Microsoft Says H-1B Workers Among Those Losing Jobs

CWmike notes that after a US Senator urged Microsoft to lay off H-1B workers first, Microsoft says it is cutting a 'significant number' of foreign workers as part of the layoff it announced last week. But experts say there is nothing in the law requiring a company to cut the jobs of H-1B workers before US workers. David Kussin, an immigration attorney, said, 'In fact, the law is very well designed to say that you have to treat H-1Bs the same as US citizens in all regards.' Another H-1B critic, UC Davis professor Norman Matloff, said the Senator's letter would help their fight. 'If Microsoft doesn't state that they will lay off the H-1Bs first — and they won't state this — then it would be awfully tough for Bill Gates to come back to the Hill and urge an H-1B increase, wouldn't it?'"

Comments

Require pay and benefits parity

[Reality Master 201]

It's an easy thing to fix - require that H1B visa holders receive the same pay and benefits for their work as the rest of the workforce. If companies really have problems finding citizens to fill jobs, and aren't just trolling for lower paid wage slaves, then it ought not to be a problem, right?

Man, I'd love to see the tech industry try to talk its way out of that.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[ritesonline]

The biggest danger could be that overseas workers are cheaper to keep therefore 'let's get rid of our own people first' which would really add to the economic problems.

I guess that's why Ms had to be pushed to do the sensible thing.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Shambly]

I don't see why they should pay more for your services when someone is willing to do it for less. The company is the one suffering if they are missing adequate skill sets for what the task demands. I really don't understand why a company should "hire locally" first when its not in its best interest to do so.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Veretax]

Could someone explain to me, why Bill Gates would be arguing for H1-B Visas before congress now? I thought he left Microsoft?

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Timberwolf0122]

As an L1B (not H1B) VISA holder I am in total agreement with you, all this H1B VISA nonsense does not help the likes of me who work (reasonably) hard and contribute a fair some in taxes (very little of my money is used to pay whats left of my mortgage back home).

That said I think it would help America Greatly to setup a special low-pay VISA program that has strict guidelines for what types of job can be performed under it IE Cheap labor for working land/child care/house maids/packing plant jobs no one else would want to do for the money.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Macthorpe]

The Slashdot editors seem to still be enjoying laying all of Microsoft's faults at Bill Gates' feet, despite the fact that (as you say) he left a while ago.

They seem to be living in a parallel universe.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Shakrai]

I really don't understand why a company should "hire locally" first when its not in its best interest to do so.

I didn't used to see why either but somebody who is wiser than I am put it this way: Michael Dell is too cheap to pay for the country that created him

In other words, the United States (for all it's pluses and minuses) got Microsoft/Dell/etc going, why aren't they giving back to the United States? I'm not some hippie liberal douche but I tend to believe that there are more important things than the bottom line. We owe it to future generations not to undercut our own population in the perpetual search for lower wages.

I would also say that this applies to consumers as well as to CEOs. If you aren't willing to buy anything more expensive than the cheap plastic shit sold at Wal-Mart then you are part of the problem.

(And before I get modded troll the 'hippie liberal douche' remark is a South Park reference)

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[jellomizer]

There is a shortage, of American tech workers. Many of the out of work onces complaining about this still haven't adjusted to the fact that there tech bubble back in the 90's was indeed a bubble, and are still trying to find Web Designer jobs that pay excess 100k a year to use Front Page.
Unfortunately the truth about tech jobs, is that it is support role position, It is a professional careerer but you are not going to be rich from it, it pays about the same as a teacher, which isn't bad, and allows us to live at middle class levels.

Even when there is a shortage qualified people will still get left out for various reasons.
Poor Resume/Self Promotion skills
Unable to relocate to an area which has more jobs.
Personalities don't match corporate culture
Out of date, or different focus on skills
Just aren't trying.

Just poke around your college especially in the masters levels, for Computer Science and Engineering. Look at those classes listen to the accents of the people talking. Even in MBA classes Americans are just not trying to get smarter and be competitive anymore.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[OzRoy]

Here I was thinking that our society is supposed to be built on competition. If you can create a scompany that can compete and be successful then that's good.

Why should it be different for a country? If they can't compete by providing the skilled labour necessary why should a company be forced into 'purchasing' the less skilled labor?

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late; we've been sold out to China. Globalization tends toward global equality. There simply isn't enough available energy (because we haven't invested in efficiency and improved harvesting and energy management) for us all to live at current American standards. The American lifestyle depends on cheap energy of all flavors; we have not been paying the real cost of energy -- the cash equivalent of the energy deficit we have accumulated makes the budgets of the world's governments look feeble. Once we get a few places in America down to *average* Chinese or Indian village standards this will be clear.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[bjwest]

I think before we setup a special low-pay VISA program for jobs no one else would want, we should employ our own citizens first. Not wanting to do a certain job should not be a valid excuse to sit on your ass and draw unemployment or welfare. Put welfare recipients to work in our fields, houses and packing plants. Subsidize them with food stamps if they can't make it on the wages. There is no reason we should be using immigrant workers for unskilled labor when we have such a large pool of unskilled leaching off the public.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[hey!]

Yes. And let them stay as long as they want, rather than kicking them out to bring new H1Bs in to replace them. That's pretty much a formula for accelerating the movement of tech jobs overseas, taking inexperienced engineers, showing them the ropes, and sending them back to offshoring outfits in places with low wages.

I don't want to frame this as a kind of nationalistic struggle, but India and China don't need a US funded technology and tech jobs transfer program, which is what H1B really is. They are quite capable of developing their own, robust indigenous industries.

If a talented and educated person wants to move here for a while, and can support himself, I don't think it hurts us very much if at all. If after a few years he decides he'd like to stay here, that's good. Productive people create wealth, and wealth creates jobs. The very best create companies, even industries.

What's really bad for the country, not just American engineers looking for a job, is a revolving door program which drains the country of experience gained by work being done here. The knowledge gained by work is a capital resource, and kicking H1Bs out who want to stay here is like sending boxes of cash out of the country.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Thelasko]

It's an easy thing to fix - require that H1B visa holders receive the same pay and benefits for their work as the rest of the workforce.

It's already required.

Employers must attest that wages offered are at least equal to the actual wage paid by the employer to other workers with similar experience and qualifications for the job in question, or alternatively, pay the prevailing wage for the occupation in the area of intended employment, whichever is greater.

You're ignoring two things:
1. Companies have ways of working around this rule. This typically involves saying that the visa holder has skills not available in the U.S. workforce.
2. By importing workers, the company effectively shifts the supply curve and lowers wages across the board.

I will also add, laying off foreign workers first is a form of protectionism. Protectionism is never a good economic policy.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[zappepcs]

I think it can be put in simpler terms: When H1B visas were requested and utilized there were many more Americans with jobs. While the workforce market allowed for foreign workers then, it does not necessarily do so now. Foreign and temporary workers should make up the bulk, if not total, of workers laid off now. Don't give me crap about how they spend money here in the USA too. It's about keeping a job, feeding families. Sorry, American families should come first in these hard times. Yeah, I know we just did the bialout shuffle dance, but any company that retains foreign workers while citizens are put out on the street will lose my business, and I will work to ensure they lose business from other citizens.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[mark72005]

Simple answer: They shouldn't.

If someone can do your job as adequately as you can, and will do it for less, then they should get the job.

I've worked with outsourced workers who were located in India, and trust me, there's no functional equivalency there yet. Not even close. but when that person is making $5,000 USD a year or less, their salary covers a multitude of shortcomings.

If your company doesn't do it, your competitors will, which will render your margin much higher than theirs. And if they outlaw it here in the US, foreign competitors will still do it, and thus, you'll still lose.

This is why tampering with market forces is in most cases ill-advised.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Waffle Iron]

Could someone explain to me, why Bill Gates would be arguing for H1-B Visas before congress now? I thought he left Microsoft?

