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No Shortage In Tech Workers, Advocacy Groups Say
sabri writes To have a labor shortage or not to have, that's the question. According to the San Jose Mercury News: Last month, three tech advocacy groups launched a labor boycott against Infosys, IBM and the global staffing and consulting company ManpowerGroup, citing a "pattern of excluding U.S. workers from job openings on U.S soil." They say Manpower, for example, last year posted U.S. job openings in India but not in the United States." "It's getting pretty frustrating when you can't compete on salary for a skilled job," said Rich Hajinlian, a veteran computer programmer from the Boston area. "You hear references all the time that these big companies ... can't find skilled workers. I am a skilled worker."
While it is true that businesses create job descriptions specifically designed to eliminate American workers, it is *also* true that plenty of American IT workers think they are super-awesome and really aren't. They have skills, but they don't actually have the specific skill the business needs, and the business doesn't want someone they have to train (especially not when someone they don't have to train is already available). Furthermore, they don't want to hire someone who has a poor work ethic due to this inflated sense of self-worth, when people are available who will work hard out of gratitude for the job. While it is true that not every American is like this, many are, and if hiring foreigners avoids them, all the better. Also, a foreigner is less likely to job-hop for a better salary after a year.
A labor boycott against tech companies that don't want to hire Americans? It's hard to see that as being effective.
The US is awash in certain kinds of skilled tech workers: Java programmers, web programmers, iOS app programmers, and more. It's not hard to find them, nor is there any kind of shortage.
But for more complex work, the best qualified workers are from overseas. Go look in any US comp-sci graduate program, and try to find the Americans. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Back? How many did you find? 10%? 20% And from my experience interviewing them, they are often not the cream of the crop. Don't get me wrong, there are some really top notch American students coming out of graduate programs, but that's the exception, not the rule. If you want a deep understanding of theory, rather than another Java coder, it's hard to find that in the US. Not impossible. Just hard.
there certainly is a shortage of tech workers in the US willing to work for 19,000/year
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Soon the market for US based programmers will be flooded by a new wave of corporate-sponsored graduates fresh and ready to be burned out, thus driving programmer wages down to "competitive" levels.
Thanks Google!
Our company bought several million dollars of IBM products and services a couple of years ago. No sign that any skilled tech went into either the development or support of that stuff. Their salesmen did a good job of blowing smoke into our VP's face though.
Skilled worker [that costs too much for their profit margins].
i'll happily work there. let's start the bidding at $300k/year, do I hear $350k?
To employ people for $5,000 and sell products to people who make $80,000.
They do not see the fundamental problem.
It will resolve itself. Wages in china and india are up to $5,000 now and still doubling every 2-4 years (lower wages doubling faster).
Of course, that leaves the problem of robotics- which right now- today- can do work for less than poverty level wages in most of the world- and are only getting better an cheaper.
Robot repair jobs are two orders of magnitude less (1 worker and robots replaces 1000 workers). Automated procedures is replacing most of the thinking jobs.
The only jobs left will be "creative" jobs. Where the creative part of your jobs is less than half of your job- look for outsourcing. And about, oh, at least half of the global population isn't well suited for creative jobs since they are (by definition) below average intelligence.
Either a free stuff utopia or some kind of really terrible future is just down the road.
Hopefully after I'm dead of course.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"It's getting pretty frustrating when you can't compete on salary for a skilled job,"
What? I could quit my job by burning bridges in such a manner that the flames would be seen and felt in the Heavens themselves, then immediately argue a 50-75% increase in pay.
"You hear references all the time that these big companies ... can't find skilled workers. I am a skilled worker."
Are you? Are you really? Because for the past decade, it's been nigh on impossible to retain programmers who want exponentially more money. Because they'll get it.
Why for all love would you be looking at Manpower, "for example"? Where in the name of the Dark Gods your professional network? Jesus. I'm a charisma-incompetent, socially-inept recluse, and I but need to whistle to land interviews.
Not all H-1Bs are bad. I have seen talent from Europe and the UK brought in because they are just fscking phenomenal. Their specialization was extremely important. However, these days, H-1B workers are just hauled in because they are cheap, easy to kick around, and disappear when done, such as a company that changes the developers out every 89 days.
One place I worked at hired a lot of H-1Bs, and the reason for it is that "Americans sabotage and sue, foreign workers can be trusted far more. Ever see a H-1B tie us up in courts?" Every place I have seen that has H-1Bs has bragged about their quality above native talent. Cognitive dissonance? Same companies that brag about that have at best a mediocre end product.
The ironic thing is that this cheapness causes damage in ways that the management drones don't even think about. I've worked with H-1Bs who were copying entire source code trees onto removable media. As soon as they went home, all that code would be theirs to do whatsoever they wanted. The CAD files and formula timings? All theirs to use, free of charge once they got home. As soon as they left US soil, NDAs didn't apply to them.
I've got no problem with immigrants that are "taking american jobs" if they are more skilled. I do however, have a problem if they are being paid substantially less than me. If they are that good they should be paid at least as much if not more than their american counter parts.
That would solve the "shortage" really quick.
I'm from EU.
Several times I worked with pakistan/indian development teams and I found them unsatisfactory.
Most of times I had to skill them not only in basic programming but in base mathematical notions as well.
All of them were hired by US and EU bosses as "computer geniuses" only because what they talked could hardly be understood.
Customer care and tech support now are outsourced in India or other countries as well, but the level of incompetency they offer is almost unbelievable.
As far as I'm concerned there's a shortage. I've been trying to hire developers for multiple high-compensation positions in NYC. Truly smart/capable/motivated people are not looking for jobs. They are already employed.
Don't get me wrong, there are many people looking who think they're qualified. I just don't agree. I'm not even looking for particular skills or experience. Just people who are genuinely into technology.
... the world doesn't owe you a living. Even if you have all the right stuff now, and supplement that with at-home study sessions to keep your skill set reasonably up to date (e.g., with the server-side latest libraries for JS) it won't necessarily be enough to get a job you'll be proud of ten years from now.
The woman who chatted online with Obama about her out-of-work husband who was a semiconductor engineer, doesn't get it. People need to actively manage their own careers, through twists and turns in the global economy, labor market, and business and technological trends; unlike the so-called "greatest generation" that reached adulthood in the decade after WW II, it's not enough to get a degree or two, get hired by a reputable company, and be a good company player for the next 30 or 40 years. That period was probably an aberration.
