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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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
But as a Dutch citizen you can follow your job to Germany or the UK or Italy, because within the EU there is free trade for both labor and for capital. "Free trade" advocates these days want free movement of capital and goods, but not workers.
In WTO-world, corporations can move their jobs across borders but workers cannot follow. This one-sidedness pushes salaries down everywhere, as companies seek the cheapest available labor.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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
Trivial, but it's not legal. I went the legal route, moved here, married, waited 6 months for my work visa, and another two years for my green card.
Of course, California is just going to hand out drivers licenses and soc. security cards to anyone no matter how they got there, with no proof of background or even who they are.
I did it the hard way.. Spending thousands on lawyers, when I just could have showed up with my hand out.
But then I'm a white Canadian, so I guess I had no choice.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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...
And this from the "superior society" that the Liberal Arts students/faculty were constantly droaning about?
Let me get this straight: I can not expect Indians to hire anybody from the USA because I need to be tolerant of their society, but I must hire anybody other than an American to be inclusive?
Yea, still makes no sense.
BTW, obviously not a direct response to your post, just staying on topic and adding a new point with historical context.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
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...
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
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
"In WTO-world, corporations can move their jobs across borders but workers cannot follow. This one-sidedness pushes salaries down everywhere, as companies seek the cheapest available labor."
What'll be the end of this, though? Eventually there'll be enough stabilization over the globe that it won't matter as much. I don't think that it'll happen in my lifetime, so it won't help me any, but as the world grows closer, I could envision this happening. Some countries with less free market play than here will have an advantage, for a while, but ultimately I think that it'll even out.
The other trouble is that we're seeing paradigm shifts that people aren't ready for. Remember what happened to the Swiss watch and clock makers once Japanese engineers perfected the use of quartz for accurate timekeeping? Their entire industry disappeared in a matter of months. In this case, if programmers as a whole are overpaid or are charging too much for their work as others perceive it, then the others are going to find a solution that doesn't involve the programmers. It's happened in other industries before, it'll happen again, I'm sure.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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.
**What!? You mean they've closed the immigration offices?**
yeah they pretty much did that..
i guess.. why else would there be so much 'green card lottery' spam circling(or the usual get in through marriage fraud and illegal emigrants that work in sweatshops, i bet those mexicans are not planning on just coming aboard for few benefits and then going back).
and you mean that he wouldn't be paying american taxes and generating the american company money while working there, and then "escaping" all the benefits like pensionary to another country? a working age worker is just the kind of a guy you would want to come into the country for few years(and then haul his ass back home when he starts to cost more than what he generates).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
If you had known how strict some of the countries are on worker rights i think you woyld have beeen surprised. There is a lot of industry certification and regualtions that monitors these factories. Getting all the paperwork done was very expensive and we repeatedly had to include governmental officials in our business in order to get the paperwork done.
And why should US companies _not_ move some parts of their operations to Asia if that can secure the work of others in the USA?
The truth is that many skilled asians really wants to work in these jobs while many lazy american workers don't wants to get their hands dirty.
Most of the asians workers work harder and are willing to work with a bonus scheme while american workers demand a fixed pay and many benefits like expensive health insurance and free lunch time.
On top of that our asian empoyees are more willing to work long hours in order on demand in order to produce more when we get a big contract. American workers on the other side demands a lot in extra pay in the way that i wonder if they really supports our business.
I have realizzed that most of them only think about themselfes and not about the good relationship between the business and our workers.
So why would we want workers to have "similar worker right as in the western world" when these benfits hurts american businesses and makes it impossible to compete with other countries?
Proud patriot and republican voter.
What a good way to help the US companies/economy!
Actually, yes. It's a GREAT way to help the US economy. See, the economy is strong when we EXPORT goods and services and IMPORT money. When we IMPORT goods and services and EXPORT money, the economy is harmed.
So it's wise to make it difficult to import goods (via tariffs) and services (via immigration restrictions).
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.
erm.
you do realise that everyone who works in the US (regardless of where they LIVE) pays taxes in the US.
A more accurate statement is that aliens give up their ability to vote or get government support for inelegibility for the draft, which is pretty much dismantled anyway. Many aliens are leaving significantly better social security nets behind when they come "visit".
So I think the US comes out WAY ahead on all aliens working inside its borders. Especially as the aliens are less likely to have children and more likely to be highly skilled, so they are pretty much always a net gain for the economy, both locally and nationally.
I would suggest you revisit some of those conceptions and think about how free markets tend to perform compared to protectionist markets, but I'm sure you were just being smarmy to make a point. Which I missed.
