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Senator Prods Microsoft On H-1B Visas After Layoff Plans
CWmike writes "US Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) told Microsoft this week that US citizens should get priority over H-1B visa holders as the software vendor moves forward on its plan to cut 5,000 jobs. 'These work visa programs were never intended to allow a company to retain foreign guest workers rather than similarly qualified American workers, when that company cuts jobs during an economic downturn,' Grassley wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The letter asked Microsoft to detail the types of jobs that will be eliminated and how those cuts will affect the company's H-1B workers."
Reader theodp adds, "On Friday, Microsoft coincidentally announced it would postpone construction of a planned $500 million data center in Grassley's home state of Iowa, although work on data centers in Chicago and Dublin will continue."
Surprised a Republican did this. These guys are more likable when not in power, I guess.
Dey tuk our jerbs!
What's really going to be awesome is when Microsoft, IBM, et al go to Congress for their annual request for increased H1B visas after laying off thousands of American workers.
Bud bud budbudbud bud budababud bud wery nice day to you budbudabud bud.
I can understand that the well-being of american workers is more important than that of visa-holders to an elected politician. However, the impact of losing the job is much higher for H1Bs, as they usually have to leave the country (within 1 week I think). Considering the fact that these are humans, too, maybe it would be acceptable to lessen these restrictions somewhat, i. e. allow these people to stay in the country for a year if they have the financial means.
Fleur de Sel
Now, see --back in the old days the trolls would have made a clever association between the necrotic dog cock and senators being prodded.
You newfags are a lazy bunch. Barely half a step up from desu spammers, I say.
I was laid off from my programming job and I have been looking for a job for a year now, and I keep getting passed on. I've even lowered my wage expectations and my references, former managers and coworkers, have a lot of good things to say about me. I am constantly applying through newspapers, monster.com, dice.com, etc. Why is a H1-B holder getting precedence over me? And, why are these companies laying off Americans in favor of keeping the H1-Bs? We have a problem, Houston.
The H1B's that are here are pretty bright. More importantly, the ppl being let go, many be just OK. In the end, MS will start hiring overseas anyhow. Watch what happens with the MSFS group. Just laid off. I am betting that they will hire in CHina for a whole new team.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
All those laid off workers can help with Open Source development while they're on unemployment. It sounds like a win to me.
Microsoft is a business - not a government entity - they have the right to layoff whomever they wish to meet their corporate goals. If its an H1-B holder fine - if its an American Citizen - fine.
The government and elected officials have ZERO right, responsibility or ABILITY to interfere.
For all the knee jerk 'layoff the foreigners' reactions. Consider this - H1-B holders pay American taxes but don't get the same 'withdrawals' as a citizen from the system. They in fact generate more revenue for the US Government than American Citizens.
Written as an Anonymous Coward to avoid hate mail and death threats.
Signed
The Voice of Reason
Let's be clear here. We are talking about H1B program, not outsourcing. Companies outsource entire department to save costs, because they can pay less to equivalent workers overseas. On the other hand, when sponsoring a H1B visa, the employer has to show that the guest worker gets the prevailing wage, on par with all the "similarly qualified" U.S. citizens in the same business. On top of that, the government increases the application fee every now and then to make it costlier to hire H1B workers. In general, it's actually more expensive and difficult to hire a truly qualified H1B employee. Nobody would hire a permanent employee holding H1B visa unless they can't find anyone else equally competent. If anything they've probably already prioritized the H1B holders in their layoff plan, because it makes business sense.
They are all simply hiring elsewhere.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The "guest worker" program is nothing more than a gift to large corporations to get cheap labor that is almost an "indentured servant."
Seriously, what employer wouldn't want to be in the position to employ reasonably killed labor that *HAS* to work to to say in the country. They are a lot easier to intimidate. They can't raise labor issues for fear of having to leave the country.
H1Bs come to the US. Work for less than the prevailing wage. Are not "citizens" and do not have the same rights. Can be easily intimidated: "Don't want to work on the week-end without pay? Your fired, now go back to your own country."
Then if they lose their jobs, not only do they have to leave, but they have to pay to leave. Lose their last month's security deposit on their apartment because they have to break the lease.
H1Bs reduce the prevailing wage, exploit foreigners, and are generally bad policy for middle class.
As for Microsoft, or any employer, *all* H1Bs should be dispensed with *before* any american gets laid off.
Some of these companies didn't want to hire Americans in the first place according the Programmer's Guild.
Here's a video showing Immigration Attorney's explaining what companies need to do to get around the laws and hire more H1-Bs.
Basically, create impossible job descriptions and then go oversees since no American would qualify.
I've worked with and managed a few H1B programmers. Some where very talented. Some were hired just because they were cheap. They were no better than any random American college grad. They were just cheaper.
Both the American and foreign born developers worked hard and there were good and bad in both. It all boils down to money.
Most of these companies depend on American consumers to survive, but if everyone decides American workers are too expensive to hire, they're not going to have American consumers to buy their products and services.
Here's the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU&feature=channel_page
How come when everything is going alright the free market reigns supreme, but the second peopel are getting laid off the American workers get priority. It seems no one actually considers the workers that aren't from America have had to move from their home to come and take this job- yet they, the ones who actually did make sacrifises should be the first to be thrown over board. If it's really a free market then the fact one worker is foreign and one isn't should have no effect on which one gets fired. In fact all other things being equal the foreign worker is prefered because they've demonstrated how much the job means.
"Quit rocking our boat, or we'll take our toys and go home."
At least he's not throwing things this time.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Take for instance Bill Clinton pushed and signed NAFTA. Outsourcing was BIG under the Clinton administration.
