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Cringley: H-1B Visa Abuse Limits Wages and Steals US Jobs
walterbyrd sends this snippet from an article by Robert X. Cringely:
"Big tech employers are constantly lobbying for increases in H-1B quotas citing their inability to find qualified US job applicants. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates and other leaders from the IT industry have testified about this before Congress. Both major political parties embrace the H-1B program with varying levels of enthusiasm. Bill Gates is wrong. What he said to Congress may have been right for Microsoft but was wrong for America and can only lead to lower wages, lower employment, and a lower standard of living. This is a bigger deal than people understand: it's the rebirth of industrial labor relations circa 1920. Our ignorance about the H-1B visa program is being used to unfairly limit wages and steal — yes, steal — jobs from U.S. citizens."
This needs more attention. Congress needs to be forced to think about this.
I've known even the Federal government to use H1B visas to employ virtual slaves at reduced cost who will be deported if they don't perform.
There isn't a shortage of labor, there's a shortage of cheap labor.
Industry just wants to keep making massive amounts of money, but pay their staff less than the salaries the market created.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This article fails to even mention that H-1B visas are dual intent - green card applications are common for H-1B visa holders, and many large tech companies encourage green card application as an employee retention mechanism.
Willingness to accept substandard wages?
That this isn't common knowledge, corporations are trying to return us to 1800's regulation, it isn't just the H1B's, it's every facet of the larger corporations.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
what is the average H1-B wage?
I don't think H1-b workers are cheap, plus the Visa+lawyer fees
If they weren't working in the US they would be doing the same work for US companies overseas. Visas allow the workers to work here where they also contribute more to the US economy as well as US society. They might also start companies and create jobs. True, wages may fall in the short-term, but having a larger educated and working population will help us in the long run.
This sounds like union talk as they are against H-1B visas. Unions are bad therefore H-1B visas must be good. Remember, if you don't want to get paid the same wage as an H-1B then get another job as there is somebody else in line!!
I'm a Canadian, and I guess, a reasonably talented EE. One avenue not mentioned is the TN-class visa; same general idea, but yearly renewable. (Canada/Mexico)
The process to actually _immigrate_ to the US is a real pain and very lengthy. So much that the logical extension is that they don't want skilled immigration on a permanent basis - at least from Canada. However, exporting work from the US is made very easy.
What's the problem with opening it up? Why not just find a way to document, all the undocumented? Am I missing something?
..don't panic
For the software industry leaders, H1-Bs are used for bringing in MSc's, Ph.Ds, and other top talent from other countries. Ordinary IT jobs aren't at stake because that type of job is beneath them.
Is this really true? I have yet to find a single example of someone on an H1-B and is being paid below the average. I myself am paid at par with my American colleagues. One of my friends does contracting work and is paid roughly 50% more than me.
Or are you getting confused with outsourcing?
If there is a global market on the price of oil, why is there not one for labor? Is it because global high tech customers see employees as worth less than western/US counterparts? I suspect no. People should all be treated equally and not be discriminated based on nationality.
I suggest you read this before you marvel at the opportunities Americans have for education.
You know why H1Bs threaten American jobs? Because they mainly come from countries where education is better and free, so they come better educated and debt-free. Debt-free people accept lower wages and employers prefer people with a better education.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
This is a recurrent topic on Slashdot. I will not pretend I know how it's done in every single company but, as an H1B I have:
- paid the same amount of taxes as citizens in my company - had the same wages (even higher actually) as citizens - had the same access to healthcare as citizens - created an extra legal cost to my employers for maintaining my immigration status - not worked more (at least hours-wise) than citizens
The BLS (bls.gov) regulary publishes a list of the jobs with the most potential on the market. There is a lack in STEM. It's a fact (unless BLS is conspiring against the people, this is Slashdot after all).
In my field there are roughly 20% of citizens that fill positions, in any given company. Not sure why. Maybe head over to the engineering department of a big university and see who's attending and getting top grades. You have a sh*tton of people from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and also now Latin America, working their asses off. Not many Americans... no they're all at the Business School learning 1- blah 2- blah 3- profit. Let's fix that first, then complain.
signed: former H1B, now permanent resident, one day citizen
Oh, and obligatory: "I took yer jerb".
Yes, taking the cream of the crop of foreigners who you don't have to pay for their education or upbringing and having them work in tech or science fields is terrible economics. A mediocre American who the government has to subsidize $200k for education is such a better investment.
By the way, how many H-1Bs were issued last year? 65,000. Out of a labor force of 150 million.
This is just xenophobia.
Wage arbitrage now was caused by labor mobility barriers set up in the past.
Lesson: Don't set up a large potential difference if you don't want to get a big shock arcing through down the road.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
The problem is that if you don't grant H1-Bs the companies will pretty much move operations offshore if they are large enough to support that sort of operation.
With H1-Bs you at least keep the tax revenues in the US.
The *really* bad aspect of this is that it weakens US educational institutions. With these people coming into the US it discourages US citizens from going after these sorts of technical degrees in the US. That's got all sorts of negative effects.
Perhaps one sort of H1-B visa that would be less damaging overall is the type that is granted to foreign students holding a degree from a US university.
H1B's are not only artificially driving down wages and generally screwing over American programmers, engineers, etc., but they are also a blight on the job market for another reason: fake jobs.
There are a LOT of fake job ads are out there right now that employers are only posting so they can run crying to Congress and the Labor Dept. later, claiming that they can't get enough "qualified applicants" (and to beg for more H1B visas). You know, that ad that asks for a programmer with 20+ years of Java programming experience, or with qualifications so specific that it HAS to be tailored to a specific H1B candidate, or that asks for an experienced programmer with a salary range of $30,000-$35,000, or that never seems to get filled no matter how many qualified people apply? These are the jobs that colleges cite when they try to sucker in new programming and CS students, that applicants waste valuable time and effort on, and that create an artificially rosy appearance of the technical job market. They make it look like there are way more jobs than workers out there (that's what they're designed to do), when in reality the REAL job market is a lot more dismal, especially for newbies. They're a blight for honest job seekers, and a tool for the dishonest to use to con Congress, the Labor Dept., and desperate potential students.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
It's is a real uphill battle for congresscritters, especially the long time reps, to understand this.
