Gates, Zuckerberg Promising Same Jobs To US Kids and Foreign H-1B Workers?

theodp writes: Over at the Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg-bankrolled Code.org, they're using the number of open computing jobs in each state to convince parents of the need to expand K-12 CS offerings so their kids can fill those jobs. Sounds good, right? But at the same time, the Gates and Zuckerberg-bankrolled FWD.org PAC has taken to Twitter, using the number of open "STEM" jobs in each state to convince politicians of the need to expand the number of H-1B visas so foreign workers can fill those jobs. While the goal of Microsoft's 'two-pronged' National Talent Strategy is to kill two birds [K-12 CS education and H-1B visas] with one crisis, is it fair for organizations backed by many of the same wealthy individuals to essentially promise the same jobs to U.S. kids and foreign H-1B workers?

Comments

H1-Bs rock

[Anonymous Coward]

It's awesome for me, as a startup founder. The American workers typically want between 130k-160k but the foreigners (mostly here on student visas) are happy with 40k. So I can hire 3 or 4 foreign engineers for every 1 American engineer.

We need to greatly expand this program so employers can create more jobs.

Re:H1-Bs rock

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Bay Area hiring manager. New average college grads are paid $100K+ - H1-B, F1, or US citizen.

If ARE you in the Bay area getting paid 40K then look for another job, today. Those H1-Bs are **PORTABLE**. You can get another job as easily as anyone else, just gotta drop a FYI form into the mail moving the visa to the new employer. You can change employers immediately, you don't even need to wait for the change of employer form to be processed (just make *sure* it is filled out properly). The H1-B is not indentured servitude, you can compete for jobs with everyone else.

The H1-B does affect supply and demand, but not in the way you people all think. The supply is global. If there is no local supply. The demand moves offshore.

You know what happens when I try and try and try and fail to hire enough developers in the Bay area (for anywhere from $100K to $500K+ depending on experience)? The project gets done anyway, but the work gets moved to Canada or India or China where the visa issue doesn't restrict my ability to hire.

I'd rather relocate those people to the Bay area - pay them competitive local wages, have them pay local taxes, spend money in the local economy etc. But becuase of visa caps I can't do that. Having a distributed team across timezones causes a *lot* more problems than simply paying a competitive local wage. If I apply for a H1-B for them they have about a 30% chance of being picked in the lottery each year. I can't run my business with that level of uncertainty, so the jobs go offshore!!! I fail to see how that is a good outcome for the US.

Where the H1-Bs *ARE* badly badly abused is by Indian outsoucing companies, not by places like Microsoft. It gets abused in two ways:
1) They will bring in one barely qualified person as a local contact on a H1-B visa. That person will interact with the client and send all the work to be done overnight in India.
2) They will bring in barely qualified workers, train them (to replace expensive US workers), then send them back to India to continue for less money. The way the visa laws are written - the the visas are only for TEMPORARY workers - all but encourages this!!!

Tightening up on the above two would seriously improve the H1-B situation for legitimate US companies. It's not the current requirements, but the job should be for an *ongoing* position, not just temporary. If you've got a history of using H1-Bs for short term contracts then no more visas for you Mr off-shoring company.

Re:heh

[Anonymous Coward]

As an actual economist, I can safely say that your explanation of labor markets is 100% bollocks.

Skills supply vs demand

[Anonymous Coward]

The specific jobs that are listed today won't actually be there by the time the 10 and 12-year old American kids graduate from college. By that time, it could be that even the technical skill sets employers are hiring for will be different.

They were hoping you'd be bright enough to figure that out.

Maybe Gates and Zuck are saying, "Look, American companies have all these IT jobs they've been trying to fill, preferably on US soil. We need more talent! Homegrown talent would be great, otherwise, we'll need to bring them in from outside."

This!!! I work in a recruiting company for technical jobs, and more often than not, people with the required skillsets are not Americans, but more often than not Indians, and some Chinese and Russians thrown in. Client needs someone who knows SAP ABAP or Oracle Primavera or SalesForce.com or SharePoint... I do a search on the job boards, and find few Americans available for any salary. It's not the money: it's more that fewer Americans are into IT, maybe due to the perception - rightly or wrongly - about such jobs getting offshored.

Anyway, companies like Microsoft, FaceBook and even other companies in other market segments - Wells Fargo, Walmart, FedEx, et al - require these very skills. Not just a generic 'programmer' or 'software developer' or 'software engineer', but people who are SMEs in the tools or platforms they already have. Why? Because that's where they have sunk their cash, and if they have to get people with different skills, there's a good chance that they'd have to sink new cash into other tools that the new hires are familiar with. So they look all over the US for programmers who are either citizens or permanent residents, and when they don't find them here, they either try to get someone abroad here on an H1B (maybe due to the need to interface with clients here) or ask someone in Bangalore or Moscow or somewhere else in Eastern Europe to do it. Yeah, they want it done cheaper, since that cost ultimately gets transferred to the client, but more often than not, the issue is not getting it done cheaper, but getting it done in the first place.

The idea of getting US kids to develop such skills is a long sighted one - so that instead of having to bitch about how there are no jobs for them when they grow up, they are ready to take such jobs when they grow up. As others have pointed out here, there are skills that foreign programmers just don't have - a primary one being the ability to communicate seamlessly with Americans. So it's not that if they develop skills in things like SAP or Oracle, their jobs will suddenly be replaced by 10 people in Elbonia (and to this day, I have rarely seen any SAP consultant - American or H1B - come cheap). One thing is true though - unlike in the 90s when developers were very mobile between jobs due to the opportunity to rake in a windfall, that won't be happening anytime soon, if ever. But not due to a price disparity between American and foreign workers.

Re: heh

[Shakrai]

Did you miss the countless headlines about OPEC increasing production for the stated purpose of lowering prices?! Quite successfully I might add. Conservation is a red herring, incidentally, whatever improvements we make with technology are more than offset by third world development (*cough* China *cough*)