Where are all the folks who worked under the Clinton administration? Oh yes, working for Obama.
tax them out of existence. This is the company that set the record for "permatemps" who were really full-time W-2 employees. Off-shoring codeing - skipping over qualified US workers...
And, creating the most insecure OS in history...
Time for MS to end the charade and fold up shop - their stock is BS and the Unix/Linux world can pick up and correct the decades of MSFT errors.
Off them with extreme prejudice. No more bloated MS OS - this is a good thing!
I don't know anything about this senator, but clearly he is either a moron, or he thinks the American people are stupid.
How can anyone be dumb enough to think that this isn't exactly what the legislation was designed to allow? I suppose next senator Grassley is going to tell us that the legislation that gave tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas was not supposed to put Americans out of work.
Don't get more wrong I don't think kicking intelligent immigrants out so some lazy American can have a job he can't do right is a wise move.
However a jobless immigrant goes back home. A jobless American has to get help from the government and becomes a drain on the system because of that and the fact they're not paying taxes.
So to alleviate the tax burden on those that still have a job in the overly in debt nation it makes sense to ensure as many tax payers and people eligible for government help are working so they are paying taxes and not living off tax payer money.
The main issue is MS losing 5,000 jobs for he first time in ever! Naturally the first jobs to go won't be American jobs on American soil!
As for the Visa workers, they knew full well this day could come and any repercussions were signed for in advance. It's all part of the work Visa and the reason for employing imported people on Visa's...
Go back to 4chan, faggot.
Mod parent up.
Because it is coming. There are too many potential voters for either the Democrats or Republicans to ignore. About everything you claim that H1Bs did can be applied to current illegal immigrants who will most likely within two years be granted amnesty. Or does this only account if it affects jobs at "our" level?
I disagree with the Senator on the stand point of that if it makes the business better long term then they need to be able to keep people who are here legally. Protectionism is wrong at any level. It is the consistent meddling in business that has led to the current failure in lending markets, higher prices (sugar is the grand daddy of them all), and upcoming docket of lawsuits because of new laws coming which purposely allow people to sue from time began over offenses.
No, there is no difference between this and amnesty except it bites those like us. Why protect ourselves if we won't protect lower income workers or do they not count except during elections?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
... many more jobs can be created by closing Microsoft's global offices and bringing those jobs back to the U.S. Dare Sen Grasso propose that ? It will lead MS to extinction even faster.
Seriously, guys. We invented globalization. we better deal with it.
And if you just think it through, imagine what's most likely to happen after you got rid of the H1Bs.
The guy goes back to India and Microsoft hires him in Hyderabad or wherever for $20K instead of $100K. What taxes he pays go to the Indian government instead of the U.S. (H1Bs pay all taxes here, including social security and medicare.) Said engineer becomes an entrepreneur in 10 years and invents a product or starts a company that kicks Microsoft's butt, this time creating all the jobs in India.
I think bringing in foreign tech workers is fine. The problem is sending them back home.
By the logic that says that bringing foreign tech workers into the US is bad for US tech workers, a software engineer would be better off looking for a job in Flint, Michigan than San Jose, California, because there are so many software engineers in San Jose. The problem with this reasoning is that the number of software engineers in San Jose attracts companies there, and those companies create jobs. Having other engineers around means you get a smaller proportion slice of a much, much larger pie. And the very best engineers don't just consume jobs, the create new industries.
The real fault with the H1B program is that it is structured in a way that encourages companies to offshore jobs. You bring a cohort of junior engineers in from India, have them gain experience in your field and product, then you kick them back to Banagalore, a ready made outsourcing team. Making employers shed H1Bs will only accelerate the loss of US jobs, giving US workers a larger proportion of a much, much smaller pie.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Go back to Digg, moron.
anyone have any good suggestions for getting foreign workers at work to shower everyday? I mean some of these guys have been in the country for 8 years or more. I have to work next to them sometimes, at length and it's quite unpleasant. also, why do they not wash their hands after going to the bathroom? I see many of them drink from the faucet, using their hands, but without washing them. I can't figure this out but many of them do it.
...keeping those people that are the most competent?
Makes more sense than keeping incompetent lazy Americans or incompetent lazy foreigners.
Oh well... why do I expect business decisions of a big company to make sense?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I always twitch when I read these stories, because I always see it as hypocrisy and double-standards.
You constantly hear about free market economics, capitalism, the global economy, etc... from America, but what it really boils down to as always is supporting the above ideals when it's good for America, and then moving them to the side when things get tough. It's the age old "America does what is best for America" mantra.
Microsoft is going to hire and fire the best worker for the job, according to their qualifications; nationality and citizenship should be entirely irrelevant. Not only does this make sense ethically, it makes sense economically (from a corporate perspective). Why hire an inferior worker who holds citizenship when I can hire 'x' H-1B worker who is superior (and, make more money as a result)? Making money is what drives companies.
When you're willing to advocate preferential treatment for an American citizen not because they are better equipped to do the job but purely because they are an American, you're throwing away your ideals of free-markets and global economics. Coming from a republican I find this especially amusing, as it tends to be the republicans that are the strongest advocates of pure-free market economics.
This is potentially a great move from a PR perspective. Most Americans aren't going to call someone out for taking a position that strengthens their ability to gain employment, but from an ideological perspective, it's flimsy at best.
Disclaimer: America isn't the only country that does this kind of stuff, but as arguably the most vocal advocate of the above economic philosophies, it's probably the most hypocritical for doing so.
Obama has stated that he wants to RAISE the H-1B cap.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Don't make me laugh!