I haven't read the article due to a severe Slashdotting, but it sounds like a troll, I don't imagine anyone would seriously emmigrate to India from the US unless that happens to be their family's background. You could quit programming and become a part time janitor and still have a better standard of living in North America. (no offence to Indians intended)
That may be the law in most places, but it sure isn't in the U.S. In the U.S. it's perfectly legal to lay off a U.S. citizen and replace him with an imported "guest worker". Only in America. No other country on earth would tolerate this. Where is the WTO? All the other countries of the world scream that the U.S. is protectionist, but where is the WTO telling India to open its labor markets to AMerican programmers? Oh, and by the way, it wasn't a bunch of U.S lawyers that convinced congress to do this to the U.S. it was NASCOM - the Indian IT lobby.
You're smoking crack too. Tata, Wipro, and InfoSys sure as hell can move their workers across borders - 4 million from Indian alone into the U.S. since 2000. It's *other* countries who won't allow it. Now in theory WTO is supposed to make everyone play by the same rules. But as the article showed, it is *illegal* to hire Americans in India. As Orwell would say "some animals are more equal than others" under the WTO. "Globalism" is a scam designed to siphon off the wealth of the U.S. We're globalizing, the rest of the world isn't.
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.
You're totally missing the point. While Americans can't work in india, scores of indians are taking over American jobs in the US.
So americans aren't allowed to compete with indians in india, but indians can compete with americans in america.
No other country i know of would allow such a thing to happen. You should consider why such a thing simply does not happen in Europe, where they are more protective of their citizens livelihood.
Check out the republican party's politics, they even resourced their fundraising to india!
Those damn capitalists. Let's just hope democrats will win in 2004.
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
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.
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...
There are plenty of unemployed Americans in the computer industry right now. Lets give the jobs to them first. It's only fair.
I don't buy it, and I'm glad you haven't been modded up. What you're failing to realize is that the immigrants from India (and loads of other countries) end up becoming Americans when they live and work here, and end up contributing productively to the economy.
I get the feeling that when you say "Americans" you mean "Americans I'm comfortable with," which means "people who don't speak with accents and who have a similar skin color-" because if not I fail entirely to see the reason behind your statement. Our country is composed of immigrants and descendents of immigrants- hell, even the Native Americans are immigrants, if you trace it back far enough. You, yourself are the descendent of immigrants. So why spread FUD about people with roots analogous to your own?
I just noticed the time/date stamp (I'm usually oblivious to dates), and it occurred to me that this is a very topical discussion to have today. Many of the people who died in the World Trade Center two years ago today were immigrants to the United States or here under work visas. Many of the firefighters and policemen who died were immigrants or the sons and daughters of immigrants. The immigrants "took American jobs"- and yet many became citizens or were in the process of becoming citizens, thus becoming Americans themselves. The point I'm making is that immigration- even in massive waves- has always been and will always be an important facet of the economic and cultural life of the United States, as has anti-immigrant bigotry, intolerance, and xenophobia. I invite you to reflect on this.
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.
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.
You are wrong, foreign trade is currently increasing the wealth of Americans. America is running a trade deficit of about $500 billion a year with the rest of the world. That means that American is receiving $500 billion more in goods and investments than it is giving back to the rest of the world. It seems to me that globalization is making Americans more wealthy to the tune of $500 billion a year.
Globalism, like all other types of trade, increases wealth. Companies that charge less for goods gain business, companies that are less efficient lose business (and eventually go on to do something they are relatively better at). Everyone gains when they get more for their money when competition drives prices down.
Oddly, everyone focuses on the loss of jobs in uncompetitive industries and ignores the benefits of cheaper, better-quality goods. It is interesting that everyone focuses on the half of the trade equation that hurts rich company owners (loss of business), and ignores the benefits that increased competition brings to everyone else; I wonder why?
If buying goods manufactured outside of my country is bad, when is it good to trade? Should I only purchase goods manufactured in my home Province? Within my home city? Within my family? I guess I can conclude that the best thing for me to do is to grow my own food and manufacture everything I use, then all the benefits of job creation will go to me alone. I don't think you would agree that everyone would be richer if they never traded with anyone, so where do you stop? We accept that competition and specialization within a country is a good thing; why stop at the border?
-- Pot is safer than Beer
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.
Don't blame your salary decrease on foreign workers diluting the market. It's your own damn fault for not being better than the competition and thus, obviously worth the higher salary.
Loser.
As if the world owes you a living.
So, I was in History 106 today, and my professor says to us, "One of the primary characterizations of the industrial revolution was a period of rapid change." Rapid change, sort of like how you buy a video card, and a month later it's obsolete, and two months later it's a paperweight.
Reading this article has got me thinking, though.