Post WWII until maybe mid-80s I think it might have been a valid belief that doing whatever helps the biggest corporations will automagicly help the economy. I think high speed communications invalidates this idea completely.
In other words, it used to be that if a company grew that it would force them to help the individuals that needs jobs. If that ever was the case it isn't so now. So pouring money and tax breaks into a big company does nothing but enrich the few people at the top of that chain because they can just as easily hire someone offshore.
I don't think people in Congress understand this. And it extends to H1Bs, because if they get the "smart" immigrants then it means more domestic jobs under similar logic. I think many reps in Congress probably want to help their local constituents but haven't been able to break out of this logic. Look at how dumb our legislation with tech is... it falls in the same category of ignorance.
Again, I think there are some that just don't care if they are helping normal joes or not. Personally I thin Romney falls into that camp.
Are you kidding me? Congress has lost its goddamned mind and now works for the "job creators" who complain about a shortage of cheap labor. There's plenty of domestic labor in this country, its just not being considered because it has the audacity to ask for a living wage. I swear, the rich want to drag us back to the gilded age.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
What about higher COSTS for business which get passed on to ALL consumers? And don't cry me a river about corporate profits as I suggest you go look to see what is in your 401k or other retirement plan - public or private. The sad reality is that the US can no longer command the wages it once could, whether thats in tech or in digging ditches.
I know this is an unpopular topic, but I see that throughout history that diversity -- of any form: religious, ethnic, cultural, racial -- has failed wherever it has been tried because it offers people a choice between having no culture or being ostracized for maintaining a cultural identity.
Immigration seems to be popular with the construction industry, cheap labor employers, and serf-masters like the big Silicon Valley companies. Cheap lawn mowing and cheap software production are high on their agendas. However, it's not really working in that this country continues to have clashes between value systems, including those rooted in culture, and increasingly, between our lack of values and anyone who does have cultural values.
Can anyone name a time and place in which diversity has thrived? It seems like all of our accounts come from a couple centuries later when the experiment has failed, and left behind a culturally-confused third world nation.
Perhaps instead of just walking lock-step with the rest of the herd, we should think independently about this issue, and unlike the rest of our society, question whether it's a good thing at all.
Futurist Traditionalism
Read the article. there are about 700k H1-Bs in the US today
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I myself am paid at par with my American colleagues.
...and that's the problem. If $MEGACORP can get employees for a lower price by way of H1-B, then the local people trying to get a job there are forced to accept the same lower wage, or they don't get the job.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
When I was a H1B, I was the highest paid member of the team, at a Fortune 100 company.
Now that I'm not a H1B, I'm still the highest member paid.
This is a net benefit to me, and to the country, IMO.
[obviously, I'm the highest paid because I'm damned good, not because they like to pay me more than anyone else for no reason]
Is anyone really surprised with this report? I know people who have worked as "contractors" with H1 B and if you ever see the way these IT contracting companies exploit the system, you will be shocked. It is a machinery in place in pretty much all of California and North East where folks that cannot get jobs here apply. Once they get in, they are given a quick training on some IT stuff and then their resumes are modified to make them look like "experts" in that area. After that they are fitted into companies mostly banks in NE and big companies like Cisco/IBM ( because there they are just 1 in a hundreds of thousands of employees and no one cares how they got in.) by way of contracting. Half of their pay is docked by the contract firms as part of the agreement and they are not given any health benefits. But hey, with even what those people make, they somehow still survive. They would rather be here than go back!
The solution to the H-1b abuse problem is to simply evict corporations from the US. Outsource not only IBM's programmers, but their entire executive suite and board of directors. The political zeitgeist of immigration is basically that no nation has a right to its territory when there are people elsewhere -- even if numbering in the billions -- that want to "seek a better life". Why not take the "better life" to them where they live? GIVE them IBM, HP, et al and good riddance.
Seastead this.
I disagree with this article. I believe there a shortage of developers. I know there are cited studies but in my experience there is a serious shortage of developers in the USA. Being part of the industry for ten years now I've never seen a time where a developer was unemployed for any reason other then personal choice. Tucson, for example, has been steadily adding/employing about 100 additional programmers each year while graduating 90 (most of whom immediately relocate). High paying software jobs sit unfilled for months, in some cases years at Ratheon, UofA, IBM, and many more places.
Pure profiteering, screw the locals!
I suppose you're a Native American/Amerindian/whatever they are called today. If not, please excuse me while I'm savoring the irony of former immigrants/former immigrants' kids despising the new immigrants.
Ezekiel 23:20
Otherwise known as a fair market wage?
Whoever's writing as Cringly is just being racist here. There's no moral wrong when a non-American gets an "American job", whether through immigraiton or offshoring. Everyone deserves to compete for any job, without prefernce given by race or place of birth.
Sure, I'd personally like to see all the cool developer jobs reserved for somewhat overweight middle-aged white guys, but that's because I'm a greedy bastard, not because it would be some kind of moral virtue!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Before the global infrastructure built up, before so much of investments were made by big companies in India, before many mid level execs have hitched their wagon to the out sourcing horse (which was stolen from the barn mentioned earlier), it might have been possible to reduce H1B and kept the job in USA.
But right now, if you reduce H1B, it is going to move the whole damned job to India. At least they (or us, because I am an ex H1B) work in USA, pay taxes in USA and spend most of their money in USA and save and invest in USA. The outsourced job lives, spends, invests and pays taxes in India.
I ran the rat race in India, and won it. And the prize was US Citizenship. I don't want my daughter fighting for jobs with the next generation of me who wins the rat race in India. But that makes me sound like the guy who dynamites the bridge after crossing it himself. This is quite complicated.
As Obama said in the third debate, "Some jobs are not coming back. They are low wage low skill jobs. I want high wage high skill jobs here", it would be great if we could make sure the jobs that were lost are all low wage low skill jobs and keep the high wage jobs here. Even if that means my daughter has to fight with the next generation rat-race winner from India.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Not *every* company using H1B is doing it for evil reasons. But some of the larger ones certainly seem to be. I have seen "help wanted" ads posted looking for Masters' degree in Comp Sci with some extremely specific qualifications and ridiculously low salary. I refuse to believe that there are not any US citizens who could do that job. I doubt anyone who went through a US university could afford to take it, though.