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
These companies already pay some of the lowest taxes going. The reason is that we have SO many loopholes. In addition, if they move overseas, it will hurt sales.
Are non-compete clauses enforceable on laid off workers?
There you go again with straw man arguments.
Hiring H1B workers requires the companies to pay prevailing wages. If they not doing so, then they're breaking the law.
The H1B program does not reduce the prevailing wage. H1B workers do not reduce the prevailing wage.
Companies who abuse the H1B program and the Government who is failing to adequately oversee their own program are reducing the prevailing wage.
The H1B program has all the sageguards in place to prevent this. If it's happening it's not the fault of the program or the temporary workers working in this country because of it.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Maybe you missed something. At the bottom of the summary, it says that Microsoft it would postpone a data center in his home state. That will cause unemployment in his home state to rise and his hopes of reelection to diminish. It's all about getting reelected. It's never too early to think of your chances the next time you face the voters in a poll, especially if your popularity is waning.
H1B is nothing but a labor cost arbitrage mechanism and one that is heavily abused to boot. In practice, it is a sham at best.
Bill Gates to Congress: Let us hire more foreigners
I would much rather have a talented H1-B person working on Windows than a mediocre U.S. Citizen.
Am I the only one who noticed that the data center near our Chicagoan President will be kept, but the Iowa-got-a-Republican center will be axed? Dublin's not on the block because they can transfer too much profit offshore and probably have heavy Irish government subsidies involved. This is political payback from Grassley, not an attempt to advance any ideology (except for greed, that is).
Why do you think every single H1-B holder is some loser without anyone to care for and has no obligations except to themselves? How do you know if they have family back home they're sending money to? Seriously that's a stupid argument and you're assuming some foreigner is working for less money than a native. From my experience the foreigner will make the same as a native at a company like MS.
America for Americans? (Not that I find it bad, nor that I agree with it, but this really made me remember the illustrious "Mein Kampf")
Brazen, that guy.
Am I the only one who thinks a senator should be equipped with better writing skills? His entire awfully worded, prolix rant could have been summarized in three lines, without losing any content. Maybe the senate should also take advantage of the H1B programme to hire some more competent senators.
Google, Youtube, myspace, facebook, et al boomed after that period. I know Google already existed, and unsure about the dates of the rest, and even who started each, but I suspect they benefited greatly from the deluge of willing workers out there. Perhaps one or many of those would have never gotten sufficiently off the launch pad to be considered a success.
As painful and uncertain as ubiquitous layoffs are, the small silver lining is that some companies with relevant vision but lacking in the workforce to realize their good ideas will suddenly be able to have some good workforce.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Private companies are not an extension of government power. Yes it is a private company even if it is publicly traded. This is just typical of liberal well intentioned idiocy. It is a companies function to compete and be profitable. One would also hope that it would also take steps to see that its resources are maintained and provided for. That however is not required. (see revolving door at fast food franchises) It is not the government's business. What a sad state we have devolved too when supposedly intelligent people think that the government should be able to tell anyone (other than them of coarse) what to do just because after all they are the government and we just exist to serve it. good golly go read a history book....
Didn't you get the memo? U.S. workers don't want to work. We should be thankful so many H1-b workers are taking our jobs. Don't forget, every American is a millionaire and owns land.
How much profit does M$ still make?
As I understood some figure like 1 * 10^10 Dollars in the last year!
With that M$ is one of the pillars for the economy. And they start laying of people?
I cannot believe this is accepted.
1) by unions: there is *no* economical need
2) By politicians getting another economical headache.
3) By the public buying from an company which will destroy lives and the economy when it means a few extra cents for each share-holder.
Perhaps a law should be passed banning H1B visas for any company which has laid off a certain number of employees (such as Microsoft).
I agree, not good for citizens. It becomes a race to the bottom in terms of lower wages. Increased H1b -> Larger Labor Pool -> Depressed Wages. The wages will depress faster than the cost of living, if the cost of living decreases at all.
People, you need to vote and you need to be politically active if you want your government to work for you.
We also need to have a talk about states undercutting other states in terms of "incentives" to incorporate in the different states. This is another race to the bottom where the citizenry loses out.
I'm an MBA - so let me give you geeks a clue - if a company forced to hire overpaid staff, which is what this senator is asking them to do, then the only recourse left open is to simply take the job out of US to a place where they can hire staff for competitive wages.
The market decides the pay scale for a job, not the union or a bunch of out of touch senators sitting in a building in Washington.
Companies which overpay are not efficient and don't survive in the global economy. It is the first duty of any good CEO to make sure his company is efficient and competitive.
I think Mr. Ballmer is a good CEO and I'm sure he will resist this call and do the right thing for Microsoft shareholders.
A few months ago I asked the aging Bob Johnson -- former CTO of Burroughs Corporation when it was a leading mainframe company in Minneapolis where he developed the magnetic ink you see on the bottom of your checks -- what he thought caused the loss of the Midwestern high tech leadership to the coasts, and he said it was the financial dominance of the coasts.
That squares with what I observed while at Control Data Corporation/Cray Research, Inc -- midwestern companies that invented the supercomputer.
The reason Bill Norris and Seymour Cray were able to start CDC thence Cray Research was because they violated SEC regs and went around selling stock at PTA meetings, making a lot of middle class people retire very comfortably. My late father bought some Cray stock early on which helped greatly with his retirement.
When I was at CDC in Arden Hills, MN attempting to deploy the mass market version of the PLATO network with Internet-like capabilities (the system that Ray Ozzie (Bill Gates' replacement at Microsoft) cut his teeth on) in 1980 the primary resistance was from a middle management that, due to the financial press' hostility toward Norris's vision of a society disintermediated by computer networking, small high-tech farms and locally produced and consumed essentialsâ"had itself grown hostile to Norris.
