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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."
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.
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I'm told (I'm not an expert, so I'm open to correction) that in Switzerland pretty much anybody can get a work permit provided they will be paid above the average rate for the job. That means that if there are skills that cannot be sourced locally then employers have no problems recruiting globally, but they can't use that as a way of bringing in cheap foreign workers. I hope that is true -- it seems like an intelligent system.
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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.
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.
That might be what H1B is supposed to be used for, but it is really used to get cheap IT folks. I have had to work with some of these folks and if they work for our customer who hired a contracting firm, they suck. The direct hire ones are fine, but all the ones coming from the usual suspect Indian staffing firms are terrible.
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.
Just admit it. You hire whoever does a good enough job for the least amount of money. Can you at least be honest about this? It's generally how business works.
In my experience with several medium to large companies, the mantra is always "get the best person you can". I've never had *any* pressure to settle for the candidate who wants $80K instead of $90K. But the person that wants (and may well deserve) $125K isn't going to fit my budget. HR doesn't get involved as long as the offer I am making is within the salary range for the position, and finance doesn't get involved unless I am clearly blowing my budget - but no one is going after me because I budgeted the position at $88K and spent $90K. A bigger issue for me is that I don't want to bring in somebody making $120K if the average salary is $90K, because unless it is clear to everybody that the person is really worth the extra bump, I am creating an equity issue that leads to a bunch of unhappy people down the road.
I have no opinion about the quality of H-1B visas versus local candidates. To get hired they have to be good enough to make up for any language difficulties, so the bar may be a little higher overall. But I will say that someone who has the ambition and drive to leave their home country and culture and come to the US has already shown more ambition and willingness to take a risk than most local candidates. Not a knock on the locals, just a recognition that the immigrants are a self selected pool that have already demonstrated willingness to go to some lengths for their career.
and guess what... 95% of you suck. ...
This is because people think they know computers because they can make their way around a "pointy-clicky" interface and know how to google things. High School graduation and/or collage enrolment day comes around and they say to themselves, "Hey, I bet I could make a mint in computer science. I think I'll major in that." They then, proceed to "google" and cheat their way though the classes, not really understanding what they're being taught.
Computer science, like all the sciences, is not something you can learn on a whim just because you want to. In order to be proficient at it, you need the skills to do so, and those are not something you can learn, they are built up with years of practice and experience. By the time collage rolls around, you either have them or you don't. It's too late to acquire them now. You can, however, put off collage and spend the next five to ten years acquiring them, then get your CS degree and be good at your job. Or, you know, choose a major you have the skills for.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
You know they could be bringing these people in because all the decent, diligent, intelligent and reliable local workers have jobs already and those without jobs are crap at what they do. Or am I mistaken and actually all Americans, even the thick and stupid ones, are better workers than highly-educated and motivated people from countries like India or from within the EU?
Just a thought.
You only have a point if you can quantify the items in bold above. The fact is that is that:
1. Not everybody that is currently unemployed is crappy at what they do.
2. Not everybody currently employed is good at what they do.
3. Not every H1 Visa worker is highly educated and motivated.
4. Not every H1 Visa worker is crappy at what he does.
All you are doing is building a counter-argument based on simpleton-level emotion. Markets, even free markets, do not operate in a vacuum. They operate (or should operate) in the context of national interests. Every developed country sans the US operates on this premise.
So when you have a H1 Visa worker coming here, he should only come here when it is amply demonstrated that indeed, he is above average.
This is not the case. We should not be replacing our crappy people with crappy people from other countries. We should replace them (or more appropriately, enhance our intelligentsia) with actual foreign talent. And that brings me to the next hole in your argument:
There is no guaranteed path to residency (and eventual citizenship) for H1 Visa workers. As it is, it is a system of exploitation of foreign workers (talented or crappy) at the expense of our workers (talented and crappy.)
The situation is so bad that even legal residents or naturalized citizens of Indian ancestry are now looked over in favor of H1 visa workers. I KNOW THIS FOR A FACT.
