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2013 H-1B Visa Supply Nearly Exhausted
CowboyRobot writes with news on the FY2013 allocation of H-1B visas. From the article: "As of June 1, the government had issued 55,600 standard H-1B visas out of the annual allotment of 65,000, according to United States Immigration and Citizenship Services (USCIS). The feds also issued 18,700 H-1B visas reserved for graduates of advanced degree programs in the U.S., out of 20,000. " CowboyRobot continues, "Last year work visas did not run out until late November, but this year the pool of visas is almost entirely claimed and it's still only June. One interpretation of this is that the tech industry is hiring much more actively than it was a year ago. Some companies, such as Microsoft, have been lobbying to increase the number of available visas (currently limited to 65,000) while others argue that offering visas to foreign workers reduces job prospects for Americans."
A bit more from the article: "Industry lobby group Partnership for A New American Economy last month released a study that claims the U.S. will face a shortage of 224,000 tech workers by 2018 unless immigration rules are loosened."
Maybe the visa numbers are stored in an unsigned short and can't go above 65535 anyway....
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
H-1B is a scam by which white collar companies (not blue collar, because they aren't cool enough) can fire American workers and then replace them with foreign workers who are so happy to get to the States that they will work for $10,000 less per year. (There are laws against this kind of wage fuckery. They work the same as speed laws in Saudi Arabia: No one cares to obey or enforce them. The "shortage" of workers is a lie manufactured by Oracle, Microsoft, etc. in order to cut costs. Most of the comp sci classes I took were filled to the gills, and the program I got into in college was so impacted that I had to go in on another major and switch after the fact. It's like that in lots of places. Fuck all this H-1B nonsense, and fuck all the liars and misinformed idiots who think we are just gagging for foreign labor. We aren't gagging for foreign labor. Larry Ellison and Bill Gates are gagging for foreign labor because they can be paid less.
I know this will sound crazy, and I'm just spitballing here, but bear with me.
There is a large group of people in this country trying to find jobs. Some have been out of work for months, if not years, while others are looking to move on with their career. Tech companies are complaining they can't find anyone which is why they have to go the H-1B visa route
Here comes the crazy part. Someone needs to figure out a way to get the people who are out of work in touch with these companies who are "desperate" to fill these open positions. It's a win-win situation. People who are out of work get to go back to work, and companies get to fill these open positions.
I'm not capable of figuring out how to do this so someone else will have to do the heavy lifting, but I assure you, if there is some way this can be done, they will be given laurels by the tech industry.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
while others argue that offering visas to foreign workers reduces job prospects for Americans
H1B's are living and working in the same environment as Americans.H1B's typically have lower educational opportunities than Americans(Americans have access to educational facilities worldwide, but its very difficult for a foreigner to get admission in an educational insitute in America(for someone from one of the countries from where people aspire to live in America))
Then, why cant Americans compete with H1B's?
Just go to H1B v6 and you'll get a HUGE number of available slots.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Er... Is it really that hard to train up some good people in six years? Surely the last remaining world super-power could manage that?
Curious why this is in it.slashdot, instead of science. STEM careers and jobs include chemistry,biology etc. But slashdot trolls are always thinking their only tech is IT support.
When my former employer started hiring H1B, the government did a check of salaries compared to market values in the area. The other programmers had to get a raise. There are laws about salary, especially for the guy managing an H1B employee which turned out to be me. He also turned out to be one of the best programmers I've worked with.
I used to have strong feelings against the H1B program, but after seeing jobs unfilled at several employers now, sometimes it makes sense.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
"Industry lobby group Partnership for A New American Economy last month released a study that claims the U.S. will face a shortage of 224,000 tech workers by 2018 unless more native workers are taken on and trained!
fixed that for them, I wonder if they appreciate my contribution on their behalf.
This is a total scam. I'm all for people immigrating to the US and assimilating. But this worker program is a complete and total scam. Why don't we import lawyers by the tens of thousands and see how the politicians (most of whom were lawyers) react? We have plenty of US Citizens who are unemployed and are trainable in IT.
Thyr T'rk 'r jewrg!
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Yeah, because we don't have unemployed people or anything. Shit, just hire more people who have tech degrees in USA. They have to start somewhere in order to get work experience and transferable skills.
Study: When highly skilled immigrants move in, highly skilled natives move out
In the first study to measure the temporary impact of highly skilled immigrants on native populations, University of Notre Dame Economist Abigail Wozniak and Fairfield University's Thomas J. Murray — a former Notre Dame graduate student — found that when highly skilled immigrants move to a city or town, the U.S. natives in that area who are also highly skilled tend to move away. However, the study found that the same immigrant group's presence decreases the chances that low-skilled natives would leave.
"High skill" refers to those having some post-secondary education or above, while "low skill" are those with a high school diploma or less education. "Natives" refer to U.S. citizens by birth.
According to the study, which will appear in the July issue of the Journal of Urban Economics, smaller and more geographically isolated cities show the biggest impacts. There was little difference in results between growing versus declining cities.
"We conclude that natives with less education take longer to adjust to the arrival of immigrants in their local labor market than do natives with more education," Wozniak says. "These effects are more pronounced in smaller, more isolated communities, from where it would be more difficult and expensive for less skilled natives to relocate."...
Seastead this.
That many people want to go to America? Why would they ever want to come here?!
A limit of 65536 sounds more natural for me.
"Industry lobby group Partnership for A New American Economy last month released a study that claims the U.S. will face a shortage of 224,000 tech workers by 2018 unless immigration rules are loosened."