My proposed solution is simple to state but will perhaps require a war to institute:
Replace all taxes on economic activity with a tax on net-assets, assessed at their in-place liquidation value, at the risk free interest rate (which according to modern portfolio theory is the short-term US Treasury rate) so as to extract all economic rents from the private sector, and then, to prevent public sector rent-seeking in pork-barrel politics, disperse those funds evenly in a dividend to all citizens, as the beneficiaries of the land-trust called the United States.
That will not only stop the vicious centralization of power in the private and public sectors, but it will clarify the role of immigrationâ"it is a dilution of the benefits intended for the Posterity of the Founders of the land trust called The United States of America.
Seastead this.
what about blacks and women? why are they occupying jobs that more important people need?? (sarcasm)
Given the current global context, saying "allow only American citizens into American companies and ban non-americans" would prop non-americans to say "do not buy american products given that there is a similar product that is produced in that country". The fact of the matter is, jobs in todays world are as similar to commodities. If people around the world do not buy american products, then there are no jobs in america.
If America goes protectionist for american jobs, then other countries can go protectionist for their products.
Yet we still bail them out and subsidize them.
With the economy the way it is, all H-1B visas should be eliminated. Don't tell me there aren't enough Americans to fill those positions. There are. You just have to pay enough to get them. The increased salaries will draw more young people into the field as a career. Eliminating H-1B visas will have both short and long-term positive effects in the US.
here who is complaining about lost jobs due to H1-B and corporate fatcats are actually volunteering at soup kitchens, volunteering their time at networking events for people out of work, helping the unemployed get their financial priorities in order as well as help them stay motivated in their search for new jobs?
Seriously, how many of you, CITIZENS of this country, instead of clamouring for the Govt, the Senators and the Congressmen to do the 'right thing', are willing to spend their time and efforts helping the truly disadvantaged better their lives?
Rapid Nirvana
With all of the bail-outs and tax cuts in the USA, American companies operating in America should be legislated to layoff H1B workers in America BEFORE any American workers are laid-off.
The government and elected officials have ZERO right, responsibility or ABILITY to interfere.
If this is true, then they also have ZERO right, responsibility or ABILITY to help, which they have already done, through subsidies and bailouts and protectionist policies.
Signed,
The Stronger Voice of Reason
That's already happened. This is the culmination of trickle down economics. First wags stagnated, then they attacked the unions and pushed everyone in to white collar positions. Next to quell the masses they made credit dirt cheap so we "felt" that we were doing better than our parents. We were not and now we have debt up to our eyeballs, the house we leveraged turns out to be worth less than it was 10 years ago, and the wealthy are controlling even more of the economic pie. Reagan began a war on the middle class to suppress our standard of living and the republicans finished it off.
So now the companies are announcing bad earnings because people like me can't afford to pay for the house, car, food, or college. The middle class has already been destroyed.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I would disagree, in that mediocrity is an incurable personality trait that cannot be remedied by any amount of on-the-job training. People who are not actually stupid but not really bright either, will in my experience remain so no matter what you do to them (well, certainly after 25 or so - who knows how much they owe their mediocrity to a bad education system).
Note that I am not making any statement about relative density of mediocre people among citizens vs. H1Bs (I've met plenty of either).
ObDisclosure: Charles Grassley is a family friend. I haven't had a conversation with him in several years, though.
Grassley is a vanishing breed. He's a small-town Iowan who still runs his own family farm. He's a child of the Depression and stretches a buck like it's nobody's business. He's the stereotype of Republicans from old Frank Capra movies: you can easily imagine him in a green-tinted eye visor making quiet, forlorn grief over how he forgot to get a receipt for lunch at McDonald's.
He was part of a labor union when he worked on an assembly line, and he has been current in his union dues for the last five decades. Yes, Chuck Grassley, a 28-year Senator and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, is a lifelong union man and an advocate for organized labor.
He is no fan of the FBI. He's spoken out many times about FBI abuses of power, lack of accountability, and the FBI's tendency to retaliate against whistleblowers. He's shielded many whistleblowers from retaliation.
My favorite Grassley story comes from my father, who once phoned me up after he went for a drive with him. Grassley was pulling into an underground parking garage... shut off the engine, put the car in neutral... and coasted down five levels of parking. He explained to Dad that the price of gas just kept on going up and up and up, and he was trying to cut back on his usage.
So yeah. Grassley's the real deal. He's part of a dying, vanishing breed of Republicanism. God knows I'd much rather have Republicans like him than GWB any day of the week.
When I came to America as an H1-B over 20 years ago, I did not 'settle' down until I had permanent residency.
I was prepared to go back because *that is the law* - temporary until certified permanent.
America is a country of laws. It is illegal to flount those very laws by applying them to Americans and not non-Americans. Americans are being removed from technology jobs while H1-Bs who are no more qualified for the job, are retained.
Unfortunately, when it comes to influencing politicians to do the right thing, technology workers and their organizations don't do very well.
There needs to be a campaign to first enforce, and then make fair the H1-B laws governing what is best referred to as *insourcing*. If I cannot be fairly judged on the basis of my skills and experience simply because the non-American costs less, then I cannot compete. It means the cost of my (average) American lifestyle is the overriding factor, not the strength of my skills, experience, and character. The question arises - does my citizenship guarantee welfare, Medicaid and military service, but not a decently paid job?
