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UC Davis Study Concludes H-1B Workers Neither Best Nor Brightest
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."
What else is new?
So when nerd inventions blast away other people's jobs, most of the people around here start screaming about buggy whip manufacturers and the need for a rapidly adjusting workforce. When US companies go outside the priesthood and get overseas IT people because the locals don't meet their needs, then suddenly protectionism is awesome. The rest of the country has zero sympathy here. Nerds have constantly pushed technology that has cost people jobs. From replacing checkout operators, to devastating travel agencies, to Google self driving cars getting rid of taxis to "disrupting education" so you can fire a lot of university staff. When a nerd looks at someone with a job who isn't in IT, all they seem to be thinking is "how can I automate it so that this sack of meat is no longer in the equation"
You increase supply, and demand price drops. Train them up, after 5 years they have to leave (H1B is time limited), so they return home, rehire in their home country at a discount, (well after all living costs are cheaper). Then you've cut your costs.
What's good for American business is good for America, well the business part of it anyway.
Just think, if demand was high, Americans would be trying to get good University degrees and filling those jobs. Instead, USA has become a net importer of IT goods and services.
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.
Also, H-1B employees cannot easily go to another company if they are abused at their current job.
If invited H-1B workers were able to jump ship for better conditions, the market would reassert itself soon enough.
Amazing how even though lower-skilled people, even considering savings in labor, are often less profitable to the company than higher-skilled, competent people, many companies still prefer the former.... My guess is a lot of it has to do with how managers are paid at big companies. Obviously every company is different but at the few I've been to a manager's salary is primarily determined by:
a) headcount
b) labor costs
Obviously the 2 seem a bit contradictory, but doing a little linear programming yields that for the manager to maximize his profits, a large # of low-wage workers is preferable to a smaller # of high-wage ones, even if the costs are the same and even if the output of the latter is better. If we want to change the environment first thing we have to do is get rid of the perverse incentives.
Please do the needful - I need this asap.
If you have an industry who is trying to compete solely on cost then the work is going to be done by the lowest bidder via H1B or outsourcing, take your pick. The tiny advantage of H1B being slightly more jobs and dollars manage to stay in the US. Unfortunately software companies have demonstrated that if they can't bring the workers to them then they have already demonstrated they are willing to send the whole kit and caboodle overseas. The US software industry can only compete with this by competing on quality and the ability to understand a client's needs and write software for it rapidly, on time and to budget. You've got a cultural advantage in that a US based employee is more likely to understand how a US business process works than someone used to a different business environment but it seems few companies are setup to take advantage of that. The other problem being that management culture needs to be encouraged to reward look at long term balance sheet rather than saving a few bucks on buying rubbish software and paying hundreds of bucks to make it work for you.
No, this is the inevitable outcome. By forcing down salaries and exporting IT jobs, there will be fewer Americans going to University and being saddled with great debt in the process because the reward is less.
The fewer Americans, the more H1Bs are needed and so on, spiraling down. Just because it takes time to do, doesn't mean it isn't inevitable.
Really, they need to recruit the best in the world AND KEEP THEM. Instead they're recruiting trainees on a visa designed to export them again, then export their jobs when they're trained.
First thing - the Economic Policy Institute is clearly a political think tank rather than a pure research institution. Biased.
I was wondering how would you evaluate the skill of IT workers on a large scale so I looked at the actual article. These are their metrics:
- salary
- rate of patent production
- Ph.D. dissertation awards
- alma mater university rank
- employment in R&D
The data then comes from surveys.
I call BS on this study!
I think one of the biggest hurdles is the language barrier.
As a software developer, your job is converting the truth into software. If you can't communicate fluently with the source of the truth for that software, then you can't do your job well. Many of the foreign workers that are my peers speak broken English. *I* find it harder to understand them, and I'm their colleague, working on the same subject matter, so I have concerns about their ability to gather requirements and produce software for the laymen who are our customers.
Mind you, I think the same way about the youth of today. I value precision and concision in English the same way I value it in any programming language.
Most people never mention this for fear of being labelled racist - it's not about that. Language is the software developers primary tool, and it behoves you to be able to use it well. Because the history of computing has it's roots firmly in English-speaking nations, English has become the lingua franca of programming. I happen to have been born in an English-speaking nation, so I have a natural bias.
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.
"USA is leading the currency war (able to do it so far, since USD is 'reserve', but everything is transitory), and the objective of a currency war is to inflict damage upon yourself. Destroying your own currency means literally destroying its purchasing power, destroying savings, destroying investment."
Their logic is that, if you disincentivize saving and the acquisition of real property by reducing interest rates to near zero, people will go out and spend their money, or invest it in the stock market, both of which "stimulate" the economy.