I don't necessarily agree with FB, Google, and Microsoft on their recommendations for H1-B policies, but Americans working in the tech. field should have a personal job strategy that does not depend on either the continuance, expansion, or shrinking of that program. It should be irrelevant to where they're headed.
Word substitution is a common ESL problem.
I don't see why this was recycled by the submitter and editor; it was adequately covered a month ago. Attempts by these "advocacy groups" to unionize tech workers just aren't being met with any interest.
So post it here.
Yes. Usually. So you have to offer them something MORE than they have at their current job to make them willing to take a risk on a new job.
Yeah. You might want to re-evaluate your criteria.
At least narrow it down to whether you're looking for a programmer or a CCIE. Is this about writing drivers? Or programming EPROM chips? Or iPhone games? Or encryption? SatNav?
Aboutt who can rant 3e any fucking
I can't buy a Ferrari for $100, by the same logic, that means there *must* be a Ferrari shortage! Something must be done!!!
Hint: reward good people, and you won't have problems finding good people. The problem is these miserly capitalist/MBA types who feel tech types are getting all "uppity" for wanting a decent salary for their 4 year STEM degree and often 2-6 years of grad school to boot, because doing that takes away from their quarterly bonus.
I live in Canada, and we're going through something similar with a 'temporary foreign workers program'. Workers are brought in from other countries because people aren't willing to work for the salaries that the employers deem affordable... that's not how a free market works... is it?
The Canadian government has been put on the spot to the point, that they actually have to act on behalf of Canadian WORKERS, rather than employers.
Keeping fighting to keep this issue current and in the news. It's terrible for the workers, it's terrible for your country, and in the long run it's terrible for the employers.
At the risk of sounding like a HR/CEO cliche, the most valuable asset for a tech company is its people. Also, quantity does not equal quality.
Cliches are sometimes based in truth.
After reading the " How often should I change jobs " thread yesterday and noted most do so to keep asking for ever increasing pay, it isn't shocking to realize the big companies have turned to outside skills at a fraction of the cost of an American worker.
Why would they hire you at $100k + / year when they can pick someone up on a work visa, with the same skills, for half of that ? Especially for short term projects ? If they have the skills, how do you compete against someone willing to do the work at a fraction of the pay ?
Companies are under pressure to keep cutting costs and they have cut so much the only thing they have left is the labor pool.
It won't be long before American skills are just too expensive to consider for those companies who have the option to utilize outside labor. If you think unemployment is bad now, wait till they quit hiring locally because you won't / can't work for what your replacement is more than happy to get.
Not sure how to fix it either. Cost of living here is a lot higher than it is in ( insert your favorite country here ) so, as long as they have the skills, they will get the jobs instead of the guy who has had six jobs in the past three years and is demanding insane compensation and will likely jump ship in six months anyway.
The relevant observation is that the bean counters deciding on hiring don't know, in many cases, what skills ... of
are actually needed and have no idea how to look for evidence of someone who learns fast and thinks on
his feet. When a "skill" means "claimed experience with version X of program Y", you miss the more
important issues of "knowing 6 or 8 programs that do what program Y does, knows how they work, how to
build new ones...". Such a person is much more likely to be able to work with version X+1, X+2
program Y, or with whatever replaces program Y later.
I've seen far too much of the lack of such capabilities, and too much of people with evident
independent thinking skills being missed, to doubt the problem is real.
I should add that it is much harder to get useful stuff from a guy whose English is incorrect
and/or difficult to understand. (Of course I'd tend also to mark down the ungrammatical
sich as the above's "substitute a thick accent with lack of intelligence". One may
"take a thick accent as an indication of lack of intelligence", but the former usage is
marginally unintelligible. He who can't speak good English may or may not be unintelligent.
He is likely to be unintelligible.
(Numerous Americans are not good with English and numerous Indians I have known are
excellent at it by the way. However poor grasp of the language combined with an accent
that is hard to parse, or habits of poor enunciation, make it hard to work with someone...
hard enough I think such folks should not be hired in the first place.)
From what I hear, IBM's research model for physics is this: very few tenured/permanent researchers, and a whole lot of foreign postdocs and temp workers. Why don't they hire american physicists? Because americans require a higher wage. Not because they're better, but because foreigners are trapped by the rules of the program, and even if not, would otherwise work for less anyway (coming from 3rd world, or otherwise non-american economic levels). In my experience in physics grad school, foreigners and americans are pretty much on par in skill, but there are more americans [http://www.aip.org/statistics/data-graphics/astronomy-phds-awarded-citizenship-classes-1983-through-2012] at these levels. There are a lot of very good people both foreign and local, so, given roughly equal abilities and many more americans, you'd think IBM would be hiring more americans, but no.
Anyone who thinks IBM/Google/Apple are being honest and forthright has a severe case of amnesia and should review the recent antitrust/collusion to keep wages low. http://pando.com/2014/03/25/newly-unsealed-documents-show-steve-jobs-brutally-callous-response-after-getting-a-google-employee-fired/ :)
Ban need degree and ban degree for X school.
also if you want have more Hb1's then get rid of student loans.
also medical care for all
American capitalism hates American workers. They put greed above all, even the sustainability of the US economy. Why the hell are we putting up with this?
Why is Snark Required?
so they don't have to pay for the added cost of health care that is not needed with temps / Hb1's
For most companies it is shortage in finding PhD workers with 5+ years experience to have them fixing hugs in a 12hours a day job with semi decent salary.
Do you know a lot of US tech workers that would accept this position? If they have these qualifications they shoot for an exec job in Google.
Maybe CO is a bubble, but from what I see there is a MASSVE shortage of people. My company tried for almost a year to find good tech people. Begged, scrounged, tried to poach, nada. The jobs may not be the best paying, ~$120k/year, but that's pretty decent I think. 6/10 applicants are Indians, 2/10 are chinese and 2/10 are American. I've been involved in some of the interviewing, searching, hiring, ...
Out of those,
The Chinese folks seem to have their ducks in a row. They ain't great on the innovation part and you have to spent a LOT of time steering them, but at least they work hard.
