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Bill Gates Speaks Out Against Immigration Policies
Jeian writes "None other than Bill Gates has spoken out against tighter immigration policies in the US. According to Gates, the US is losing skilled immigrants to other countries that are easier to immigrate to. Among his comments: "I personally witness the ill effects of these policies on an almost daily basis at Microsoft.""
Microsoft is also a fond supporter of H1B visa immigrants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H1B_visa/ From my own personal experience working as an IT recruiter in the past, H1B Java Developers with similar education and experience often would work for about 30% less than a US citizen.
Microsoft has a lot of offices in many different countries. US, UK, Canada, Germany, India, UAE (Dubai) etc. They do hire a lot of people outside the US.
However, they do pay their H1-Bs a lot of money compared to many other companies. People scream about companies who hire H1-Bs for lower wages than domestic workers, but Microsoft is very good about paying them the market salary or better. They also provide a lot of legal services etc for them to get their green card etc.
It's illegal to pay an H1-B employee less than an American citizen doing the same job. I'm sure there are ways around it but there are laws in place to make sure that companies don't use H1-B as a farm for cheap labour.
Oh, a lesson in history from Mr. I'm my own grandpa.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States had really free immigration laws.
People were denied entry for everything from whopping caugh to severe myopia. If you were in no condition to provide for yourself (this is before welfare, food stamps, ....) or if no American would take care of your provision you were sent back on the boat you came in on. America in 1900 had a huge demand for labor that it could not fill so if you were healthy enough to work you were sent here and, other than a public education for your kids, got little from the Government.
Then people got racist and tightened the immigration laws.
Oh yea there was no real racism in the 1800's.
I could hire 8-10 PhDs in China for the price of two in America.
Have you been to China lately? The cost of living there is catching up with us in a HURRY. A condo in Shanghai will set you back $350K for nothing spectacular. Dunno what the situation is like in India, but China isn't a good cost basis comparison.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Microsoft already has research centers in Bangalore, Beijing and Cambridge,
not forgetting Redmond and Silicon Valley.
Microsoft have a policy of not employing software engineers over 30 - apparently, according to Bill Gates, a software engineers skills peak at age 26, and goes downhill from then on.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
There's so much more to being a skilled software developer than knowing your way around algorithms.
Oh, a lesson in history from Mr. I'm my own grandpa.
This is something I definitely wouldn't want to deal with.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
A corporation exists to do things that are difficult or impossible for individuals to accomplish. It provides the legal structure for teamwork. Part of that is limiting the liability
There exist other structures for organizations that wish to accomplish things beyond the ability of an individual. The corporation is the only one that limits liability. QED.
It may be cynical, but it's not misleading.
-- Alastair
Microsoft have a policy of not employing software engineers over 30 - apparently, according to Bill Gates, a software engineers skills peak at age 26, and goes downhill from then on.
That can't be a real engineer, then. A person who wants to become an engineer has to take and pass the Fundamentals of Engineering/Engineer in Training examination, a seriously difficult exam (all day, about 8 hours) that requires knowledge at the Bachelor Degree level. The exam is often taken after the graduate has been in the workforce for a year or so. After passing the FE/EIT, the prospective engineer has to work several years (typically 4-5 years) in an Engineering position that the state board finds acceptable, and then must pass another exam, the Professional Engineers Examination, before they are credentialed as an Engineer.
You just don't find many people at age 26 in the engineering community that have acquired a Professional Engineer's license, and, to be blunt, I wouldn't consider them to be at the peak of their profession for many years after that.
Now, if you are looking for a coding drone who can type out reams of C++ really fast to a predefined specification, well, that's different. That's a skill more analogous to a construction laborer than to an engineer. Being able to set forms really quickly doesn't make one qualified to design a bridge.
When job reqs get that specific, it means that there already someone with exactly the same qualifications working for them, most likely an H1B and or someone with F1-practical-training waiting to become H1B. These adverts are crafted to reduce or reject other applicants, not to select any.
- 2011.pdf
Good news, everyone! The Department of Labor has addressed this, and employers no longer need to pretend that they tried to hire someone that was already in the US.
The Department of Labor has published it's strategic 5 Year Plan.
http://www.dol.gov/_sec/stratplan/strat_plan_2006
Under Performance Goal 2H, "Address worker shortages through the Foreign Labor Certification Program", we find:
"H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker."
Isn't that special? I could bring in a new hire H1-B at what DOL thinks are the prevailing wages for Engineers, a whole 40K/year in Silicon Valley (Level 1 Engineer, DOL stats!), and I can use them to displace overpriced US college grads. Pretty slick. Of course the displaced workers can be retrained to something more appropriate.
Repeat after me:
"Do you want fries with that?"