When there's a growth in demand and a shortage of workers, simply raise salaries. The rise in wages will certainly attract more workers and immediately lead to an increase in high school graduates majoring in comp. sci. or engineering degrees. Then when that sector of the workforce grows to meet the demand, salaries can be relaxed again. That's exactly what happened back in the '90s and early 00's with the dot-com boom (before the bust), and it can happen again.
Except, as we all know, these lunatic capitalists don't want to raise salaries. They want to hire experts in the field at near-living-wage salaries to please shareholders and line the pockets of corporate managers with more money. And they'll lobby hard to keep it that way, because hiring lobbyists is a whole lot cheaper than paying American workers.
Most of the comp sci classes I took were filled to the gills, and the program I got into in college was so impacted that I had to go in on another major and switch after the fact.
Right but the top ten percent of your classes is still only ten percent of that. The companies that are arguing for more H-1B visas are licking their lips at countries that have a top ten percent they can still tap. The government likes it because it equates to a brain drain with the added benefit that the really smart ones actually get to stay. "The cream of the crop" doesn't just apply to American masses and I'm sure these H-1B employees help them toward their diversity and EEO goals.
The willingness to work for less is just icing on the cake. The reason Microsoft is railing for more H-1B visas is simple: they win as far as they can tell. What critics might be correct about though, is that this is being used to learn how Americans do business and then move these workers back to the foreign country and lobby for outsourcing after mimicking their American counterparts. This is evident in stats like this:
In 2006, these [outsourcing] firms collectively were issued 19,512 of the 65,000 H-1B visas granted, with 4 outsourcing firms among the top 5 receivers of H-1B visas. These are Infosys, Satyam Computer Services, Tata Consultancy Services, and Wipro Technologies. Critics have argued that granting H-1B visas to these outsourcing firms is not the real intent of the H-1B Visa program.
So, even worse for American workers and unemployment is that it could eventually lead to even more off-shoring of work.
My work here is dung.
Never mind the human wreckage along the way.
Great! H1B's have been artificially pushing down my paycheck for decades. Every time wages go up a little in tech corporations go the the government and cry for more visas. Then some we get the speeches about how kids aren't going into tech. Duh!
First they whine about having to pay too many taxes, and they complain about being oppressed by too many regulations. They want to pay no taxes and have next to no government interference in their profiteering.
They want to pay zero taxes, yet they want the government to give them a strong military, police and justice system so their profits and interests are adequately protected. They want to pay nothing to the IRS, yet want a well designed and functioning infrastructure in which to operate.
And now they want to create a false sense of emergency with regard to their work force, to hire complacent, affordable foreign workers via H1-B, rather than hire domestic workers some of whom may be unemployed by no fault of their own.
Why is it we continue bending over backwards for these unpatriotic "people" again?
Expendable commodity.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
So H.R. are either the laziest fuckers in the entire world or they are openly deceptive.
Please... this is why all those yelling about "job killing regulations" are full of it. Our multinationals don't follow rules they don't want to follow because government has become their lapdog.
Work visas should be given out on a company-by-company basis.
As in, each company has a max allotment for how many foreign workers they can employ.
Of course, you will need to flesh this out so that there aren't silly loopholes all over the place so companies could easily create shadow or child companies simply for the sake of employing more foreign workers.
The number should be based off of how big the company is. Basically a ratio of local workers to foreign. What the ratio is to be is entirely up to the government based on some basic analysis of a whole bunch of large, medium and small companies. (maybe even make different ratios for each company size-type)
Seems more doable than this mess and doesn't have some sort of arbitrary limit pulled out of thin air.
As long as the necessary time is taken to ensure loophole-free operation of it, it should be done.
CEOs of tech companies don't want to pay taxes or decent wages and benefits and want a large pool of educated people to hire from. They have a two part strategy: (1) work deals to avoid paying taxes thus screwing Americans out of a decent education (California is a great example), and resulting in "not enough qualified applicants",which justifies (2) expanding the H1B visa program.
H1B visa workers are essentially slaves. They have to accept whatever pay and working conditions they are given because if they don't like either they have to go back where they came from. It's perfect for tech employers. The extra 65000 slaves per year coming into the US drives down the wages and benefits for American workers who have to compete against people coming from 3rd world hell-holes.
I used to be an engineer and worked for HP, TI, Motorola and a couple other companies. I've seen how the companies conspire to fix wages and benefits and I've seen and known several H1B slaves. I saw the writing on the wall several years ago and went back to school and became a dentist. Engineering is a dead end in the US. If you're in school for engineering now I'd start thinking about doing something else.
Also many young Indians no longer want to work in USA. Almost all the popular entertainment is now available in USA unlike the situation some 10 years ago. All the TV channels of all the languages are available either via satellite or via internet streaming. Cricket clubs are popping up everywhere and cricket channels are available from UK and Australia too. Vegetarianism support has increased tremendously over the last decade. Technically the life of a fresh immigrant Indian is much easier now than it was when were coming in, the early 1990s. But the biggest problem is the domestic chores. In India labor is so cheap, these people usually employ a maid and possibly a cook. Back then when I was earning 200$ a month as a government scientist I was spending 10$ a month on a maid. (All seven days a week, scrub the cement floor with wet rags and disinfectant, do the dishes, do the laundry and clean the bathrooms). So they don't do any household chores and consider cleaning the bathroom beneath their dignity. So now USA has lost its luster for the younger generation of India.
It is a pity. They don't know what they are missing. They are highly misinformed about America. They think India is going to be the super power in 20 years. They have absolutely no idea of the depth of the strength of America and the time it would take to build a society like America. Of course it would take just a few decades to undo it. But to build it, it would take a few centuries. They don't know that.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
While I'm sure there are firms out there which use the H1B program as a scam to extract cheap labor, it's not the standard at reputable firms like Microsoft, Google and Amazon.