So it is not just the mythical phat American as you put it that gets screwed by this. The talented foreign nationals that have now made the US their permanent home and country are also being systematically sidelined.
The H1 Visa system needs to be revampted, the quotas reduced into formulas dependend on the current national situation and unemployment/employment levels. It should not be static.
Furthermore, the requirements should be stringent so that only the real talented come aboard. Moreover, there must be greater guarantees that H1 Visa workers do not become hostages to contracting agencies, cramping them into dorms, threatened with deportation if they don't meet the unpaid 60hr/week work quota (yes it happens in US soil, a lot.)
Most importantly, there should be easier paths for legal residency (and nationalisation) for H1 Visa workers who wish to stay permanently.
Your pick.
Interesting. I had exactly the opposite experience.
Back in 2008, I worked for a major German firm with offices in the US. The firm in question demanded that I offshore almost three quarters of a million dollars worth of technical work from US resources to a shop in southeast Asia that would do the work for low five figures. I objected, as this was both exploitative to the Asian workers, and be bad for our local economy. I was brought into meetings where it was explained that the company in question was actually a humanitarian agency (really), that this would be great for my project numbers, and that it would be a big "win" for me personally. I still objected, on the basis that I would rather employ Americans locally. Better, I would get the project completed with resources that I would get to manage directly, rather than a team I'd only know via an OC window, teleconference chats, and a series of emails.
The response at that point was simple: "Either bring on the Asian team, or find another job."
I brought on the team from Asia and inished the project ahead of schedule and under budget. I got a huge slap in the back for saving the company money, and was told I was "going places."
They were right: I responded by turning in my notice. Somehow, the firm seemed surprised.
I now focus on working on projects that work primarily with on-shore assets. It's hard as hell to maintain, but at least I can look at myself in the mirror.
What do we bring to the table? Creativity, when you were studying all those books, you were taught to think inside a tiny box and asking you to break out of that box is like begging a greedy man to spare a penny. No matter how many times we go over a creative solution you keep referencing bad design patterns, your code uses a ton of a nested for loops, and is hard for everyone else to understand. You think every problem can be solved by using 1 + 1 = 2. However, while a logical pattern can be found, a GOF pattern doesn't have to be used; if a pattern is used there's a good chance a solution has already been created. Why not use that solution? Why must you constantly recreate the wheel, is because you still have your head stuck in those math books instead of staying up to date with your practice?
Sweeping generalization, I spent 3 months in Hyderabad training a team, then another 9 months working with said team back home. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life, the concept of learning on the job and thinking outside of the box seemed so far away from these guys. However, by what you listed above, I don't believe you are an indian, I'd go with asain. Most of the indian's (H1B or not) are also very lazy, not all, just most. You talk about strive, which makes me think you are part of an east asain country. In which case I say fair game and learn how to think outside of the box.
By the way, I graduated High School with an extremely low gpa (barely graduating), dropped out of college, missed only one question on the SAT, scored over 100 on the AMC, speak fluent Japanese, English, and conversational french. To graduate high school in the US you are required to take a foreign language (not claiming that would make you fluent), arts class, and are asked to think in more than a logical structure. It's part of why we (in the US) are complaining about No Child Left Behind. It focuses on standardized tests, I'd rather solve a word problem which makes me think how to solve it and gives reality to it, than have to just solve a problem laid out before me.
We emphasize every kid is different here, then every kid is the same to be taught the same way. It really doesn't work that way, and it's what brings the uniqueness of an American to the problem. While coding may be repetition, how to approach a problem should be thought out.
Lastly, communication is key, while you may have the language down, if people can't understand you then you might as well be dead wood for anything beyond code monkey. I've met a lot of H1B visas that I couldn't understand for the life of me. Understand this is after living in India, living in Tokyo, living in the Netherlands. This is our problem with you guys, but as all Americans don't fit your case, neither does all H1B visas meet my above case. I've met some wonderful H1B visas that are simply amazing at coding. Far better than I will ever be, and to them I say "great job", but they also usually make more than I do so your point of being better for less doesn't really hold water. Or maybe it does, just not in my own anecdotal (or the stereotypical) background.
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