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US Justice Dept. Investigates IT Hiring Practices
Zecheus writes "The Wall Street Journal (no paywall on this story) reports that the Justice Department is 'stepping up' an investigation of hiring practices of US technology firms, such as Google, Intel, IBM, and Apple. From the article: 'The inquiry is focused on whether companies, particularly in the technology sector, have agreed not to recruit each other's employees in ways that violate antitrust law. Specifically, the probe is looking into whether the companies' hiring practices are costing skilled computer engineers and other workers opportunities to change jobs for higher pay or better benefits.'"
A "gentlemen's agreement" between companies not to pilfer employees isn't a bad thing ... unless you're not one of those companies.
Or unless you're employed by one of those companies. Artificially limiting an Engineer's ability to get another job which could offer better compensation or more interesting technical challenges is wrong.
It isn't bad for the company's, but it sure sucks for the employees. That is the point of the investigation. Several years ago when I was working for a major telecom billing system vendor in Saint Louis I was trying to find work elsewhere. Every head hunter in the city told me the same thing: they wouldn't talk to me while I still worked for that vendor. It seems that vendor was a major client of all of the head hunters as they were doing a lot of hiring at the time, and told the head hunters they would not deal with them again if they ever found out that they had helped one of their employees (like me) find a job somewhere else. So it made it that much more difficult to find other work. I did eventually, but this is very much like the situation in the article. In fact I think this is likely way more prevalent and is what the government should be looking at. But it is also very difficult to combat, so they will likely only go after the low hanging fruit; as in cases like Google, MS, IBM, etc.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I work for a really big (20+ Billion dollars in revenues) company's IT department.
Of late, they have become enamored with one of the big Indian outsourcing companies. I'm sure their folks are wonderful - indeed, of the ones I've worked with, it's about the same breakdown of wonderful/OK/awful as everyone else.
Based on job listings recently found on one of the internet job sites, they appear to have asked the outsourcer to find someone to work in my area as a technical manager of sorts. The job listing is full of internal lingo and acronyms - nobody from outside the company would know what it's talking about; indeed, some of the acronyms are commonly thought of as something else. (For example, suppose IBM stood for, internally, the "Internet Bandwidth Management" system but it says in the job listing "must be familiar with IBM computer technologies.")
I'm usually one to attribute stuff to stupidity before malice or deviousness.
But is the crap job listing a devious attempt to prove that nobody with US work rights already is suitable, thereby making it OK to bring in someone on a visa - and totally ignoring the fact that the visa guy won't be suitable either?
Or is it just stupidity? After all, HR folks mess up technical job listings all the time.
I don't know, but I do know that the H1B bull shit needs to be cleaned up. Given the employment turmoil of the last year, why would you possibly, honestly, need to bring someone in from overseas?
Most of the people I know at Google don't work there for the money, and unless it was a job in something like MSR there's no way in hell you could turn their heads.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
which is a ploy to avoid hiring American workers in favor of H1B & green card temp workers? It's only "old news" if you have already been replaced by an H-1B.
I read one ad for Qt4 programmers which required 5 years experience, but tool had only been released in the prior year!
The most infamous quote by immigration lawyer Larry Lebowitz during the Cohen & Grigsby seminar on employment visas, May 15th, 2007 in Pittsburgh. Lebowitz coached immigration attorneys and employers how to avoid hiring US workers in order to hire foreign workers on green cards:
"Our goal is clearly NOT TO FIND a qualified and interested US worker."
http://www.programmersguild.org/rir/
Or, HERE
How U.S. Employers Can Avoid The H1B Cap
Under the present scenario, U.S. employers can only file H1B petitions for new bachelor-level or master-level H1B workers on one day each year, or on April 1 of each year.
However, there are some other options available to U.S. employers.
Alternatives To The H1B Visa
o Hire U.S. workers.
o Hire foreign nationals who already have an H1B visa under the H1B "portability" rules.
o Hire recently graduated students on the USCIS' extended "optional practical training" (OPT) program for certain foreign graduates of U.S. universities.
o Hire H1B1 workers from Chile or Singapore.
o Hire E-3 workers from Australia.
o Hire TN workers from Canada or Mexico.
o Hire E-2 foreign nationals who own and operate their own companies within the United States.
o For multinational companies, transfer employees from overseas to the United States under the L-1 visa category.
o Utilize the U.S. State Department's J-1 visa program to hire foreign "trainees" and "interns".
o Utilize the H2B "temporary worker" nonimmigrant visa category.
A TN visa process is an "objective" process in which the USCIS officer determines whether an applicant's credentials meet those listed in NAFTA.
There is no requirement that a sponsoring employer pay at least the prevailing wage (or actual wage, if higher) for the position being sponsored for the geographic location where the foreign national will work.
A year ago it was reported that H-1B workers OUTNUMBERED unemployed techies!
H1B and other quotas are set in the Free Trade Agreements with the various countries. Despite the fact that these job ad s
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Agree 100% there. Nobody should be able to tell you that you can't use your skill set to make a living. That's one of the perks of living in a right to work state.
That said, my wife owns a small therapy business that we took out loans for every penny we're worth to finance, advertise, brand, and build from the ground up. For 2 of 3 years she managed to take minimum wage while making sure that everybody else was paid competitively and with incentives.
After hiring a director for a second office and continually re-investing in the company, 2 years later the director left, took 2 of the 3 therapists and 60% of the patients in that office, open an office 2 blocks away. She basically took our investment, used us to build up a caseload and a revenue stream, and then decided to call it "her" business. That kind've impact, when you also take into effect long term lease agreements on office space that we had to commit to, nearly bankrupted us, forced us to shut down the business and cost 10 other people their jobs. And if you're wondering, the therapist's contracts were mysteriously destroyed before all of this took place.
Hiring in that business is seasonal and through a random stroke of luck we were able to rearrange personnel and my wife has taken on a caseload that she doesn't have time to take on just so that she can get to the summer when therapists usually become available, without having to fire anybody.
People are greedy and in a service based business where the employees are providing a service to your clients/patients every day employees can get a seriously inflated sense of self-worth without a hint of what has been done just to make their position even exist. Holding companies for hostage would be an understatement because the impact of 1 or 2 people leaving can hurt a lot more than just your employeer, it can hurt your previous fellow employees.
I'm a web developer and I had a serious ego in my last job. Then I tried to start my own thing (still working on it) and I now have a heaping load of appreciation for the opportunity that my previous employer gave me.