The Indians spend most of their time emailing management about how awesome they (the Indians) are, rather than doing any actual work.
The Americans seem to be stuck in the glory days of post-WWII when America didn't have any real competition (rest of the world was smoldering ashes) so they now seem allergic to the concept of hard work. Ladies and Gentlemen, office/IT/tech work does not mean you don't have to WORK! and no, you are not harder workers than the rest of the world or more innovative or more irreplacable. Get off your asses!, > 2 hrs of real work a day is NOT asking too much. Crist, walk around and all you see is facebook or amazon accounts on people's machines.
It's awful! It took a full year to finally find just a couple good people. We also picked up some fresh grads and interns (looking towards the future), but greenhornes take several years to spin up.
You know the funny/frustrating part? The resume's of 9/10 of those above will be about 80% the same. Everyone thinks they have unique skills, but honestly, you don't. Showing that you can actually work hard sets you apart, but precious few people actually go that route.
No, I'm not management. I'm just another tech geek. Lest you think otherwise, all that above applies to management as much as it does to workers.
Yes, I'm anonymous because I have coworkers who browse here and I don't want to get hassled.
Hate it if you want, ignore it if you want, agree with it if you want, that's what I see in my corner of the US.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The companies complain that they don't like the expense of hiring skilled workers. In a way that demonstrates equality as they also hate paying for unskilled workers. So one way or another they want to import workers who will work and eat cat food and sleep in a ditch. Then the companies complain that nobody loves them. When someone doesn't want to play nice only fools play nice in return.
Unions-2.0 are the obvious solution. HOWEVER the author of Analogous Models & Digital Computing seems to suggest the existence of a more disruptive technical solution to the problem. Rumor is the first edition will be withdrawn as work on the second edition has started.
Posting anonymously because it wouldn't be prudent to put my name on this. It reminds me of an e-mail I got a few months ago. We're apparently concerned about a labor shortage, but I really think there's just a shortage of people who are willing to work for what we're willing to pay new hires.
At , our solutions support clients in a rapidly changing world of . In order to stay dependable, responsive and relevant, we must always look for opportunities to grow and to prepare for the future.
Over the past few years, we identified the importance of strengthening our existing service operations and product offerings internationally. In doing so, it became clear that growing our employee base in other countries would be critical to achieving this international strength. We spent many months searching for the best country to pilot these efforts, and that search led us to the great country of . In late 2013, we conducted a successful pilot program with 27 team members, and based on excellent results, made the decision to establish on January 1, 2014. We are pleased to announce the opening of our first international service center in with a team of dedicated and motivated employees who are proud to join the team. The office is owned by and will operate just like our offices in the United States, producing innovative solutions for clients. This gives us a significant advantage over our competitors, many of which simply outsource to resources in other countries that are not true members of their company.
Our presence in provides us with several additional competitive advantages: It addresses our concern about the predicted labor shortage in the US resulting from changing demographics. It will allow us to speed our billing process and reach a zero backlog every day. It will help us in supporting our international emergency management clients who currently span 25 countries. It will allow us to extend our processing capabilities across more hours of the day to better serve the 24-7 needs of our clients.
is committed to our operations in the United States. Our intent is to profitably grow our organization into a recognized multinational company that will provide even more career opportunities for our team members. You can expect to meet many of our team members as they visit our offices in the upcoming months. We ask you welcome them with open arms and help them to learn our business. This is an exciting time to be part of the team, and I thank you for all that you do.
Let them outsource the CEO position of IBM. If they are going to outsource the technical positions - cut the CEO's pay to $10K - no stock options, no stock grants, no Gulfstream, no.... This certainly would return value to the shareholders. They could even get a dividend increase off the deal.
For details, see http://gebattery.com.cn
I work at a large fortune 500 company that employs H1-B workers. Our FTE (full-time employee) developer ratio to H1-B contractor ratio is 35% to 65%. Management has some idea that changing the balance to 40% to 60% is going to make a big difference. (Really, this is what one of our execs told us.)
Now, the way our biggest contractor (TCS - Tata Consultancy Services) does business with us is that their managers look to see who the high performers are on their end, and they send them over to the US to be the on-shore 3rd-party resource. And the people we work with over here are paragons of competence. They are indeed high-performers. This means the lower performers stay off-shore, and they work under the direction of the on-shore contractors. The effect of this is that the 3p contractor shows up front to management the cream of the 3p company's programmers, and he (or she) who is onshore is able to adjust anything that is not quite right from the off-shore developers--especially when integrating all their work with what everyone else is doing.
So, us full-time employees are in a role of facilitating the contractors. We not only go to meetings but also have to be on call for production maintenance, which eats into our time. And we are all on 3 or 4 "agile" projects at a time. At the end of the day, we don't get a lot of coding done, and our managers think we suck compare to the 3p contractors.
And the 3p contractors on shore are worked like bonded laborers. Each day is a 12 hour day for them, and they do it year after year. And they get some bad health problems because of it. A friend of mine who is a 3p on shore contractor, from India, he and his wife are both software developers at my company. They are newly married, and their work schedule, the stress they endure, has resulted in reproductive problems. (Yeah, there's probably a few jokes in here, but when you see it up front, it's no joking matter. It's no picnic for the H1B visa holders over here. They are literally worked to death at my work place.)
As for us FTEs, we're expected to put in 50+ hours a week, at any time of day or night. We get weekends off (unless we have a production issue or deployment), and we have pretty good benefits. But there is no freaking way you can not advance in your career and not move into management. Your tech leads where I am are expected to not be hands-on developers. They are expected to be business domain experts, knowledgeable of the IT infrastructure, and be present and accounted for at all meetings. No time for FTEs to do development, and it is usual that an employee with little coding experience (and sometimes none) makes it to tech lead.