Because he's still chairman of the board.

He's also their lovable nerdy Horatio Alger philanthropist mascot, over which which the senators will swoon. They would not react so favorably if forced to listen to a sweaty chair thrower.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[mark72005]

Capitalism and employment based on merit and all is fine for most people, until they are sweating - then the government/nanny needs to protect them from any possibility of harm.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[elrous0]

You're right, they shouldn't be required to hire locally. The government, conversely shouldn't be giving them tax breaks, special immigration exemptions, bailouts, and all the other bits of corporate welfare that are regularly given to large corporations like this.

If you want to argue for the "free market" and the laissez-faire approach to letting businesses do whatever the hell they want to, then you had damn well better remember that it cuts BOTH ways. "Free market" also means no handouts.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Rogerborg]

Mmm. Market forces work just fine in a nearly homeostatic state. There's a real choice to be made between cutting costs (bad for the employees) or increasing productivity (good for everyone).

Unfortunately when you throw a market wide open to widely disparate providers - and we're talking about a ratio of 5 or even 10-to-one in salary costs - then market forces dictate that purchasers go for the low cost bidder. Increasing productivity - i.e. training and retaining skilled staff - isn't a realistic option for the high wage bidders; they have to join the rush to the bottom.

That's good for consumers, but not for workers. Unfortunately, a lot of us are workers. What we want - what benefits everyone - is increasing productivity rather than cutting costs. Do you see a lot of that happening in the global knowledge economy at the moment?

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Anonymous Coward]

So lets take one of these H1B visa holders. They most likely grew up in a country with a much lower GDP than the USA. That country probably used its scarce taxpayers dollars to educate them. Then the US entices them over with its bubble economy and thirst for global labor. So this H1B visa holder ends up paying their tax dollars not to the country that spent its tax dollars educating them, but to the good old US of A. Now when times are tough, you want to kick these guys out on their arses, back to a country that has missed out on the benefit of their tax dollars, which is now faced with looking after them. Globalisation of the labour market - isn't it great how it sucks even more out of the third world than we managed with decades of slavery and natural resource plundering.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[tele_player]

Why should it be different for a country? If they can't compete by providing the skilled labour necessary why should a company be forced into 'purchasing' the less skilled labor?

Because it's not fair when companies can shop all around the world for the cheapest prices on necessities (e.g. labor), while the common US citizen cannot shop all around the world for the cheapest prices on necessities, such as food, housing, education and health care. In other words, the competition is between US employers and US labor, and the employers have an unfair advantage.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[EmperorKagato]

Just poke around your college especially in the masters levels, for Computer Science and Engineering. Look at those classes listen to the accents of the people talking. Even in MBA classes Americans are just not trying to get smarter and be competitive anymore.

Public education is just not trying to make us smarter and competitive. International students come from a more rigorous school system. Remember, we are in the bottom tier when it comes to education in the United States.

We are trying yet it is only to the best of our training.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[saider]

There should not be workers here on visas. Especially for high-tech jobs.

Give them full legal residency and give them the option to stay instead of sending them home after 6 years and perpetuating the "shortage".

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[zach_the_lizard]

Shopping around the world for labor and materials ultimately lowers the price of goods. That house, that food, and even that education would get cheaper. Except that our government (and also many governments in Western Europe, IIRC) have strict price controls and anti-competitive rules in many of these sectors.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Firehed]

The people laid off should be the ones with the lowest skill-set, regardless of their location. Or does equality only apply domestically?

If companies lay off their best employees (foreign or domestic) because they're the most expensive to keep on board, those companies will suffer in the long-term, which is good for exactly zero people. I'd argue that companies have been forced to do this in order to help the short-term bottom line for idiotic shareholders who refuse to see R&D as a good thing because it doesn't bring in revenue next week, but it's that kind of stupidity that brought us this situation in the first place.

I'd like to think that most companies aren't so short-sighted to think that getting rid of their highest-paid employees is a good idea in the long term, but they've been forced into a position where they have to do so because it makes the shareholders happy. It's the asshole day-traders trying to ride the stock market to immediate infinite riches that are killing your precious American jobs.

Yes, I'm saying that Americans are causing their own replacement by H-1B foreign workers. Blame Wall St., blame the guys with the annoying accents doing your tech support, blame whoever the hell you want. I'm blaming all of the people happy to get rich at anyone else's expense, probably including whoever manages your 401k.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Firehed]

HIS best interest? The vast majority of his fortune is or will be going to various charities. It's in OUR best interest to see his company prosper financially, as much as we'd hate to admit it (and I think most of Slashdot becomes nauseous at the idea)

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[htnmmo]

One place I worked at, it was no secret why were hiring H1-B workers. It was much cheaper.

Whenever we hired Americans my boss would interview them, I'd interview them, another peer would interview them. Indian workers just kinda showed up.

One guy was fresh out of training and needed a lot of hand holding to do basic things. Any random CS grad would have been the same.

The best people we had were American. That sounds ethnocentric but the people I'm talking about included Russian-American, Indian American, etc. either first generation or immigrants.

I remember another time when someone contacted me about developing a small site for them. They explained how they hired an indian firm for $2,500 and after months of not getting the project done hired another for $3,500 and the didn't complete it either. He decided to share this information with me after I quoted him $10k for his project. He ultimately decided to try and find another outsourcing firm. Months later I checked and he didn't have the site done. He wound up spending almost the same in and got nothing in return.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[operagost]

Basically, when you buy the cheap crap at K-Mart or Wal-Mart, you're shopping around in China, Pakistan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Like2Byte]

...then the government/nanny needs to protect them from any possibility of harm.

You mean the government nanny that allocated the H1B visas because they're weren't enough skilled people to do the job? Now there are millions out of work that are able to do the job due to the poor economy. I'll be damned if my tax payer money should pay support costs to those out of work while the government I fund gives jobs to foreign nationals.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Ken D]

Let me fix that for you:

"B happens to be a single man holding an H1-B. He knows that if he doesn't find a job in 60 days his visa will be canceled and is willing to work for significantly less than prevailing market wages to avoid being forced to leave the US and have to start the visa process all over again from scratch."

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Shakrai]

Why mark you troll for "hippie liberal douche" when this comment is enough? You sound more like a communist that demands people buy what YOU want them to buy. Free will and choice be damned!

Oh go fuck yourself. I didn't demand that people buy what I want them to buy and I didn't advocate for legislating Wally World out of existence. All I said was that if you buy that cheap shit from China then in one way or another you are part of the problem. I buy that cheap shit myself when there is no alternative but if there is an alternative and I can afford it then I'm going to take it. Odds are that alternative will cost me more money but odds are that it will also last a lot longer and I won't be replacing in a year when it breaks.

unless it's in the context to the posters arrogant and idiotic philosophy of anti-freedoms and repressions.

The anti-freedom stems from those who are selling this country out to a communist dictatorship to save a buck. Funny that you would call me a communist for making a plea to buy stuff made here in America as opposed to buying stuff made in a communist dictatorship.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[llirik]

That's bogus.

I used to be an H1B holder, and one day decided to switch employer and start working for startup. The visa transfer application has been filed, I quit my job and moved to startup, without waiting for application to be approved (which is legal, as transfer considered to be pure formality). Few months later my transfer application gets refused on the grounds that startup doesn't seem to have profits and may fire me. Thank you very much Department of Labor for firing me out of fear that my employer may fire me.

One can argue that its my fault, and I had to wait for transfer to get approved, but that's not the point. I knew that I was taking a risk, and was prepared, but to get refusal on such grounds? That's pretty lame.

Anyways, getting back on topic. Suppose I were the best developer in the company and in rough times company had to downsize, but they would like to keep me and get rid of some slackers, however some legislation wouldn't allow them to do so, so they have to fire me. I pack my stuff move back home, and then economy picks up, there is shortage of qualified people in US, and US companies start to bombard me with offers. Do you honestly believe I would go there again?

