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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"
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.
Just think, if demand was high, Americans would be trying to get good University degrees and filling those jobs.
I think you got it wrong.
Americans have university degrees. Unfortunately, they demand a competitive salary (since getting a degree in US is expensive). Also, Americans tend to leave and get another job if they are underpaid
H1B employees, on the other hand, are forced to take what they are offered or lose their visa and go home.
Please do the needful - I need this asap.
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!
Moreover, once a crop of H1Bs have done their 5 years, gained their experience, and returned to their home country, they become a pool of trained employees who can be hired to work from their home country at wages that are suitable to that country and substantially cheaper than those paid to an American employee - even a new hire in all likelihood. Thus the pool of overseas low-cost employees builds while the number of positions that *have to go* to US Citizens decreases. The former H1Bs are familiar with the working environment and business routines of the US companies after 5 years as well, and so potentially need less training in that regard. This will likely continue to spiral until the majority of US IT jobs are actually being done outside the country wherever possible. I am Canadian, and the same applies here of course after its own fashion. Not all jobs can disappear this way of course but anything that can be done over the internet can - and thats an increasing number of jobs.
When the technology for remote controlled robots being developed in the military spills over to civilian life more completely, you may even see those jobs that require a physical presence here in North America, disappear as well. Right now someone has to physically carry a new system or printer from the loading doc to the office to install it, but when that can be done cheaper by someone operating a robot in Bangladesh, even that might be gone.
Time to learn how to repair robots perhaps (although eventually it will be cheaper to just unpack a new one from China than it is to repair a broken one).
What is in the interest of Big Business, is manifestly NOT in the interest of their employees a lot of the time.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
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.
Now that thousands of DOD/NASA/NOAA/FAA/ect technical contractors are going to be looking for work.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
By the time remote controlled robots would be usable enough to carry around and install office equipment it won't be long before we have robots that can do it without any remote control.
And I doubt there will be a significant time span where robot-maintainer is a useful job; we'll have robots for that too.
There needs to be a serious discussion on what kind of society we are going to have when human labour is obsolete. The current system will start seriously breaking down when capacity outstrips demand by a significant degree and any increase in demand will be met by further automation.
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.
Americans have university degrees. Unfortunately, they demand a competitive salary (since getting a degree in US is expensive). Also, Americans tend to leave and get another job if they are underpaid
I know lots of students who are paying US college rates for a masters degree (Ph.D students generally get paid by the university/grants) and so need a competitive salary as well - and no student who gets a degree from a US college (whom I know) is working for peanuts. They get the same salary as their US counterparts (you could argue that the increased workforce is driving down costs overall, but that is supply and demand). And 90% of the class are international students, almost all of whom want to stay in the US. And many H1B workers switch jobs when they can/need to. They just have to get the new job BEFORE quitting their old job (or within 30 days of quitting or something like that).
The real problem is the H1-B to green card process - the rules stipulate that once you apply for a green card (which many H1Bs do) you can't switch jobs (even within the same company) till the process is complete (3-5 years). Or else you need to start the application from scratch. The US is the only country that makes it so hard for even skilled workers to get a green card. It is easier to get a EU/Canadian/Australian green card sitting in the US than it is to get a US green card. If the US made it simpler to get a green card for skilled workers, many H1Bs would not be tied to an employer for so long.
Now, if you are talking about hiring overseas workers from outside the US - by getting them H1Bs from within their home country - then the issues you raised might be true. But a LOT of H1Bs are given to international citizens in the US itself.
This is a very insightful post. Wish I had mod points; instead I replied to another reply below.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3515549&cid=43077499
The only thing that will stop the outsourcing economically from places like the USA or Canada (short of political change, but the money is against it) will be when global wages equilibrate as relative currency values change. But by then, in a couple decades, AI and robotics will be doing most things people are paid for now, and it will be hard for most people to compete in a race-to-the-bottom with machines that work ever-more-cheaply 24X7 for most jobs. Even if some people can compete, a lot of people like doing things like being outdoors growing plants, or making stuff with their hands, or building big things, so I can't see how most people are going to be happy spending huge amounts of time stuck doing whatever is left after all those things are mostly automated (robot management -- except won't AIs do that?).
Still, while doing meaningful work (which includes child care) is essential to human health, having a paid job is only essential in a certain kind of economic system (like without a basic income). Canada has pioneered in that area:
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4100
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit#Canada
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
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
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.
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
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.
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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.
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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.