It is an illusion that most Indian IT workers are better than US citizens. 98% of them come with Bogus IT degrees paayiing corruption, have poor people skill, egoistic without substance and ignorant of fundamentals of maths and science, got the degree with rote memorisation without any creativity and the list goes on. Those from IITs are the best and there not in thousands who many come to USA. If all IITans come here, our economy will prosper. Most top notch universities in the US recurit them for their graduate studies by paying them scholarship, aair fare and so on. Comapnies like Infosys inflate the charges to the companies first by low ball figures but in reality most companies end up paying too much - suckers. For exanple Inforsys will charge for 6 people who live in a single room and have 1 car they share , but Infosys charges companies for one room per operson thus for a total of 6 rooms, and 6 cars one per person. So, if you actually verify and add the actual costs, it is much higher than the US companies think they are paying. They will quote the time difference to charge over time but they don't pay over time to their employees. Employee moral is poor. But Infosys and ohters have found is Ameicans are knaive and stupid as most boses do no have deep thinking capacity. Most Indians have very bad programming skills and all they want is to make quick money. You can say, they are now practising the American Greedy mentality exhibited by most US companies. US is already a third world country and loosing economically, unless people vote these political crooks from office. But most of you never vote, so don't cry wolf. Also, most IT degree holders in US also are not the best programmers. About 10-20% are the best, rest are just gas. The wolf is aready in.
Rajiv Dabhadkar, Director of NOSTOPS, a national tech advocacy organization in India, is supporting the boycott. Dabhadkar explained, "Indian employers exhibit a strong preference for local talent for jobs in India--why don’t companies in the U.S. do the same? This will protect the Indian foreign workers from the accusation of displacing Americans. Indians were not put on this earth to displace Americans, but Manpower's recruiting efforts show this is their plan.
panic: reality fail
The Brahmin just core dumped. This is more like "Hindus for hamburgers made from 100 percent Brahmin Bull Beef"
This is the biggest crock of South Hoboken Institute of Technology going. It's a close second to "ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil" and just above "because the people have got to know )whether( their president's a crook..."
Dabhadkar-ji, Does the Indian have a government debt to GDP ratio of near or over 100 percent? Does the Indian government sell debt instruments to foreigners? Nark nahi! It's only the good old USA that can have her eeeenturnal affayrss (.ru accent) influenced by holders of US debt. Samaj gaye?
I will agree there are spot shortages in specific technologies, but if we fill the spot shortages with imported labor, then citizen techies in spot surpluses won't get a chance to move into new areas.
I had that problem in that I was a dBASE/FoxPro/Clipper (xBase) developer in the mid 90's, and I tried to move into VB/Delphi when it was clear xBase was "out of style". I was still able to get some xBase gigs but couldn't get into VB/Delphi gigs because they insisted on paid experience in VB/Delphi, and often went overseas to get it. I even was willing to accept less money to start. (Eventually I skipped desktop stuff and targeted web because the dot-com boom was broiling and pulled me in.)
Table-ized A.I.
3 page resume of technical buzz word crap, conference presentations, and management saved them X dollars.
When recruiter calls -- you are very busy on contract work, maybe avail in 6 months, but likely they will expand work. Even if this is bull they go crazy after you explain to them "yeah I have done a lot of that work before. and throw in some buzz words. Don't sound too interested, but sound reluctantly to go for interview, but it has to be local (say a starbucks) because you are very busy.
Show up casual upscale (you work from home) no effort to look like to an interview, but wear a nice expensive watch and park your nice car (rent a BMW 5, Mercedes or audio A8 -- no 3 series) near the coffee shop.
During the interview you tell them you have consulting business and you have been doing this for years. (in my case it all true) that you work from home and the cleint pays you well for quick turn around work. Be ballsy and say "we have our own A-team" of sorts that you are used to working with to get the job done fast.
When they ask what your current work is tell them you have a strict NDA and you know it is weird but it is what it is. and provide them an industry, no name.
They will ask for a salary rate. Tell them what you are "being paid" (what you want). They will say that is a bit high for what they do. So you go, "yeah that's because we are quick turn around for contract work" "you can hire a some of the young kids out of school, but this stuff you really got to know what you are doing" "I've seen this go south before", etc.
By the time you are done, they will want your contact info to build heir list of preferred candidates (that they never tell people). Several weeks later you can call them casually asking if there is work a few months out to compare offers. --
You will get hired this way. Never tell them you are looking for work or are unemployed. One recruiter once told me 'we never hire people who are unemployed because they tend to be from the bottom of the bunch.'
Yes this really works. You think they would be the wiser. -- They are not it is about social engineering the recruiter to get them excited to talk their client to look at you.
It's Jury pool control time. People who convict natives for bias assaults against H1B visa holders will need to be taught a lesson.
We're having the same problem. Trying to find an experienced embedded boot loader developer is next to impossible. I'm currently swamped and anytime we find someone who's decent we're one of many companies making offers. Certain skill sets are damned near impossible to find, like someone who is good at understanding both software and hardware, people who can work on the Linux kernel, or the GCC toolchain, U-Boot, UEFI, etc. I could care less about IT people, but good software developers who understand low-level stuff are hard to find. A vast majority of those I interview seem incompetent when pressed with some C programming problems or when asked about CPU archecture, stuff they should know from a decent CS or CE degree. I have to work on everything just about everything, from CPU related stuff to SATA, USB, high-speed networking, NAND flash, eMMC/SD, etc.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Everybody here is assuming an experienced worker that can't find a job willing to pay what he expects to make and is pissed at companies hiring foreigners is somehow undoubtedly a great engineer being pushed away by a "bean counter" driven job market. Yet the people landing the jobs "can't find their asses" and will somehow doom the company hiring them.
In my experience, great professionals can come from anywhere.
Any company willing to hire based on cost of labor rather than skills (which along with enthusiasm should translate roughly into return on that cost) will get exactly that, cheap labor without any assurance of quality.
I've seen great programmers, product, project management and design professionals from abroad that can deal with all of the complexities associated with a technological product with skills comparable to the best in their fields.
So, my recommendation is: don't worry about cheap labor, if you are skilled and enthusiastic about work, you'll become indispensable in your job. If you are skilled and easy to work with, people will hire you on the spot. If a potential employer is more interested in monetary cost rather than quality of the work you can output, you probably don't want to work for them.
Disclosure: I work in the US on an L-1 Visa, I'm from Argentina and I have the pleasure to work with great local professionals as well as very unskilled ones, the same goes for my coworkers abroad, I just don't find any consistency on either side.