Of course, it has been proven time and time again that this doesn't work, and only leads to a Weimar Republic situation where the money becomes worthless. But, that doesn't stop the boneheads in Washington DC chasing those short-term gains that come from printing money and giving it to voters.
The US really is doomed. I give it, at most, 50-100 more years before it completely collapses. I just hope I'm gone by then.
Now that thousands of DOD/NASA/NOAA/FAA/ect technical contractors are going to be looking for work.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
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.
On robotic trends and societal implications, see my post: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3515335&cid=43077393
Or see my site for lots of ideas about the economics aspects of ongoing economic changes related to automation and increased productivity.
http://www.pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html
Essentially, as I say on my site, there are five interwoven economies (or types of economic transactions -- subsistence, gift, exchange, planned, and theft) and the balance between them changes along with technology and culture. Right now, we need to be talking about things like re-strengthening the subsistence, gift, and planned economies, while softening the exchange economy with a basic income. Because in a world full of cheap robotics, the exchange value of native human labor in the USA is not going to be that high. And otherwise theft increases as the moral bargain behind any particular economy is seen to break down -- and growing theft has its own huge costs and undesirable aspects.
Marshall Brain's site is great about the general topic of the economic implication of robotics (including wealth concentration):
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
You know, I remember when I almost had a conversation about immigration with my friend - at least, I like to think of him as my friend - Aaron Swartz. I'd have said something like "The whole problem with immigration and jobs is rights. The right for a non-immigrant to be treated fairly. The right for an immigrant to be treated as a human being. The whole H1B thing undermines that by discriminating against American who need jobs at home, by recruiting desperate foreigners who can be abused and paid less to do the same work."
I like to think Aaron would have agreed with me on this.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
It's not surprising US PhD's are more focused on the higher ranked schools. The premium, over an MS, for PhDs, is small relative to the cost so there is little incentive to earn one; and if you do the opportunities are far greater from a top school. For foreign students, a PhD has far more prestige and value and hence higher demand. lesser schools can use that demand to generate cash and fill programs.
Why not make H1B's more mobile - after six months or a year in the US allow them to freely change jobs. That's enough time for them to prove their skills and get an idea of their true worth in the job markets. Companies would need to be meet real market values for talent and would be more selective on who they hire and what they pay to avoid losing real talent while paying to get them here.
I can understand why people who are have the talents for STEM leave the field. I make far more in a non-STEM field than I ever made in engineering and haven't hit a plateau as many of my friends still in engineering. I remember when I first got my degree being shown a graph that showed salaries peaking and then real income declining as you gained experience since at some point it was cheaper to hire someone with less experience than pay you. The advcie I got was get some experience and then bolt - either to management or another field where your skills are rarer and experience is valuable.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I wonder how many grad students and academics of this study are on visas themselves, and how it might lead to an interesting paradox. ./ afterall)
(did not read TFA, this is
"- What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
"- You ask a glass of water."[from h2g2]
$100K for a new grad? Really?
In theory, an H-1B is only supposed to be granted if it is not possible to find a qualified person in the native labour pool. If someone has a degree that is so specialised that there are no US citizens with that skill, then why wouldn't they expect to be paid $100K or more?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The whole point is H-1Bs are cheap and *compliant* - being nothing more than indentured servants and all. Please, please also ignore the massive percentage of industrial espionage against US companies that is conducted by recent or 1st gen emigres.
If a US citizen decides that they are being screwed, they can give notice, quit, and SEARCH+BEG FOR another job ^^ Fixed it for ya. H1B's just have higher formal education level for cheaper wage, precisely what most recruiters desire!
You know, these brilliant "free market" gurus are right, so let's go all the way with this idea. Whatever your job is, be it in accounting, sales, plumbing, whatever ... let's allow every foreigner who wants your job into the United States and let them work at whatever pay they will accept. Come on, after all you are SO DAMN GOOD that it wouldn't effect YOUR job, right? In fact, let's just open the borders. Anyone can come to the United States without restriction, except that if they choose to take your job at a lower wage, your ex-employer can also threaten them with deportation to keep them in line. Oh, that's right. You are SOOOO SMART and just SO DARN GOOD that nobody could replace you! You are mommy's special little boy, aren't you?
Yes, but a U.S. citizen does not risk being deported and if they believe that all companies are screwing them they can attempt to start their own business. An H1B visa holder must find a job with a company that can sponsor their visa in order to stay in the country and they must do so within a time frame that is well-known to all such potential employers. If you are a U.S. citizen it is unlikely that your potential employer knows how much longer you can afford to be unemployed and thus has less negotiating leverage than they do with someone with an H1B visa.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The primary/secondary educational system in the US, unlike those of Asian countries, emphasize individualism over obidience. Here, slight slap on a kid's back and you might have a lawsuit against you for "child abuse".