'the employer has to show that the guest worker gets the prevailing wage, on par with all the "similarly qualified"'
This is nonsense, the whole raison datre of hiring H1B workers is that they are cheap. I mean why else do Disney hire on from here in the UK. What's wrong with all those out-of-work Americans?
davecb5620@gmail.com
> 'These work visa programs were never intended to allow a company to
> retain foreign guest workers rather than similarly qualified American
> workers, when that company cuts jobs during an economic downturn,'
Lets be clear about this.
The MSFT corporation is a large multinational corporation with no loyalty to any particular country. While it primarily pays taxes in the USA it nevertheless owes no loyalty to the USA.
Why should the USian government think it can expect otherwise from any large multinational corporation at this time?
And, more relevantly, given Microsoft's track record of circumventing the law at every opportunity, why should a corrupt bribe-taking (they all take "campaign contributions" from lobbying companies to some extent don't they?) senator think he can dictate who Microsoft will sack?
And besides, MSFT is a highly profitable corporation. I don't think it is doing this in order to remain highly profitable - there are other ways for a corporation with . I think it is using the economic downturn as an opportunity to cover its real motives which I don't think are clear.
A company the size (approx 90,000 employees) and profitability and ruthlessness of Microsoft doesn't need the beginnings of a depression in order to get rid of 5000 staff members over the next 18 months from the R&D division.
The better question is: What is the real reason behind the announced sackings of staff mostly from the R&D division.
Is here http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9116758
Her lips were softer than a duck's bill, but her quacks
It's all about getting reelected. It's never too early to think of your chances the next time you face the voters in a poll, especially if your popularity is waning.
Helping out your constituents is kind of the point of being a Senator. Sometimes you can achieve that goal and improve your chances for re-election at the same time.
..seeing the raise in US xenophobia thinly veiled behind what could sound as 'logical' discourse to the uneducated & the uncompassionate.
Can someone come up with a way to measure this from online activity? I predict an increase in xenophobia, racist and classist commentary on the internet at higher rates than a any reasonable model would extrapolate from the last 5 years.
Everyone should be more concerned with companies that lay off workers in the US (regardless of status) but keep the positions and just move them overseas. That's what several companies are doing now. Ironically this removes openings from the US job market entirely, means no tax revenues or money going back into the domestic economy, and is often the results of entire departments being outsourced as opposed to a handful of positions, yet it doesn't seem nearly as frowned upon.
Workers in the receiving country often have fewer benefits and poorer working conditions than in the US which makes them more competitive, as we've heard in the big debate over the big three auto companies vs their foreign competitors. Essentially US companies are taking advantage of the disparity between the US and other nations, strengthening it, and the inevitable recourse, and only common-sense outcome is that either foreign nations must somehow be forced to close this gap in future or conditions for US workers must be brought down closer to their levels.
Just like one comment to Financial Times European edition newspaper was something along the lines:
We should make sure US stays afloat. Make sure that they do not reorganize their education system. And we will have a market where we can dump our quality goods, ensuring that we have a good life.
The prosperity of Europe, and a lot of other countries, depends on the undereducated middle class in US.
http://www.youtube.com/programmersguild I like to steer clear of politics and focus on GTD, but these videos exposing H1B practices are worthy of praise for exposing H1B corruption. On a personal note, I believe it is American to abide by the spirit of a law instead of the loopholes in it.
Because of H1b.
This all sounds fine and dandy but does it mean that those laid off would have to leave the country? Because it's not quite as simple as it sounds. Think about it. You lose your job to layoffs and to add insult to injury you are KICKED OUT of the country. Bureaucrats.
I'm surprised at the polarized opinions here. Personaly, I find there are good and bad points almost equally on both sides. This sort of labor protectionism is a complex issue full of grays; anyone claiming to know the right balance point is being intellectually dishonest.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Not getting the Data Center DOES NOT cause unemployment, there were never any jobs to begin with. It was a "promise" of jobs. In the economic climate today such a promise is a powerful tool for business to get all sorts of things they want, up to and including a different United States Senator.
Its amazing how the word "H1-B" almost always triggers off a passionate debate in any setting. My position on immigrant workers is that the US should clearly favor its own citizens compared to these workers. However it seems like people have their facts grossly wrong when it comes to things like wages and H1-B. If you've carefully followed layoff news recently, you'll observe that most of the layoffs are in finance, sales, marketing,etc. Americans usually fill these positions, because they are way better at this that most others. Immigrants have statistically been known to end up in engineering positions(cubicle prisoners :)). I don't under why there is so much animosity towards the H1-B workers (most of whom are in engineering) when most of the layoffs are not in engineering.
Secondly, H1-B workers don't lower wages. There is a law in place to prevent exploitation and to prevent companies from low balling salaries to migrant workers. For a given level of education, there is a hard number in place which is the minimum he/she should get paid for that position (ref wikipedia).
Thirdly, life for a migrant worker isnt fun. They are constantly worried about making their life's biggest investments in things like housing, children's education,etc especially when there is constant uncertainty surrounding their ability to stay in the US. I can completely appreciate the fact that US citizens deserve priority in being hired, but lets face it, there just arent enough american engineers to fill these positions.(I'm sorry to repeat the most hackneyed/poster-child argument made by silicon valley, but its true.) You are dealing with human beings here, not inanimate objects that serve their usefulness at a time and can be thrown in the trash later. H1-B workers come to the US,pay a third of their earnings in rent (which is good for american house owners), 40% in tax(a lot of them are in silicon valley/califonia) and end up saving about a third. They pay social security and medicare and yet are not eligible to benefit from it when they need it (unless they become citizens eventually. This process takes almost 10 years).
