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UC Davis Study Concludes H-1B Workers Neither Best Nor Brightest

Posted by Unknown on from the but-neither-are-the-americans dept.

CowboyRobot writes "American companies are demanding more H-1B visas to ensure access to the best and brightest workforce, and outside the U.S. are similar claims of an IT worker shortage. Last month, European Commission VP Neelie Kroes bemoaned the growing digital skills gap that threatens European competitiveness. But a new study finds that imported IT talent is often less talented than U.S. workers. Critics of the H-1B program see it as a way for companies to keep IT wages low, to discriminate against experienced U.S. workers, and to avoid labor law obligations. In his examination of the presumed correlation between talent and salary, researcher Norman Matloff observes that Microsoft has been exaggerating how much it pays foreign workers. Citing past claims by the company that it pays foreign workers '$100,000 a year to start,' Matloff says the data shows that only 18% of workers with software engineering titles sponsored for green cards by Microsoft between 2006 and 2011 had salaries at or above $100,000."

6 of 353 comments (clear)

  1. No Free Market for Employees by iSterculius · · Score: 3, Informative

    Supply and demand right? The "Free Market" right? Once again, brainwashed Corporatists who believe they are Free Market Capitalists think it is OK for corporations to simply manipulate the supply through H-1B visa abuse rather than pay the free market rate. These are the very same boobs who squawk that CEO pay is based on "talent" and the great scarcity of ex-football players with big egos who want to make 50 million a year. Tell me Corporatists, why is CEO pay OK, but programmer pay gets under your skin so much? Ah, because you believe that if you suck up to Big Daddy he will take care of you. Infants.

  2. H1B and L1 visas are both being abused by paper+tape · · Score: 5, Informative

    The standard procedure for companies when they want to do this is to first post a job opening with outrageously high skill and experience requirements, and a sub par salary.

    Any American workers who are qualified for the position are generally already employed at the same or better wages, in positions with lower requirements - so few if any apply. If a qualified worker does apply, it is a win for the company - they've just hired an overqualified worker for 1/2 to 2/3 of the salary such a position should command.

    In the more common case that no workers apply who meet the qualifications set, the company applies for an L1 or H1B visa on the basis that it "cannot find qualified American workers". They then bring in foreign workers who do not meet the original requirements, for even lower salaries.

    1. Re:H1B and L1 visas are both being abused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      Actually H1B visa requires that the position be posted in the US for a pre-determined period, before the alien can be offered the job to ensure that citizens can apply. The company issuing the job notice writes the requirements so only a few can qualify and usually specific to the alien applicants skills. This is to ensure only the alien can be reasonably chosen. Rarely does the government review the actual applicants to ensure the citizen is given priority.

      In the apartment where I live (200 units), there are approximately 85 Indian families working at various companies in the area. Multiply that by a dozen or more apartment complexes in the area and you can visualize the number of alien workers in high paying technical jobs on H1B visas. It is cheaper to hire an alien worker and move them to the US than pay a local qualified worker. I know these alien workers do not have skills greater than US citizens.

      There is a bill in Congress to increase H1B visas from 85K to over 300K. This is a crime and a cheap corporate trick to hire workers for half the going US salary. There are no aliens with higher skills than US citizens that would justify H1B visas, unless you were talking about rare scientific skills like Exo-Planetary Geologists and we have those scientist.

      Any US government official, congress person or president that agrees with H1B/L1 visas has been paid off for their vote.

      This kind of issue should be left to the citizens of the US, in a referendum voted by all fifty states. POWER TO THE PEOPLE and NOT THE REPUBLIC.
      You can't buy off 330 million people.

  3. Re:schadenfreude by RabidReindeer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Anyone who works for a company is an indentured servant. Do you really think companies pay you what you're worth? No. They pay you what they think they can get away with.

    An "Indentured servant" is midway between an employee and a slave. Technically, the Indenture is a debt that must be paid off, and employers can buy and sell indentures, thus effectively buying and selling the person attached to the indenture.

    In that sense, H1-B is metaphorically accurate, since an H1-B without an employer loses their right to be in the USA. It's not technically accurate unless the H1-B worker is actually working off a debt (say, because he signed up with some body shop back home and had to pay to get the Visa and posting).

    Nobody ever gets paid what they're worth. Not garbagemen, not teachers, not software developers, not CEOs. They get paid what they can get away with. Some get away with murder, others get murdered. That doesn't make them indentured. All of them can quit. Some of them can find other positions elsewhere, others may only be able to afford to quit in the sense that they can afford to starve. When you are indentured, you can't quit.

  4. Re:schadenfreude by WrecklessSandwich · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hi, I'm a professional roboticist. Here's some super awesome (often deliciously job-crushing) automation systems off the top of my head:

    Automated fast food preparation. Yes, that's right. Those jobs are going.
    Safe, easily reprogrammable robotic factory line workers. No light curtains. More cost effective than a minimum wage US worker and still improving.
    Automated chemical solution preparation. This normally eats up the time of lab researchers using their PhD to essentialy do high school chemistry that's standard grunt work.
    Modular biological lab automation systems. Similar to the previous one, this eliminates a bunch of grunt work that lab researchers normally have to do themselves.
    More laboratory automation.
    A fairly high-end pick and place machine assembling PCBs. Shenzen eat your heart out.

  5. Re: Not just MSFT by NickGnome · · Score: 3, Informative
    Yes, I have friends who are doctors and friends who are lawyers who similarly refuse to associate with or pay these groups of thugs. In the 1990s, my next door neighbor had just finished his stint as president of the ABA, and a friend was a clerk at the state bar association.
    ...

    My father was in unions. I've read UE's _Labor's Untold Story_. I've known former Teamsters shop stewards (one of whom re-tooled to become a mechanical engineer), and dock-workers. We've all seen the thuggery of the SEIU.

    The problem is that they are thugs -- quick to initiate force and fraud, quick to drain dues and other "contributions" into enriching and empowering themselves, and quick to work against the better interests of individual members.

    We've seen how ACM and IEEE keep on stabbing US STEM workers in the back, including in today's congressional hearings.