It is very shortsighted policy, you are risking to alienate the most qualified people. Way to go.

Another argument against it -- it is pretty much unenforcible. What will business do? They'll just create new entity and move all H1B holders they would like to keep to that new entity. Oh, big brother patches this loophole? Fine. They'll create an independent "consultancy" business and move all H1B holders there, and hire them as consultants. I am sure there are thousand tricks to work around such restrictions.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Shakrai]

Here I was thinking that our society is supposed to be built on competition

Ah, the dog eat dog extreme of the far right. Eventually people will wake up and realize that it's no better than the "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" extreme of the far left.

I wasn't advocating for a socialist solution. I was bemoaning the fact that the Michael Dell's of the world grew up with all of the advantages that the United States offers and can't even bother to employ American workers to answer their goddamn tech support numbers. They've taken all of the advantages that American society offered while contributing as little as possible in return. You may respect that but I don't -- and it's this extreme that business has shifted to in the last few decades that has emboldened the far-left into seeking further expansions of the nanny state that will eventually erode our competitiveness on the global stage.

Read up about welfare capitalism sometime. Read up about the CEOs of yesteryear that sought a square deal for their workers and in so doing helped to create a market for their products. Everybody won to a certain extent. Now we've traded that all away for the cheapest labor or the cheapest stamped plastic POS product that breaks every 12 months.

why should a company be forced into 'purchasing' the less skilled labor?

At no point in my post did I advocate for forcing anybody into doing anything. I was bemoaning what we've become -- not advocating for any specific solution. So nice way to distract from my underlying point.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Anonymous Coward]

Now when times are tough, you want to kick these guys out on their arses, back to a country that has missed out on the benefit of their tax dollars, which is now faced with looking after them.

Except that they also take back any monies saved, all their work experience (which is frankly worth more than their college education) and presumably some understanding of how to start their own business and ramp up industries in their native countries.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Shakrai]

it is not allowed to hire any dirty foreign brown people. I thought we'd got past that xenophobic attitude.

And I thought we'd got past playing the race card as a way to distract people from the point that someone else was trying to make.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[squiggleslash]

It's an easy thing to fix - require that H1B visa holders receive the same pay and benefits for their work as the rest of the workforce

Ok, done (several decades ago, actually), still the same "problem" though ('cos, well, nothing's changed, that's the point, it always was a requirement of an H1B and pretty much all the employment visas that the holder get the same pay and benefits as a citizen for the same job.)

H1Bs are popular amongst employers not because they're easy to abuse (the amount of bureaucracy involved takes care of any "benefits" you might have in having someone for which a firing has worse consequences than an ordinary citizen) but because they make it relatively easy to get very, very, skilled people from overseas.

Being able to hire good people means being able to do things you otherwise wouldn't be able to, which means being able to survive as a business and employ more people, citizens included. What would be good though would be to replace H1Bs with an expanded green card program, so fear of losing one's job does not factor into the equation, and so people who want to work in America because they want to be a part of this country aren't discriminated against over those who just want to take the money and run.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[networkBoy]

People look at me like I'm a friggen lepper when I say I don't shop at WalMart sans crisis.

Buying import crap (literal meaning) is almost unavoidable in some cases. In other cases you can find import crap (figurative) that is better made. I do try to buy American/Canadian especially for food products (often cheaper, always seasonal), and my art supplies tend to be from the UK or Germany. Where I do willingly stoop to Chinese knock-off quality is glassware for the kids chemistry set, and even then I buy the higher end. My personal glassware is all "proper" German and American glass. I try to buy at least American owned company computer components.

But to quit rambling:
Country of origin is not always a choice, but is one often enough that the consumer *should* pay attention. In addition to steering money to American companies, often the build quality is so much better that you will not be needing to replace that POS a year or so down the road. (My German(?) built toaster is serviceable for contact wear, is your Chinese one?
-nB

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Austerity Empowers]

Absolutely we should be recruiting them to the US. Plus, how much of our problem are H1Bs? I want to see the government twisting arms to fire offshore employees and doing harm to companies who have moved their engineering out of the US entirely.

H1Bs pay the same rent we do, they pay the same "cost of living", and are subject to the same workforce protects the US has. They may be a little cheaper, but they can't be that much cheaper or they couldn't afford to live here.

US labor is expensive not entirely because of shortages, but because all the laws designed to protect workers make it that way. Anyone short circuiting that, ad hoc, deserves to be punished.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Eli Gottlieb]

Shopping around the world for labor and materials ultimately lowers the price of goods.

No it doesn't; it increases the profit margin of the people providing the goods. Why on Earth would they lower prices when they're making good money? Demand is not perfectly elastic in the real world (especially for necessities like food, housing, health care, etc.), so lowering the price won't necessarily make a seller more money by increasing the amount demanded. Therefore, it's in their best interests to just pocket the money, and that's exactly what they do.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[hey!]

You don't get it.

It's not immigration of people with engineering degrees that drives down wages. It's continually bringing in entry level people and expelling experienced people that does that.

Everyone here seem to grasp that the fact that music files are so readily and perfectly copyable changes the economics of sharing copies. What some people miss is how the same kinds of things make the economics of knowledge different than, say the economics of automobiles. Even having and automobile industry creates lots of related jobs, in suppliers, distribution, sales, advertising and the like. But if you brought in a bunch of low wage braseros to run your automobile plant, you'd definitely have that many fewer jobs for American auto workers.

But has Linus Torvalds living in the US decreased the net employment of American software engineers by one?

Software is different in that making software tends to generate more jobs making software.

Think about it. Some team comes up with this great software framework that makes doing something that was hard before, easy. Does this mean people who were doing that stuff lose their jobs? No. What happens is that there is a new demand for people who can use that framework to do things that weren't possible before.

Let's say we're talking about Geographic Information Systems. You can do the kind of things GIS does by programming in Fortran with nothing but bare metal and a library with a handful of trig functions. But back when this was the the only way to do GIS, almost nobody did, except maybe in the oil industry or defense. But when GIS becomes so simple minded that non-technical managers can do simple analyses of store siting decisions, none of those few people are going to lose their jobs. In fact, there's a whole new industry of people employed doing jobs that didn't exist before.

Employers make their hiring decisions based on marginal calculations. In the Fortran-and-bare-metal days, many things were theoretically valuable, but not worth the expense and uncertainty to try. When what was hard before becomes easy, this opens up a new universe of things to do, which equals new employment opportunities.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[ljansch]

A business sending jobs overseas to get a leg up on the competition is the business equivalent of an athlete taking steroids. Any short-term benefits are far outweighed by the long-term consequences. The excuse "everyone else is doing it" is no justification in either case.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[cervo]

Sorry friend, if there is such a shortage how can Microsoft and the other companies afford to cut all these tech jobs? if there is such a shortage don't they need every tech worker they can get?

Maybe in Mars you can fire a ton of tech workers and then claim a shortage of qualified workers (or in the Capital) but in reality you just fired a bunch of qualified tech workers (they were qualified enough to be hired in the first place). So go figure.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[cepayne]

These big companies (and their CEO's) have a responsibility,
and it is not with their employees. Don't bring any emotions
into the issue, there is only one responsibility - to keep the
SHAREHOLDERS happy.

They will (and they do) step on their fellow Americans to make
money. Money for themselves and also for SHAREHOLDERS. At
that point, their part in the capitalistic system is performing as
expected/intended.

You have no "Right As an American" anymore, you are their
consumer or your are their employee. You are nobody to the CEO's.

These big CEO's (ie: Michael Dell, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Bill
Gates [during his reign]) are doing what the SHAREHOLDER
has instructed them to do with their invested money. Make me
more for what I lent to you. And they do just that most of the
time.

Ultimately, the consumer(You) will pay for everything in the end
and your way of life will be drained of its resources (money).