I dont want to pepper the message board with just rhetoric (since most people seem to have an opinion on everything but no one "knows" anything) and hence will try to offer some constructive solutions.
You can start with making govt subsidy available to companies making a serious attempt at reducing outsouring and creating (possibly lower wage) american jobs (heck its better than leaving 7% of the US unemployed as is the case right now).
When it comes to H1-B, make a marked shift in quotas to favor people with american education (since they bring dollars into the education system). A US bachelors or masters receives priority over anything else. What they are doing right now is completely disregarding merit which is think is a huge huge mistake. The H1-B system is placing on par, people from very modest academic backgrounds on the same plane with foreign students who graduate from Americas top schools like MIT, Caltech, Stanford,etc. It is delusional to turn a blind eye to merit. That way when you funnel the access to H1-B, you'll get much better quality for the jobs you seek to fill and provide americans with an opportunity to apply to every job there is.
Peace, Love, Empathy.
uh huh. And who do you think LOBBIES the feds to look the other way?
I don't understand why H1B people have to be the target. There are two simple solutions to laying people off. First see who's the best person for the job and eliminate the other. If that doesn't work, eliminate the more expensive one. This Grassley guy just want something to cry about. Maybe 'cos no one wants to do anything in Iowa.
Lord of the Binges.
Since MS is laying off 5000 people the dire labor shortage, that according to Mr. Gates' past testimony to Congress necessitates the need for the H1B program, must be over. In which case I assert that the H1B program can now be ended.
When I was working at ATT, they moved our operations group into an EIT building, Our group sysadmins/dba's/network guys all are citizens, the rest of the building was full of H1B visa holders.
I didnt even realize ATT did this, and I was employed there for over 7 years. The building was down the road, one of a dozens of buildings ATT owned for various groups in Bothell Washington.
I started talking to these guys, most had a hard time with english, and live with multiple roommates and road the bus into work. I never asked about pay, but the rumor was they made around 35K, way below market pay. About 125-150 H1B visa people in this building, our group was about 30 operations folks.
Later I found out the VP for Billing was heavy into outsourcing. This was also the cause of the major problem when Number portability opened up, and people wanted to move away or too ATT. The VP of the billing group let most people go, and outsourced almost the entire group to H1B workers. Nobody knew what was going on, and that extended the outages and caused over millions of dollars A DAY in fines.
Funny, ATT isnt only one doing it. Its happening way more. And I know lots of unemployed sysadmins/project managers, etc that cant find work. And its only getting worse. Lots worse, but dont make the corporations upset and pull their H1B visas, or they will just close down entire outfits and screw over the local cities.
We basically setup America to fail so corporations can outsource overseas, or insource and remove american middle class pay. Good job. Gold star.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I worked at Microsoft in Redmond with H1B work status for four years. Last year I left MS because I found job opportunity that was better for my family. (This new job happened to be back in my country.)
I can't comment about the overall H1B program in the US, or the overall US labour market, or even on any new changes at MS over the past year, but I do definitely know about the experiences of H1B employees in the developer and testing roles at MS.
I (and all other non-US-citizen employees) were treated exactly the same as every other employee. We had the same job descriptions and responsibilities as other employees and the same opportunities for promotion. We were integrated in teams that included US citizens, other H1B-status workers, and people with other immigration statuses. We were certainly paid the same as any other employee with a similar job and similar experience.
I also know that Microsoft has very high hiring standards for developer and tester roles. I was not in a management/lead position, but I occasionally reviewed resumes and took part in interviewing applicants. Interviews were tough all-day affairs, including questions that required the use of logic, math, programming, and testing methodologies. The point wasn't to see if the applicant could regurgitate the knowledge, but to view his or her thinking process, creativity, and problem solving abilities as they tried to come up with a solution, and handle complications or restrictions that the interviewer throws at the candidate after they come up with an initial solution.
During the time I was there, my group and most others were always trying to hire more people. The major bottleneck was waiting to get any resumes for candidates that seemed worth interviewing. Most interviews ended with frustration that the candidate wasn't up to standards. Just because you applied to MS and didn't get a job or even an interview is not proof that Microsoft didn't need to look outside the US to find candidates up to their standards.
So, you might have valid criticisms about the quality of Microsoft software, but MS really does have very high standards for their employees, and employees with H1B status are treated the same as any other full-time employee there.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
especially after MS suddenly finds itself hit with tariffs and a bunch of MS-specific measures designed specifically to make life miserable for the company. MS is expected to buy Senators, not get into pissing contests with them as their sudden decision to not build a data center which would provide jobs for some of Senator Grassley's constituents because they don't like the questions the Senator is asking indicates they're behaving with their usual arrogance. Which is costing them serious money in the EU and has cost them significant money with respect to their attempt to foist Vista on a world that plainly does not want it.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Do please tell them what you just told us. Yes, MS should stand up to the Federal Government in favor of the free market. Let them threaten to take their ball and move it to India! Let the Feds know who's boss!
DISCLAIMER: I write Linux how-to material for publication.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Actually, the result of this is being reflected in our economy RIGHT NOW.
Deflation is a real risk because of the downward pressure on wages caused by offshoring.
Offshoring is a reflection on the quarterly mentality. Short-term gains are the only thing accomplished. When you start chopping away at wages, it eventually comes to bite you in the ass when people's capacity to hold debt (to maintain their standard of living) gives out.
This is what's happening now. Companies killed wages, people took on more and more debt trying to keep their standard of living, thinking some relief would eventually come. It did not, of course, and now they have no money to buy anything.