I've been trying to hire developers for multiple high-compensation positions in NYC
At an average wage of $70K for a STEM candidate (or are you offering less?), it will be impossible to find someone for your position - even an H1B candidate. Because apartments are starting at $2500/month for barely a closet space (if you can find one) in NYC. And most people want better than that. Even the people you want to drag in from overseas will need to find a place to live
You don't have a STEM problem, you have a housing problem.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Check out the LinkedIn profile of this Rich Hajinlian guy from TFA and tell me you don't catch a whiff of BS here. I mean, "Developed and copyrighted a thread pool interface wrapper" is one of his biggest accomplishments? The rest of his work history is equally sketchy.
I'm a partner in a small software company. We employ 8 developers, 26 total staff. Our wages are midline, our benefits excellent, and our work environment is superb. I haven't seen *any* benefit from the H1B's.
And we've tried!
We really need people who can code. We have problems to solve, we need programmers to code answers to the problems. We really don't care about education credentials - if you can code, write reasonable answers to solve real problems, we're interested in you. We took a look at the H1B visa thing, and we were consistently disappointed. Gorgeous, impressive resumes for people with Masters or (gasp) even PHDs in computer science who couldn't write a SQL statement, recursive algorithm, or even factor a number. "Write me a function that replaces the word "apples" with "oranges" in a given input string was met with blank stares.
I don't know what they do, but I'm not interested in finding out. But if you want to live in NorCal and want a decent job at a small, securely growing software company... PM me!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
FWIW, Washtech is a CWA union local...
It's possible that they have the best interests of IT people in their hearts, but it's more likely that they, like the Alliance@IBM guys, also a CWA union local, have a bit of an axe to grind against IBM.
The other two seem more or less non-affiliated, so they perhaps do not have an axe to grind against IBM. It'd bee interesting to know which group(s) picked which target(s) in this story.
Also, FWIW, the CWA is a pretty piss poor match for programmers and other IT folks, but since automation of telephone operators jobs, they've been branching out to "anyone who uses a communications network, no matter how automated and non-labor intensive" as potential members. It's not a great fit, so they've had pretty much zero success in the IBM shops they've picketed (including one I worked for at one time).
Wanna fix it? Pass the Fair Tax. The Fair Tax eliminates the income taxes and the IRS, both good things, but also institutes a sales tax on new retail items and services for sale. It has a mechanism called the "prebate" that pays each citizen enough money to pay the Fair Tax on the basic living expenses of someone making money at the poverty level. Every citizen from your favorite street person all the way up to Bill Gates gets this prebate.
Significantly, non-citizens, such as these foreigners working here, DO NOT get the prebate. That means that they will not get the monthly payment from the gov't to defray the cost of the Fair Tax for spending up to the poverty level. That means that if they want to send our dollars back to the old country, they're going to have to do it without help from us. That will make them demand more $$$ from employers here, and make the playing field a bit more level. No more taking American jobs just because you're sole claim to fame is being willing to work for peanuts.
Lately I've been getting plenty of calls from Indians 'trying' to fill roles all right - but when I give my normal rate they say "Oooo you are very expensive" after which the try and get me to take half of that and when I say no they thank me and hang up.
I have no doubt that such calls are being noted as "American was contacted but wasn't interested in job" to justify the 'lack of resource'.
This is in Europe, by the way. Indian call centers coming through via a +44 UK code.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Why should I pay the prevailing high wage to a US worker when I can get two or three Indian workers for the price of a single US one?????? Does not make business sense. I'm in business to make money for myself and my share holders. I'm not in the business of paying for overpriced US employees.
I think there's an obvious class conflict when it comes to STEM fields. Wages are high enough that it challenges the corporate class structure that dictates what field should be paid more than other fields.
My wife works in marketing for a company that makes an engineered product and we had a fairly heated discussion about this once. Without thinking about the implications, she actually said that marketing was more important than engineering and marketing should always be paid more. Raising engineering salaries above some ceiling wasn't an option.
Now, my wife isn't a mean spirited snob but I think she genuinely meant this and I think it reflects the class consciousness in corporate thinking.
Strangely I never see this mentioned in articles about H1-Bs and STEM workers. It always seems to devolve into an unresolvable debate involving conflicting macoeconomic labor statistics.
Currently doing a grad program at a mediocre university in Canada. Out of 60 or so students, we're 5 white guys. My point? Anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much.
"It's getting pretty frustrating when you won't compete on salary for a skilled job..."
Mon 7/07/2014 9:11 am. Using the term "shortage" in any discussion of market-driven activities is stupid. The term is meaningless and only causes confusion on both side, and in this case is *undoubtedly* used by employers to do that very thing and cover-up their simple desire to *pay less*. ... Which of course is also why they are so active in supporting the STEM propaganda: more engineers etc. means cheaper salaries.
For the Government: Stop H1B COMPLETELY. if people want to work in this country then the need to go through the normal channels. Additionally rules need to be put in place that prevent off-shoring of jobs.
For the Company: Quit the stupid job requirements shenanigans. Actually invest in (training) and try to retain employees by making them feel valued, BTW money is not always necessary for this. Make employment contracts last more than one year at a time. Show some Loyalty to your employees we are not a commodity, we are people.
For the Employes: Show some loyalty to the company and don't job hop for 2K or 3K more a year. If the company is good to you be good to them. Let the company benefit from their investment in you for a bit before moving on.
maybe people are avoiding your toxic sounding environment
rowing in a slave galley is also "working hard"
And we cant get enough skills applicants for the price we are told the company wants to pay. Most companies are outright in denial about the true cost ofa good tech worker, offering somebody 95k/year-135k/year who can go make 200/k+ a year is just insanity. We need to comepte but thanks to the drug of cheap H1B's we do not have to.
We get people from offshore because its cheaper and we can make an H1B our slave cheaply, but they hardly know anything, waste a lot of company resources, and are often much less effective than their more expensive american counterparts that we are NOT ALLOWED TO HIRE due to cost being over the budget we are given. So we tell them they "are not a good social fit" and wish them on their way.
The problem with your statement is that the lack of workers these companies are complaining about are on the low end of the IT spectrum.