In the tech industry? I would be surprised if more than a small percentage actually became citizens. Based on my experience, every H-1B employee I've ever worked with (~ 25) left the country after their visa expired.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
If this is true why do we have a major influx of foreign students studying in US universities?
They weren't smart enough for IIT so they had to settle for MIT.
The reason you're paid on-par is because American wages have dropped a massive amount in the past few decades. It's a plan that's been at work for decades. We were warned about it but failed to listen.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/16/us/the-1992-campaign-transcript-of-2d-tv-debate-between-bush-clinton-and-perot.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
"To those of you in the audience who are business people, pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, hire young -- let's assume you've been in business for a long time and you've got a mature work force -- pay a dollar an hour for your labor, have no health care -- that's the most expensive single element in making a car -- have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.
"So we -- if the people send me to Washington the first thing I'll do is study that 2,000-page agreement and make sure it's a two-way street. One last part here -- I decided i was dumb and didn't understand it so I called the Who's Who of the folks who've been around it and I said, "Why won't everybody go South?" They say, "It'd be disruptive." I said, "For how long?" I finally got them up from 12 to 15 years. And I said, "well, how does it stop being disruptive?" And that is when their jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals. We've got to cut it out."
So yeah, it's great for people who come from other countries to work, but it came at the expense of the American people who used to be able to afford vacations, health care, and college but now no longer can.
Both political parties dutifully ignore the issue, as they have been paid to do.
They are "Guests" who never go home, essentially.
Look up the writing of Kim Berry, John Miano, and Norm Matloff for more.
Just thought I'd add that TFA also indicates that H1-Bs are specifically for technical positions, the domestic labor force of which is 2.5 million, not 150 million.
H-1Bs are used when there is pressure on employers to pay higher wages because a certain skill is in high demand. Bringing more potential employees drives wages down because they increase the supply and because they will usually accept a lower wage. Plus they're often locked into the employer who sponsors them, it's much more difficult for them to job hop.
And that 65,000 number? That's per year, and most stay for at least six years. You can do the math but remember, H-1Bs aren't brought in to greet you at Wally World or make your latte at the local coffee shop so the 150 million doesn't apply either.
Why are they unable to compete other that sheer incompetence and laziness?
what you say if great if american workers are welcomed around the world with open arms, but the truth is that other countries are much more protectionist than the US when it comes to foreign workers.
Whoever's writing as Cringly is just being racist here.
Not necessarily racist (though that is a possibility), but definitely isolationist.
It is something like a cry of "America for Americans," but without realizing that phrase means shipping all the white people back to Europe.
Yes, this is because the 65k plus 20k caps are annual caps. Thank you for pointing the accumulative effect of this policy have been in place for 20 years! Out of hundreds of H-1Bs I have worked with, I have personally seen only one return home, and it was because of a medical issue.
Not from around here, are you...?
U.S. of A. citizens can't compete with foreign nationals who:
-- don't pay federal income tax (if they're in the US for less than so many days - can't google the #, somewhere around 150);
-- don't plan on buying a home (remember, they're temps), so don't have to deal with property tax, etc.;
-- willing to live multi-family in a single home;
-- are not up to U.S. educational standards (especially true in the IT field);
-- willing to work many hours OT without compensation (what else are they going to do here).
The U.S. is their gold mine. They work here for a few years and return to India and are then very, very well off (if they saved
while in the U.S.)
You're right, but that's only half the truth I'm afraid. Of all the H1Bs that I've met in corporate America (and I've met with a lot in my lifetime), almost all of them have have come from a middle to extremely wealthy background. That is to say, it was their parents that fronted the money in sending their child to a western university prior to landing a job in the states. That's nothing new. What *is* interesting is how their parents got their wealth. Generally in nations such as China and India, a good portion of that wealth is illegitimate. That is to say, much of it was either obtained via politics or corruption (paid for by the tax payer of course) vs say...an honest salary based on a free market competitive wage.
Life is not for the lazy.
Yes, since once he's done working he can move back to China and retire on the money he's made. A US worker could live for a few months on those same savings.
Increase the amount of Payroll taxes charged to non-citizens (and include the Employer Portion with this) of course you will need to ramp up the numbers over say 5 years but your EndGame is
15% of workforce Non-Citizens= 130% of Base Values
17% = 140%
19% =150%
21% = 175%
22+= 180% + 2% for every percent above 22
this will have 2 benefits
1 this will raise Massive Amounts of Money
2 Companies will get very creative in employing LOCAL folks
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
"Americans have MORE opportunities than non Americans for education if they are wealthy"
I finished your sentence for you.
I find it funny that some foreigners think that the USA is the land of plenty for education... Try a $60,000 debt hanging around you neck to go with that education and not being able to find a job that pays more than $18.00 an hour because the rich assholes that get $1500 an hour think that your skillset is not worth more than that.
In america it's not what you know but who you know that will deliver a high paying job.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Otherwise known as a fair market wage?
Whoever's writing as Cringly is just being racist here. There's no moral wrong when a non-American gets an "American job", whether through immigraiton or offshoring. Everyone deserves to compete for any job, without prefernce given by race or place of birth.
Sure, I'd personally like to see all the cool developer jobs reserved for somewhat overweight middle-aged white guys, but that's because I'm a greedy bastard, not because it would be some kind of moral virtue!
The problem is that it puts a net drain on the local market, both in terms of skilled workers and in terms of money. An H1-B takes a low paying job that would traditionally go to an entry-level local worker, works for several years, and returns home with enough money live on comfortably for the rest of his life due to the exchange rate. This means that the local entry-level worker can't find a job and becomes disenfranchised, and a total loss of ~50k * 3 yr = $150k is permanently removed from the local economy. Now maybe this is not ethically wrong, but it is not in the best interests of the local economy or the national economy.