We've pretty much hit that point now, which is why people like
Michael DELL and Bill GATES have gobbed up as much of their
money as they could, and have escaped to their big guarded
houses in Cabo San Lucas MEXICO... along with all your money.

Next time you are in Mexico, take the local tours and you will
find out who no has a better financial plan than you. And the
matter of H1-B work permits will not even factor into it.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[stewbacca]

That guy using Front Page to make web pages should have never been called a Web Designer in the first place--hence the bubble burst. I've lived through several bubbles, and every one of them have the same traits...Johnny-come-lately gets his hands on a cheap PC and some shitty software and is suddenly a (self-proclaimed) designer/programmer/architect, etc. etc. If we quit chasing dollars in unsustainable (temporary fads) and invest in real skills, these busts would go away. But hey, if you wanna make 100,000 for a couple of years then make NO money from then on out, that's your choice.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Shakrai]

Jesus, use enough line breaks in your post?

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Shakrai]

and it turns out there is actually nothing more important than the bottom line from the companies perspective.

Actually it turns out that ignoring the long term for short term gain is a surefire way to run your business into the ground. Tell me, how is Dell going to be doing in another generation or two when there's no American middle class left to buy their products?

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[dwpro]

I blame the inequality of the current system. Give H1B's more rights and this becomes a level playing field. As it is, companies have h1b's by the balls.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[jeff4747]

There is a shortage, of American tech workers. Many of the out of work onces

Wow...I don't think I've ever seen someone contradict themselves quite so fast.

If there really is a shortage, then there are few-to-no out of work.

If a company is having trouble finding people for their job, that's the free market telling them they need to pay more.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[nahdude812]

They may be a little cheaper, but they can't be that much cheaper or they couldn't afford to live here.

Actually that's not true. H1B's often accept a dramatically reduced standard of living, with the intent to make as much money as they can for the duration of their visa, then take it home with them. Sometimes this is still much better than the conditions they left at home.

H1B's make on average 23% less than their citizen counterparts.

The citizen counterparts tend to want things like kids, gadgets, a nice car, good clothes, a house, etc. The H1B tends to have 1 week's worth of clothes, takes public transportation or has an inexpensive used car, lives here alone (maybe with family back home), lives in a one-room studio apartment, and maintains a minimum of optional expenses.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[MickLinux]

Wrong. Almost all countries have extremely restrictive immigration and labor laws. The net effect of this is to allow free trade for corporations, while restricting trade for laborers, thus transferring wealth from laborers to corporations (from the poor/weak to the rich/powerful members of the societies).

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Anonymous Coward]

H1B's make on average 23% less than their citizen counterparts [ddj.com].

And I'll bet that that's an age bias. H1Bs are mostly young guys. Some go home, others get green cards and stay (and so aren't H1Bs any more). So the H1B dataset will be dominated by entry- and low-level salaries. The citizen dataset includes those people, but also includes much better paid engineers with 30 years of experience, senior managers and the like.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[uniii]

So what do you intend to do once the hard times are over and the US needs foreign workers again? They'll know what happens if the economy slumps and will prefer jobs elsewhere and you'll be stuck with the bottom of the barrel.

I want to know what in-depth study proved that there was such a need in the first place. I went to one of the top universities in America for computer engineering and rubbed elbows w/ plenty of Americans who graduated w/ between 3-4.0's.... and they struggled to find employment... So, don't give me this crap about not enough skilled Americans... Go to a local university where they all are... Where foreign and 1st gen Americans come there and snub their noses at people who don't have Indian accents and treat them like shit.. Whatever. When someone wants something they will always make up bullshit as to why it is something they 'need'.

So you'll see your taxpayer money pay support for those that lost their jobs when their employer went under because they wew forced to keep all the useless people? A business will do what's profitable, you don't get fired because a foreign worker "got your job", you get fired because you cost the company more then they gain, so why should they keep you and instead fire a worker that makes themm more money than he costs?

It's a lot more complicated than that my friend... Lets consider a scenario where, in the U.S, at company A, .... there is only a need for 100 programmers and all of which are U.S citizens... Economy is doing great so there becomes a need for 110 programmers... But companies always overshoot so that goes to a perceived need for 140 slots... Hmmm, not enough 'skilled' U.S labors comes in as a nice way to fill those slots at a cheaper cost than American counterparts So those slots are filled by H1B visa people... Contraction hits and now the needs is only 90 people.... the previous 100 slots were filled by qualified Americans and the new 40 slots by qualified H1B visa people... H1B visa are cheaper and a couple of them are in management and dont want to see 'their' people go... Something tells me some qualified Americans will be loosing their jobs and therein lies the problem. If you just stop and take a minute to think about the tech industry, there really are more qualified people than jobs.... In America, there are tons of qualified tech workers and I don't believe this H1B-visa crap for a minute. I have been floating around in the tech sector and even in the valley for ~4 years after graduating w/ my Masters from a top ranking Univ. and it always is the same : Get the !(#$@ grilled out of you in interviews only to do bogus work you could have done from your junior year in college. So, give me a break about there being a need for H1B-Visa tech workers... We all work in the tech sector here... We know how bogus that claim is from our first hand experience.

Re:Require pay and benefits parity

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>The H1B tends to have 1 week's worth of clothes, takes public transportation or has an inexpensive used car,
>>>lives here alone (maybe with family back home), lives in a one-room studio apartment, and maintains a minimum
>>>of optional expenses.

Not true, but pretty close. Keep in mind that obtaining green card is not simple process, and that's the first step to citizenship. And in case you don't get green card you have to leave country in short period of time. So H1B holder, cannot really think about long term anything until (s)he gets permanent residence status. Less H1B in US doesn't mean more US jobs, it means more skilled workers overseas. ;) And if you think that some $80K H1B worker in US lowering your salary from $100 to $90K, imagine what would be your salary if (s)he must leave the country and is willing to accept the same job for $50K overseas. ;)

Let Microsoft import as many people as they like

[Anonymous Coward]

The United States wants to be the leader in technology, but it won't encourage kids to go into science and engineering, and won't let many talented and better educated foreigners come and work at their companies.

And then they bitch and complain when companies like Microsoft move jobs to other countries that either do have the people they want, or will let those people come and work there.

Then let it be fair...

[bogaboga]

I mean if you do not see why a company should pay more for my services when someone is willing to do it for less, then I would like to see the following:

Microsoft should outsource management or hire H-1B visa personnel for management positions as well. It will be cheaper for the company too. How about that?

Re:Then let it be fair...

[William Robinson]

I mean if you do not see why a company should pay more for my services when someone is willing to do it for less, then I would like to see the following:

Microsoft should outsource management or hire H-1B visa personnel for management positions as well. It will be cheaper for the company too. How about that?

Some companies have filled top management positions with non-Americans, when they have proved that they are capable and affordable. Parent is not talking about just programmers or managers. Basically, every company has freedom to adopt means to improve profitability and if that includes outsourcing OR getting more H1B holders, it is their decision. In a 'free trade' world the natural choice would always be "cheaper and better".

Re:Then let it be fair...

[wisty]

Really? I thought that the company existed to serve the CEO and his hand-picked board of directors. Not the workers, and heaven forbid they look after share-holders (unless the CEO is a founder). That's why CEO pay rises are at the highest level since the Great Depression.

Heck, a CEO doesn't need to outperform their competitors. A company that performs dismally compared to their competitors will still rise or fall (in share price) based on wide-ranging market forces, not whether or not the company was well managed. Any effort the CEO makes will only marginally effect their bonus - so they are better looking defensible than trying to improve profits.

Re:Then let it be fair...

[ckaminski]

You are absolutely right, in any sane world, it should be "cheaper" and "better". It never is though. It's that addage, faster, cheaper, better, pick any two? In my experience, it's not cheaper, and it's not better, and it all comes down to management using H1Bs or outsourcing as ways of lining their pockets at the expense of the company.

Then again, some of the smartest people I have *EVER* worked with have been H1B holders.