I personally worked at Microsoft for five years on the H1B and my starting salary right out of college was higher than any of my peers (American or non-American) at other companies. I also know a lot of other people who have worked for these companies and get paid over six figures barely a few years out of college. They are highly skilled - went to top colleges in India and followed it up at some of the best CS programs in the US (Stanford, Berkeley, MIT etc.), so they are not here for cheap labor. Also, there are very strict legal and paperwork requirements to get the H1B and can cost a company upwards of $30K from start to finish (if they hire a lawyer) so the program is out of reach for a lot of small shops.
Just wanted to put in another data point - the issue is not all black and white.
If you've been unemployed for months and have nothing to show for that time, you're probably not somebody I want to hire.
And everyone makes that assumption. There is this Lemming mentality that if others aren't hiring that guy then there's something wrong with him.
BTW, I have all of the Visual Studio Express versions - C#, C++, Web. NetBeans, eclipse, Qt Developer, and of course Emacs.
No one has even attempted to interview me to actually ask what I think about those environments. In other words I was never even given a chance to tell them about the things I was doing.
After a couple of years and a recriuter saying that was basically unemployable, I smelled the coffee and just gave up.
Have fun getting those H-1Bs and dealing with the tech worker "shortage" - you and people like you created it. Now live with it.
This is why everyone needs to vote Romney, he will keep the job stealing immigrants OUT.
and you need to look at the way you do screening and look at people who did not go to college / went to a tech school as well.
As it says "Immigration attorneys from Cohen & Grigsby explains how they assist employers in running classified ads with the goal of NOT finding any qualified applicants, and the steps they go through to disqualify even the most qualified Americans in order to secure green cards for H-1b workers. See what Bush and Congress really mean by a "shortage of skilled U.S. workers." Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, and thousands of other companies are running fake ads in Sunday newspapers across the country each week.
Here's a video of one of their conferences. It's pretty harsh.
How to put out fake ads, how to find ways to disqualify qualified americans.
Quote" The goal is not to find a qualified and interested worker"
http://youtu.be/TCbFEgFajGU
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"A bit more from the article: "Industry lobby group Partnership for A New American Economy last month released a study that claims the U.S. will face a shortage of 224,000 tech workers by 2018 unless immigration rules are loosened."
Many studies show this is a complete lie. At least two of these studies were previously covered here on slashdot. The fact is, study after study shows we have all the resources these companies need. Rather than hire expensive workers, they create qualifications which don't exist, to which no one can meet. They then claim no US citizens exist to take these jobs. They then lower their standards and hire forign workers for 1/4 - 1/2 of the US worker. This in turn has a chilling effect of salaries, which forces them downward.
Basically this is a massive lie and fraud which exists to line the executives's pocks with money which would otherwise go to hard working American's, how unlike the executives, more than likely would earn their salary.
The companies which are known to committed the most H1 fraud include IBM and Microsoft. In fact, Microsoft was caught red handed, with absolutely no reprecusions, firing massive amounts of US workers while at the same time filing for US worker shortages to hire H1s. To be clear, there is every indication this fraud goes to the highest level of government.
No bones about it, the executives who absolutely do not deserve their salaries absolutely hate the high salary you've worked hard to earn.
Sorry, but there isn't a shortage of tech workers in the US. At least not in most sectors. There may, however, be a shortage in a specific market. That's not the same thing as a US shortage. What the later tells you, these companies need to start relocation programs rather than H1 fraud.
by large IT companies: http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2012-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx Guess what? H1B is the only reasonable route for educated people to immigrate legally to US (aside from marriage and family ties, and lottery.) Due to annual cap, that is mostly taken by large IT companies, other folks are out of luck. I went to school for 10 years in US, got doctorate degree, and can't just open my own clinic and practice. I am not taking anybody else's job - I'll create jobs. But current immigration system does not allow that, unless you are rich right out of school and can invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in your business in order to get E2 visa. Even then, you cannot get residency and citizenship later, ever; only renew E2, if you are lucky. So, H1B is the only reasonable option: get hired, work for several years, and then get residency through permanent employment. However, most private clinics do not want to spend time and money to start H1B paperwork in April and wait until October for the worker to start working. Immigration system is ridiculous and that's why there are so many illegals. People just cannot get through the system even when they try to do it legally.
Awesome that all american Tech workers are employed and they had to import the rest because there are just none left in the USA...
What? You mean this is not true?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There are ways around that. Obviously, a Jr. DBA isn't gonna be paid as much as a Sr. DBA. But who's to know if the guy classified as a Jr. DBA is doing work usually done by a Sr. DBA?
The paying client eventually will. Forgetting the artificial labels of Sr or Jr, and focusing on the actual meaning behind them, a Jr-level person, however smart, will not perform the same as a senior. There is a limit to how much smarts can compensate for lack of hands-on experience, and this is true in all trades and professions.
A poor chap at a Jr level of skills can be put (nominally or officially) into a Sr-level positions (with all Sr-level responsibilities while having a Jr-level pay rate.) At worse, this person will botch the job. At best, he/she will deliver but at a lower rate of productivity.
For a Jr-level person, it is always a good opportunity, and if she/he is smart, the experience will be more valuable than anything else. But in general, it is not a good thing for the employee and the employer. The unfortunate situation is that the cost of operations, the actual ROI of things in software is typically hidden or not amenable to easy analysis and book keeping.