New Economic Perspectives
The argument about H1B is completely stupid and misses the point.
The reality is that the US is one of the biggest markets in the world and products are developed for that market all around the world.
I live in an emergent economy (South America) and 90% of the companies that develop software or expot other kind of product/services have the US or Europe as target.
The main difference between here and the US is that, even though people does not earn as much in the US, talented or experienced employees are much, much cheaper.
And about the saying that American companies will always prefer to deal with other American companies, it's really easy to set up a company in America even if your workforce is somewhere else.
My point is, it doesn't really matter where the brightest people is, but that it's much easier to "steal" American jobs by not being in America than being there, and this is not even about outsourcing. At least with H1B, the worker will pay taxes in America and will help create jobs, as they will be a part of a team.
Other countries, like Canada or Germany, understand this much better than America and welcome reasonably talented people and gives them citizenship very easily, because they understand it's much more benefical to have them inside the country than outside.
That is why, the fact that H1B itself exists is proof of American arrogange and stupidity. It's the old xenophobic political fallacy of blaming those outside for the problems inside, and by judging the arguments of most posting in this article, it is really working.
Government thinks it's a great idea to allow companies to cut IT expenses by importing cheap foreign workers. I think it would be a great idea to import a bunch of people to take over government jobs. I'm sure we could find plenty of TSA workers who could do a better job at half the cost.
We should also fill up the financial regulatory agencies (OTS, CFTC, SEC, FDIC, OCC) with H1B candidates. Nobody could possibly do a worse job than the employees of these agencies. I'd rather have incompetent people working there than the current people who are either past or future employees of the companies they're supposed to regulate.
Let the mass layoffs of federal workers begin. Welcome H1B replacements.
Why don't you start a business in your own shithole country? You guys are so talented you should have no problem competing in the global marketplace.
Matloff has been on a crusade to stamp out immigration of high tech workers for many years, because he wants the supply of high tech workers to be low in order for salaries to go up. That's economic nonsense, because doing so simply would make the US tech industry less competitive and just cause more jobs to move overseas.
As for his study, he picks and chooses measures that superficially sound sensible, but without necessary statistical controls. One of his main conclusions is that prior foreign student status correlates negatively with salary, and he therefore concludes that foreign students aren't as bright as US students. But he fails to correct for differences in the populations. Mostly what this study proves conclusively is that Matloff is no statistician and doesn't really know what he is doing.
Of course, this kind of bad statistics is extremely common, used in areas from creationism to climate change, often by both sides. Each side gets their citeable scientific sources, and both sides can then go on hurling insults at each other.
I have met many people in the last few years who went into consulting, and they all tout that it's great to finally get paid what their skills are worth. The hidden thing they never mention: people skills. Most of the engineers I know don't have people skills, at least, not with people outside their immediate work/social-sphere.
If you are competent, have people skills, _and_ you can sell (all of which are usually required for most consulting work), you're wasting your time in consulting, because you'll double your income (or better) in insurance. I don't see that field getting saturated with capable people for a long time.
The study defuses the idea that "foreign student that graduate from US universities are brighter". The (obvious) conclusion is nop, they are not.
Now, what a surprise. People that go to the same school are in average the same level of skills. Unbelievable.
H1B are not distributed to students though. They are distributed to professionals. Many of whom have graduated from a foreign university. Some of whom have exclusive skill sets that are not taught at US universities. Not to shock you, but there are a substantial number of universities that perform better at forming students than US ones -at least on a particular domain (don't pull a Shangai report on me, there are also so many methodology biases in this thing that I'm not even sure what it measures, although it does measure something at which US universities are better. Besides, even if top tier universities are very good indeed, not all US universities are top tier.)
So my opinion here is that the study wanted to show something, found a bias that result in the something.
In some overseas country's (asia) it's all about the tests in school and IT needs more hands on learning like a trades system not paper MCES or people with schooling that is manly high level theory. Now in some areas the people with the high level theory are needed but the that should be learned up front with little to no hands on / learning on the more day to day stuff.
Also schools should being turning people with just the high level stuff We don't need that many high level people who can't do the lower level stuff.
time wise learning the lower level / hands on stuff can take about the same as purely doing the high level stuff.
Not to be crass about it, but these H1-B workers are the high tech equivalent of the guys who hang out outside your local Home Depot and wait for someone to pick them up for a day job.
Business likes them because they're cheap, coming from countries where the cost of living is much lower and so our salaries here seem magical, and they're also obedient, which means that they do whatever management says and do not criticize it.
It's not about them doing a better job. It's about them being better cogs and, when their usefulness is done at age 40, business can spit them out into society at large and externalize the costs of their living, medical care, etc. to social costs.