Re:Then let it be fair...

[baboo_jackal]

I think you got that backwards. A chief executive does not pick the board - the board picks, and evaluates the performance of the CEO. In turn, the board is elected by shareholders to represent their interests.

I'm sure some CEOs are worthless turds, but I'm sure there are others that *are* worth their exorbitant salaries. I mean, businesses fail all the time. In a competitive market, it's not like companies have a whole lot of cash to throw around for things that don't return the investment. The argument that CEO salaries are typically so huge that just one could pay for an n-dollar raise for all the other employees actually highlights my point - Unless *every* single company is engaging in some sort of "CEO Salary collusion," the ones who pay big money for turd-CEOs instead of more, or better paid workers, or else a CEO that performs, will fail.

Personal incredulity that, "one person can't possibly make such a big difference to justify those salaries," isn't really a valid argument. I mean, really? *You* could run GE, or Microsoft, or Lockheed-Martin, or whatever just as well as anyone? That's what everyone who's never led, or been close to the top-level leadership of an organization thinks...

Re:Then let it be fair...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless *every* single company is engaging in some sort of "CEO Salary collusion,"...

That's actually interesting, because whenever you quiz a board of directors about high CEO pay, they always say the same thing: it's to be competitive with what other companies are also doing.

Re:Then let it be fair...

[BZ]

> Unless *every* single company is engaging in some sort of "CEO Salary collusion"

That's actually pretty much what's going on. CEO salaries are determined by CEO salary consultants, who base them on average CEO salaries plus a bit (to attract an above average CEO). The result is a relentless upward spiral of CEO salaries.

Re H1B should go first

[anand78]

I agree and disagree with this. You have to be in an H1B shoes to appreciate this. I have seen folks laid off as H1B with unsold houses and cars. They had to just get a ticket, and leave the country. Barring the Native Indians, I think it is a hypocrisy on most Americans. Would you be here commenting, if the same was done to your forefathers. Being an Asian with H1B is taking jobs, but being from Europe, it is heritage.

Re:Re H1B should go first

[Calsar]

My forefathers came here to live and become citizens, not work a few years and leave. I know that's not the case for all H1Bs many do stay and become US citizens, but most do not.

I've worked with many H1Bs over the years. I'm a contractor in the DC area and they are very popular with government contractors. The government won't convert H1Bs to full time employees so the contractors get a continuous stream of revenue. Many H1Bs are treated like indentured servants. You cram 10 people into a two bedroom apartment and pay them a third to half of what they US counterparts are making. I agree with one of the original posters. If it really is about a lack of qualified people they should require salary parity for H1B workers.

Re:Re H1B should go first

[operagost]

Being an Asian with H1B is taking jobs, but being from Europe, it is heritage.

That's a red herring. A European with an H1B is still an H1B. The issue is immigration status, not ethnicity. Most H1Bs tend to be from India, Pakistan, or the far East, so naturally most H1B "victims" tend to be from Asia.

Re:Re H1B should go first

[Anonymous Coward]

Workers on TEMPORARY 3 year guest worker visas should not be buying houses. How do they even get a loan?

Re:Re H1B should go first

[Tablizer]

Asian with H1B is taking jobs, but being from Europe, it is heritage.

I for one complain about H1B's from ANY country that we are running a trade-deficit with. The huge trade deficits are partly to blame for the financial meltdown. Such countries refuse to stoke local consumer consumption, creating lopsided trade conditions. And, many H1B's are from eastern Europe, I would note.

I have seen folks laid off as H1B with unsold houses and cars.

You shouldn't buy a house or an expensive car if you're on the H1B program because they are officially "temporary" visas. That's merely poor decision making on the H1B's part. And Americans losing jobs to H1B's have no "home country" to go back to. It's the street for us.
     

Offer citizenship to H1B holders

[xzvf]

Personally, I think the US should take advantage of being able to import skilled workforce. Most H1B holders are the types of people we want living and innovating in our country. In the long run as citizens, they would likely create more jobs than they "steal". I'm all for granting the opportunity to become a citizen to anyone that graduates from an accredited US university graduate program (maybe limited to science and math, but ok with all). Leverage our leadership in university education to create a larger pool of domestic talent.

WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[Shivetya]

So Michael Dell OWES it to us. His hard work, his identifying a need and filling it, somehow makes him indebted to society as a whole because that is what is morally right? So guilt the producers of wealth by claiming that the non producers are the only reason why they were able to produce in the first place.

Have your read Atlas Shrugged? Perhaps you should. The most selfish people in this world are those who demand others to give of themselves.

I am a trader. I earn what I get in trade for what I produce. I ask for nothing more or nothing less than what I earn. That is justice. I don't force anyone to trade with me; I only trade for mutual benefit. Force is the great evil that has no place in a rational world. One may never force another human to act against his/her judgment. If you deny a man's right to Reason, you must also deny your right to your own judgment. Yet you have allowed your world to be run by means of force, by men who claim that fear and joy are equal incentives, but that fear and force are more practical.

And then there's your 'brother-love' morality. Why is it moral to serve others, but not yourself? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but not by you? Why is it immoral to produce something of value and keep it for yourself, when it is moral for others who haven't earned it to accept it? If it's virtuous to give, isn't it then selfish to take?

Your acceptance of the code of selflessness has made you fear the man who has a dollar less than you because it makes you feel that that dollar is rightfully his. You hate the man with a dollar more than you because the dollar he's keeping is rightfully yours. Your code has made it impossible to know when to give and when to grab.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[crmarvin42]

I don't believe that Michael Dell owes me anything, I don't work for him.

But for those states that have given his company tax breakes to locate his offices and factories in there cities and towns? Yeah, I think he owes them a little. They cut him breaks that helped him become successful, and he really ought to pay a little of that back if he can.

Those states went without certain tax revenue, and they'll be losing even more if he starts dumping American employees in that state in favor of imported labor at a lower price.

Ultimately I really don't see a problem with Dell dumping local help and not the help he's already imported, but I do have a problem with them dumping local help and then importing NEW help to replace them. That's the same thing as firing union employees and then hiring scabs, except that there is no union making exorbitant demands. If there are so many qualified people out of work, someone will be willing to do that job at the price Dell is willing to pay so they can cover their mortgage and car payments.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[KeithJM]

I did actually read that book. While I don't hate the philosophy, I'm shocked at the arrogance of Ayn Rand to include 50 page long rants (presented as speeches or arguments by characters). If you want to write a philosophy book, that's fine. But don't pretend your rants are a novel.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[EvolutionsPeak]

Mod parent up. People would do well if they read a book about the ideas that made this country great and those that are tearing it down. If one can't at least see that a man has the right to his own life and what he has earned through legitimate business, contracts to the mutual benefit of both parties, then perhaps one lacks the capability to reason.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[cc_pirate]

On the other hand, if one espouses and believes a philosophy that says that "Whatever I can do to make myself more money at the expense of the group is both moral and reasonable", well, you wind up with the current GOP ideology of selfishness and greed and you can see where that has gotten us.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[Shambly]

It's only greed if you look at it from the perspective of the us worker. For the guy with the HB-1 visa its a great use of his skill and you better believe that he is getting paid more then he was back home otherwise he wouldn't of bothered to apply for one of the very few slots available. Why is his future worth any less then yours?

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, if one espouses and believes a philosophy that says that "Whatever I can do to make myself more money at the expense of the group is both moral and reasonable", well, you wind up with the current GOP ideology of selfishness and greed and you can see where that has gotten us.

Could you be any more petty and childish? Surely you can't believe that the Republican ideology is 'DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO MAKE MONEY AT THE EXPENSE OF THE GROUP!'. No one has ever stated that, and it's as ridiculous and stereotypical as believing that every Democrat is a tree hugging homosexual. I'm sure some of you don't hug trees.