Something has to give now. Either there will be deflation, screwing everyone, main street and wall street alike, or these companies will HAVE to provide proper wages.
Without some seriously hard-ball government regulation there is no reason any company would voluntarily offer greater wages, so deflation seems the inevitable result.
The basic lesson is this..
In an economy with fixed resources you can't lower the real cost of goods. If you lower wages, people will have less to spend, and sooner or later you will be compelled to charge less.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Let me know when H1B holders have to pay american tuition costs!
When my student debts suddenly shrink from 100k to 10k, then we can talk about equal treatment to cheap foreign labor.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Globalization.
You want cheap goods but you don't want cheap labor. Sorry but it doesn't quite work that way. The global economy today means a free flow of goods and labor "both ways".
It's in the government's interest to keep the citizen over the H1B. An unemployed citizen is a liability, but an H1B isn't paid unemployment, given food stamps, Medicaid etc. In addition, the citizen worker pays taxes into the national ponzi schemes (social security/medicare). Any money not paid out to current recipients goes into the general fund and pays for other government spending instead of being saved for their alleged purposes. Of course, most politicians are more interested in what's best for them and their re-election funds than the country.
Give the H1B visa holders citizenship. Done.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
As far as any economic measures go, Nike created $59 of value when they take a $1 pair of imported sneakers and sell them off for $60.
Branding is one of USA's strongest exports: Coke, for instance, sells licensing to quite a few worldwide companies to sell stuff with a Coke label on it.
The sick part about branding is that it is all just image and does not actually produce any tangible value. If times get tight then people will quickly shy away from their Nikes and buy the same product under the Yoyo brand for $10.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
That *even* if it is a 'business' person that has an idea, without available competent, perhaps desperate tech workers, the idea may not have the required resources to get it off the ground.
If the big companies never laid off, they'd retain all the talent and the industry would stagnate. I know if I make it through this economic situation and don't get laid off, I probably will not look for any other work or be the least bit receptive to all but the most unreasonable offers.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Suck up your FUD and try to compete.
H1b visa requires that the guest worker be paid the prevailing market wage, which is decided by the department of labor.
It is no one's problem that you have a 100k in student loans or that you cant compete. If this were everyone's problem, the government would bail out college loans as well.
30k in wages? Which planet is that on? Btw, average american family makes 40-45k in wages. No one deserves to pay you above average wages if you arent above average.
MSFT is not firing specific workers, it is cutting certain job positions.
So they should fire the person who has a lot of experience in his/her job position and is doing a great job, so that they can bring in someone else, pay them to ramp up, etc?
It might make sense to lower the total national quota of H1B visas during a recession, assuming the original quota was pegged at the right level. (In fact the original quota was probably too low, but that's a different debate.) But it doesn't make economic sense to target job cuts by visa status.
People here keep talking about HB1 people earning less, but I have not seen any eveidence to back this up.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Go on, lets go for protectionism, so all those cheap goods you enjoy nowadays will become more expensive.
Lets protect local companies, so ineficiency can be justly rewarded.
Lets stop progress, because there is no progress if it is not labeled American somewhere, somehow.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Most workers just want open labour markets.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There's many different people, with many different opinions. *some* push for pure capitalism, others for some (or a lot of) protectionism. Nobody u (necessarily) throwing away any ideals.
So, if someone with an H-1b loses his job/sponsor, he has a couple months to find another, or he goes back home and looks for work there, having his high-class US experience as a marketing point.
The dumped US citizen, OTOH, is home, or would like to get work back at home after traveling around the country already to get his previous job. But he's been out of work for 2 months (or 9 years if he was caught early in the Clinton-Bush-Obama depression) and hiring managers and recruiters don't want to give him the time of day, because they'd still prefer lots of cheap foreign temps. The recruiters can churn the temps more easily for their commissions, and the managers can refuse to invest in training or pensions so long as the glut continues.
But, if we send all of the guest-workers and green-card holders home, we'd still have a surplus of STEM workers in the USA, because more US citizens have been learning these fields, earning degrees in these fields than have been hired in these fields for such a long time, that the pool of capable labor wouldn't be exhausted for over 18 years.
One thing the lobbyists aren't telling you is that high percentages of foreign students was a goal of the expanded F and H-1B visa programs. In the 1980s, NSF, in pushing Congress to establish the H-1B program, explicitly stated that they felt that PhD salaries in science and engineering were too high, and advocated bringing in foreign students to hold down wages. It also stated that a consequence of this would be that Americans would not find PhD study financially attractive and thus would not pursue it. The NSF stated:
"A growing influx of foreign PhDs into U.S. labor markets will hold down the level of PhD salaries to the extent that foreign students are attracted to U.S. doctoral programs as a way of immigrating to the U.S.A. A related point is that for this group the PhD salary premium is much higher [than it is for Americans], because it is based on BS-level pay in students' home nations versus PhD-level pay in the U.S.A... [If] doctoral studies are failing to appeal to a large (or growing) percentage of the best citizen baccalaureates, then a key issue is pay... A number of [the Americans] will select alternative career paths... For these baccalaureates, the effective premium for acquiring a PhD may actually be negative."
http://www.nber.org/~peat/PapersFolder/Papers/SG/NSF.html
http://www.nber.org/~peat/ReadingsFolder/PrimarySources/TimeLine.html
Policy and Research Analysis Division of the NSF
http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/pres/comments/numbers.html
"A decade after lambasting the National Science Foundation (NSF) for botching a study of the science job market, Congress has asked the agency to once again take on the politically risky task of predicting how many high-tech workers the United States will need over the next decade... Nonetheless, such projections can spark a political fire-storm, as NSF learned after a 1987 study, led by Peter House, warned of a coming 'shortfall' of several hundred thousand scientists. After the forecast proved false, law-makers questioned the agency's reputation for dispassionate analysis (Science, 1992 February 14, p. 788)."