The H-1b program is a program to support ethnic nepotism in hiring. That's what's really going on. If it were actually about substituting equal or better quality labor while lowering labor costs -- which is, of course, an illegal use of the H-1b program -- the companies engaging in the most H-1b fraud would be more viable than their competition. So what happened to Sun? What is happening to HP and MIcrosoft?
Seastead this.
Yes, but a U.S. citizen does not risk being deported and if they believe that all companies are screwing them they can attempt to start their own business. An H1B visa holder must find a job with a company that can sponsor their visa in order to stay in the country and they must do so within a time frame that is well-known to all such potential employers. If you are a U.S. citizen it is unlikely that your potential employer knows how much longer you can afford to be unemployed and thus has less negotiating leverage than they do with someone with an H1B visa.
This is why the companies are able to screw two people at once. They screw the H1B by paying them less than they could make elsewhere, knowing that the H1B has no choice AND they screw the local employee who would have had gotten that job if they hadn't hired an H1B instead.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I live in an emergent economy (South America) and 90% of the companies that develop software or expot other kind of product/services have the US or Europe as target.
So what are you complaining about? Good luck with your company. I'm not opposed to imports.
it's much easier to "steal" American jobs by not being in America than being there
Then why did the Indian Commerce Minister refer to the H-1B as the "outsourcing visa"?
the worker will pay taxes in America and will help create jobs
The "worker" (sometimes called a person) will pay taxes, but the unemployed American won't. And what jobs will they help create? Sure, if we had 500M instead of 300M people in the US there would be more jobs, but so what? It's the unemployment rate that matters.
Other countries, like Canada or Germany, understand this much better than America and welcome reasonably talented people and gives them citizenship very easily
Germany? You've got to be kidding. It's almost impossible to get German citizenship unless you're of "German blood". It's the US has has constitutionally guaranteed birthright citizenship (no such thing in Germany - there are 3rd generation Turks who are still not citizens). Naturalized US citizenship simply requires a 5 years with a permanent residence status.
But why are you talking about immigration? If you understood the first thing about the H-1B you'd know that it's officially and explicitly called a "non-immigrant visa". Employers like it that way. Permanent residents in the US can do almost anything a citizen can do except vote. And (unlike with the H-1B) they can accrue time towards the citizenship requirement. Best of all they can quit their jobs any time they like. If they get laid off they can look for another job just like a citizen. They can say "the hell with tech" and open a popsicle stand if they like (probably pays better - no "guest worker" program for popsicle sales). And they can stay in this country until their dying day if they like, regardless of whether they choose to become a citizen or what type of work they do.
They are hiring for the cheapest. If they can get the best and brightest at the same time, they'll do that, but that's not the primary selection criteria.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There's some disturbing news trickling around the employment process market that you have better chance to get a new job *if you already have one*. If you quit, you risk screwing yourself because then if you don't land one you often don't get unemployment benefits either, and then if your resume goes stale then you're shunned. Scary.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
As an Indian, I'll say that there's one key part of this equation that everyone is neglecting - the PIMP. No, I'm not talking about Project Information Management Professionals - I'm talking about the guy in the shaggy coat wearing expensive jewelry bought from the earnings of his stable of hookers.
Discussions about outsourcing typically focus around blaming the hooker (the outsourcing worker or H-1B recipient - "you so trashy!"), blaming the John (the first world employer - "you so horny!"), or blaming the wife (the displaced worker - "you so jealous!").
The lone snake-in-the-grass who's totally benefiting from lack of attention is the PIMP -- the 3rd world political boss who's got the hookers in his grip. He's laughing all the way to the bank, earning much desired foreign exchange for himself. He is the fundamental enabler of this situation, and the ultimate profiteer -- and ironically the one who totally escapes all notice, scrutiny, or accountability.
India for example has largely been run by one party for over a half-century, despite touting its label as a "democracy". They're basically the Brown Sahibs who took over after the White Sahibs left. Small aberrations aside, it's a One Party State at its apex, with various local parties acting like feudals pledging fealty to their emperor. Because of the incessant antics of the ruling politicians, the voter is left with no real choice or redress - and an unempowered voter is an unempowered worker. That's why it's a ramshackle dysfunctional country, and also why so many are forced to prostitute themselves to survive, becoming homewreckers to someone else.
The key to restoring economic health in 3rd world countries - especially India - is to throw out the ruling kleptocracies and promote political empowerment along with good governance. This in turn will get the get their workers off the ropes, increasing their local leverage, and ultimately creating a wage spiral that narrows the gap between first world and third world wages.
Get rid of the pimp, and the whole chain of exploitation unravels.
Practically all US tech companies are hiring as many visa workers as they possibly can. Keeps the remaining American workers in line.
