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Cutting H-1Bs Could Mean More Competition From China and India, Says GoDaddy CEO (cnbc.com)
Silicon Valley companies continue to express their concerns about the restrictions on H-1B visa program. The H-1B visa program -- which enables U.S. companies to hire foreign workers -- has become a political lightning rod but remains essential for American companies to hire the technical talent they need to compete on a global scale, said GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving. From his interview on CNBC: "We do not produce enough technically qualified candidates in this country," he said. "You can't take an 18-month training program and produce a machine-learning scientist." Irving was particularly concerned about overseas competition. The American university system is good at training foreign workers for tech jobs, and it is essential that the U.S. government allows them to stay in the country to fulfill U.S. jobs, he said. Otherwise, we train workers from countries like China and India and then send them back to those countries to set up tech ecosystems that compete with Silicon Valley.
If it's coming from GoDaddy, it can safely be ignored. Fucking shitty company.
Here is some evidence to support the claim that the IT shortage is a myth:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-24/the-tech-worker-shortage-doesnt-really-exist
http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth
I know wages have been flat for the last 8-10 years, I'm at the Senior level, and never get more than a less-than-inflation "cost of living" raise. The only reason I haven't fallen back is adding a Masters (which was trivial effort to do, but apparently impresses the HR types) and some certs. . .
This. Farmers understand the concept of seeds, and tilling a field, if they expect a usable harvest. Why can't CEOs understand that if you eat your seed grain, come harvest time, there isn't anything usable in the fields.
China and India are already competing. Having domestic workers changes nothing on this front, other than the fact that it will get people in the US coming back to STEM majors as opposed to going to other vocations (no such thing as filling the barn with clueless H-1Bs in law, accounting, trades, construction, and other items.)
What will no H-1B abuse bring? A benefit to everyone in the US as a whole, as opposed to the money just being sent back to India to family and never seen again.
Dont forget Edison Electric in california... they did the same thing while drawing state and federal subsidies.
Hmm. Let me think for a second. Oh, here it is:
See that "Preview" button?
If only to be the epitome of the problem.
Let make this analogous to the the poor farmers in the US who "can't find anyone to work those jobs".
"
I work with dozens of Illegal immigrants. I scoured the lands of the US for 1.5 years to fill a vacant position and I couldn't find anyone in the US to do it. I work in Apple Picking and needed a picker at $5k/yr. I was fine with a kid dropped out of high school, and I still couldn't find anyone. Eventually I get an email from someone in Mexico, and we hired her. She's amazing. However if this shit with the Illegals goes through, we can't pay her (a living wage) and she'll have to go back. I won't be able to fill the position. We'll have to let go 6 employees whom we can't replace (or marginally raise prices as everyone else will helping to boost a cyclical economy).
Why can't we find the right people here? I honestly don't know (I do but I want to address my unwillingness to pay the market price for talent). I went to every college in the area and said "If you have taken a programming class, I want you. I'll pay you (as little as I possibly can, maybe call you an intern and not at all). I'll train you in the languages we use" and no responses. Why??
"
Hey, if it were ONLY the top of the folks in the fields, I don't think we'd have a problem with it...it is the drones coming over and sucking up the regular jobs there ARE people that can work on here.
This, exactly this.
In my team, we have two Indians on F1-OPT visas, who tried to get an H1-B in April. Both did not get selected in the lottery. These guys are newgrads, and very, very mediocre as wel. Definitely not top of the top, more top of the bottom. We had better candidates who were also citizens, but HR decided to hire these two because they are nice and cheap and we should be able to train them ourselves. It's been 18 months and they have yet to become productive.
H1-B is a farce.
"I work with dozens of H1B visa holders. I scoured the lands of the US for 1.5 years to fill a vacant position and I couldn't find anyone in the US to do it. I work in NIH funded research and needed a programmer at $45k/yr."
Ya, you were budgeted $45K/year. That's not enough to live on in most of the country, especially not with student loans that an education in the field requires. So basically, what you're saying is your failure to find a candidate had NOTHING to do with their abilities or skills. It simply was a matter of you not being willing to pay a reasonable salary. So you took advantage of someone from a second world country.
Congrats.....
10 to 1, you're also a registered Democrat or an Independent who voted for Hillary.
Basically when accounting for inflation, salaries have been flat since the 70's.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The salary is mandated by the NIH for funded projects and built into the budget. I also did not post the salary and I got no applicants from the US. So I can assume the salary was not a factor. Was the work too boring? The hospital has a bad rep? The geographical area sucks? Maybe yes to all.
I'm serious when I say I don't know why I couldn't find anyone. And why no one local even applied?
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
As someone who worked on NIH in the past, this is not true. When you write grant application, you can specify salary ranges. They do set caps based on education/experience, but that only applies to researchers. $45k/year if I recall correctly is the lowest bracket, intended for summer internships and such. Someone with PhD and/or 10 years can get up to $120K or so.
Clearly, someone dropped the ball writing grant application.