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol282/issue5395/s-scope.dtl
1998-12-04 vol 282 issue 5395
Gene Nelson
http://psyche.uthct.edu/nes/wwwboard/messages/53.html
US Department of Labor's 2006 Strategic Plan on page 35 states:
"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."
http://www.dol.gov/_sec/stratplan/strat_plan_2006_2011.pdf
http://programmersguild.blogspot.com/2007/04/news-flash-corporate-executives-and.html
The Federal Register 2006-06-30, Sec. 2, paragraph 4: "the statute does not require employers... to demonstrate that there are no available US workers or to test the labor market for US workers as required under the permanent labor certification program." (from Donna Conroy of http://www.brightfuturejobs.com/)
2000-04-24 Joel Stewart _Immigration Daily_
http://www.ilw.com/articles/2000,0424-Stewart.shtm
Legal Rejection of US Workers
"even in a depressed economy, Employers who favor aliens have an arsenal of legal means to reject all U.S. workers who apply."
Show me. Let's see the actual cities where they live and where they actually work (not the phony baloney low cost of living cities mentioned in the LCA), the job descriptions, the actual daily work they're doing, their academic credentials, their IQ scores, SAT scores, ACT scores, GRE scores, their experience, productivity measures, etc., their wages/salary, paid vacation time, health care insurance, gym membership, stock, stock options, Socialist Insecurity taxes taken out, income extortion, workers' comp, unemployment insurance, the whole gamut of compensation, both for direct M$ H-1Bs and contractors/outsourcers/permatemps, etc., and actual M$ employees, if there are any left doing the same sorts of work. If there aren't any left, then we'd need to see figures for people in other firms doing the same work, with the same credentials, experience, their IQ scores, SAT scores, ACT scores, GRE scores, productivity measures, etc.
Of course, that would be a massive invasion of privacy of the US citizens doing comparable work, but that's what would be required to make a reasonable comparison.
As it is, all we know is that 20% of a sampling of H-1B applications are fraudulent in some way (pay, credentials, location, job...), that on average H-1B grantees are paid 7% to 55% below prevailing (previous to their introduction) local market compensation with the central tendency being about 13% under-payment (the range is due to slightly different data used by different researchers over the years), and that DoL classifies the vast majority of H-1B grantees to be wet-behind-the-ears apprentices of no extraordinary ability or knowledge (though, in regulatory-speak required to have "specialized knowledge or skills"), and that hundreds are approved each year for those lacking the equivalent of a US high school diploma and thousands are approved lacking the equivalent of a US bachelor's degree.
We've seen the spin of the executives and their lobbyists. The data tell a different story. But, if you've got some new, credible, reliable, more specific data, we'd be glad to see it, since USCIS and others have been, apparently illegally, suppressing release of the public records for the last couple years.
Yah, I've done this thing called "talked to them." You know, I meet them at a party, and we chat for awhile.
Comment of the year
A friend in a peculiar niche in the footwear business tells me that, as recently as 6 years ago, you could make shoes of equal or better quality (leather dress shoes) in the USA for about $10 per pair ($8 per pair in the mid-1990s). Considering marketing costs, if you sold them retail for $20 you'd still be making a profit.
Instead, what we've seen over the last 30 years is lower-quality materials and workmanship, production moving from the USA to Mexico to South Korea to VietNam and Red China. And the US prices rose over that same period from $20 to $45 to $65 or more. And the designs have gotten much uglier.
But, Americans would pay it until recently. 1. because they could, and 2. because competing products of better quality weren't appearing on the retail shelves anymore.
After kiting on credit for a decade or three, holding out for an improvement in the economy, because compensation to US production workers hadn't kept up with retail prices, enough people can't pay such prices anymore. They'd love the opportunity to go back to work at the tool & die works, or the auto parts factory in Dayton or Gary, or the shoe factory in NJ or SC, or the textile factory in NC or GA or TN, or the tire factory in PA or OH or IL, but those have all closed up shop and the capital goods scrapped or moved to Red China or VietNam along with the micro-chip fabs.
In the 1980s, they were told they could just go to the juco and upgrade their skills a little to become robot repairmen, software coders, data entry clerks, call center clones. Meanwhile, the software architects, software engineers, biophysicists, chemists and such, many with advanced degrees, are finding that, beginning in the early 1980s, they, also, were seeing these careers under-mined by body shopping, off-shoring, and cross-border body shopping (all of which facilitate the others) and being told by Greenspan to go to the juco for re-education because even the bleeding edge career opportunities have been decreased.
Nah, they all became house flippers and that turned out great!
L1 is the mother of H1B. It comes in many flavors, and you do not even need to have a technology background for those. There is no limit and no salary/labor clearance needed. That is what all the bodyshops use these days. H1B can be banned and these companies will not even blink an eye - they get the blanket L1 visa by the hundreds.
Americans love to blame others for their own problem (I'm American).
Whenever the going gets tough racism and xenophobia pops out. Whether it is incarcerating citizens of Japanese descent, disappearing Muslims or blaming mexican immigrants for everything from the rising crime rate to social injustice, this is just the latest manifestation of racism and xenophobia.
H1-B people didn't cause this problem. There's nothing wrong w/having qualified professionals come into the country. Our country was built on immigrants after all..
So if MS wants to layoff people (a great american tradition) let them do so based on merit and not based on ridiculous nationalistic standards.