IMO: it's way past time for US tech workers to organize, and stand up for themselves. If not a union, then a worthwhile professional organization, like the AMA.
Shouldn't the world's superpower be capable of producing it's own? And if they are not, be capable of figuring out why and fixing it?
IT unemployment is at 3.5%, for highly skilled workers (what H1B's are supposed to be) it's even lower. If you're begging for a job and making major concessions you're negotiating from a position of ignorance.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Seriously. I have heard this many times this last year in my job hunts: "you are really qualified." "you have valuable experience we need." "you scored in the top 3 of all test takers." and then when they make an offer its 15% below what I'm currently earning. I do great in the interviews. I show proficiency and have verifiable job experience. So I get less $. Makes no sense to me.
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
> If someone has a degree that is so specialised that there are no US citizens with that skill, then why wouldn't they expect to be paid $100K or more?
Enough of us have seen first hand that it's simply not the case.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
remove health care from jobs and or have a bigger time block for hours. Don't have weeks have 30 day blocks or yearly ones.
IT unemployment is at 3.5%, for highly skilled workers (what H1B's are supposed to be) it's even lower. If you're begging for a job and making major concessions you're negotiating from a position of ignorance.
Wages have been flat or declining for a decade though, which has discouraged our 'best and brightest' from entering the field. If we didn't artificially lower the value of developers and IT, it would be a much more attractive field for Americans.
I totally agree. Everyone here is obsessed with H1B's and seem to equate it with outsourcing to Bangladesh. No-one seems to consider that talented first-world people might want to work in America.
Often Americans ask "how can I emigrate to the UK"? Well the answer is you basically can't. Tight immigration controls aren't so great then are they?
Given the way salaries have been slipping compared to GDP/capita, 3.9 is too high. It needs to run near 0 for all industries for a while to re-balance the books.
If a US citizen decides that they are being screwed, they can give notice, quit, and SEARCH+BEG FOR another job
Actually, when I quit recruiters beg for me. I have a couple of them out looking (always up front about it) and I usually have workplaces competing for me. Except at the height of the recession (where it actually took me 3 months to get a job around Christmas/start of the year), I have always gotten a job within a couple weeks.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Sorry, forgot the point. At least in Southern California, the job market is so sparse, the H1Bs don't even make a dent in the demand.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
People offer what they think you might take ... always feel free to counter-offer.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
Negative, wiener boy, the EPI is concerned with the metrics of forced inequality, the war on the rest of us waged by the plutocracy, and you sound like either the spawn of the plutocracy or ITAA or whatever those freaks are now called.
Too late, too many wasted people and talent thanks to the banksters and their ilk. One day the prey will become the predators.
...
I'm already organized, and standing up for myself.
Oh, you mean give over my personal sovereignty to leftist union thugs, giving me another faction to struggle against to try to retain my earnings. No thanks.
The fact of the matter, the actual reality is that this is no different than the Railroad Trusts bringing in Chinese scab workers by the literal boatload to replace American (mostly Euro immigrants, Black American workers and Japanese immigrants) as gandy dancers, or railroad workers of yore. Now it's the tech, engineering, science R&D fields, etc., but the concept and process is practically the same. Reduce wages and control the arbitrage market (all markets are presently rigged, so what the hell, huh?).
...
You're living in the past.
Today, if you want to start a business, you have to get multiple licenses and permits, make all kinds of protection payments to the local government thugs, beg for zoning "variances".
Merely conceiving of, designing and developing a great software product is the least of your problems... unless it's a new scheme to help the government thugs violate more people's privacy; then the skids are well-greased.
"...will be when global wages equilibrate as relative currency values change.."
This is pure US Chamber of Comerce (USCoC) talking points' nonsense we've been hearing from those paid-to-play douchetards over the previous ten years or more.
Paul Fernhout is as full of bullcrap as those masters he serves; his butt is for rent to everyone!
Too many Capitalist Fascist States, like Amerka, or too many Totalitarian Capitalist States, like China, control the wages --- this is all about reducing everyone to serfdom and controlling the workrs of the world.
Anyone saying different is usually on THEIR payroll, rest assured. It is like Martin Feldstein, involved in the economic meltdown (once upon a time a director at HCA, director at Eli Lilly, director at AIG's Financial Products group, etc.), also being the douchetard who keeps telling us the recovery is taking place!
NickGnome, you might want to look at the American Medical Association or the American Bar Association. Both organizations are basically "unions". They just don't call themselves such because they are "white collar" unions. If you want to practice law or medicine, you have to be a member of the "Association", pay dues (mandatory) and while the collective bargaining agreement isn't quite the same, you don't see doctors or lawyers fighting employers as much for their jobs.
If your government had a deliberate policy of importing temporary workers (not immigrants) to compete for your jobs and depress your wages, would you be happy about that?