If the actual cost of doing things this way were apparent, clients wouldn't be so willing to cut corners this way. So make no mistake, a client (or his bottom line) will know when a Jr-level person is shoved into Sr-level shoes (in general detrimental to both parties.)
I was one of the people affected by this year's shortage of visas and they do run salary and credential checks before passing them out to people -- although my sponsor didn't even get the chance to submit his request for me, we were too late.
In case you were wondering, my salary would be around 150k, I've got a BSc and MSc (both of which mean nothing to the real world, but matter to the immigration folks) and a unique skillset (out of random chance, but I do), so spare me the xenophobia and keep your inadequacies to yourselves -- it's not the other guy's fault if he's better than you.
I'm not bragging here or anything, that's why I'm posting as AC, but please cut the crap.
H-1B is a scam by which white collar companies (not blue collar, because they aren't cool enough) can fire American workers and then replace them with foreign workers who are so happy to get to the States that they will work for $10,000 less per year. (There are laws against this kind of wage fuckery. They work the same as speed laws in Saudi Arabia: No one cares to obey or enforce them. The "shortage" of workers is a lie manufactured by Oracle, Microsoft, etc. in order to cut costs. Most of the comp sci classes I took were filled to the gills, and the program I got into in college was so impacted that I had to go in on another major and switch after the fact. It's like that in lots of places.
Fuck all this H-1B nonsense, and fuck all the liars and misinformed idiots who think we are just gagging for foreign labor.
We aren't gagging for foreign labor. Larry Ellison and Bill Gates are gagging for foreign labor because they can be paid less.
Right - it's the fault of all those brown people who dare to compete with your incompetent, lazy, fueled-by-an-overgrown-sense-of entitlement fat ass.
How did you come to that from HunsV's post (the post you are replying to)? Either you have been dying for a long time to have an opportunity to write that retort, or your reading comprehension skills are severely lacking.
what's the difference? This country seems to want to let anyone and everyone in without documentation of any sort YET expect to stay secure. Just look at DOJ trying to block Florida's law regarding illegals and non-citizens from voting--WTH??? WHY would our DOJ block something like this--I know why---they are pushing to get Oblamer re-elected and will do anything to tip the votes in his favor no matter what...what other explanation is there? This govt is so corrupt now that I have more respect for countries with dictators who don't hide their motives...at least you know where they stand. Our govt is far more dangerous now because we, as American citizens, can't trust any of these so-called "reprehensibles"..I mean representatives....
The H1B is the *temporary* visa, the one they hire for one company then kick the person out after 5 years. If he really was that good and paid above average, then he wouldn't be on the H1B.
It's there pure and simple to increase supply of programmers and thus reduce the cost of programmers to companies like Microsoft. Sometimes it's just there to train them up in the US, then ship them abroad back to cheaper countries.
BTW, USA now imports more IT goods and services than it exports, so this H1B visa system did exactly what was expected of it. Happy Republicans? You brought it in, you fight to keep it in place, you voted the Republicans in, you suffer the consequences.
For decades I have heard fear mongering about immigrants taking away IT jobs, and without fail just the opposite has been true, every time. In fact, what usually happens is that a bunch of cheap immigrants end up working for a start-up, a certain percentile of those start-ups that wouldn't have existed otherwise make it big, and then they hire 10000 engineers driving demand for IT talent through the roof, and pushing demand for even more immigrants. While I keep hearing these stories that the immigrants are going to push me out of a job, just the opposite has happened to the extreme. Talented people from a low freedom and low capital environment end up moving to a high capital high freedom environment, and creating wealth that never existed before - a lot of wealth.
In truth, software and most IT is global. But notice how things like Linux flourish in silicon valley the most, even though they can afford MS windows a lot easier than the 3rd world. That's because when you mix freedom with capital, it creates growth.
I wonder how many of those visa's are for "furniture movers" like in 2001 and Urban Moving Systems. The US gave 200 visas to Urban Moving Systems.
The H1-B visa program is BS. Its point is to provide sub market price labor to large companies. Every one of those jobs could be filled by americans, but they would cost more.
They should have seen this coming. How come the H1-Bv6 is not ready yet?
Is it would appear that President Obama was right. If the H1B visas are being snapped up quickly this year, and if it isn't local, state, and fed government causing it by their layoffs, then private industry must be doing fine, partially caused by hiring the cheapest available workers it can and so making improved profits. Isn't this how Bain Capital worked? (Don't tell the media, it would confuse them.)
They don't want to pay taxes to America, they don't want to hire Americans or pay American wages. All their manufacturing is in China and tech support is in India. Why then do they even bother living here? Go move to China!
This is war.
Kick the corporations out. Yes, kick the entire Fortune 1000 out to India if that's what it takes. Let India have them.
The US got along just fine before the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which, it was promised by the cosponsors, would not change US demography.
Seastead this.
If I want to hire Hispanic programmers over non-Hispanics without running afoul of anti-discrimination laws, I make sure the job has a legitimate Spanish-language or other qualification that is over-represented among Hispanics. Maybe I make one of the job duties "Other duties: Applicant will be responsible for occasional 3rd-level support for Latin American clients" or some other legitimate duty. After all, SOMEONE has to provide occasional 3rd-level support for Latin American clients, and it's best if that person speaks the language.
Such "custom job descriptions" can also be used to custom-tailor a job for a candidate in what used to be called the "good ol' boy network" - such as the nephew of my wife's cousin's good friend.
The trick for managers and companies that do this is to 1) not let HR know what you, the manager, are doing, 2) don't over-do it, either as a manager or as a company. Sunshine, either by HR or by a government audit, tends to expose such shenanigans.
