finance your fat salaries? Is it not obvious that Jobs will follow to markets where American goods have gone? How long can American companies
sustain in a market where one has to pay $40,000/- for a secretary? How long can the company continue to pay $60,000/- for a build manager or for a software engineer. One must consider that 90% of these software engineers do not need to work on rocket science. What they are doing is something which is doable by quite a big % of the world population. Then what sense does it make to pay 10 times the salary for the same?
Is it sustainable? It was till now because there were new markets like the Middle east, India and China. But with lack of new markets, growth and profits have shrunk and it is no longer possible to pay such huge salaries for such simple work. The Americans worked a lot during the early decades of the 20th century, and that is why this is a great nation. Today it seems like most Americans have become lax and are interested in maximum enjoyment from minimum work. They refuse to stay a minute more than office time. They jump companies for higher pay (including Soong) and then complain if the startup (which obviously cannot sustain the model for long) lays them off. They do not realize that they bring the situation on themselves by selling themselves to the higher bi
Speaking about such discrimatory policies, have you heard of the recent policy of US which needs passengers who are transitting via any US airport need to obtain a transit visa! This comes with the discomfort of requiring to plan your visit atleast 6 weeks in advance and a possiblity of getting randomly rejected, not speaking about the huge cost which comes with it.
The best planning can be done after the project completes.
since the best would rather stay in their own
country were they feel more comfortable, were
they have their friends, their family, their
kids, and already have good jobs.
I mean, if you are one of the best programmers in
US, would you be willing to relocate in Japan
for much higher pay? Most people would not.
Here's an interesting tidbit for Americans who are considering working in the EU.
If you have an Irish grandparent (and you can track down the proof that they were born in Ireland), you can have your name entered in the registry of foreign births, and tada! You're an Irish citizen (they do allow dual citizenship with the US).
Then you can work anywhere in the EU. Plus you can travel with your Irish passport, and (if you can do the accent) reduce your risk of being shot for sport in places that are getting hostile to Americans. Neat, huh? Of course, you do need that Irish grandparent...
There's a nice summary here, and the relevant page with the Irish Embassy.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
Find out who it is who's outsourcing.
Sun Microsystems, laying off tons of people and then hiring tons of "guest workers" on the cheap? Publicise it. And the rest of us, refuse to do business with them.
I have told Sprint there's no way in HELL I will deal with them, because they've laid off tons of USian employees for cheap offshore labour.
When companies start realising that people aren't going to stand for their fellow peoples losing their jobs, market forces will force them to start hiring American.
Remember, Nestle were killing children in the 70s with their hard sell of baby formula to Africa. Government? Did little if nothing. But damn, when people stopped buying Nestle EN MASSE in protest, they changed their tune DOUBLEPLUSQUICK.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
(I'm a marketer.)
-- SYS 64738 --
an entry level programmer in the company mentioned makes about 240 000/year in indian rupees. thats about $5000/year. salaries at higher positions scale similarly and you still think the american guy **really** wanted to come to banglore
as an aside
what about HEAVY duties on indian and chinese steel just to keep the local american industry from going bankrupt.
obviously since the US is a signatory to the WTO they dont levy dumping duty as such but cite "child labour" and "environmental compliance"
the american MNC i work for in india hires child labour and has a backup electricity generator thats old,unmaintianed and **polluting** go figure
... all this software developed as six dollars an hour hits the market. Am I skeptical for thinking it's not going to be written very well?
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
-- SYS 64738 --
It's highly amusing that IT workers are so upset about jobs being shipped overseas. They sound just like the union auto workers in Detroit in the 80s: blue collar, economically ignorant, and selfish.
Face it, folks. You're line workers with a college degree, and you behave like it too. Most of you don't understand the basics of business or economics; your skills are inflexible enough that a shifting job market (i.e. India does it better, faster) will leave you croaking. Like the auto workers, the only way to make you better off is by screwing everyone else with higher prices and shoddier product. Go American coders!
And the economics of it all--no, the fact that some jobs go overseas does not mean that eventually no jobs will exist in the States. Look up the economic law of comparative advantage sometime, and then see how efficiency differentials are compensated for in this thing we call the currency exchange market. If you're in college, take some introductory econ courses; if not, buy a couple intro texts. You'll sound much smarter, and you'll stop worrying about the death of the USA because of cheap workers in India.
(Thought experiment: why hasn't American unemployment skyrocketed in the past three decades as cheap workers overseas became more available?)
And keep in mind that 87% of American GDP is LOCALLY sourced. I.e. not imported from brown people overseas. Relax.
You must micromanage. If your spec isn't perfect, then they will deviate and work may have to be redone. They lack good business analysis capability in many areas, so you have to make sure that they can consult with someone.
I have worked with more Russians than Indians and I would say they are brilliant programmers and mathmaticians but they do need supervision. In our case we *knew* they didn't speak or understand perfect English (and I dumbed down our specs so they could be more easily translated), with India it can be more misleading as some do speak veray good English.
I don't know about India but in Russia their project management and QA sucked. I had to take charge of both processes on my project. However unlike you with your problems team leading, I had been given some hints to use a different style that worked fine in our environment. Note that Russia is somewhere between the Asian and European mentality whereas India is definitely Asian.
So bottom line, you want cheap s/w - send me on an expat package to Bangalore or St. Petersburg and factor that into your costs. I reckon about one expat to between ten and twenty locals. You continue to save money, but it is *nowhere* near the level of the ten cents in the dollar that you have been quoted.