Republicans, and even libertarians believe that nobody should be able to make money by fraud. Your hypothetical 'Expense of the Group' example is retarded, and what brought this house of cards crashing down was low interest rates by the government, and forced home loans to people who didn't deserve it. While the propaganda to blame free markets has been plentiful, repeating a lie doesn't make it true.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[Bender0x7D1]

So medical doctors would be the richest people in the world. I can choose to go without a car. I can choose not to use roads. I can choose to raise my own food and make my own clothes. However, when I get very sick, I can either find a doctor and pay them whatever they want, or die. Sure, if I want to hold strongly to my beliefs, I can tell the doctor to go screw themselves. However, death is kind of a big deal. You don't get to change your mind.

Plus, this was the attitude that allowed Crassus to become one of the richest people in history. His fire brigade would show up at your house fire and refuse to work unless you sold him everything for pennies on the dollar. Again, I could hold to my beliefs and watch it burn, or I could sell it and salvage something from the fire.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[DeepZenPill]

You miss the whole point of those tax breaks. The states didn't sacrifice anything to attract his business there. If they hadn't offered tax breaks, they wouldn't receive ANY tax revenue from Dell because the company wouldn't have set up shop there. It was a calculated decision by the state that resulted in a large net gain in tax revenue, and a net gain in employment, regardless of the makeup of that employment, and it was an agreement entered into willingly by both parties. Dell has no obligation to the state beyond that.

I sincerely hope that people with such attitudes never buy imported products. It's always easy to criticize others' decisions to use their own resources in the most efficient manner, but when the tables are turned they claw for rationalizations to make themselves exceptions to their rule.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[jollyreaper]

So Michael Dell OWES it to us. His hard work, his identifying a need and filling it, somehow makes him indebted to society as a whole because that is what is morally right? So guilt the producers of wealth by claiming that the non producers are the only reason why they were able to produce in the first place.

Wow, you're quoting Ayn Rand without a sly and ironic wink? You've fallen for it? Just remember, Alan Greenspan was a disciple and bedmate of hers.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[rsclient]

John Galt is the protagonist of an irritating book espousing a failed theology.

I'm sorry -- was that a rhetorical question? How about this, then:
Microsoft could be created in part because of American ideology -- an ideology that pays massive dividends to the rich. Are you Wal-Mart? Isn't it nice that there are good, cheap roads going everywhere. Along these roads are thousands of towns, each of which *could* stop you and make you pay a "customs fee". (they used to do this along the Rhine). But instead the Federal government makes the towns not stop you.

Are you ExxonMobile? We have an army ready to "keep the peace" where you trade, and a Navy to keep the seas free of pirates.

Are a stock trader? We have a host of accountants and lawyers keeping the market fairly honest -- so that everyone in the country trusts your wares.

We are America; our government keeps ua rich.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[EvolutionsPeak]

You seem to think that medical doctors would be able to set arbitrarily high prices and people would have no choice but to pay them. That would not happen because people have a choice about which doctor to go to.

If doctors were making insane amounts of money then more people would become doctors, which means more competition and lower prices. So, medical doctors would not necessarily be the richest people in the world by any stretch of the imagination.

However, in a pure market system there would be people that could not get care (as there are now) because they are unable to pay the market price. Free markets maximize overall wealth (barring externalities), not the number of products sold or people served.

If this is unacceptable, which it may very well be in this case, then that is your argument for why health care should not be subject to the free market, NOT because doctors might get rich.

You'd better be damn careful that what you replace it with actually is better. Doctors must be paid enough to get the best people. I sure as hell don't want to be under the knife of some second rate surgeon kept on by some government bureaucracy.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[jollyreaper]

On the other hand, if one espouses and believes a philosophy that says that "Whatever I can do to make myself more money at the expense of the group is both moral and reasonable", well, you wind up with the current GOP ideology of selfishness and greed and you can see where that has gotten us.

Thank you, you hit it right on the head. The part of Ayn's ideas that makes sense at first blush is "Hey, don't take from me what I created, let me choose to do what I want with it." That goes right back to the American Revolution with "Taxation without representation is tyranny." Yes, taxes are the price we pay for a civil society but a civil society would also let us say what should be done with it.

The part that Ayn completely misses is capturing the true costs and debts represented by a society. Her heroes are idealized men who never quite existed in the real world, only in the adventure pulps. Her heroes are like Doc Sampson, Johnny Quest's dad, Rusty Venture's dad, etc. You could sit them down on a desert island with nothing but coconuts and surly natives and five years later he'd have a modern society and space travel. This just doesn't happen in the real world.

In the real world, the Edison's and Gates' and other robber-barons are building their empires upon the groundwork laid by society. Public money paid for the national defense so they aren't growing up as slave labor for a foreign power. Public education provided for them, likely not for their own schooling but the schooling of their employees. Imagine if they were to set up shop in Haiti and had to start educating their workforce in the ABC's before they could ever get to producing things of value!

A healthy economy is like an ecosystem. The plants grow, get eaten by something that gets eaten by something eventually eaten by the apex predator. The apex predator dies, decays, and the biomass enters the ecology once more.

The problem with the Randites is they simply don't want to play fair. They'll gussy up their arguments with all sorts of sophistry but the fact of the matter is they're greedy and don't want to pay their fair share.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[jollyreaper]

Republicans, and even libertarians believe that nobody should be able to make money by fraud.

Look at the legacy of the Bush administration. The reality does not reflect your arguments. Roll back regulation, roll back enforcement, protect the guilty, victory at any cost. If the president does it, it is legal. To the victor goes the spoils. Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. Who is John Galt? I am, motherfucker.

Re:WHO IS JOHN GALT?

[Shakrai]

And how successful would the US be without these businesses?

The US was successful before it was an economic superpower. We had relative peace (our soil hasn't been invaded since the War of 1812), freedom and liberty.

It's a symbiotic relationship.

It should be. Lately it feels more like a parasitic one. What's symbiotic about locating your headquarters offshore so you don't have to pay income taxes? You get all of the aforementioned benefits of the United States without having to pay for them. Seems like the definition of parasitism to me.

Re:Let Microsoft import as many people as they lik

[Anonymous Coward]

That is so true. The university i am working in (somewhere in new england) has a bunch of foreign grad students. I would say that about 80% of them are foreigners. I am myself a postdoc and a foreigner, all but 2 postdocs are foreigners. Americans should see the things straight: without foreigners research in the US would take a big hit. I do not understand those xenophobic republicans bitching about us. There is nobody to replace us. The foreign postdocs got hired because there was no american up to our job. Not surprising as few get a PhD anyway. Of course getting a green card is awfully hard and guess what, people do not really like being treated like disposable toilet paper.

Know what disgusts me ?

[Arthur B.]

Heh, H-1B workers don't vote. Now of course, if the senator had asked them to fire gay people first...

The gut reaction of many slashdotters to migrant workers is simply disgusting. It combines basic misguided tribalism ("Yeah we're in the same group of 300M people") with a rent seeking behavior ("I want a higher wage at the expense of the consumers")

I won't even get started on the total immorality of the concept that the govt grants you or not a "right" to work for a willing employer, grants you or not a "right" to rent a house from a willing landlord, etc.

Re:Know what disgusts me ?

[mrops]

What disgusts me is the double standards. America was and is the land of the immigrants and dreams. The country was born out of immigration. America is proud of the American Dream, IMHO H1-B visa holders carry the torch of that dream more than born citizen. They come to this country in that hope. Unfortunately the dream is being hijacked by a few rick business men on the top for cheap labor that is willing to throw in 120 hr weeks.

If you really want to fix this, then transform the H1-B program and give the H1-B visa holders right equivivalent to that of greencard holders. The problem will mitigate itself. All of a sudden the employers will realize that immigrants are not slaves and if u lower wages and expect 120 hr weeks, they will find a better opportunity. Also remove the concept of "sponsor" for H1-B. Sure a employer can sponsor, however an immigrant steps into US, he is free to work anywhere.