Bullcrap, bullcrap, bullcrap, sonny! The real problem is a select few having control over the creation of money and the destruction of economic surplus.
...
You're incorrect, both in particulars and in context.
BLS said that the unemployment rate for computer science and math workers (not "IT") was 3.6%. In times of full employment, the comparable unemployment rate was between 1.1% and 1.8%. So, we're a long way from full employment.
Further, multiple studies over the last decade by Hal Salzman, B. Lindsay Lowell, and Michael Teitelbaum concluded that only between a third and half of new US citizen STEM grads have gained STEM employment. Matloff's (and others') earlier examinations of BLS data suggested that as time passes after graduation, that figure drops.
The H-1B visa has nothing to do with "highly skilled workers" as is shown by Matloff's study under discussion as well as the fact that neither the statutes nor regulations have any skill level requirements at all.
Wow, how naive. I have worked for several companies that claim they will FIRE you if you reveal what you are paid. Any discussion of pay is banned. Why? Because what you are paid is entirely based on how well you play the system. If you don't constantly pay attention to what the going rates are for others with your skills, you will fall far behind.
The big winners are the job swappers - you can really get the big raise when the employer has a desparate need and YOU are the one to scratch it. For the loyal employee who is actually really good, the fact that you are good means they do not see a need, and you will be undervalued.
I have been a manager, and see the disparities in pay for the folks that work for me - and am prohibited from doing much about it. There are typically max raises available, and lots of corporate games to allow only slow increments for most. If you really want a raise, get an offer "unsolicited" from outside, and take that to your manager. Even better, wait till you get a raise, and then go get another job.
The H1-B employee has almost no options to improve their lot. These guys are hard working and generally good, but easily brought in unaware of how much more expensive it is to live in the US, silicon valley in particular. They accept lower wages and are often taken advantage of by the employer, which will work many of these guys 60 + hours a week - they end up with no social life at all.
Wages have been flat or declining for a decade though, which has discouraged our 'best and brightest' from entering the field. If we didn't artificially lower the value of developers and IT, it would be a much more attractive field for Americans.
Actually it's closer to thirty years now. Since about the Mid Carter administration real wages for all but the top 1% have either stagnated or gone lower. While the top 1% of the economy has increased its real income by about 247%. Tech work represents one of the few remaining high-paying fields that don't depend on your having a thousand wealthy social connections and doesn't force you to go into possibly inescapable debt to finance your education. If the software you write is good enough (and there are plenty of opportunities for you to learn to write good software on your own time) you don't need college, and that right there represents an existential threat to company bottom lines.
It's an avenue of productive work technically available to anyone that doesn't have the disposable nature of either menial labor or middle management in that anyone can be taught to do it well enough. Bad software means security risks, which could mean data breaches, lawsuits, etc. You simply can't afford to run your business on shoddily made software for any number of reasons, which means you have to invest in top grade talent and retain top grade talent. The only people who we currently treat like THAT are EXECUTIVES...The H1B program actually makes sense when you look at it that way; and that's why fighting H1Bs is important.
It highlights the glaring hypocrisy of our current society's economic system. We treat CEOs and executives like kings who must be paid deference each year through ever-rising salaries, fantastic not-linked-to-real-performance performance bonuses, etc. Yet for any other worker? Even if they ARE just as irreplaceably valuable to the company bottom line, we'd still rather deal with the problems of poor software than DARE to disrupt the ecosystem where only CEO pay and CEO bonuses are sacred, and all other workers must suffer to ensure the "Gods of finance" are placated.
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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.
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The San Diego/Los Angeles area business/financial reporters used to talk a lot about Qualcomm, BAE, BEA, SAIC, special effects houses, and the biotechs along Mira Mesa and Sorrento Valley. Digital Domain and Rhythm & Hues are dead.
None of them will deign to interview a US citizen STEM worker. We have US citizen Mensa members with multiple graduate degrees right there within a block or so, who can't get the time of day from STEM recruiters. Some have been mostly or totally unemployed for the last decade. The fortunate ones get survival gigs from time to time, teaching the cheap, young, pliant guest-workers with flexible ethics how to program.
The guest-workers have not only "put a dent in the demand" for US STEM talent but have totally undermined it.
We have over 1.8 million US STEM professionals who are either unemployed or involuntarily out of STEM. Employment of production workers in app development (what BLS calls "software publishing") has been flat at a mere 220K for the last decade. Employers no longer fly US candidates in for interviews (though before H-1B they used to do so). Employers no longer offer to relocate US STEM talent (though before H-1B they did). Employers invest much less in new-hire and retained employee training (which used to run 2-12 weeks for new hires and 2-4 weeks for retained employees).