See my journal, I write things there
comprehention = comprehension
obeyance = obedience
It is ironic that a continent built on the blood of the 'indogen' and populated by willing and unwilling imigrants has become so hostile to imigration. The USA has about 20% (before T.W.A.T - at least 86Billion less now) of the the worlds wealth, and supports 5% of the worls population. When half the world is exploited to the point of poverty (by Europe too - to my shame) how can you not expect mass imigration. The USA is less than welcoming - to the point of the internment of a Hindu buinessman on suspision of Islamic terrorism - go figure. The guy was held without charge for months before being deported, he lost everything and has obvoius dificulties re-building his life. I do not find it surprising that the Indian diplomatic service are a little less co-operative of late.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
It is not uncommon for pensioners in rich countries to do exactly that: they sell everything and move to places where life is cheaper (Spain, Greece, Mexico come to mind).
If you want to do it younger you can always do some black market work to keep you going until you gain permanent resident status...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I do. Every week mind you. And they advocate open markets of labour.
The Mexican President was prepared for that and got a polite no thank you from Bush.
Common USians, show you are men not mice. Open your labour market, request reciprocity and get ready for the competition.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is a well researched fact that immigration brings enormous economic benefits, specially into developped countries with aging, shrinking populations (hint, the econmies that are doing better during the last few years, in spite of eveyrthing, are the UK and US ones. Interestingly they are the ones that receive the most asylum and illegal immigrants).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In the episode where all the illegal immigrants are being deported, Apu buys a fake ID and pretends to be an American citizen, including attempting the accent. Not a texan accent, mind, but for an American pretending to be an Indian pretending to be an American, it's a good effort. Or at leat the best I could think of...
Do you realize that those same arguments were made 100 years ago? Only then it was Italians and the Irish. Then Mexican/Latino. After that it was Asians. Now it is Indians and people from the Middle East. Each generation has their nationality to fear and hate and each generation the fear has proven to be unfounded. Wages have not dropped - they have risen. It may not seem that way now as we come dowm the backside of Mt. Internet but it is true.
If anything, immigrants often take the jobs that nobody wants so that they can work hard and improve themselves and their children's lives.
Also note that I am not saying creating a free-for-all. There have to be rules in place and there has to be moderation but the day that we close our borders to immigrants is the day I become an emigrant.
Most importantly - remember that it is likely that your grandparents or great-grandparents were hated as much as some people hate immigrants now.
Open mouth, insert foot. Read before posting please...
Oh and by the way, more people will take you seriously if you put the racial slurs and social slams away while typing.
It is possible to work in India on a work permit.
I am an Indian citizen working abroad (not the US currently). Back in '99, I worked in Altanta, USA. A director in my company, an American citizen, had worked in India on a work permit. If I recall correctly, his Indian stint was as a software consultant with Cap Gemini, and his place of work was city of Pune in Maharashtra state in India.
This website also answers positively to the question: "Do I need a work permit to work in India?".
So it seems to be possible to work in India. However, for most people, I imagine it would be extremely difficult, given the demand and supply situation.
Bengali, Bengali
... blinds me
Bengali, Bengali
No no no
He does not want to depress you
Oh no no no no no
He only wants to impress you
Oh..
Bengali in platforms
He only wants to embrace your culture
And to be your friend forever
Forever
Bengali, Bengali
Bengali, Bengali
Oh, shelve your Western plans
And understand
That life is hard enough when you belong here
A silver-studded rim that glistens
And an ankle-star that
A lemon sole so very high
Which only reminds me; to tell you
Break the news gently
Break the news to him gently
"Shelve your plans; shelve your plans, shelve them"
Bengali, Bengali
It's the touchy march of time that binds you
Don't blame me
Don't hate me
Just because I'm the one to tell you
That life is hard enough when you belong here
That life is hard enough when you belong here
Oh...
Shelve your Western plans
Oh...
Shelve your Western plans
'Cause life is hard enough when you belong
Life is hard enough when you belong here
Oh...
Shelve your Western plans
Oh...
Shelve your best friends
'Cause life is hard when you belong here
Oh...
Life is hard enough when you belong
Luckily for him and for you, there were no migration limitations in US then, for there surely were people already selling fruits off wagons in Iowa...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
gorgeous purple mountains
Not to be confused with an engorged purple monster.
Hmm, and when Windows crashes, can you sue Microsoft?
8000=8e3. 500000=5e5. You're off by 2 orders of magnitude, or a factor of 100.
First, there are people from US working in India already in many companies and it is very much possible to do that. But the company should be willing to sponsor your visa. This chap just decided that no one is sponsoring just because someone told him so. What more can I say. Another thing which I don't understand is that when the whole US manufacturing industry was moved to China, no one said anything, so why now this hue and cry about India? The principals are the same. If you can get something chepaer somewhere else, you will get it from there. Its India today, will be somewhere else tomorrow.
What's under yellowstone?
An article opposing the termination of H1-B program. Study: Skilled Foreign Workers Aid U.S.
I talked to someone from West Virginia. Mining jobs around there are plentiful, but exclusive. That means in some areas that if you want a job, you mine. And there are more people willing to work thant here are jobs, so the starting wage is very, very low -- sometimes less than $10/hour for strip mining.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.