Ok, how do you gain skill/experience if you can't even catch a break in your own country because you have to compete with the rest of the world? What if you were born poor? Starting from zero is HARD. What if someone becomes disabled through no fault of their own, are you also against taking care of people who can't care for themselves anymore? I guess the people who can't make it in your society should just starve to death in a gutter someplace. Ayn Rand would approve.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
H-1Bs are used when there is pressure on employers to pay higher wages because a certain skill is in high demand
In other words, capitalists don't like it when the negative part of capitalism applies to them.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Um, the free market, applied to labor/companies, would say that salaries and job demand will level out over time. If you bring in a lot of outside labor, you drive salaries down. Students entering college will look at these lower wages and say, hum, I'll go for a degree that's not engineering related. Which gives employers their ammo that "we just can't find qualified US applicants." Stop the H1-B visas and wages will rise until supply and demand settle out. It's has nothing to do with racism: , By artificially increasing supply, H1-B visas keep wages low for jobs that tech companies cannot offshore.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
The problem is that if you don't grant H1-Bs the companies will pretty much move operations offshore if they are large enough to support that sort of operation.
This
Except the part about being large enough. A company doesn't have to be large to off-shore. It is routine now for startups with fewer than 20 employees to have half of them off shore. Many VC's impose an off-shoring strategy as a pre-requisite for getting funding.
Frankly, complaining about H1B's is fighting the last war. If a company uses H1B's they will hire fewer Americans but they will hire some and even the H1B's contribute to the local economy. If they off-shore, no Americans will be hired and none of those employed will contribute to the local economy.
But wait, some say: "We can just move up the food chain. The architects and lead designers will still be here, right?" Well, they might work here (questionable if their subordinates are overseas) but the engineers in the best position to move up are the ones working overseas. That's because they are working and because they have been allowed to learn on the job rather than be required to arrive as a fully-formed expert.
So being a local no longer means being from an area, it means you have to be native to the area? Well I think after a few hundred years even my family can be considered native, otherwise we are all only native to africa.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Cumulative effect over 20 years : You can be in H1-B status for 6 + 3 years. The 700K visa holders show this well, being close to 85K * 9 years.
And of course you have not seen the visa holders return home, most of these people get a green card and stay in the US, eventually becoming US citizens.
As AC pointed out above : US gets the best minds from abroad, without paying for their education. If this is not good for the US then I don't see what is...
So, the H1-B worker, by your calculation, lives of donuts he steals in the break room and sleeps on a park bench? While there are probably some H1-B workers who remit a fraction of their income to their home country, most live in the community like every one else, renting a house, buying a car and groceries, and try to get ahead in the new country. As for the "stealing American's jobs", we graduate some 5,000,000 people a year from US colleges. Compare that to the 85,000 total H1B visa given out annually, less than 2% of the total job market entries.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Otherwise known as a fair market wage?
I would agree with you except for one big, fat caveat:
With H1-Bs, business and government are colluding to depress wages (albeit with government as a semi-unwitting partner in this affair).
If someone shows up from overseas and applies for the position at a lower wage, then it would be perfectly fair. Because of this, race doesn't mean a damned thing in the equation, at all.
But, when government steps in, things definitely get hinkey. Because companies can now knock down wages across the board for a given position, they can use the overall savings to actively seek and bring in H1-B workers, and still come out ahead.
In other words? Don't think micro-scale, think macro-scale.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
True. But that doesn't mean we can't to encourage employers to be willing to pay a living wage.
We can do this lots of ways, such as limiting their ability to import cheap workers, or by instituting fines for them paying too little (to expand upon this, I think we need to rais ethe minimum wage a la Australia to an actual liveable wage). I don't see a problem with 'nudging' employers to be willing to pay a living wage. You may, but that's because you're a pseudo-anarchist.
That's your opinion, and I respect that. I disagree, however, and I believe that we, as a whole, owe each other the opportunity to pursue action at the societal, rather than the individual, level.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Surely you don't need to plain make stuff up if you have a valid argument?
160,794 H1-Bs were issued last year (potentially more if there were any that were succesfully appealed after September)., so you are only off by about 250%.
http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/FY2011NIVWorkloadbyVisaCategory.pdf is my reference for the count, straight from the department of state. Where is your number from? Did you just assume that a limit with a bunch of exemptions to it will only reach the on-exemption limit? Or did you just make it up?
And are you also seriously claiming there are 150 million people working the US in the fields that H1-B visas apply to? Or did you make that up as well.
An unemployed citizen isn't going to cost the government nearly as much as raising and educating a citizen to the level to work in a tech or science field. And this foreigner will almost certainly become a citizen. In effect, an H-1B allows the US to steal the valuable labor and contributions to society from another country.
From my experience, the people who oppose H-1Bs tend to be very xenophobic. Have a conversation with them and soon it will digress to topics like self-deportation or worse.
I'm about as left as it gets, but I oppose the H1B status on the fact that it puts a large portion of workers at a major negotiation disadvantage. The problem isn't that there are foreigners taking these jobs, its that the foreigners are not able to negotiate on a level playing field, which drives down the wages for everyone. A similar and far more dramatic shift has happened in blue collar jobs involving illegal immigrants. The reason you don't see Americans picking fruit in California isn't because they don't want to do it, it's because the farmer can pay the illegal immigrants half the minimum wage, is not liable if that worker is injured on the job, and can arbitrarily change the deal at any point with no legal repercussions. Slave labor is bad for us as a nation, whether it be white collar or blue collar.
Nope. If you're going to offer a job, it damn well better be at a living wage. If you can't afford that, then tough shit, you make do without the labor, and go out of business.
...wages are artificially high in the United States and only maintainable at that level when the government limits foreign competition.
The H-1B program should be abolished---and along with it, the government's power to prevent anyone, citizen or foreigner alike, from working here if they choose.
Liberty in your lifetime
The supply is the world supply. H1B visas don't change the supply, they just move some of it to a more expensive place. If there are too many programmers (there aren't yet), the job should pay so little that society as a whole generates fewer of them. Work is only valuable because someone needs that work, not because it's what you'd like to do.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The wages dropping has nothing to do with people coming to America to work, and everything with moving jobs out of America to countries with much cheaper labor.
It also depends on the accounting, Most places I've worked, the full-time worker's salary comes out of operational expenses, while contract resources come out of capital expenses, usually tied to a project of some sort that's been through a business case to get capital funding.