This has been going on since the 90's with the huge influx of H1B visas for tech positions when we had enough American tech workers to fill the need. In 1997 I worked for a very large payroll company (although not in their payroll division), and my VP told me he was instructed to fill future computer programmer/analyst positions with Indian workers that needed their green cards sponsored. This allowed them to lock in someone to two years minimum at a low wage. It was bad for the person being hired because they didn't know any better, then they were trapped (unless they wanted to start process all over again at another company willing to sponsor them). It was a way of screwing over citizens and current green card holders, by bringing indentured servants on the promise of a green card two years down the road.
In our enormous intelligence we (IT guys) generally overlook the following two things.
1. Population: Believe it or not there are more people added to both global and local talent pool than those that leave/retire.
2. Self devaluement: We program everything so that even a child can do it. There are templates/wizards to do most of the common things that makes the employers think about why should they pay for a job. Why can't they ask someone already working for them to just learn it. Sure there will always be projects that are extremely complex to require new development but my guess is that they will come down as time goes. This happens in other industries but at a much slower rate.
Both of the above two factors also contribute significantly to the problem above. Now there would obviously be people who won't agree and all I can tell them is, just keep waiting and you'll see the branch you are sitting and chopping merrily come down with a crash.
We need to outsource the CIO's and CEO's
Is what it's all about. Offshoring - didn't see the lawsuit a few months ago, where someone was suing Oracle because he found out that they were paying him 10%? 20%? less than US citizens, and during discovery, found an email saying something to the effect that "that's enough for an Indian".
And that's also why they don't want to hire older, experienced people - they have to pay them more. They'd rather pay less, and get buggy crap, from younger folks who are willing to do "whatever it takes", and if that's years of 50+ or 60+ hour weeks and working from home evenings and weekends, why, sure.
Btw, if you think I'm wrong, and you work the hours I just mentioned, just goes to show there's a sucker born every minute....
mark
I'm a hiring manager in a Fortune 500 company. There is a tech shortage for qualified and experienced applicants. I have dozens and dozens of open unfilled positions. I really don't care if they are local or H1-B hires if they are competent and qualified. I'm not looking for a bargain basement price - I'll take any qualified people I can get, and I'm willing to pay for it. Most of the people I hire earn six figures or close to it.
People that claim there are lots of qualified US tech works out there simply don't know. I have firsthand knowledge, and it's very, very tough to find people.
People need to have experience with complex enterprise systems. If you created a web site for your grandmother, that's not what we are looking for. Do you understand middleware? Well versed in service oriented architecture? Do you understand enterprise cloud platform environments? If you do, and you can't find a job...the problem is you, not the job market. If you don't, start learning. Java programmers are easy to find, but people that really understand the interaction and integration of complex systems are not.
I am also a case in point; I have over 20 years experience yet couldn't find a job. They either wanted a 30 something or a H1B(?) that they could pay 1/3 the usual rate. As long as these conditions persist employers will complain about not enough workers while older software professionals go without jobs. Now I'm trying my own company doing Data Warehousing as I know the subject and fortunately haven't had a failure yet.
Voted for the Iraqi War and all subsequent war financing legislation while a senator.
Her major donors in her senate race were the Indian offshoring firm, the Tata Consultancy and Rupert Murdoch.
Helped open an American jobs offshoring office for the Tata Consultancy in Buffalo, NY, "to aid their economy"?!?!?!? (Also belonged to the Indian group within the senate which raised numeric levels for foreign visa scab workers in the USA.)
Chaired the Millennium Challenge Corporation which helped to finance the overthrow of democratically elected (and highly popular) Honduran President Zelaya.
Was endorsed in her presidential run in 2008 by the vile rightwinger plutocrat, Richard Mellon Scaife.
As secretary of state, appointed uber neocons Marc Grossman(former George W. Bush inner circle dood) and Victoria Nuland.
Recently gave a talk embracing her love for Monsanto's GMOs.
Believes Edward Snowden should return to the USA where, of course, he will receive a fair trial!
Was still secretary of state when US State Department was involved in the ouster of the democratically-elected president of the Ukraine.
Claims to really be Hillary Clinton Cratchit and suffering from bouts of extreme poverty!
I work in education largely currently, and it is similar. The teachers -- the ones producing the "product", though calling education a product kind of perturbs me -- are the ones that are paid the least. The administration and marketing (at a college it's known as "admissions", but basically the same thing) get WAY better salaries, perks, etc. Actually, the fact they have full time jobs at all is a step up, seeing as many teachers these days are adjuncts (part-time) with no benefits.
I don't want to say that the marketing isn't important -- because it is, if no one knows your school or program exists then you won't get students, I understand that -- but fundamentally, if there are no teachers, there is no school. You would think it would be even and on par. But no. The instructors are looked at more as a burden than anything else.
The spouse works in engineering, and basically same there. The salesmen look at the engineers as people that "get in the way" of making the big deal because they want to "add all this extra money to the price" (when really its adding safety clamps and shit to try to prevent it from exploding).
I honestly feel like the whole job creator debate was in a sense correct, but about the wrong class of people. The "job creators" are not the businessmen/marketing people -- it is the ENGINEERS, SCIENTISTS, PROGRAMMERS, TEACHERS that actually provide a service. And yet somehow, all of these creative professions that provide real-world value are the ones facing the most unemployment, lowest wages, longest hours, etc. It is really unfair, and we all need to unionize and get equal treatment to the executives/marketing people. I'm not saying they are unneeded -- just if they can get full time jobs with high salaries and perks, why can't we, when we actually MAKE the things they sell?
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Or they might have the skills, but they don't have the specific credentials the HR gate-keeper demands. I mean, how many US STEM pros have 4 years of experience programming in Swift... seeing as it's only a few weeks old. (Flashback to the mostly-newbie recruiters at the bodyshops demanding 5 years of Java experience in 1996.) Or maybe they have a bachelor's, or a master's or even a PhD, but it's not from the university the hiring manger likes. Or maybe they have the degrees, but not the certicates. Or maybe they have the skills with brand A version 4.7.2, but not brand B version 1.4.5, and neither the recruiter nor the hiring manager knows that they work almost exactly the same way, nor that anyone the least bit savvy with version 2.0 could adapt within half an hour to brand A version 4.7.2 or brand B version 1.4.5.
They might have skills, but they might not actually have the specific, purple squirrel combination of skills that the hiring manager wants, to replace a team of 4-12 specialized collaborators with one indentured house-geek.