Since 1970, based on US Dept. of Education and NSF statistics, we've added about 12 million US citizen STEM workers to the talent pool.
All we get from reporters is, "Well, I talked with a couple executives with a vested interest in cheap, pliant labor and he said he just couldn't find *anyone* with degrees in math and physics and mechanical engineering and computer science and graphic arts and PR and at least 5 years but no more than 10 years of professional experience in each within a few surrounding blocks who was willing to work for $20-$30/hour on a temporary/contingent basis. And they tried soooo hard. Why they put 2 ads in the BackCreek WV Gazette and the Boondocks Diner, once a month for 6 months and got no 'qualified' applicants, so there must be a terrrrribbbbble talent shortage."
There is plenty of evidence of an on-going STEM talent glut. No evidence of STEM talent shortage has ever been presented. Ever. Not in the 1980s. Not in the 1990s. Not since 2000.
> Oh, you mean give over my personal sovereignty to leftist union thugs, giving me another faction to struggle against to try to retain my earnings. No thanks.
Then bend over, and wait for that ungreased cattle prod.
BTW: I specifically said "If not a union, then a worthwhile professional organization, like the AMA."
Without organization, tech workers are entirely at the mercy of ruthless tech companies. Unlike real professions, tech workers have no organization, and therefore no power.
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I think you got it wrong. University degrees are beside the point. Some universities are much better than others. Good students can do well even at a poor university. Poor students can get through the best programs and learn little. Autodidacts sometimes outshine them all.
Are you honest? Are you intelligent? Do you have the knowledge? Do you have the experience? Are you diligent? Are you creative? Are you industrious? Are you conscientious?
In academic year 2003-2004, US citizens earned over 66K CS degrees, and over 270K STEM degrees. In AY2009-2010 this was down to between 48K and 49K CS degrees, and 310K and 311K STEM degrees. Since 1970 US citizens have earned over 1.3M CS degrees, and over 9.1M STEM degrees.
And, once again, in the last decade or so, only about a third of new STEM grads are landing STEM work, so we have a surplus of both new US citizen STEM workers and experienced US citizen STEM workers, and a huge untapped pool of US citizen STEM talent that needs to be brought back to full employment.
Even former cross-border bodyshopper Vivek Wadhwa has admitted that, by every measure, US STEM workers are the best. He also admitted that the core issue is that the guest-workers are cheap... plus, he has a certain understandable sympathy and solidarity with those from the land of his birth.
Yes, American STEM professionals have degrees, intelligence, knowledge, experience, industriousness, creativity, honesty, and conscientiousness. Yes, we always did engage in continuous learning. The only thing we no longer have is STEM employment.
If demand for STEM talent were high, even more US students would be investing more money, time and effort to get STEM degrees, compensation (not just hourly wages, but salaries, sabbaticals, travel, employer contributions to pensions, etc., would be increasing), employers would be trying harder to recruit, they'd be putting their own e-mail addresses and telephone numbers in job ads, they'd be offering more training (not less), retention bonuses...
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Now, being tall, and "handsome" or "beautiful", has a more significantly positive effect on compensation than intelligence, creativity, industriousness, reliability, honesty, knowledge, etc.
Have you read that section?
Instead of combining all immigrants, or all foreign workers, this report will focus mainly on immigrants who first entered the United States as foreign students.
Makes more sense about the results.
The only people stabbing anyone in the back are the corporate overlords you so revere. What do you propose the solution to the aforementioned problem is, if not to organize?
I'm a bigger fan of violence myself, but I'm not stupid enough to think I'd be leading some sort of revolt in the process, so I don't carry it out. But I wouldn't be surprised if it came to that.
As someone who is short, overweight and female - I'm screwed when it comes to salary negotiations and generally have to rely on skill.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
As someone who has spent most of the last decade working as a Business Analyst I would say that you really don't understand what a BA does. In addition to your list I would include understanding business implications, critical thinking, attention to detail and problem solving. A co-worker of mine used to joke that 'we put the anal back into analyst'.
Over the years I have mentored a number of BAs whose attention to detail has been so incredibly bad that it has totally undermined the results of any analysis they have done, caused their employers to look unprofessional in front of their clients and resulted in more work for their peers when someone else has to come in and clean up their mess. These people generally go on to become consultants at big name firms and then have real BAs do the analysis for them.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
I call bullshit. At most you pony up a few bucks for a business license. I've got tons of friends running "Businesses" to get their Warhammer stuff cheap. They've gone through the entire process. It's not even hard. There's a few zoning laws to prevent you from drawing a ton of traffic into small neighborhoods that don't have the infrastructure for it.