Your $40k wages have lots of hidden company costs as well, up to 35% of gross salary.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
The problem is that we also get these visa holders taking the place of citizens, so saddling us with educated candidates that can't pay for that education.
But no matter, the schools were paid. The government fronted them the money, the loans go unpaid because the borrowers cant afford their education, and taxpayers pay for it all.
Sound familiar? It SHOULD.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Generally in nations such as China and India, a good portion of that wealth is illegitimate. That is to say, much of it was either obtained via politics or corruption (paid for by the tax payer of course) vs say...an honest salary based on a free market competitive wage.
How do you think most wealthy families in the West got started back in the day?
Vast majority of wealth in the world is taken away from other people (sometimes illegally, and sometimes simply by writing laws in your favor). It's just that this has happened ages ago in Europe, and is only happening now in developing countries.
Our best coders are all from India. They run circles around our in-house guys, including me. Anyone that's willing to come to this country, work hard, not break the law, and contribute to our country should be allowed to do so. The shame here is that they are getting Visas instead of citizenship. WE are robbing India of their talent... not the other way around.
Ok, how do you gain skill/experience if you can't even catch a break in your own country because you have to compete with the rest of the world? What if you were born poor?
I was born poor. My first programming job paid less than we now pay most freshers in India, and I was living in a major US city! Now I make a ton of money. Your first job will totally suck - get used to the idea.
guess the people who can't make it in your society should just starve to death in a gutter someplace. Ayn Rand would approve.
False dilemma. Your choices are not "do this one thing I want to do" and "starve". There are always jobs with an actual labor shortage, and society would benefit if people did those jobs instead of what they do now.
Programming pays more than the median income in pretty much every nation - as you would expect for a job that's hard to train for, and hard to do. But your first job in the field is for your training, not your enrichment.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Ok, so that's cool and all. Did you bother thinking?
H1B workers only come into "in-demand" careers in highly competitive fields where large amounts of sensitive data is concerned. You're ignoring crucial things like:
* This diminishes domestic demand for employees, resulting in both fewer people entering the fields and lower wages
* These people are taking jobs in industries with a fraction of that 150 million number. (How big is the IT industry? The biotech industry? Etc.)
* On the lower side of the pay scale, there are illegals taking jobs and driving down the price for cheap labor as well.
We're already at the point in the US where people well into their 20s can look forward to "dorming" well into their 30s with housemates and roommates, and where many are still living at home because of higher costs and minimal opportunity. This is partially their fault (for picking something like an English major in college), but not everyone can be an engineer. God knows even those who are (regardless of race or culture) are rarely up to snuff.
My personal experience with Indian H1B workers is that there are a lot of them. They're upwards of 10%-30% of the IT workers I've seen. Some are very good, exceptional even. Many, if not most, are no better than and not as good as "common" DeVry types. Most of them lack crucial problem solving skills which are a "given" in Western cultures. Now, imagine for a second if there were 10% more jobs in IT oriented fields than there are now, and had been since H1B workers became common place. Would wages be lower? No, they'd probably be higher than they are now by a fair margin, making comparable amounts to other "skilled professional" careers with similar experience - as opposed to markedly less than eg. civil engineers or the like. A crucial point to consider is that there is a very large number of skilled, experienced, and unemployed people in the US right now who are looking for work (or in some cases, have stopped trying) who are "unemployable" because they're too old, too experienced, or two "American" (what with being insistent about only working 40-45 hours a week, or the like).
I wonder if either of the Presidential candidates would dare to say that on their first day of office, they would create 65,000 high-paying, skilled domestic employment opportunities. It could be done fairly trivially, and there are certainly close to that number of Americans looking for work in in-demand fields. So why not hire a 22 year old college grad from the US than a 21 year old Indian with questionable education or experience?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
So, the H1-B worker, by your calculation, lives of donuts he steals in the break room and sleeps on a park bench? While there are probably some H1-B workers who remit a fraction of their income to their home country, most live in the community like every one else, renting a house, buying a car and groceries, and try to get ahead in the new country. As for the "stealing American's jobs", we graduate some 5,000,000 people a year from US colleges. Compare that to the 85,000 total H1B visa given out annually, less than 2% of the total job market entries.
No actually the ones I worked with were living 5-6 people in an apartment supplied by the company that they were contracting for. I'm guessing there is some kind of company store arrangement which paid back the company out of the wages for rent.
They all would carpool together to their work sites.
As a long time H1B holder I am a bit offended by the article and there are quite a lot of inaccuracies.
* The people that I know who have H1B visas both at my company and others are definitely not scraping the bottom of the barrel wage wise.
* To get an H1B visa you generally have to find a company in the US that is willing to go through the hassle of getting you a visa (And the time this takes before you can actually come over and start working).
* H1B is a "dual intent" visa, meaning you are legally allowed to aspire for permanent residence while you are here. It takes forever though and during this time you have to stay at your company (It usually takes at least 8 years). While you are applying for a green card you can extend your H1B indefinitely (I'm just about to extend my own for 3 years and I have already been here for 9).
* O might not be attainable even if you have a exceptional talent. To get one for working in IT you are pretty much required to have a masters degree. I would contend that exceptional talent in the IT field have fairly little to do with official schooling.
* Some of the H1B visas that are "fraudulent" are also people who have gotten promoted while here and the company didn't refile the proper paperwork indicate their new job titles. This usually means that they have a more qualified job and are paid a higher salary. I am not saying actual fraud doesn't happen, just that I doubt it is as prevalent as the statistics might show.
And finally, on a macro economical note, why would you not take as many people as you could that are skilled earn a good wage, can't be unemployed and generally use social resources (If I loose my job I have 30 days to get out).
One of the guys I worked with was from Pakistan. When I talked to him, he had 2 physics Masters degrees and could blow me out of the water with my High School level physics knowledge. He was going to apply to some research facilities for a job because at the time, he thought $25k was an awesome wage in the Chicago area. He didn't find out it was pretty crappy until he actually got to the point of looking for an apartment and having to actually live on that. He found out later that the company was offering up the lower wage because nobody here would take the wage and they could bring in someone on a Visa who thought that wage was livable.
He ended up working IT support because it paid better...
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
So, the H1-B worker, by your calculation, lives of donuts he steals in the break room and sleeps on a park bench?