The hard part of those who "lose out" to such favoritism is that it's not only difficult to prove, it's difficult to get someone who has any authority to do something about it to take an interest unless the evidence is overwhelming.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If they weren't, there would be no American graduate students.
*cue rim-shot*
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
That is great news, and it shouldnt be an excuse to allow for more.
period.
If you say there is a skilled IT worker shortage then why don't you say there is a large carat diamond shortage?
I say there is no skilled IT worker shortage, there is only a shortage of IT workers that can do senior level work for junior or mid level wages.
Isn't it strange that when there is no shortage of qualified IT workers that are desperate for work wages go down but when there is a shortage of these professionals average wages refuse to go up. Even in this so-called IT worker shortage the average wages in most IT specialties have not returned to where they were twelve years ago adjusted for inflation.
Just like large carat diamonds if you really wanted the best IT workers you should have to pay for it instead of moaning to Uncle Sam to bail you out. Any company that advertises that they will pay any American or Green Card IT worker 50-70% more than the average wage will have resumes sent to them by the palate. Pay them double the average and you can siphon off the best and most committed and hardest working workers from other companies.
And the big problem with H1B visas is that they artificially DRIVE DOWN the average salary
I would say it is the reverse. Limiting imigration into this country artificially drives up the average salary. It isn't natural for someone in country a to be paid less than someone in country b when they are doing the same work. The fact that you feal entitled to have your salary subsidized by the goverment is ridiculous. Your not entitled to the handout the goverement is giving you.
I've always been of the opinion that People who obtain an advanced (MS, PHd) STEM degree in the USA from a US institution should be able to be fast-tracked for full citizenship provided:
1) They pass the citizenship test.
2) They renounce all other citizenships and turn over their foreign passports.
This would increase the amount of highly trained individuals in the open labor market and reduce "brain drain" of US trained engineers & scientists going back to their home countries after getting degrees.
There is nothing to distinguish the primary sentiments expressed here from the hatred of European Jews, Italians, Irish, West-Africans, etc. that have been voiced by the most backward and unthinking bigots throughout American history. Each of the individuals seeking work here has - in our founders' terms - an inalienable right to pursue their happiness in any peaceful manner they choose.
When they ask for a job at a given wage, they are infringing no one else's rights - noone has a "right" to a job at a higher wage than the employer is willing to pay. It is only by dropping this context that someone can complain about the so-called "unfair" competition imposed by other individual job seekers, no matter where they come from. There is no un-bigoted reason to prefer that someone born in America gets a given job over someone born elsewhere.
Yes, the H-1B visa program should be abolished - in favor of absolutely free immigration and job-seeking by any non-criminal from any place in the world. This is America's promise, as expressed eloquently on the Statue of Liberty. Where has that spirit gone?
If humans are mostly water, and beer is mostly water, then humans must be mostly beer.
The best person for the job will still get the job. It sounds to me like lazy amercians who don't want to apply effort to there jobs are worried that they might be out of work or not get the job they want because people who will actually give a crap will come into the USA.
If you can't stand up again competition for a job then don't complain, it means your not ready to wear the "big boy pants". So don't blame the immigrants because you want to sit on your ass and not try!
H1B is a work visa, not an education visa. You cannot go to school on a H1B Visa.
God knows why parent post was Moderated Insightful?
Most of the Indians wants to be here in the USA to fuck white chicks. At least most of their conversation revolves about it. And we are talking about engineering and CS students here.
I suggest you to read this:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2442898&cid=37491808
In order to get a student visa you need to have a "statement of sufficient funds" a.k.a. proof that you have a trust fund.
Which group is more motivated? A trust fund kid from some Asian country or someone domestic student who rely on financial aid?
Disclaimer: I am Asian-American.
New Economic Perspectives
We could be the land of the free. Our national anthem contains those words but we ignore them. Any productive person should be able to come to this country and live and work in peace. Instead we use the power of law not to protect rights but to take them away via immigration restrictions. I used to think racism and discrimination were dieing out but obviously those traits are alive and well (and seemingly growing).
See subject-line & the reference from "They Live" (John Carpenter) - you've hit it RIGHT ON THE HEAD (top marks to you) with this line:
"The reality of the situation is that it's a program to drive down prices for tech workers" - by spiffmastercow (1001386) on Tuesday June 12, @09:05AM (#40294385)
That's EXACTLY ALL IT IS IN REALITY- why? Simple: Because of the stock market & the investment class (the wealthy wanting "MORE")! In fact, ask ANY business exec what the EASIEST CO$T TO CONTROL IS, & they'll tell you a 1 word answer: PAYROLL.
Mgt.'s not really to blame either - they are only doing WHAT THEY ARE TOLD by majority stockholders (mainly boards of directors members who have REAL controlling interest & REAL stock (preferred type, not bullshit "common-stock"))... which is "MAKE US MORE MONEY" (for the same reasons engineers are mainly there to not build better product but to reduce costs per unit, usually making it shabbier)).
* Yourself & a few others on this page today hit upon it, and it is the truth/reality - not some "whitewash 1/2 truth bullshit mask"... kind of like how this "CLOUD initiative" you see being pumped in the presses is a try to do that also - make users have to sit essentially @ dumb terminals (like those Wyse WinTerms) & have a central mainframe/midrange/server to manage only. Means less folks to employ, less insurance & other benefits etc. ontop of wages.
(That is a BULLSHIT MASK being sold to you techies out there, & IF YOU DON'T SEE & REALIZE IT? I feel sorry for you... I saw it before in the 1980s', it took less workers to maintain than the Client-Server model, but it was FAR from "better", but Client-Server designs cost less in hardware... now, they're attempting to change it again, on the personnel side once more, returning to the "glass house").