Forgive me for asking, but what are you? A tea bagger twit or an astro turfer?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
this isn't true. The few jobs left pay $8 to $10 /hr and you do the work of 3 or 4 guys. It also largely depends on how you classify IT. If you mean jobs at google yeah. No shortage there. If you mean entry level VB programmer for a competent guy that's not a mathematical genius, those jobs go to H1-Bs until they hit the quota.
Besides, what do you thing dropping 250,000 people into the workforce is going to do to even that bullshit 3.5%? I know I just accused one guy of this, so I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but are you an Astro Turfer?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If they became US citizens, they aren't "stealing jobs from Americans" anymore, now are they? So what's the problem?
Naturalized US citizenship simply requires a 5 years with a permanent residence status.
Yup - the tricky part is getting that permanent residence status. Apart from all the requirements for it (and, a for skilled worker, you pretty much need corporate sponsorship - which few corps are willing to tackle unless you already work for them), there's also the matter of waiting time due to application backlog. For EB-3, it's about 6 years right now - that's for them to start reviewing your application (which then takes another year or so). So the overall waiting time to citizenship is around 12 years.
In contrast, in Canada, after one year on a work visa, you can apply for permanent residence through the provincial nominee program, and get it in about one more year (and while your application is processed, you get an automatic open work visa which can be prolonged until your application is either accepted or rejected). From there, three more years to citizenship.
But why are you talking about immigration? If you understood the first thing about the H-1B you'd know that it's officially and explicitly called a "non-immigrant visa". Employers like it that way.
I don't know about employees in general, but Microsoft in particular sponsors all its H1B employees for green card as soon as they become eligible. And most employees do want to be sponsored. Simple fact is that, for a skilled worker who does not possess "extraordinary skills" or relatives, it's pretty much the only US immigration track available right now, other than the green card lottery.
Who said anything about telling anyone what you make? I certainly didn't. As for naive, hardly. I've been in the IT industry for a couple of decades. I've been in both technical and management roles. I certainly know the game. It sounds like perhaps you do not.
I agree about H1-B workers being screwed though. I've even heard managers/directors drooling over the fact.
With a little training a basically healthy person can become a marathon runner. Just sayin'.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Well, in what remains of our democracy and its core value of freedom of speech, you're certainly entitled to your opinions and speculations. :-)
http://bullies2buddies.com/Essential-Articles-for-Home-Page/the-true-meaning-of-the-golden-rule-love-your-bullies.html
Is some fraction of what I write ill-informed BS? No doubt. I just don't know which part or I'd correct it. :-) Still, let me reiterate, as I said in the post you responded to, in thirty years these sorts of economic discussion will likely be moot. With the growth of robotics and AI, 3D printing, advanced nanotech materials, probably hot and/or cold fusion power, certainly dirt-cheap solar panels (down to $1.75 or so a watt deliver from Amazon at the moment from 3X times that ten years ago), continued breakthroughs in nutritionally-based medicine and related diagnostic sensing, and so on, the economic landscape will almost certainly be radically different in 30 years than today. Most paid human labor will be replaced by such innovations, and most human labor will have little conventional economic value. That is the core point of my post. That is why I advocate rethinking economics, including by having a "basic income" like Marshall Brain proposes or along other lines like expanding the gift economy, improving subsistence production via 3D printers and solar panels, or improving government planning so it is more participatory at all levels. So, we are only quibbling about how the economic lines squiggle a bit to the left or right on the way there, IMHO.
A focus on individual people or their follies tends to ignore the long-term trends we see playing out, like the above. The progressing "Did You Know" series is interesting to watch on that including changes with the internet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmwwrGV_aiE
Or stuff by Hans Rosling:
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html
Or by me: :-)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html
Ignoring the ad hominems -- and the possibility you are just a psyops technician of the kind you claim elsewhere to despise :-) -- thanks for the challenge to get me to think more about this issue of floating exchange rates and currency manipulation. I have to agree that it is possible for countries to manipulate their currencies for an extended period of time to achieve certain national (or leadership-related) goals. China has been accused of that, probably with a lot of truth, like discussed here:
http://welkerswikinomics.com/blog/2010/11/23/exchange-rates-and-trade-a-delicate-balancing-act-currently-out-of-balance/
As discussed there, what are the key issues related to exchange rates and labor costs? Well, the cost of a product from China is essentially the cost of Chinese labor in China (plus costs from rent-seekers and raw materials that I'll ignore) times the conversion rate of Chinese currency to US currency (currently 0.16 USD per RMD according to one calculator I tried). You are implying that both Chinese wages and the currency conversion rate will hold fairly constant for 30 years. I am suggesting that both the Chinese wages and the conversion rate will likely significantly rise over the next thirty years and that this will happen in most other huma
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
And let's face it. As far as the bean counters are concerned, you put a body in a chair and code flows forth.
It doesn't matter to them if it's good code.