This will level the playing field for Americans, as employer will really find a local before he attempts H1-B.

Re:Know what disgusts me ?

[Arthur B.]

Rights are not privileges, they're rights. You don't need to have contributed anything to have the right to work, it's not a reward, it's a natural right.

You're the kind of asshole that prevent lovely associations between employers and employees. Mind your own fucking business will you?

Re:Know what disgusts me ?

[deraj123]

I couldn't agree more. The H1-B program seems not that much different from indentured servitude. We got you over here - either you work for us, at the wages we dictate, or you leave.

The problem is that the people here don't want the dream. They want prosperity, and they feel entitled to prosperity. Immigrants present competition, which threatens that entitlement. The American dream, America itself, was never about entitlement. It was never about deserving something. It was about being free to use what you had to achieve what you could without being oppressed. We've lost that.

Re:Know what disgusts me ?

[renimar]

Both H1B employees and you earn the exact same paycheck; but your employer does not have to pay Social Security nor FICA taxes on the H1B employee. So, the cost to the employer is several tens of thousands dollars LESS than hiring an American.

WRONG. As an H-1B holder, and a former TN-visa holder, I pay all the same taxes an American citizen or Green Card holder does. My employer pays the same 6.2% (or whatever it is) Social Security Tax that he pays for my American citizen co-worker. How do I know this? I work for a small company, so my boss bitches about it whenever he has to deal with payroll, like it's my fault he has to pay that 6.2% on top of my salary to the Federal Government. I see all the deductions the government takes on my W-2s when I file taxes. Neither my employer nor I see get any special breaks for having an H-1B employee. In fact, in order to hire me, he has to pay thousands into a special fund which, ostensibly, goes towards programs to help train Americans in high tech jobs; it probably went to pay for Senator "I am not a crook" Stevens' Bridge to Nowhere instead. Again, not my fault.

Salary? I'm getting the same as my American citizen co-worker. So: same salary, same taxes, but my employer has to pay into a special fund for the "privilege" of hiring an H-1B and he had to pay a lawyer to properly process the H-1B. I've cost him more than an American Citizen. On the flip side, I've also (presumably) provided enough of a skillset to make such a cost worthwhile.

You know what we do get? The shaft, when we lose our jobs. Yeah, all that unemployment insurance money they take out of my paycheque? I don't get to collect it when I lose my job, unlike an American citizen, or a Green Card holder. I get a nice pink slip and a 'GTFO the country before we deport your ass'.

It sounds to me that if there's H-1B shenanigans going on, the fault lies with the employers committing it, the lawyers who processed their paperwork, the employees who went along with it, and the bureaucracy for simply pushing paper along. Go after them for immigration fraud. There are some of us doing it by the book and trying to play by the rules.

You do realize what you are quoting, right?

[khasim]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AtlasShruggedMeanwhile, contrast the "reality" described in that book with the current news.

Work in the engineering field...

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a nuclear power plant. We need engineering backgrounds like crazy. They literally just aren't there. We haven't turned to H1B Visas, we turn to contracting. It's quite possible the contractors are H1B, but we don't generally see them, just their engineering designs and such. My company goes around looking for engineering students all over the country that want to work. There just aren't enough graduates.

We are in a constant state of hiring, especially with the workforce entering retiring age in very large quantities(30% or more in less than 4 years). There just aren't enough graduates to go around. This definitely helps my income, because the company will gladly pay to keep my skill set right where it is.

Being a hard working 20-something, I find 1 problem with my own generation. We're lazy as heck. I'm not seeing this laziness with the older generation. Sure, ever generation has had a problem they have to work through. But can you really work through laziness? Lazy is also a very destructive problem. If my generation is going to wake up at 30+ and realize their mistake, it's getting a bit late to go back and fix it after having a dead end job at McDonald's for 10 years, assuming they weren't so lazy they stayed employed for 10 years after high school.

20-somethings on a large scale want something for nothing. I'm not surprised at all about the H1B Visas and companies trying to justify them. Go visit an engineering class and look at how many are actually US citizens. The numbers are only getting smaller. In my opinion my generation needs this recession(I'm expecting it to be a very long painful depression) so we can see that we have to work for what we have. Nothing is given away for free. It's just too bad that my parents are approaching retirement age, and their retirements are dwindling fast from this economic downturn.
A large part of my reasoning for seeing this as a long and painful depression is simply the bumbling idiots with no skill set wanting big bucks to watch TV. They have little/no motivation to work for anything, and feel that everything can(and should) be given to them with little effort on their part. 4+ years of college is "more committment" than my generation can handle.

My generations motto:

If it can't be earned in short order, it clearly isn't worth having.

'Significant Number'

[SupremoMan]

That's corporate speak for "none of your business" I believe.

!difficult, !hypocritical

[Hognoxious]

TFA said:

If Microsoft doesn't state that they will lay off the H-1Bs first -- and they won't state this -- then it would be awfully tough for Bill Gates to come back to the Hill and urge an H-1B increase, wouldn't it?'

Actually, no. If the H1-Bs are specialists in something Microsoft have desperate need for [1], and the people being laid off are in some area Microsoft don't need any more [2] then it's not difficult at all.

Perhaps someone subscribes to the fallacy of fungibility?

[1] HCI jockeys, security specialists... I could go on
[2] Sucks to be on the Zune team. From what I've heard the games division might be taking an early bath too.

You mean Ballmer

[JustNiz]

>>> then it would be awfully tough for Bill Gates to come back to the Hill and urge an H-1B increase, wouldn't it?'

Yes, especially as he doesn't work for Microsoft any more.

I was an H-1B worker at Microsoft

[thirty-seven]

I worked at Microsoft in Redmond with H1B work status for four years. In 2007, I left MS because I found a 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.

Re:B*cough*s*it

[jeff4747]

The Average American can go to India to get an education. They can even go to Russia, and they can live in India, or any other country. Apply for the permits and you can be living there.

No, actually they can't. Take a look into the rules those countries have in place to protect their workers from immigrants.

Re:B*cough*s*it

[hemp]

There are no work visas to apply for if you want to move to India.

None, zero, zip.

Re:She is the one who defines "mutual benefit".

[EvolutionsPeak]

How does the act of defining something negate its truth? We are just trying to get an agreement on a definition.

Mutual benefit occurs when both parties enter the contract willingly and exchange goods, money, or services at an agreed upon rate. Each party receives something of more value than what they lost. If they didn't then they obviously shouldn't have entered into the contract.

Selling alcohol is ethical if it is sold to a person who wants to buy the alcohol.

One may say, "but wait, the person who bought the alcohol might become a drunkard". By that logic, it would be unethical to sell food because it might make one fat, or cars because one might drive recklessly. The unethical behavior of the alcoholic or reckless driver is solely their responsibility, not the responsibility of the seller.

Re:Let Microsoft import as many people as they lik

[stewbacca]

There are plenty of American kids who go into science and engineering. But when you compare the population of the US (300 million) to that of India ( just for example--1.2 billion), it's easy to see why there are so many "qualified" Indians compared to Americans.

The problem isn't necessarily a lack of technically qualified Americans--just a lack of technically qualified Americans who will sacrifice things such as quality of life (living anywhere just for a job) or for lower pay. The real problem is Microsoft moving jobs overseas to save a buck--not because they can't get enough qualified Americans to live and work in Redmond.

NO Evidence of Shortage

[Tablizer]

There is a shortage, of American tech workers.

Studies by Rand and universities have shown that this is FALSE. There is NO demonstrate-able general shortage.

Now there are *spot* shortages, but we need spot shortages to allow us to transition from the surplus spots. Otherwise, citizens would be fired from the surplus specialties but not get the shortage spots because they are filled by H1B's. Think about it.

Just poke around your college especially in the masters levels, for Computer Science and Engineering. Look at those classes listen to the accents of the people talking. Even in MBA classes Americans are just not trying to get smarter and be competitive anymore.

