Microsoft Unveils "Elevate America"

nandemoari writes "In response to the current economic crisis, Microsoft Corp. has come out with a stimulus plan of their own. Their goal is to help a large group of individuals use their computers to land employment in ways other than to generate a compelling resume. The new online initiative, Elevate America, is set to equip close to 2 million people (over the next three years) with the skills needed to succeed in the field of technology."

Comments

Yes, it is what you think

[Onaga]

At first, I was going to post about not berating Microsoft blindly. Then I RTFA... They have basic courses for free online, but anything past that is an advertisement for MS certs.

its only MS Training

[Anonymous Coward]

i see no Cisco training, Apache, MySql, etc
but i do see training on Server2008 (woopee do)

this is just a fluff/feelgood PR initative, when really they want 2 millon mcse's/advocates/salespeople who only know about a single vendors product and are therefore ill equipped for the modern diverse IT industry.

there is more to IT than MS and a Mcse

Re:The special skill they want

[moosesocks]

If you're going to be a xenophobe, you might as well come out and say it, rather than blaming all of our economic woes on foreigners.

The number of H1B workers is a drop in the bucket in the context of the national economy.

The number of H1-B visas that can be issued in a given year is limited to 65,000 by law.

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the total size of the American workforce was approximately 153.7 million last month (with unemployment at a troubling 11.6 million).

An H1B worker is typically limited to a 6-year stay, unless the worker is applying for permanent residency. Assuming that all 65,000 workers stay each year, we have 390,000 H1B workers in the country at the present (I'd guess the actual number is somewhat less than that).

At the very worst, H1-Bs might represent 0.25% of the national workforce.

Microsoft employs 3,517 H1-B workers (the 3rd most of any American firm), out of 89,809 total employees, or just about 4%. This number might be a little high, although 4 percent doesn't strike me as being particularly alarming.

Microsoft's recent round of layoffs (the first in the company's history) let go about 5,000 workers. Although I suppose these could have largely been avoided by eliminating all of the H1-B workers, that still leaves 1,500 workers, and assumes that every single H1-B worker was worthless to the company (which is somewhat doubtful).

To summarize: Stop complaining about the H1-B workers. Although it's not a good idea to begin hiring foreign workers during a recession, the current crop of H1-B workers is simply too small to be having any substantial effect on the economy.