Or they might want a real long-term full-time job designing and/or developing commercial software products instead of a series of bodyshop/temp/contingent/contract/consulting gigs doing "data processing" or "IT" kinds of work at non-STEM firms. Or they might want to make enough to actually make a living, buy books and e-books and DVDs and otherwise continue learning, buy a home and car, marry, raise a family... radical things like that.
Managers don't want to invest in training, or flying in candidates for interviews, or relocation assistance, or 8th-page and quarter-page job ads in multiple high circulation print publications the way they did before H-1B. They don't want to put their e-mail addresses and desk phone numbers in the job ads because they know they'd be swamped by able and willing US citizen candidates as well as by spurious callers.
Sure there is some monkey work at the lower levels of support, especially in a "free" hotline where you don't get billed for calling. Several years ago I met a guy who did first level "support" for Microsoft, following a script from a database. But even there, I think second level should have some actual skills, as they are the ones who handle the cases that are too complex for the script monkeys.
At my current, relatively small company, the hotline (which is AFAIK costing more than peanuts to call) offers what you might find at second level support in a company that follows the above pattern. People who are familiar with the product and don't need to follow a fixed script. Some of them are actually quite good, based on years of experience.
Cases that are too hard for the hotline go to the "repair team", those are software testers who otherwise do QA on upcoming releases. I guess they are at least the equivalent of 3rd level support at a place like Microsoft. The "repair team" can talk directly to software development and ask for fixes, we trust them to distinguish bogus calls from real bugs.
C - the footgun of programming languages
It is easy to find good developers nearly everywhere. But it requires lifting a finger to find great developers. However, you have a much larger pool of bright, gifted, good and great developers if you include US citizen developers, younger developers and older developers, black, yellow, pink, brown and orange developers, rather than dumping all US citizens' applications into the black-hole candidate management system without otherwise examining them... as has been the practice since H-1B was hatched.
...
So, obviously, something about your advertising methods are biased... or the kind of work you mention in your ads is less appealing to US citizens for some reason.
What methods are you using to advertise the jobs? I assume you've placed ads on some of the on-line sites. How many classified or display ads have you taken out in print publications (both general circulation and trade zines) both in your metropolitan area but across the USA? What is the circulation of the publications in which you've advertised? For how many days and weeks are the ads to run?
How many deans and department chairs have you written to or called? How many university computing centers and institutes and labs have you contacted? Have you built up long-run relationships with those deans and department chairs and directors?
Did you include your e-mail address and the number of the phone on your desk in the ads?
Is the tech involved more or less obsolete? Are you advertising outside of the appropriate niche? Maybe you're reaching a lot of the wrong people, and few of the right people.
How willing are you to fly candidates in for interviews from around the USA?
How willing are you to invest in the 3 weeks of new-hire training that DoL expects to be the norm?
How willing are you to invest in relocation assistance for the best candidates?
How willing are you to help them break a lease, sell a home, and secure new quarters within 30 miles or so of your location?
What if you find a great candidate who, in light of the on-going economic depression, is cold broke, doesn't have a car or a pile of cash to come to you, or a cushion on which to live for a few weeks until pay-day?
How much are you able and willing to invest into reaching and hiring the genuinely best or brightest?
Ladies and Gentlemen, office/IT/tech work does not mean you don't have to WORK! and no, you are not harder workers than the rest of the world or more innovative or more irreplacable. Get off your asses!, > 2 hrs of real work a day is NOT asking too much. Crist, walk around and all you see is facebook or amazon accounts on people's machines.
Your cries for harder work are falling on deaf ears because your company has fouled up too many times.
"Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."
In other words, your management has made stupid choices, repeatedly, then insisted their workers "work hard" to clean up the mess, then failed to exhibit any gratitude whatsoever for excess hours put in (illegally uncompensated, in some states). What you're seeing around you now is the end result of years of poor management. The people who like to work have long since moved on. What you have left are the people who can't be bothered to find a better managed position.
I see this in my current position. I actually have the best manager on the floor, as far as paying attention to what is happening now, paying attention to what's coming, and modifying plans in advance to aim for a different project when the customer for the first project experiences a delay. A coworker who was hired the same day I was works for a different manager. He can go two or three weeks at a time with literally nothing to do. His manager made no contingency plans. His manager paid no attention to possible delays outside of his control. So there he sits, on Facebook (or the moral equivalent). Nor can I blame him. There are too many people and too many moving parts for him to just randomly strike out on his own. He would end up working at cross-purposes with the other poorly managed people around him, and nobody likes throwing away work. So why work, let alone work hard?
Me, I'm on Slashdot tonight because I'm at the end of a project cycle. I've done releases of two products to QA, determined that a release of a third product doesn't need to happen (which was somehow missed by everybody else involved) and now I'm waiting on the last of the test results, poised to take care of any trailing problems. I'll be working on the next thing in a matter of days.
I really liked Colorado the three years I lived there, but I can tell I don't want to work for your company. You suffer from dysfunctional tech management. I could generalize that a bit. You, like so many other American companies, suffer from dysfunctional management.
Ladies and Gentlemen, management work does not mean you don't have to WORK! and no, you are not harder workers than the rest of the world or more innovative or more irreplacable. Get off your asses!, > 2 hrs of real work a day is NOT asking too much.
We _do_ include US citizen and we can't care less about color, race, age or accent. It's still very hard to compete with big companies.
Maybe the American programmers should go to court and have their names changed to sound Indian-like.
This! And not just your corner of the US but what I've seen in most places I have worked so far (in Canada and Germany). No Chinese and few Indians that weren't in India as few speak German, but lots of Facebook and Twitter and whatnot especially for younger generations (I'm 32). Lots of Chinese and indians in Canada though. And the chinese versions of these, like weibo etc. I don't get it. I feel dirty when theres some free time because I need to wait for something to finish and I go read slashdot and you see these people hanging out on facebook half the day.
Then put the name of your company and the contact info for a real-live HR rep that the qualified people can call tomorrow. Or seriously, drop the schtick about there being a 'shortage'. I personally know top-shelf, top-notch talent that has been whipping their applications out to employers like you claim to be, only to receive no response to a resume submission. We're all getting quite tired of the lies and the nonsense about a tech shortage.