*fweeeet!*
Reductio ad absurdum, five-yard penalty!
What he is saying is actually rather common, though definitely not to the 'sleeps on a park bench' level.
It is very common for immigrants (legal or illegal) to spend only on what is necessary, and send every spare penny back home to family. After a few years, a sum is saved up which would be considered moderate here (say, saving off $50-$75k in aggregate from a middle-class job). After a few years, the immigrant returns to his/her country of origin, and either lives off the saved money for life, or uses it to start a business. The cost-of-living differential is high enough to return home a fairly prosperous person, and none of that money does anything in the local economy.
Renting a house? No problem - In an H1-B holder's shoes, I can rent a cheap 2-bd apartment with four of my friends, bunk two to a room, and pay a mere $200/month for that. Buy a car? No problem - a cheap-but running POS off of Craigslist cost what, $1000 at the most? Groceries? A minimal expense if you know where to shop, and don't get too picky on what you're eating. Given those low expenses, in three years as a DBA @ a (way low for the job!) wage of $80k here in the Pacific Northwest, I could eke out a semi-comfy cheap-assed living, and send home at least $100k to use for when I get back to my family. After all, it's no problem to live like a pauper in some strange land, especially when I know that in just a couple of years I will live like a deity in my own home neighborhood.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Oh, it's not ironic.
My immigrant ancestors assimilated into the culture. Yes, they brought their own culture, but by and large (and in no small part, under the threat of force by the government), they adopted the rules and standards of their new homeland. See: Irishmen becoming educated, Italians starting legitimate businesses, Germans ceasing to be proud Germans (all of which added a very crucial part to the cultural ethics and fabric of the nation).
Travel through San Francisco some time, or any other current immigrant ghetto (there are a lot of them now), and tell me how well you think those people have assimilated into the culture of the US. Sorry, they really haven't.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
You do realize that "Keep America American" has been a Klan motto since the aforementioned 1920s, right?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Wow, a sane response! Our values clearly differ so much I'm not sure what to say here, but at least you're making some kind of sense!
As workes in the industry we encourage employer to pay more by doing something else if they don't. That's a lot of power, right there. But if in fact we're willing to work for less, for one reason or another, then that's fine too.
We can do this lots of ways, such as limiting their ability to import cheap workers
But this is just disappointing. That "cheap import worker" has every bit the same right to the job that you do. There's no moral reason to deny it to him. And from my own selfish interest, I'd far rather complete with him here, then in his home country!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Boo fucking hoo about costs. You and I know that they do not reduce prices when costs go down, unless they absolutely have to.
You can have it one way or the other, not both.
Either
A) 65K is a trivial fraction of the workforce, so that 65K won't make even a tiny bit of difference, even if we completely shut it off.
OR
B) We really need 65K workers, and they're going to make a huge difference.
If A, then the visa program is worth nothing to employers in the grand scheme of things. [Clearly the employers don't think so.]
If B, then the effect is lots larger than you imply and thus will have very substantial impacts on the wages paid etc.
I think given the stance employers have, that B is a much more likely option. In fact, in any sane system, you'd bet far more heavily on B than A, even knowing nothing other than employers are pushing hard for it.
H1B visa's are likely to increase the pool of labor substantially thus lowering wages.
Additionally, the lowed wages probably has knock-on effects that depress the number of in-country people who will enter that particular labor force, thus exacerbating the problem and putting more pressure to increase the number of H1B visa's and the cycle reinforces itself.
Finally, it can be xenophobia AND true all at the same time. And I expect for some people it is.
But for those who aren't out to keep the "furriners from takin' our jobs" the case is still valid - H1B visas are highly desired by many firms, so they must have some reason for wanting it.
The only business-rational reason is cost. It will cost too much to get in-country people to do the work, and we're not willing to pay.
No matter the current supply, with enough cash you'll find your labor pool. And perhaps it's higher than you'd like. Just give it time. The increased wages should provide increased supply in a few years.
-Greg
I used to work as an H1-B worker. I 100% agree that the work visa program lowers wages and steals jobs from Americans.
From my personal experience I know, that if I was not dependent on my employer I would have asked for higher than the market pay rate, rather than take lower than the market rate. However, since US government "helped", none of the companies I worked for had to offer proper wages to job applicants. I have seen many tailored job postings that were not really looking for applicants, but were posted only to fulfill requirements set forth by the government. Prevailing wage analysis and numbers that come out from that are mostly irrelevant and do not have to be lower than the wage being paid to the H1-B worker. My approved green card application had much higher wage than I was/am getting.
The program does not protect American workers at all. I used to hate H1-B due to somewhat slave labor legal conditions associated with it, but now that I am almost a citizen, I hate it because in its current state it does not benefit Americans and actually harms them.
Another things worth mentioning, although many people apply for green card after being on H1-B, the work visa is not considered to be a proper path to citizenship by US government. Partially due to this, none of the experience gained while working on H1-B can be used in green card application to prove that person is an asset to the company or to the country.
The question makes inaccurate assumptions. You are assuming that employers value education and experience over how little they can pay their employees. That, and both potential hires are pretty much blank slates in terms of whether they can actually effectively use the education/experience they have gained.
I mean think about it: Your college grad more that likely has very little to no experience, and you can't be sure if the foreign worker actually has the experience he/she is claiming. So, the experience/education factor is basically a wash.
In the end, what is an employer at a for-profit private business going to do: Pay the US college grad $X or the H1-B worker $X * .75? I'll give you a hint: They'll hire the H1-B every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Plus, the domestic worker is going to want silly things like "health insurance" and "a 401k" and "dignity in employment", while the H1-B worker not only will accept work without benefits, they are far more likely to eat the shit that the employer feeds them in the form of unpaid overtime and slave-labor working conditions. I mean, what are they going to do, complain? Complainers get fired no matter their nationality or status, but the difference is that the H1-B faces deportation if he/she gets fired, so he/she is much less likely to do anything if he/she is poorly treated.
Employers like spineless worker bees that they can pay peanuts. Period.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
You forgot to mention the part where if it wasn't for them bringing you buddy and many more like him, you would be making 75k a year instead of the 40k a year you are making now.