One of the other characterizations of the industrial revolution was cheap labor- the massive influx of immigrants into the U.S., who proceeded to work for dirt and drive "Americans" out of jobs. If you recall, it only made everybody's - except the wealthy, of course - living conditions worse. This is not a good thing. Being only a mere computer scientist, I hesitate to speculate on what far-reaching sociological effects this will have, but at the very least, in the near future, this is not a good thing.
Last time this happened, we unionized, but I don't think that will work this time. I wish I had a solution (since in three years when I graduate I probably won't have a job), but I can't see one.
And, for the record, I wasted three mod points to post this.
I have to agree a bit. I've noticed rates for contractors plummeting, although I'm sure part of that is due to the economy being the way that it is. I think, though, that getting $90k a year for coding might have been a bit much. We all say "this company wouldn't run without programmers" but then again, it wouldn't run without accountants, and marketing specialists, and a call center..
Maybe we have too much pride. Look at the number of immigrants willing to do landscaping, and work on the back of garbage trucks. Most American's are "above" that kind of work, and demand too much money to do it. Maybe call centers and software development are similar to that. Maybe I'm just rattling on now...
With current trends, I don't see US citizens fairing well in the future. We're already the first generation in history to be worse off than our parents were. Hell, I still make more than $80k/yr (after several pay cuts recently) but my family wouldn't get by the way we do if my wife didn't work too.
I think I need some more caffeine....
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
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.
What's more lets shine a light on the crux of the matter. Economic downturns always bring heightened nationalism, immigrant bashing, and typically self-destructive policies on trade and immigration. Given the current political climate and the significance of today's date only heightens that sense of national pride. This, in my opinion, is a dangerous position to be in. This is the kind of climate that breeds "Brown Shirts".
I think the important distinction that must be drawn is the fundamental difference between H1B type workers and immigrants. In my opinion, an immigrant is someone actively pursuing citizenship and should be considered an "American". As the descendant of Scots, Irish, and French Canadians I've heard the stories of persecution and discrimination my great grandparents underwent during the Great Depression because they were "stealing" jobs from "real" Americans.
In my opinion, the hiring policy, this man ran in to is just plain wrong regardless of legality. Does this mean that the US should adopt a similar policy? I don't think so, I believe the outcome would not impart a favorable change on the state of the economy. If my company lost all its H1B's we would be in serious trouble. I'm pretty confident we could not fill the vacant jobs with "real" americans, even in today's job market. Of course, I could be wrong.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Like, duh, you've never heard of the internet? Prohibitively expensive? Let's see: set up a website with jobs about to be given to foreigners; wait 30 days for applications; no aplications?; you can bring someone in; otherwise, forget it Mr. CEO Bossman.
This argument would fall under the rubrick of tissue of lies if were even that substantial.
My great grandfather moved halfway around the world to sell fruit off of a wagon in Sioux City, Iowa. Don't give me this sob story about moving your entire family.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
ummm
the job is temporary
he shouldnt have moved his family
if he did
thats his mistake
hes not here to become a citizen
just here to make some cash
I think you need to stop buying so much shit.
That was a little simplistic, but it's the source of the problem. How many cars does your family have? How much are you paying on them each month? Is your house bigger than you really need? How many TVs do you own? How many activities are your children enrolled in? How many times a week does your family eat out instead of just cooking at home?
Note that all of these questions are rhetorical, and the answers are none of my business. Just something to think about. Foreign workers can get by on less because they spend less.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
I'm swimming in an ocean filled, not with water, but with irony.
The US has enjoyed the benefits of globalization for decades now. Look at all the goods at your disposal, right now. Look at the computer, the mouse, the car, the food. Realize how much of it is affordable to you because they exported the labor, to a place that could make your underwear with labor that cost $1 a day.
Now, imagine all the prices of all those goods increasing as every individual on the production and supply chain, all the way back to the origin, gets paid in US-standard wages that allows each and every worker to buy a US-sized house on a US-sized tract of land for a small nuclear family, with 2 recent-make cars for the family, health care, home entertainment systems, etc. Are you willing to pay $20 for a pair of socks to make that happen? $50,000 for an entry-level car?
I'm all for wage convergance, labor and environmental riders on trade agreements - although that will also end up making your goods more expensive. But to think that the US has suffered under globalism is completley misguided.
Also, the H1B visas were granted because of something that most IT professionals, particularly the libertarianish ones, just don't understand: class conflict. IT was very expensive blue-collar labor. The US economy is managerial capitalism, and it is in their class interests to push down the cost of that labor.
Most IT types mistook their good wages for a sign of inclusion in the "wealth-generating," upper-classes. In fact, it was an artifact of a labor scarcity that has been engineered away. Now, the IT rabble has to take its place in front of the punch-clock like all the other line-workers.