BUT there is a lack of cheap programmers in the U.S., who want to work for Rupees. That's why we import workers from the 3rd world. Who by the way go on 10 week training courses to become experts in areas like SAP etc... before they get flown over here.
The Chinese folks seem to have their ducks in a row. They ain't great on the innovation part and you have to spent a LOT of time steering them, but at least they work hard.
The Indians spend most of their time emailing management about how awesome they (the Indians) are, rather than doing any actual work.
The Americans seem to be stuck in the glory days of post-WWII when America didn't have any real competition (rest of the world was smoldering ashes) so they now seem allergic to the concept of hard work.
I've found 0 (or near 0) correlation between country of origin and work ethic. This is complete bullshit and flamebait. That this was posted by an AC does not surprise me.
My company tried for almost a year to find good tech people. Begged, scrounged, tried to poach, nada. The jobs may not be the best paying, ~$120k/year
I'm not certain about the COL in silicon valley and other very expensive areas (generously assuming you're even in one), but unless the skills you were looking for was some obscure language and/or toolset I'm pretty sure this is obvious bullshit as well.
You guys need to first solve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... before solving this H1B issue.
Casteism
Adaptec - Indian CEO Subramanian Sundaresh fired. (forward caste)
AIG (signed outsourcing deal in 2007 in Europe with Accenture Indian frauds, collapsed in 2009) (forward caste)
AirBus (Qantas plane plunged 650 feet injuring passengers when its computer system written by India disengaged the auto-pilot). (forward caste)
Apple - R&D; CLOSED in India in 2006. (forward caste)
Australia's National Australia Bank (Outsourced jobs to India in 2007, nationwide ATM and account failure in late 2010). (forward caste)
Bell Labs (Arun Netravalli took over, closed, turned into a shopping mall) (forward caste)
Boeing Dreamliner ES software (written by HCL, banned by FAA) (forward caste)
Bristol-Myers-Squibb (Trade Secrets and documents stolen in U.S. by Indian national guest worker) (forward caste)
Caymas - Startup run by Indian CEO, French director of dev, Chinese tech lead. Closed after 5 years of sucking VC out of America. (forward caste)
Caterpillar misses earnings a mere 4 months after outsourcing to India, Inc. (forward caste)
Circuit City - Outsourced all IT to Indian-run IBM and went bankrupt shortly thereafter.(forward caste)
ComAir crew system run by 100% Indian IT workers caused the 12/25/05 U.S. airport shutdown when they used a short int instead of a long int (forward caste)
Deloitte - 2010 - this Indian-packed consulting company is being sued under RICO fraud charges by Marin Country, California for a failed solution. (forward caste)
Dell - call center (closed in India) (forward caste)
Delta call centers (closed in India) (forward caste)
Fannie Mae - Hired large numbers of Indians, had to be bailed out. Indian logic bomb creator found guilty. (forward caste)
GM - Was booming in 2006, signed $300 million outsourcing deal with Wipro that same year, went bankrupt 3 years later (forward caste)
HSBC ATMs (software taken over by Indians, failed in 2006) (forward caste)
Intel Whitefield processor project (cancelled, Indian staff canned) (forward caste)
Lehman (Spectramind software bought by Wipro, ruined, trashed by Indian programmers) (forward caste)
Medicare - Defrauded by Indian national doctor Arun Sharma & wife in the U.S. (forward caste)
Microsoft - Employs over 35,000 H-1Bs. Stock used to be $100. Today it's lucky to be over $25. Not to mention that Vista thing. (forward caste)
MIT Media Lab Asia (canceled) (forward caste)
PeopleSoft (Taken over by Indians in 2000, collapsed). (forward caste)
PepsiCo - Slides from #1 to #3 during Indian CEO Indra Nooyi' watch. (forward caste)
Polycom - Former senior executive Sunil Bhalla charged with insider trading. (forward caste)
Qantas - See AirBus above (forward caste)
Quark (Alukah Kamar CEO, fired, lost 60% of its customers to Adobe because Indian-written QuarkExpress 6 was a failure) (forward caste)
Rolls Royce (Sent aircraft engine work to India in 2006, engines delayed for Boeing 787, and failed on at least 2 Quantas planes in 2010, cost Rolls $500m). (forward caste)
SAP - Same as Deloitte above in 2010. (forward caste)
Skype (Madhu Yarlagadda fired) (forward caste)
State of Indiana $867 million FAILED IBM project, IBM being sued (forward caste)
State of Texas failed IBM project. (forward caste)
Sun Micro (Taken over by Indian and Chinese workers in 2001, collapsed, had to be sold off to Oracle). (forward caste)
UK's NHS outsourced numerous jobs including health records to India in mid-2000 resulting in $26 billion over budget. (forward caste)
Union Bank of California - Cancelled Finacle project run by India's InfoSys in 2011.(forward caste)
United - call center (closed in Indiay) (forward caste)
Victorian Order of Nurses, Canada (Payroll system screwed up by SAP/IBM in mid-2011) (forward caste)
Virgin Atlantic (software written in India caused cloud IT failure) (forward caste)
World Bank (Indian fraudsters BANNED for 3 years because they stole data). (forward caste)
All of you are nuts here. I'm the sole super brain. You nuts, don't you see, we buy 99% of our fireworks from China. Why? 'coz you want big bad ass box full of fireworks for 29.99. Many of us in our beloved country buy $24.99 shoes from Walmart and Target, you guessed it, made in Indonesia and China. Why? heh. you want to pay low prices. McD sells you $1 burger, and you go for it. Exercise: Figure out why you go for it.
Oh, you are a nut, so your probably can't figure it out. When I say you, I may not mean the real "you", but the many native born Americans, "us" that avail of these low prices.
Corporations in our Capitalist economy are like people (so said a famous politician). They go for low prices too.
But dear nuts, no H1B really works for $19k/year in the USA. They get $65K and upto $140k and beyond, based on their skills.
Dear nuts, let's remember, we are a capitalist society. We do business around the world, indirectly paying really really really low wages to people to enjoy our iphones and Galaxies. Dear nuts, get our brains together. Let's be consistent when applying our nutty brained theories to native American/European American/Indian/Mexican/Chinese/* workers and their wages.