But as they artificially rose the number of qualified applicants while making sure they would work for less than the local would, over time, they have driven down the wages without you even noticing that your wages and raises didn't come close to matching the rate of inflation anymore. And many, if they couldn't get the visa's just outright hired illegal labor.
Reminds me of the local Smithfield packing plant we have out here. About 8 years ago, you couldn't find anyone there making over $8 an hour and complained how the management were slave drivers. They claimed that was all they could afford. Then they make nation headlines where thousands were deported followed by thousands more Mexicans walking off the job in protest of it and a Union forming. Now I got friends making $13 an hour after only 2 years there, probably about $14-15 now.
The more people you can pump into an area looking for a specific job, they more you can drive the wage of that job down, especially when you are cherry picking your labor pool from areas where they work for MUCH less than your current area is.
I've seen the "live on the cheap" version before, typically with Indian and Chinese graduate students, so it might very well exist in the DBA H1-B world too. And maybe DBAs are more interchangeable than scientists, and having true short term employees is not a detriment for Microsoft. But in most fields you want to keep your technical staff around, not having to replace it every 3 - 6 years due to visa rules.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Bingo.
When it comes to outsourcing/contractors, it is all about the stock numbers. Many places will lay off employees before getting rid of contractors. Payroll hurts stock outlooks while contractors can be buried in the paperwork.
You might be joking, but seriously, there are about 5 universities in the world that are a step above the MIT/Stanford/Berkley holy trinity.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
H-1B doesn't change supply at all. It just moves the supply into the USA. Those Indians with 10 to 15 years experiance and master degrees are not going to retire if the USA gets rid of H-1B visas. They will just work for less money out of India. Or work out of Mexico, Canada, Europe, or China.
it's not racist, it's simply selfishness. there are billions of unemployed people in the world that would do your job for food and a shitty place to stay. if we had to compete in a fair market 90% of currently employed people in "first world" countries would have a massive drop in wage
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
compare to 13 + 8 + 12 = 33 millimeters, yes, .7 meters is pretty significant.
This is a real problem. My anecdote:
Several years ago I interviewed for a job with a software company that specialized in analytics. At the time I had almost ten years of enterprise java development experience. I sailed through all the interviews and was told I was by far the strongest candidate and they were about to make me a job offer. At final phase, HR director calls and says they want to send me an offer, they just want to know what my degree was in. I told them that while I went to school for computer science, I dropped out before completing (dot com bubble era) so I never finished my degree. After hearing that HR lady was like, "oh... lemme call you back" ... called back a few minutes later saying they were not able to extend the offer, even though I was the strongest candidate, because if they hired someone without a degree it would jeopardize their ability to hire H1-B workers. When I asked why, I was told it was because they use degrees as the primary indicator of qualified workers. If they hired someone who didn't have a degree, it would demonstrate that there really are more qualified workers in the US than they claim, and they would no longer be able to hire H1-B.
So, while it may not be that my job was directly taken by an H1-B worker (I don't know for sure if this was the case), my job went to someone less qualified because of H1-B bureaucracy.
Yes, I've seen that - the agency charged the corporation $120/hour for services, while only paying the H1-B visa graduates $35/hour. The difference was kept by himself.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Apparently economics is not your strong suit, friend. America through the 70s and 80s protected its middle class by managing a complex structure of trade barriers intended to keep American wages high and prevent the flood of dollars into the world economy diluting American wealth. At the same time American corporations began to globalize and build strong networks with the other global enterprises, and opening American borders to trade was great for them but sadly destructive to the American middle class as it began to have to compete for jobs with people who could afford to work for pennies an hour for labor jobs and just a few dollars an hour for technical jobs. These people lived in economies where the cost of living was a tenth of what it was in America and so American Nationals had no sane way of competing. So you want to get something clear off the bat, fair market wage is a fantasy. Until you homogenize the economies of the world so everyone has the same cost of living, same tax burden, same access to educational resources, medicine, and civil liberties, there can be no such thing as a fair market because your trading apples and oranges.
America has been bled dry so that the dollar and the rupee are quick approaching the same value. The American people will soon be able to compete with laborers in the global market because their wages will be in fact the same. This is not a good thing for Americans. We have been reduced to a third world nation and our wealth has been squandered on multinational corporations who no longer owe American any allegiance. I've personally known hundreds of engineers who don't engineer anymore, because after the Dotcom crash, their jobs went away and they never came back. I lost my retirement in two massive stock crashes. I work for 60% of what I made in 2001, and if I account for the real value of the dollar that's probably closer to 45% (and don't let them lie to you about inflation, the dollar is a shadow of its pre 2000 value.)
I'm not big on waving flags, but let me ask you a few questions. Do you believe that the vast majority of dollars foreign workers are paid remains in the American economic system, or does a lot of it go back to the home country to support family there, and what is the impact of dollars flying out of out economy? Do you think that foreign workers have any loyalty to America, or do your think they take what they learn back home to start businesses that compete with us? I could actually go on quite a while, but hope I'm painting a picture here for you. The wealth of all kinds leaves out country and makes us all poorer. This is the place your children will inherit. What will be left of it when you've taken your share?
All I need to say, is what is the state of the middle class in this country, and what is the state of technology workers in the U.S. today, and my first question is how many of the AMERICAN workers were American in 1995 and how many are today.
It's an unfair market. They are bringing in workers from across the world, from different markets and economies, to drive down wages. There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Market. They have accomplished this, as Cringley illustrates, by lying and cheating. If they were not permitted to lie to us and to cheat us, our wages would be much higher, their profits would be a tiny bit lower, and the low wage workers would be working in their own countries where they *would* be paid a fair market wage, that is, a wage proportionate to the local standards. This isn't just about fairness, or about the simple purpose of this duplicity is to make our lords so much more rich - it's about national security, *real* national security, not the militaristic crap about being prepared for China to bomb us. To have a United States with citizens that can advance their careers, earn more money, buy homes and educate children, we cannot compete with workers from countries made impoverished by too many babies too quickly added to the local economies. This isn't a game - this is killing our middle class. This is converting the US into a country of bosses and slobs, with the money more and more going to the bosses. Numbers bear this out. It's ain't the debt that's killing us, it's the wealth redistribution to the top tier.