APK
P.S.=> I mean, hey: It's WIDELY KNOWN that IF THEY BROUGHT BACK THE JOBS THAT WERE OUTSOURCED (meaning sent overseas, offshored)? Everyone would have a GOOD PAYING JOB (thus more taxpayers too). However, instead, what do we have?
Heh - Large corporations paying less in taxes per annum than a SINGLE TAXPAYER... how/why? Simple: Their political puppets are part of said "investment class" too! They stand to gain by it since they're largely making MORE OF THEIR MONIES by having their money work for them, not the other way around (they actually WORK FOR THEIR MONEY)... it's just "not good business" from THEIR PERSPECTIVE to be actually paying better wages to the native tax paying constituency (because it empowers them levelling the playing field too, especially in courts, where face it - if you DON'T HAVE MONEY? You get no "LAW"...)
So, what happens next? Well, since the corporations always "rewrite the rules" for taxation in THEIR favor?? Then, the taxbase gets raised, but on HOME OWNERS - this will eventually impoverish them, making them lose their homes & they get sold for PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR, which makes for a good tax shield investment for the wealthy who pick them up after a homeowner defaults - a return to serfdom's next - mark my words... apk
Cowboy Neal has now been replaced by Cowboy Robot!
http://www.acetonestudio.com
The mere fact that these visas are running low halfway through the year when millions of Americans are having trouble landing work is disturbing. Yes, corporations are greed oriented and use the H-1B visa system to drive down aggregate wages.
As far as as you "hiring managers" with glowing anecdotal stories of success, well good for you. After being booted from corporate America through no fault of my own, I am in the process of steadily growing my own consulting business as I am tired of being embedded in a corporate matrix where employees are treated much as grade school children. I watched how my former employer treated its H1-Bs and patronizing is the word that comes to mind. Yes, there are some really great H1-B folks too.
As for those of you who say a corporation will discriminate against me for being self-employed, I care not. I refuse to ever work for a corporation again as a direct employee.
I will happily be their mercenary though as I have a unique set of business/IT/scientific skills that lend themselves to being self-employed. I will never allow my financial well being to depend on one party as it is too risky in today's world.
Not to play Jesus here, but seriously, how many of us who cry about outsourcing and loss of jobs due to "alien" workers have restrained ourselves from shopping goods made in China? Let those who haven't throw the stones!
"Industry lobby group Partnership for A New American Economy last month released a study that claims the U.S. will face a shortage of 224,000 tech workers by 2018 unless immigration rules are loosened."
How about you manufacturing workers quit waiting for bailouts, get off your ass and re-invent yourselves!? NNNOOOOO, keep hanging on to that dead horse; meanwhile those immigrants you hate so much are gobbling up the tech jobs like there's no tomorrow.
Yeah, the farmers in the former Confederate states ran into this problem when they passed all the new anti-brown laws: no more cheap, compliant labor! Luckily, the very robust and connected for-profit Prison Industry quickly stepped in a provided a very similar substitute. Bonus: most of them are black - just like the good ole' days!
So if HR says the salary range is $45-50,000 you just go along, even though actual citizens who are qualified are averaging $80,000 for the position. It's OK right? No, in actuality you want to do it that way. You are a cheat, a scammer, an idler. You would sell your soul to the highest bidder and enslave everyone else to do it.
And you're a moron.
Tell me, how is it "slavery" if the person CHOOSES ....
Let me say that again:
CHOOSES ... to employ themselves at this company?
Can't wait to hear the rationalization and excuses to follow.
Just a little note about visa types and reducing US workforce. H1-B is just one kind of visa. The visa I have, L1, is for people who, once immigrated to the US, will create, either directly (hiring) or indirectly (growing the company), jobs for american workers.
Currently I am the only white guy in a startup composed of Chinese and Indians. Some dev staff is overseas. I hear the green cards discussing their status all too often.
Not one person is doing something that could not be done by Americans, and indeed, I know of many, many Americans with the required specialized skills who cannot get work.
Earlier this year I interviewed at a a large company with a department having the majority of staff in India, and of the US staff in this department, half were employees and the other half contractors. All of the work could have been done by US citizens, and by employees and not by temp labor. That company makes plenty of profit, but doesn't share it.
Sometimes I wonder who exactly set this whole H1B thing going, who are the bastards who started the race to the bottom and destruction of American labor? Finance guys and think tanks lobbying the scum in Washington? Because this is not just some CEO getting smart. It's a movement, it's been pushed.
It won't lower wages, it'll raise them. Switzerland has amongst the highest wages in the world, far above any nearby country, except probably Luxembourg.
It won't reduce immigration either, it'll increase it. Switzerland has a ridiculously huge immigrant population. Geneva is 80% foreign born, most French, German, and U.K. It turns out "just pay em' more" is simpler than hiring lawyers for the visa paperwork, so more Swiss companies just hire abroad. Law are scary. Salaries are simply bookkeeping.
Also, the extra immigration won't reduce work for natives. If companies spend more on salaries, their employees spend more, voila economic activity, increasing employment.
Americans would never attempt this solution though because America's politicians are completely owned by corporation. Switzerland has plenty of corruption too of course, just nothing like the U.S. Also, Switzerland has a much stronger democratic tradition than the U.S., such as referenda being common and not crazy like in CA or CO.