True free trade allows:
The European Union has all three. It is a true "free trade" system.
Most others, including NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), do not allow free movement of labor. NAFTA permits "brain drain" labor movement to occur fairly easily ("temporary" work visas are easy to obtain for skilled/educated workers), but unskilled labor cannot cross borders.
NAFTA and its ilk are not free trade agreements. They are better described as trans-national outsourcing agreements.
Reading Slashdot is ruining my spelling and grammar.
Vote the morons out who allow this to happen. There is an election approaching, at least, try to vote them out.
First of all, you don't seem to know what globalism is. Globalism means i can buy a Coke and catch the latest Hollywood movies almost anywhere on the planet. You're right that it's one sided, it's hard to find foreign films and products, even if they're popular overseas, in the U.S.
Second of all, you're wrong that only the U.S. has a large migrant worker population. France, Germany, England, even Ireland since their economy picked up, all have them.
The key here isn't "U.S. vs. the World", it's Wealthy vs. Non-wealthy nations. In which case it only makes sense for things to be one sided. India wouldn't tolerate a flood of "non-immigrant labor" because their economy couldn't support it. On top of that, most Americans wouldn't be interested in doing more work for lower pay 10,000 miles away from their loved ones.
Not that it never happens. A friend of mine recently quit a comfortable job at Deutsche Bank to work for a non-profit micro-finance company in Nigeria. She didn't do it for the money, she did it because she wants to help people.
Like others have pointed out, foreigners are typically only hired for skilled labor if the employer is unable to find someone with the necessary skillset in the local population. If India isn't hiring non-Indians for computer programming work, it's because they have more programmers than they have jobs. If you really want to work in India (which i doubt), find out what they need.
Please read "Oppose H-1Bs but Support Outsourcing".
75% of H1Bers I know personally (about 300 of them) successfully apply ... and continue to pay taxes, and purchase real estate, goods and services.
and get their Green Cards.
Contrast this to sending the H1B back to India where he sets up an outsourcing shop, hires 10 Indians, and then deletes 10 jobs in the US (not only that, but he is no longer paying taxes and buying goods and services in the US).
It would be better if more like 95% of H1Bs remained in the US; these are people with skills that will simply take their job (and many other jobs) overseas with them if they are forced to leave (most would willingly stay in the US if granted green cards).
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.
Well, for that matter, with a savings account of half a mil - financed by the sale of my home, could I not live like a king in India - straight off the savings, in theory, for 500 years, without working?
That sounds like a better opportunity than living in America, and working two jobs to keep up my $2000/mo house payments. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Only disgruntled people take the pain to vent their frustration on websites. Others who are happy with the work don't. You can guess which group gets more publicity and which group are much more in number
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.
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.
I read it. Now what? The propaganda you linked to has nothing to do with jobs moving abroad, but talks about (non-)immigrants in the US. They are NOT the cause of your problems. Your bad economy is. Sending all current H1-B holders home will not magically give you a job, but will only cause more problems for the US economy.
Tell me: are all of the clothes you wear manufactured in the United States, or were they assembled in a sweatshop in Asia? Where was your TV made, your car, your cellphone? Jobs have been moving abroad for many years now. It is only now that some of the more "prestigious" jobs are moving abroad that people are really starting to take notice (or at least being vocal about it on the Internet).
The only way this will stop is if people make a conscious effort to pay more for "made in USA" products (ain't gonna happen in the current economy), or by regulation (ain't gonna happen since Bush is a puppet for big corporations).
Why you don't want let India-Indian in your country now?
Excuse me sir, your words seem to have accidentally fallen into my mouth. Nobody said they don't want Indians around. Ever. In the entire thread so far, not even an AC. We're sick of having unqualified and/or unneeded immigrants coming under the pretense that we need more middle-class labor. Read the article.
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.
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.
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.
As someone who only speaks one language (called "an American") I find it an easy mistake to judge someone's intelligence by how well they speak English. It sounds like the author(s) of the stuff on this webpage are making the same mistake too. But as a physicist, I work with a lot of other people with Ph.D's for whom English is a second (or 3rd, 4th, or 5th) language, so my mistaken prejudices are gradually wearing off.
For one example, I think that most foreign physicists I work with have better written grammar than the average US physicist, as more often than not these folks write the best papers. And on the other hand, I knew another fellow student who had great trouble speaking and writing English (and programming languages for that matter) in spite of several years of learning and speaking in the US, but who was an absolutely brilliant mathematician and theoretical physicist.
So, a person's English-speaking skills are not a good measure of how well they communicate. And communication is just one dimension of intelligence, which itself is a massively multidimensional thing. IMHO intelligence is impossible to quantify in any meaningful way.