This is about *your* survival. The wage pressure is always downwards, with pauses to get used to the new lower levels.
You may have yours, but, so what? A good chunk of us will not have ours, and more importantly, the coming generations will get even less. Even Jerry Pournelle, free market idealist extraordinaire, said himself a few days ago on TWIT that to succeed in the future, people will have to make themselves valuable to those with the money. In other words, make yourself useful to the rich people. Even he's seen that the middle class is rapidly converting into a servant class for the wealthy.
Curtail the H1Bs. Let the home countries take care of their own workers by building their own industries. That's how markets work. O class workers can come here as much as they like, because the are exceptional, and by that, it is meant *few*.
Lying to us about a worker "shortage" when there simply isn't one? This isn't about "business", this is about government run by businesses for businesses' purposes, not for the benefit of the actual citizens. Government, under orders from businesses, opened up the H1B program quotas. That is not a free market move, that is a straight-out government-mandated interference in our local markets so that businesses can gain profit and leverage over US citizens. Wages stagnate and fall, H1Bs work without complaint else they be deported. Free market for whom?
That five million are not programmers and engineers. The H1Bs are. They are imported precisely to counter employment of local graduates and to drive down wages. This is not a supposition. There is more than enough corporate money to pay increasing salaries to college graduates - but they want to keep that money, which they pay to themselves, of course. So they flood the tech market. It's not a huge overall effect, but it is targeted and successful in reducing American salaries. And in case no one notices it, we live in our own country. We'd like to see our wages increase proportionally to the increasing megawealth of our employers' bosses.
This program was created in 1990, not 1790. It exists only to drive down wages. It exists because the employers are lying about the purpose of the program. There is no worker shortage. There is a shortage of workers who will work for cheap so that the corps can increase profits 20% a quarter.
That money that is not being paid to us is not being used by us to buy a house, an education, buy goods, or to raise our children. That money is being diverted from us to make rich people far richer. It is helping to inhibit the wage growth of the few occupations left to the American middle class that could conceivably use real, actual free market forces to their advantage. It is shutting the free market down, not advancing it.
I'm about as left as it gets, but I oppose the H1B status on the fact that it puts a large portion of workers at a major negotiation disadvantage. The problem isn't that there are foreigners taking these jobs, its that the foreigners are not able to negotiate on a level playing field, which drives down the wages for everyone.
That's the first intelligent thing I have read in this thread. The H1B program has two flaws: first, it is too expensive, slow, and restrictive for getting a Visa. At our startup, If we find someone really good we want to hire from europe (which is not so seldom, since we know a lot of people there) we have to wait for next year's quota, so (s)he can't get started until october next year. That can be over a year of waiting time! We're talking people we know, with a PhD and a strong track record.
Second, as the parent poster mentioned, it puts employees at a negotiation disadvantage because they cannot be unemployed while on the H1B. Also, if they are in the middle of a green card application and they change employers, they have to start from scratch. Solution would be to de-couple immigration H1B status and green card applications from employers. E.g., if an H1B holder could be unemployed for up to 12 months before he loses his visa, his negotiating position would be about as strong as a citizens', so he could ask for a fairer wage.
And before anyone starts the xenophobic rant that we should be hiring americans, nobody in the team that started this company was born in america. Now we are bringing money and jobs here. If the rules had been only a little bit more restrictive, this company likely wouldn't exist.
Whichever country can attract the best qualified people will have the strongest economy... this is what the US has excelled at so far. Now already the US doesn't allow people who study here and get degrees from top universities to transition to a job and eventually a green card. That is one of the dumbest economic policies currently in effect in this country.
I'll grant you that there are obvious advantage to the rest of the world for an open America, the problem you miss is that now all those nations hold a tremendous amount of American debt. What happens when the American economy implodes? Just as there is goodness for everyone to take now, there will be unhappiness galore for everyone to take a nice fat slice of. American are suffering terribly. Some say in a year or five everything will be better, how long can you hold your breath?
Our government threw a trillion dollars at trying to bail out the deep water American middle class is in, and the banks took that earmarked money, gave it to one another as bonuses and hid it in foreign banks. If you think the very same bankers will treat anyone else on the planet with any more grace I think you don't know bankers. We are all playing at a crooked poker table, and the dealing is dirty. All of this is an exercise in manipulation and misdirection. The problem is that we of the American middle class, and all the good people of the world are focusing on the wrong hand. Our masters are greedy and without compassion. We need to find our own way, and we best get about it soon while there are ways still left to us.
I don't know, our company DOES NOT hire H1Bs, just because we hadn't done it historically, but they're seriously considering it.
At one point last year, we had upwards of 50 technical job openings (in a company of under 600), we were offering a $5,000 referral bonus for anyone referring an employee who got hired. They were offering a signing bonus and high 6-figure salary. The positions were open ANYWHERE within 1 hour of a major US or Canadian airport and were advertised as such. The only downside was that many of them required about 40% travel and at least 6 months of consulting experience. Granted, this is a niche market to some extent and requires very specialized skills and they're not the type that can be trained up in a few months...
Despite the bonuses, it took several full-time hiring staff almost a year to fill those positions and half a dozen were filled from outside the country by sponsoring various types of visas. We were having to turn down work because we couldn't fill the positions.
That's been our experience anyway. Many of the postings had dozens of applicants, but so few of them were even close to qualified, a few that I saw were downright funny. This is technical stuff we're doing and we got a lot of apps from folks who were tech support at DirectTV or something similar for the last number of years... pretty wild, and certainly not someone we could put in front of a customer and wow them with expertise. The hiring staff automatically trashed applications from outside the country at first, but eventually gave in and started accepting them because they just couldn't find enough qualified people.
BillWG in his greed is trying to create a self fulfilling prophecy. Look at the state of CS at US universities. CS has gone from being a major pillar of many universities back to nothing but a math curiosity. Who would want to spend 60k on getting a degree so you could struggle against some foreign worker with made up credentials to be paid less then most executive assistants. If the politicians don't do anything about the visa abuse and rein in outsourcing you can kiss IT goodbye in the US.
And thats why Americans don't want STEM degrees. The H1B program is a scheme to prevent upward mobility for intelligent lower to middle class Americans.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-