Fun Fact : Swiss Rosti is what American hash browns, but the Swiss rosti always beats Waffle house. lol
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
A bit more from the article: "Industry lobby group Partnership for A New American Economy last month released a study that claims the U.S. will face a shortage of 224,000 tech workers WHO WILL WORK FOR HALF THE WAGES OF THEIR AMERICAN COUNTERPATRTS BECAUSE THEY CRAM 20 PEOPLE INTO A HOUSE AND HAVE A THIRD WORLD A STANDARD OF LIVING by 2018 unless immigration rules are loosened."
As I've stated here on /., why do we need to import labour when we have high levels of Unemployment/Underemployment?
Even if that was true, so what?
That's because the visa you are talking is the non-immigrant E-2 treaty investor visa; as a strictly non-immigrant visa you can't use it to immigrate. OTOH, if you want to immigrate as an investor in your own business in the US, you want the immigrant E-5 visa, which does allow you to immigrate.
Actually, its not, even ignoring the immigrant E-5. As a holder of a graduate degree (or a bachelor's degree and five or more years of experience, or a person with special skills in the sciences, arts, or business) you can get a job offer and qualify, by way of that, for an immigrant E-2 visa (which, despite the similar identifier, is completely unrelated to the non-immigrant E-2 treaty investor visa). With different levels of skill or qualifications, one might qualify through employment and background for other employment based (E-1 through E-4) immigrant visas, as well.
While this is true, it has nothing to do with the supposed problems you point to with it not being easy enough to get an H-1B (or employment- or investment-based immigrant visa in general.) Illegal immigrants don't, in the largest part, come from the places where you would see more H-1Bs if it was a little easier to get them, they come from the same places where there is the largest backlogs in the family-based immigration categories -- and often are exactly the same people that can't come because of those backlogs.
If you want to eliminate the illegal immigration that results from poor management of the legal immigration system -- and thereby allow immigration enforcement to simply address the individually undesirable immigrants that we really want to keep out -- then:
1. Eliminate per-country caps in the existing, family-based immigration visa categories (keeping the global caps in each category, with a single global lottery when applicants exceed the global cap) -- this better aligns supply with demand, and makes it so you don't create an enormous backlog for legal immigration from the country where there is the largest pool of qualified applicants who want to immigrate (for instance, the 15+ year backlogs in the F-1, F-2B, F-3, and F-4 categories from Mexico.)
2. Allow excess immigration in the existing, limited family-based immigration categories for applicants willing to pay an additional substantial (different for each visa category, and higher for categories that are less preferred) fee for the privilege of bypassing the limitation & lottery process (and, therefore, any potential backlog) -- the principle of limiting immigration in these categories is limit the social cost of accommodating a larger immigrant population, but in practice this creates a large pool of people willing to pay money (which ultimately ends up supporting dangerous criminal enterprises) to get into the country simply because of the backlog created by the limits; rather than driving these resources into bypassing the limits and then expending public funds to combat it, this change would drive those
On behalf of the "real" America: welcome. We need more people like you.
Sincerely,
An above-average American who is also sick and tired of the mediocrity and entitlement.
See this article where a software engineer in India was offered a job at Twitter for $130k.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/22-year-old-IITian-from-Vidisha-bags-Rs-70-lakh-job-from-Twitter/articleshow/13859191.cms
The reason congress rolls over to industry on H1B is very simple -
companies will just outsource or move offshore if they don't, which is far worse for the US economy (and tax revenues) than H1Bs.
There are shortages in some areas of the country. For instance in Wisconsin there is a severe shortage of skilled Java developers. I know my company has been looking for 3-4 senior level Java developers and that is just the start. We have had to resort to interviewing people who are right out of college and having to accept it will take them 1-2 years to get "up to speed". I know a couple people we interviewed claimed to have all kinds of Java experience on their resume, but when interviewed they knew about as much as the kids right out of college or less. Right now we are having to use about 75 developers across 3 continents for a huge project we are working on. Why all over the globe. Simple we truly can't find skilled Java developers in the state. We are looking outside the state - but the company won't pay for relocation so that hurts trying to get people in from other states but many won't come to Wisconsin, or won't come if there is no relocation involved. I think if unemployed IT folks -REALLY- want a job - they need to start looking in places they may not have thought about before. Also make big pushes for telecommuting. I know our CIO came to the realization that telecommuting for some positions in IT is doable. So they are working out how they will handle it. They realize that not -all- developers -have- to be "on site". Heck they are using folks in India - so that proves it.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
This has been going on since the early 90's. I remember a guy from the local labor department telling me about this. He even showed me the EXACT job adds that were posted that were SPECIFICALLY for "disqualifying" American IT folks. He told me they will post the job requirement based on a SPECIFIC H1-B's resume, skills, experience etc... almost guaranteeing they won't find a comparable American worker. IF an American DOES apply they find something else to disqualify them for. It's all a scam to drive down wages and sell out this country...
The Truth is a Virus!!!
I love how Industry lobby groups never want to fix American education instead of hiring foreigners. I wonder why......
Quit giving tens of thousands of student loans to crap majors where people can't get jobs. Make students decide to enroll in an engineering program because that's one of the few programs they can get a loan for.
Bottom line is student loans need to be based off of supply and demand. If we are going to be short 224,000 jobs in the IT industry, and we have students that can't get jobs, then something is wrong with the college process.
educate our OWN children to the level the companies need in a work force. Want to hire a bunch of foreigners? Then move to a foreign country and stay there.
Just a question for those of you who think it's racist to deny H1B visas.... How many Americans who try to apply for the jobs in India that are being outsourced to that country are being denied work visas in India? Answers?