Because Americans know that masters tend to *limit* your choices rather than expand them. Asian cultures value higher degrees out of historical habit. It's a phallic symbol there. American corporations instead value mostly hands-on and tool-specific knowledge (for good or bad), and a masters does not represent that.

I've seen a citizen fired and H1B's kept with my own eyes. The poor lady laid off was nearly destitute. I felt for her. This was not the stated reason H1B's were created.

It's true the citizen lady had problematic people skills, but the stated purpose of the H1B program was not to replace citizens with people skill difficulties. It was not created to replace "C" citizens with "A" foreigners. Perhaps some of you darwinistic free-marketers want it that way, but that's not the way the bill was sold to and by Congress. Voters would reject it (as is) if they knew what was really going on.

Hopefully this recession will expose some of the dark-sides of the H1B program. It's been festering for too long.
     

Re:Let Microsoft import as many people as they lik

[Have Brain Will Rent]

like disposable toilet paper

Ummm, there's another kind of toilet paper?

Re:oh, really?

[thirty-seven]

Really? Folks openly talked about how much they were being paid? Hmmm. Interesting.

No, my co-workers didn't tell me their salary or bonus. But my manager showed me tables showing the expected salary ranges for each "job level", as preparation for my yearly performance review. Those ranges weren't really that wide, I obviously knew where my salary fit in the range, and I had a good idea of which "job levels" my co-workers were in. Besides, when some of my American co-workers who became my friends told me how much they spent on their new house, car, etc, I had a good idea that I wasn't being significantly underpaid relative to them.

The candidate was asked, "How many diapers are sold in the US?" (Saying I'll Google it is the 'wrong' answer, BTW.)

The successful candidate said something like, "Well, there are 300 million people in the US and 1% are having kids. Therefore, there are 3 million babies. Now, babies need to be changed 3 times a day. So that's 9 million diapers a day. Which is 63 million diapers per week."

She got the job. BTW, all of those numbers were pulled out of her ass, but she got the job because of her "logical" thinking.

Yes, that is a good example of one type of question that is given at MS interviews. The point isn't to say "this person is great at estimating diaper usage - hire them!" Rather, the point is to weed out those who freeze up or give up when asked a question about something that is large and outside their experience or knowledge, whether it is the total number of diapers sold in the US, or the number of gas stations or manhole covers or drops of water in a rainstorm. Thinking logically and trying to make justifiable assumptions in a situation where you have incomplete knowledge is not an insignificant skill.

If your friend was hired for a technical role, she would have also been asked several more technically relevant questions, but that also required her to think on her feet and make reasonable assumptions, during her 5 hour-long interviews. "Write a procedure in a programming language of your choice (on paper) to do X, just trying to write it quickly so that it works". "Now how could you make it more efficient?" "Now modify it to do Y." "Now tell me how you would test it." "What would be reasonable behaviour if the you gave unexpected input like Z to your procedure? Why?"

I can create hiring standards that no one can satisfy. Are those standards pertinent to the job? Nope. But it sure makes my standards look exclusive.

If you consider how un-innovative MS is, I think their standards are completely bogus.

Maybe you're right, that Microsoft's hiring standards and interviewing techniques are not pertinent or are just an attempt to look exclusive. That's an interesting discussion, but not relevant to my point, which is that MS does have high hiring standards that are not easily satisfied, pertinent or not. Their standards certainly aren't just a scam to say that not enough American workers are qualified so they can bring in foreign workers - foreign applicants for technical positions go through the same interview process.

Another thing, how may people coached you about the interviewing process?

I wasn't coached, and certainly didn't have a network of interview cheats. A friend who got hired a few months before me told me basically the same information that I've just told you. He gave me an example of a question (estimate how many gas stations in the US, I think) and told me to make sure I remembered my sorting algorithms. So I studied my algorithms text book on the trip to Redmond for the interview, and I never was asked the gas stations question.

Galt? You have your character sketch wrong

[MickLinux]

First, let me note that I have read the book, and I take exception to some of the things in the book. I'll throw my exceptions at the end, for those who don't want to bother with them.

You seem to be comparing Michael Dell to John Galt, or the two or three other main characters (president of the railroad, president of the copper company... I don't remember.)

You forget that there were more character sketches in the book than those three.

There were those who ran companies, but were all the time on the dole of one kind or another, or who did not pay their workers justly, or who did not pay attention to how they were doing a job. Those people were taken for fraud by the president of the copper company (who was simply doing his best to destroy their wealth), and were in turn defrauding their governments.

Now, I would contend that in the current environment of the last 50 years in the US, that almost all successful corporations (and definitely their CEOs) fall into the latter category, not the first. Michael Dell claims that he earned what he has. I would disagree. If you start looking at his employees, and start seeing the value that they put into the company, and the value that they got out, I think you will quickly discover that Dell did not earn what he has. He simply justifies having what he has.

There is a big difference, because Value Recieved = Value Produced + Value Taken from Others. Most interactions involve trading, and most trading outrageously benefits the more powerful party.

Now, you can throw into the equation the amount of money "earned" from government contracts -- all of that money is stolen money, according to Atlas Shrugged. Now, some would claim that "tax zeroing" would not be stolen money (taking contracts that equal the loss on taxes paid out). However, that ignores the value recieved from the government in terms of protection recieved. Most of the costs of government go to protection in one form or another, and the value of that goes not to producers (income earners), but to owners. So almost all taxes, if paid in contract fee-for-service, would actually be paid by owners. Michael Dell is an owner, much more than a producer.

And so on.

- - - - - -Review of Ayn Rand Below - - - - - -

Now, I read Atlas Shrugged, because someone called me a John Galt. To some extent, they were right. I found it impossible, for a time, to work with society, so I internalized my efforts. After a time, I again found it possible, and returned my efforts to working within society.

Now... my opinion on Ayn Rand, is that she was a Communist Agent Provacateur. That is, she was attempting to get the nobility of America to crush the poor, enough that it would stimulate a Red Oktober type event.

I say this, because her philosophy ignored enough factors, that it was actually aimed in that direction. If you compare her work to that of Friederich Hayak, she willfully ignores everything in terms of JUSTICE (not social justice) to the weak, that she actually is advocating a situation that Hayak deplores.

Then, if you look at her personal relationships, you see that she is not for justice in that sense, either. Her morals, if anything, seem to match those of communists and spies. Her writing matches.

Which is, in turn, another problem that I have with Atlas Shrugged. She is a dirty writer, and I don't feel cleaner after I have read her work. Nor do I feel intellectually stimulated. Her philosophy, as I said before, is full of holes. I prefer Hayak, personally.

So as far as reading Atlas Shrugged, I don't advise it for others.

Training and Education are not the answer

[tlambert]

"Hay, maybe if there weren't HB-1 visa holders filling the slots, there would be more American how got trained and got training for those positions."

Training and Education are not the answer to the lack of skilled workers.

Education is only a part of an answer if the person in question is educable. And then they have to have non-economic motivation for getting that education; with one exception, I've never had a good experience with a person who entered into a field of endeavor solely due to an economic motivation.

I've worked with brilliant engineers and scientists from all over the world; in fact, I pick my employers on the basis of whether or not I will end up working with smart people. Smart people have an intrinsically higher effective communication bandwidth because it takes less data exchanged to communicate with them.

No amount of training and education is going to turn 100 randomly selected -- to pick on a profession that's been hit with outsourcing, former call-center phone jockeys -- into world-class scientists and engineers. You might actually get several from that 100, after you invested a decade or more of effort in the process, but the ROI is just not there to make it worth it, either as a business or as a nation. The latency between when you need to hire them and when they are eventually qualified to fill the position is just too high, even if you were successful.

I have to agree with the people who've as much as suggested that the way to get qualified US citizens for jobs like these is to naturalize qualified foreign workers, turning them into US citizens.

-- Terry