"The response to the Server Administrator position has been overwhelming!"
so this _is_ a big fucking scam
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Limiting immigration should drive down wages. Consider each worker as an individual business. Now, if you say that businesses Juan, Mick, John, Bill, and Mary cannot trade the product of their labor freely in any country, and businesses HP, IBM, M$, and Oracle can all trade the product of that same labor freely, then the trade is going to happen. But businesses HP, IBM, M$, and Oracle are going to take a cut of Juan, Mick, John, Bill, and Mary's product as they trade it to the restricted areas.
And HP, IBM, M$, and Oracle will make a profit selling Juan's product in Mary's hometown, and they will make a profit selling Mary's product in Juan's hometown.
And thus, the wages of Juan and Mary are going to nosedive.
Same goes for Bill, John, and the others.
Which you are seeing.
Now, if Juan secretly goes and sells his product illegally, he'll profit from that -- but drive John, Mary, Bill, and the others even deeper in the hole. So you'll also see an empowerment of criminal behavior, mostly because of an abandonment of the concept of Rule of Law [which means that laws are like traffic guides, not designed to benefit one and hurt another.]
All of which you are seeing.
Read Friederich Hayak, Road to Serfdom.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Anyone other than me think that it is morally reprehensible for these firms to be importing 85,000+ H-1B's, while, for the past decade, not even bothering to interview, in many cases, bright domestic graduates looking to make a difference and contribute?
In my organization almost all new employees want to be a BA or PM in few years. No one want to get 'too dirty' writing code. We had an 'internal' developer position, that pays 60-70K (and benefits) for 3-4 years experience in development/coding. It was open for six months and we got only one resumes,only one! We have at least 100+ employees who have the skills, experience but all of them want to be either a BA or PM.
Result: we had to use a temp from a local temp workforce company ( they source from a H1-B shop).
Don't blame it all on immigrants.
And soon they will be coming for you.
And no one is left to care.
Reap what you sow traitor.
Americans as a condition of receiving their severance working "proudly together" training their Indian H1B replacements to improve corporate profits by exporting jobs.
It's not that companies are hiring more people. It's that companies are laying off American workers and hiring the H1-B's at half the pay. Considering the unemployment rate (real unemployment, not the number of people still able to claim it) there is absolutely no way there is a shortage of tech people. There is just a shortage of Americans who will do skilled work for day laborer pay. DITCH THE H1-B PROGRAM COMPLETELY.
Up until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Africans and Asians were forbidden from immigrating to the US. This immigration act(which is still followed) allows only a fixed quota for immigration from each country (China and India are banned from entering through this unless they can claim asylum). Now, the only legal method for an Indian is to either marry an american or get H1B sponsorship and hold on to it for 12 years to get a greencard.
When I hear people talking about how they hate illegal immigrants and how people should immigrate here legally like their grandparents did, they conveniently forget that all their grandparents had to do was to board a ship with a passport and land at Ellis Island where they were given a greencard upon arrival(Many didn't even bring an ID card, hence the pejorative "Without Papers"). The only requirement back then was that you had to be a Caucasian.
The entire debate on H1B seems to be based on the fact that employers are able to pay $80,000 for foreign worker rather than pay $120,000 to hire a native born american, And most people who are strongly against H1B seem to be unemployed software coders. I'm amazed that they'd rather remain unemployed than work for the same salary as a foreigner($80,000 is way more than what many of the taxpayers you mooch off of earn).
To conclude, its really sad to see the extent people would stoop just to rationalize their race based prejudice. Almost all ethnic Indians(Including me) learn and speak English, assimilate very successfully with the American mainstream, support free market capitalism, work hard and believe in individual liberties and Republicanism, yet we still are hated by a section of american population because it pokes holes in their theory of dark skin equaling inferior intelligence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income
Up until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Africans and Asians were forbidden from immigrating to the US. This immigration act(which is still followed) allows only a fixed quota for immigration from each country (China and India are banned from entering through this unless they can claim asylum). Now, the only legal method for an Indian is to either marry an american or get H1B sponsorship and hold on to it for 12 years to get a greencard. When I hear people talking about how they hate illegal immigrants and how people should immigrate here legally like their grandparents did, they conveniently forget that all their grandparents had to do was to board a ship with a passport and land at Ellis Island where they were given a greencard upon arrival(Many didn't even bring an ID card, hence the pejorative "Without Papers"). The only requirement back then was that you had to be a Caucasian. The entire debate on H1B seems to be based on the fact that employers are able to pay $80,000 for foreign worker rather than pay $120,000 to hire a native born american, And most people who are strongly against H1B seem to be unemployed software coders. I'm amazed that they'd rather remain unemployed than work for the same salary as a foreigner($80,000 is way more than what many of the taxpayers you mooch off of earn). To conclude, its really sad to see the extent people would stoop just to rationalize their race based prejudice. Almost all ethnic Indians(Including me) learn and speak English, assimilate very successfully with the American mainstream, support free market capitalism, work hard and believe in individual liberties and Republicanism, yet we still are hated by a section of american population because it pokes holes in their theory of dark skin equaling inferior intelligence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income
Don't you mean Tech Job Whores? We would not have so much unemployment if they hired American Citizens. In my experience, you get what you pay for. I find most of the H1Bs to be inferior to American Tech workers. I've seen them deliver awful systems with spaghetti coded programs. They are still years behind in know how. Corporations are always looking for cheaper slaves. That's what's wrong with this country and the economy....GREED.
Ever hear about the UNEMPLOYMENT problem in the US? You could maybe help with that. And how about paying what the work is worth and getting *American* IT people? Oh, I forgot, you don't want to give them the respect they deserve. OK, well, uh, good luck without your IT infrastructure!